It’s a known fact that 80% of the traffic you will be able to generate for your website would come from the search engines. People log on to the internet hoping to find some information on a matter they are interested with. They know what they’re looking for. But often, they don’t know where to go.

So what do they do?

They consult with the search engines. After all, who doesn’t know about Google, Yahoo or MSN? With the phrase they have in mind, they type the same and press the search button, to be led to millions of web pages that cater to the same search phrase.

Yes. Millions.

And where does the user usually go to? Naturally, to the first websites he’ll find… those which are on top of the list in these search engine results.

Your goal as a webmaster would be to place your website as high as it can in the search engine ladder. Doing so is no small feat, that is certain. But it is doable, and this is what search engine optimization, or SEO, is all about. SEO is a collection of techniques… or commandments, if you will… that webmasters should follow to the letter so that their websites would be able to experience the success they have dreamed for it.

What are these techniques? What are these commandments?

Here is a basic rundown of what are needed to be done.

* Keywords, keywords, keywords! Essential in your SEO campaign is the choice of the right keywords to use. THIS CANNOT BE COMPROMISED. It’s either you have the right keywords that would lead to untold riches, or the wrong ones that would only garner for your website some digital dust. Keyword research should be the first step in every SEO campaign. Simply go to www.nichebot.com , or my personal favorite, www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion , type in the keywords you have in mind, and check out how many times they have been searched for. The higher their number of searches, the more profitable these keywords are said to be.

* Keyword positioning. You’d want to include your chosen keywords in your web pages as much as possible. Content would be the number one place where they should be located. Try to strike at least a 2% keyword density level for every page, that is, at least 2 mentions of the keywords for every 100 words of text. Also, include your keywords in your web pages’ META tags whenever possible. If you’re using images, try to include ALT tags that contain your keywords. Your page titles should also have the keywords in them.

* Anchor links. It has been proven that hyperlinking your website to anchor words similar to your chosen keywords would provide a boost for your page rank. You could do this on your own web pages to link them together, or in other web pages where you will be able to submit content that would promote your link.

* Off page SEO is all about building your link popularity. Your link popularity refers to the number of links pointing to your website. This can be accomplished by joining link exchange programs, submitting articles with resource boxes to article directories, actively posting at forums and a slew of other novel tactics you could employ.

* Perpetual adjustments. SEO doesn’t stop when your website would go live. The search engine positioning game is a fierce war. It’s a constant battle for the prime spot. You will only be able to reach this spot if you’d always study and test your website’s performance and make the corresponding adjustments.

Your SEO efforts will eventually pay off. SEO has long been the secret of highly successful webmasters, and now that the strategies are slowly leaking to the public, today is the best time to embark on a crusade that would ensure high traffic for your web pages and great business for your online enterprise.

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Step 1.
What to do: Attract more Web-visitors. How to do it: Decide what niche to fill by defining what your audience really wants.

The number one priority of any website marketing initiative is to attract more website visitors that in-turn creates more sales leads and ultimately more sales. In order to attract these visitors you need focus on a niche audience that will find your website material relevant enough to either pickup the phone and call you, or at least send you an email inquiry. Most websites try to do too much and say too much and as a result visitors loose interest. Design your website so that it focuses on the key information that propels your visitors to make the next move - contacting you.

Steo 2.
What to do: Have Web-visitors stay longer. How to do it: Make your website more compelling by utilizing storytelling techniques.

We know from recent studies that the amount of time visitors stay in a sales environment is the most important factor in determining how much they will purchase (Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, ‘Why We Buy’). To get visitors to stay longer you have to offer them something more the usual sales hype. Sales presentations that revolve around stories and anecdotes are one of the best ways to capture people’s attention and keep their interest.

Step 3.
What to do: Have Web-visitors retain more of your marketing message. How to do it: Treat your customers as an audience and speak to them with Web- audio and Web-video presentations.

The longer people stay at your website the more likely they are to remember your marketing message, but the way you present your marketing message is the critical factor in penetrating their consciousness and implanting your message in their heads. Visitors can spend a lot of time at your website getting frustrated because they can’t find what they need or can’t understand what you are offering. Treat your customers like a real visitor to your office or showroom and speak to them with Web-audio and Web-video presentations.

Step 4.
What to do: Get Web-visitors to respond to your call to action. How to do it: Make it worth their while: to get something, you have to give something.

Now that you’ve got people to come to your site, you want them to respond to some call to action. Many websites just present the material but never ask their visitors to actually do anything. Ask your visitors to telephone, email, fill in a survey, or do something that will start the beginning of a commercial relationship. And since web-visitors are so jaded, make sure you make it worth their while by giving them something in return: a free newsletter, special report, or a complementary analysis of their needs.

Step 5.
What to do: Get Web-visitors to pass on the information to friends and colleague. How to do it: Make your information viral and provide more than just a sales pitch.

The power of the Web as a sales and marketing tool is its ability to connect you to a network of people connected to your web-visitors. If the information on your website is informative and instructive and if the presentation is creative and entertaining then people will pass it along too their network of friends and colleagues. With the click of a button web-visitors can send a email to everyone they know suggesting they visit your website, but only if your site is worth the visit.

Step 6.
What to do: Implement your corporate personality. How to do it: Deliver a definitive image and attitude using multimedia techniques, especially cost-effective Web-audio.

So many websites are just plain boring. Having a website just because everybody else has a website is not a very good reason for the expenditure and effort involved. So if you’re going have a website, make sure it’s a good one that displays your corporate personality. Make a statement with your presentation and one of the best ways to make a statement and connect with your audience is with cost-effective Web-audio.

Step 7.
What to do: Garner a positive reaction. How to do it: Make sure Web-visitors find what they’re looking for by utilizing appropriate information architectures.

When web-visitors leave, your site you want them to leave with a positive reaction to your company. Having an under-performing website that ignores the human element and doesn’t delivery the information people need in a way they can understand, is a sure-fire way of creating a negative reaction or no reaction at all. Make sure Web-visitors find what they’re looking for by utilizing appropriate information architectures.

Jerry Bader is a principal partner of Ontario-based MRPwebmedia (http:// http://www.136words.com, http://www.mrpwebmedia.com and http://www.sonicpersonality.com).He can be reached at info@mrpwebmedia.com, Telephone: 905.764.1246.

I asked a new client recently what he had been doing to market his professional services. “Everything,” he said. “I’ve been running pay-per-click ads on the web, I paid a copywriter to write a sales letter and mailed it to a list of local companies, I have a box ad in the Yellow Pages, I’ve even been posting flyers around town… and I still have almost no business.”

“Ah hah,” I replied, “I think we’ve uncovered your problem. You actually haven’t been marketing your business. What you have been doing is advertising.”

It’s a common mistake for professional service providers to make. You don’t have a background in sales and marketing, so when you try to figure out how to promote your business, you copy what you see. You look around at what other businesses are doing and you see ads everywhere, so you think you’d better have some, too. But what you’re seeing is not the whole story.

Advertising is only the tip of the marketing iceberg. The much bigger picture of marketing is underwater, much less visible.
When you view other businesses on the surface, you may not even see all the different marketing strategies they are using behind the scenes. If you want to copy their success, you’ll have to copy their marketing, not just their advertising.

Marketing is everything you do to get people to buy your services. In its broadest definition, it begins with defining what your service is, who will buy it, and how much you will charge for it. Once you know those things, the main focus of marketing becomes finding people who might become your clients, letting them know what your service can do for them, and building their awareness and trust to the point that they choose to do business with you.

For a professional service provider, marketing might include activities as varied as having lunch with a colleague, giving a talk to a trade association, writing an article for a magazine, participating in a leads group, publishing a newsletter, posting a helpful reply to a message board query, and calling a former client to say hello.

All these activities that you may never know about build on each other to form that professional’s “marketing iceberg.” The classified ad you happened to see that person run in an industry newsletter is only the tiny tip.

It’s easy to be persuaded into thinking that advertising is more effective than it really is. For one thing, people constantly try to sell you advertising. Every one from Internet pay-per-click services to Yellow Pages salespeople will tell you that ads are essential for the success of your business. Direct mail experts suggest what you need is a killer sales letter, conference organizers insist that a display ad in their event program will produce results, and so on.

The reality is quite different. Most successful professionals in fields like consulting, coaching, training, design, business and financial services, accounting, law, real estate, and healing professions report that they get more clients — and better clients — from activities at the opposite pole of the marketing iceberg from advertising. The real focus of their marketing is on building relationships, getting to know people better, and serving as a resource in their area of expertise.

You may not always see all that these professionals are doing to get clients, but if you could look over their shoulders in a typical week, you would find them going to networking events, asking  colleagues for referrals, meeting with influential people in their industry, speaking at conferences, writing tips for newsletters, participating in online communities, and more.
They may be placing ads or posting flyers, too, but these ads are only a small part of their overall marketing campaign.

Just because advertising is what you see the most doesn’t mean it’s the most effective. The next time you’re tempted to substitute advertising for marketing, perhaps you should remember these words from Bob Dylan:
“Advertising signs that con
you into thinking you’re the one
that can do what’s never been done
that can win what’s never been won
meantime life outside goes on all around you.”

Successful marketing consists of a blend of not-always-visible activities that are going on all around you every day. Don’t be fooled by the ads.
Copyright © 2005, C.J. Hayden

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of “Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need” at www.getclientsnow.com.

The key to attracting new customers to your business, whether online or off, lies in understanding a few simple things about how the brain works. Usually at an unconscious level, people are constantly scanning their environment to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the safe from the potentially hazardous, the desirable from the unappealing. The major challenge for the small business marketer is discover what motivates their target audience, and then to speak as directly as possible to those fears, desires, goals, priorities, and needs.

But it Worked in the Movies

You’re only kidding yourself if you think you can be all things to all people. That insidious form of self deception falls in the same category as ‘If you build it, they will come’. Woody Allen is quoted as saying that ‘Eighty percent of success is showing up’, but bear in mind that comedy (and sometimes drama) is often based on exaggeration. Showing up — which can range from creating an Internet presence to attending networking meetings — is a good start, but it generally won’t get you too far unless you throw in a dash of originality, competitiveness, and a strategic plan of action.

Since people are constantly looking for specialized information, services, and products, a strategy worth pursuing is to devote at least 50% of your marketing efforts to reaching niche markets. Granted, marketing is no more of a ‘one size fits all’ endeavor than anything else, but what isn’t going to change is the fact that people are generally drawn to things that are customized, personalized, or otherwise geared to their personal preferences.

Are You Talking to Me?

Considering that your prospective clients and customers are continually scanning the Internet, the media, and their environment for information that’s relevant to them, why not tip the scales in your favor by tailoring your marketing message directly to the different niche markets you’re trying to reach? Whether it’s senior citizens, new homeowners, parents to be, recent graduates, newlyweds, or frustrated job hunters, capturing people’s attention can sometimes be as simple as recognizing them as individuals or as a member of a specific demographic group.

For example, have you ever inadvertently ignored someone who was saying to you ‘excuse me’ or ‘you dropped something’; but if they called you by your name, you’d immediately snap out of your haze and pay attention. Again, it’s just a matter of breaking through people’s filtering systems and being noticed. That’s often the number one step to effectively marketing your products, your services, or yourself. Actually, I’d break that down into three parts: get noticed, connect with your prospect, and put them in a receptive state of mind. If you convey the impression, right off the bat, that your service or product is tailor made for their needs, wants, or specific situation, then you may have fulfilled all three requirements in one fell swoop.

Once you’ve clearly and compellingly presented your case for making your prospect’s life easier, more secure, healthier, more comfortable, prosperous, convenient, happier, or more problem free, your remaining challenge is to anticipate objections, lower sales resistance, and inject your offer with a subtle, yet perceptible sense of urgency. If you’ve painted a vivid, benefits-filled picture of your service or product, their motivation to experience those advantages will help you convert them from a prospect to a customer.

Copyright 2006 Joel Sussman

Joel N. Sussman, a New York business writer and Internet marketer, has created an online small business resource, called “Marketing Survival Kit.com”. Get access to hundreds of free and affordable business marketing ideas, strategies, and tools by visiting http://www.marketingsurvivalkit.com