Keyword Research – Use It and Control your Online Traffic

Keywords and Keyphrases are an online concept that has little to no meaning for many Offline business owners, and yet they are one of the biggest stumbling blocks to anyone's potential online success.

I have to admit, shamefully, that I have been one of those in denial!

Yes, I have known about Keywords and Keyphrases since my early days online.
 And, yes, I actually saw the power of keypharses on my original web site, long before the idea of *Longtail Keywords (keyphrases)* became a bestselling concept!

However, I am ashamed to admit that I suffered from a severe disconnect between my INTELLECTUAL understanding and my EMOTIONAL understanding… and even more painful to admit, as a result I KNOW that I have lost mucho dinero over the years.

So, at this point in time, and in a long delayed move, I am beginning to bring the issue of Keywords and Keyphrases into the forefront of my online efforts.

And so, today I stand before you…
a REFORMED Keywords and Keyphrases Believer

(Cue the organ music!) LOLOL

While I am joking about my Johnny Come Lately attitude here, as a result of some of my recent, personal online work, I now TRULY understand the  importance of Keywords and Keyphrases.

The unrelenting REALITY here is that no matter

• How WONDERFUL your Product
• How IMPORTANT your Message
• How GREAT your Deals…

If you aren't using the Keywords and Keyphrases that folks are ACTUALLY SEARCHING WITH, they won't be arriving at your site!

It is just that simple!

If your site doesn't have the Keywords and Keyphrases that folks are ACTUALLY SEARCHING WITH, your site won't appear on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and as a result, the people who are searching won't see your site in the lists of options.

Keywords and Keyphrases are the SECRET PASSSWORDS of the internet. They are what the customers need to enter your site.

Picture this…

Your site is hidden behind a high wall with a small door. In that small door is a tiny hatch. A potential Customer MUST  whisper the Keywords and Keyphrases that they are using in their search.

IF — and this is a REALLY big IF –  your site contains those Keywords and Keyphrases, then the doorman (who is NOT your employee. btw) is granted permission by the Search Engines to open the door — to display your site or one of its pages in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

If your site DOESN'T contain those Keywords and Keyphrases — even if it has similar ones — the door to your online business will remain securely closed and the site itself hidden from sight!

This means that Potential Customers will never even be given the OPTION to visit your site!

You have no control over this!  UNLESS, you start paying attention to, and start applying Keyword and Keyphrase Marketing to your site!

Because of this, you must start addressing the concept of  Keywords and Keyphrases in a strong, proactive, and aggressive manner, and on every page of your site.

This is a vital and relatively ignored part of the problem of Search Engine optimization. Certainly there are many hidden methods of SEO that can be used, btu the site CONTENT and the savvy use of Keywords and Keyphrases is an element that is often overlooked and even ignored.

A large part of the problem for offline business owners is the simple fact that Keywords and Keyphrases are an online concept that is rarely an issue offline.

While it is easy to understand that you haven't had to worry about them before and so you don't realize their importance online, this doen't negate the harm your ignorance is causing your site and, longterm, your online success.

Keywords and Keyphrases are one of the critical differences between online and offline. As a result, they stand between a business owner and online success. All to often however, the business owner is totally unaware of this issue.

Keywords and Keyphrases – The Simple Explanation

The term Keyword refers to a word or phrase ( also known as a Keyphrase or sometimes called a Longtail Keyword) that an Internet user would use to search for online information.

In most instance, the potential customer is using one of the major Search Engines, such a Google, to search the entire internet for their chosen Keyword or Keyphrase.

Knowing exactly WHAT Keywords and Keyphrases are being searchd for provides powerful insight into YOUR potential customer, and equally importantly, shows clearly and unequivically HOW to reach that potential custoemr.

• Keywords and keyphrases offer insight into what online visitors are looking for, they can provide information about products sought, or information that is needed.
• They help make up for the minimal interaction between an online business owner and his targeted customer.

Keywords are a VITAL part of the online success equation and they are often entirely ignored by offline business owners!

I began to REALLY understand the importance of Keywords and Keyphrases when I was working on my SHORT REPORT: Keywords – What Are They and
Why Do YOU Need to Know About Them?

As it happened, this also tied directly into a new direction I am taking my personal online business. Talk about meeting REALITY – an an unpleasant reality at that! — head on!

I have spent many nights, lying in the dark, having the concepts of Keywords and Keyphrases drifting around in my head… not so good for my sleep, but quite a book for my online business.

I hope you will take this rant to heart and look over my new short report…

SHORT REPORT: Keywords – What Are They and Why Do YOU Need to Know About Them?

NOTE – If you are member at SurviveAndConquerCoaching you can get this report for less! Basic Members get a substantial discount and Premier Memebrs get it for FREE!

Here is a link to the Short Report at SurviveAndConquerCoaching.

Do yourself a favor and take a minute to check on this…

Is your domain registered with your hosting company?

If it is registered with your Hosting Company, this is a bad thing. For more information on WHY this is bad, check out my CheatSheet – Why Use Different Companies for Domain Registration and Web Site Hosting?

If both your Domain and Hosting Account are with the same company, you need to move your domain name ASAP, providing you are happy witrh your hosting. If you aren't happy with your Hosting Company, then things are a bit more complicated and that is a topic for another day

But, back to this topic…

The time to move your domain is BEFORE you have a problem.

Let me share my recent experiences…

I have a client with a web site. About 3 months ago, we ran into problems with the web site and the hosting company was now able to resolve the situation in a satisfactory manner.

My client and I decided to move her web site to a different hosting company, but…

In order to move the site, we needed to change the domain settings, meaning that  she needed to control or have access to her domain registration.

However, the hosting company had registered it for her and despite the fact that it IS registered in her name (a GOOD thing) she can not change the setting related to it (a BAD thing).

So far, we have been working on getting the domain registered to her account with a different domain registrar. The process has gone on 3 weeks and I will be working on it next week as well. I personally have made numerous phone calls and spent interminable amounts of time listening to bad elevator music,while on hold.

If she had her domain registered elsewhere AND had access to the domain settings, we could have moved / rebuilt her site after the first week of problems. As it is, we are looking at this for more than 3 MONTHS! and we still haven't been able to move her site…

BECAUSE SHE OWNED THE DOMAIN BUT DIDN'T CONTROL IT!!!!

The good news is that the web site is accessible to the public, we just can't make any changes to it. Things could be much worse, but we have also wasted 3 months of being able to market her business with her website!

So, do yourself a favor BEFORE you run into problems.

Check where your domain is registered. Owning the domain isn't enough. You need to be able to access the domain settings at will.

If this is not the case, go ahead and move your domain to a different registrar.

Be aware that the process maybe a long one.

Do it now, before you have problems!

Sharing the Road to Success,

Tink

Black Friday

Cyber Monday 

Free Shipping Day (NOTE: Free Shipping Day 2010 is Friday, December 17)

Have you figured out your strategies for these upcoming events?

I have been busy doing the Holiday Season planning for a group of my niche websites.

NOTE – NONE of my online business streams are related to selling either needlework or quilting products in any way! Let me repeat that…

I WON'T BE SELLING NEEDLEWORK OR QUILTING ONLINE!!!!!

Anyway, I have my planning notebook, my Planner Pad, and my colored pens and highlighters, planning for the upcoming Holiday Season. (What can I say, I am visual person and I like shuffling paper LOL)

Three of the events I am focusing on are:

Black Friday

Cyber Monday

Free Shipping Day (NOTE: Free Shipping Day 2010 is Friday, December 17)

While my business are online only, these events are equally, if not more, important for brick and mortar.

(REMINDER – NONE of my online business streams are related to selling either needlework or quilting products in any way!)

In the case of Brick and Mortar, it is of the utmost importance that you start figuring out ways that you can make these dates work for your OFFline business.

If you have any sort of online presence, whether you have a business card site or run a full fledged online retail site with shopping cart or something in between, you should be planning… NOW!

Don't wait until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving…  at that point you are already 2 months behind

I am still in the tentative stages of my planning, but already I am thinking that I will start my promotions by Oct 1 — not necessarily blatantly, mind you, but I DO want to make the most of the lead time…

Some of my ideas are -

Create a Gift Basket of the week idea and promote it with a post on the site (note, all of my sites are built with WordPress and I primarily create Posts rather than Pages) and with Tweets (I will have a Twitter acct for each site) and on my email list (I will have at least one email list for each site)

Figure out a way to have an appealing (not annoying) Holiday CountDown. It would need to start BEFORE Black Friday, so maybe start it on Nov 1? Can I figure out a creative way to talk the Holiday Countdown up starting in Oct — maybe with something posted weekly?

Some thoughts related to retailers — ideas which are not appropriate for my business model –

Plan and promote WishLists for customers (Promote offline, and online with website, Twitter, Facebook if appropriate, and on your email list(s))

Offer incentives to get customers to visit your Brick And mortar location on Cyber Monday

Offer incentives and/or activities for Black Friday — for AFTER they have shopped elsewhere for everybody else. Think about offering rewards for surviving shoppping elswhere.

Create a Twitter Hashtag Campaign for these events – either individually or as a group

Tink Note – You SHOULD already be Tweeting and you SHOULD already have a Twitter Hashtag Campaign going where you send out Tweet Announcements as new products are put on the shelves

Check out Twitter for Offline Businesses

The important takeaways with all of this:

• You should be planning all of this now, not on the day before Thanksgiving
• You can't just go into ostrich mode about all of this… make a preemptive strike!

Sharing the Road to Success,
Tink

As I see everyday, many offline business owners are both overwhelmed and intimidated about taking their small businesses online. They may have been determined enough to get a website, but after that, well, everything just seems like too much — too many options and too much to do.

Well, I understand! I am right there beside ya! LOL

I was talking with a friend last night. She has an offline service based business but does have some products that she sells and which are unique to her and her business.

She has had a blog for several years, but like many us, has had trouble gaining traction.

I think that we understand intellectually how online promotion works and we know that business blogging is a good way to promote an offline business online… but emotionally, it can be difficult to grasp.

DO people READ business blogs from just regular folks?

I mean, really… does this actually work for a small, local business?

Read the rest of this entry »

I started planning on Friday night…

I had two blogs that I wanted to reorganize and start heavily promoting. They are part of this year's strategy and I REALLY want to get them active and productive.

Both of them are WordPress sites and I had created new themes for them using Artisteer — one of the best buys of the last year, btw!

I had tweaked the look of each site but, more importantly, I was trying a new layout, based on a successful blog. I had analyzed the layout of that blog and decided that I could come pretty close using Artisteer… 

OK, I get the themes uploaded and activated. I did spend some time tweaking, but hey, I'm a designer… that's what we do! LOL

Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction 

One of my common rants when talking about making the transition from an offline business to an online business is the need to clearly understand the differences between OFFline and ONline.

There are many obvious differences, but as I am sure you can understand, it is the subtle, hard to recognize differences that can be the most significant.  This is in large part because you, the poor business owner, may be totally unaware of the problems those differences may be causing!

An excellent example of this is the online concept of *Keywords* and *Keyphrases*.

Offline, about the closest you come to this issue having to choose a category to list your business under in the Yellow Pages Directory… and I am sure for most offline businesses, there is only one YP option…

So… what ARE *Keywords* and *Keyphrases*?

The term Keyword refers to a word or phrase that an Internet user would use to search for online information. In many cases, the web surfer would be using a Search Engine to find the word or phrase. The Search Engine could search the entire internet, as Google does, or merely search a specific website, such a looking for a specific book or author on Amazon.com.   

Keyword refers to a general search such as the term *golf club*.

Keyphrase refers to a more detailed and targeted search such as
        *Callaway Big Bertha 08 Individual Iron (Sand Wedge) *.    

Keywords and keyphrases offer insight into what online visitors are looking for, they can provide information about products sought, or information that is needed. They help make up for the minimal interaction between an online business owner and his targeted customer.

Why ARE Keywords and Keyphrases Significant?

Keywords and keyphrases are what drive the external Search Engines, such as Google. In this way, they provide valuable opportunities to get websites and specific web pages seen.
Read the rest of this entry »

I just got off to the phone, talking to my baby sister in PA/DE (she lives in PA about 4-5 miles from the DE state line and works in DE) They have 27 inches from the weekend blizzard and just got another 14 or so yesterday!

She expects to be home from work, she works at a nearby college, for the rest of the week. This got me thinking about Small Businesses and how they are affected by the local (geographical) weather.

Does YOUR small business have a WEATHER POLICY?

• Is it CLEARLY stated on your website?
   
• Can it be easily found? In other words, is there a clearly marked, direct link somewhere on all of the major pages of the site?
  Read the rest of this entry »

We all know that running an off-line business takes an incredible amount of time, and I'm sure that you've realized by now that the Internet offers a myriad of ways to promote your off-line business.

The question becomes, which of these online promotional opportunities makes the most sense for an offline business?

I firmly believe that Twitter is one of those online marketing opportunities that you NEED to make time for!

While creating and running a Twitter marketing plan does take thought and effort, there are many tools and methods available to make it easier to accomplish your Twitter tasks… and as it stands now, Twitter has the potential to become an extremely important part of YOUR online marketing puzzle.

Why Twitter? you may ask.

Read the rest of this entry »

In September 2009, Google introduced their newest web gizmo, the Sidewiki. In simple terms, it allows anyone (registered with a Gmail account) to leave comments on your site … and YOU have NO control! Ignoring the copyright issues (of which there are MANY) this means that

• ANYONE who is registered to do so can LEAVE COMMENTS on ANY page of your web site.

• ANYONE with the Google Toolbar installed can READ THOSE COMMENTS

• YOU HAVE NO RECOURSE (at this time) to have those comments removed!

This is an important and potentially damaging issue for ALL web site owners. In response to this grave threat, I wrote a Google Sidewiki Special Report, outlining the situation as it currently stands and offering my suggestions on what a web site owner should do in preparation… I posted about this issue on one of my Yahoo groups last night, and this morning, one of the members has replied with the following:

Looks like it is covered by the usual Terms of Service for Google so you could ask for stuff to be removed if it infringes copyright (then wait 6 months for Google to get round to it).

This is certainly a valid point… but in my mind, it misses the primary danger that the current Google Sidewiki situation presents…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tink's Tips and Coaching Updates

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TINK'S TIPS

I have been working on a couple of Email related projects over the last couple of days… so this tip is an email tip Always use a accurate Subject Line, and whatever you do…

DON'T FORGET TO HAVE A SUBJECT LINE! I receive 1000-1500 spam emails to my main email addy — PER DAY! more and more of them have blank subject lines.

I automatically figure a blank subject line = SPAM… I do try to remember to check the sender info, but I don't always! If you forget a subject line when you send me an email, you have upped the odds of having me delete it as SPAM!

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NEW THIS WEEK CHEAT SHEET – We have a new Cheat Sheet, the LAST part in a 5 part series – *How Web Sites are Found*. Be sure and download it now because it will be available to BASIC Level members ONLY for this week!

NOTE – This Resource is provided as a ZIP file, containing a PDF file. It is NOT content on a web page. You will need to download it, unzip it and then open the PDF file in order to read it. You WILL be able to print out a copy, if you wish!

Here is the LINK – http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

HOW TO ACCESS IT: Go to SurviveAndConquerCoaching.com and check out the Coaching Resources / Cheat Sheets for a Master List of all Cheat Sheets and their location in either the Top Navigation bar or the Right Navigation Sidebar.

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VIDEO TUTORIAL – This week's BASIC Video is *How to Hide Files on Your Computer. Note – It was created for PC users, not Mac users… Sorry!

HOW TO ACCESS IT:

You can access the video tutorial by going to the Academy Access / Enter Academy Basic in either the Top Navigation bar or the Right Navigation Sidebar.

+++++++++++++++++++++++ All of these great resources can be found at: http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink