A crawler is a program of search engines which visit on the web pages automatically to read, store and index them; whatever on the web pages. Its another name are web spider, web robot, ants, bots, worms etc. but here I am talking about the name of major search engines spider. Below is the list -
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Search Engine Spider Simulator
A lot of Content and Links displayed on a webpage may not actually be visible to the Search Engines, eg. Flash based content, content generated through javascript, content displayed as images etc.
This tool Simulates a Search Engine by displaying the contents of a webpage exactly how a Search Engine would see it.
It also displays the hyperlinks that will be followed (crawled) by a Search Engine when it visits the particular webpage.
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Googlebot, MSNbot, and Yahoo Slurp can be welcomed guests. These three search engine bots gather (harvest) information about your page for their respective search engine. Seeing these spiders more often is also desirable because this means that you are being indexed more often and more likely to show up quickly in the SERPs (search engine results page).
A spider is nothing more than a computer program that follows certain links on the web and gathers information as it goes. For example, Googlebot will follow HREF or SRC tags to find pages and images that are associated with any given site. Because these crawlers are merely computer programs, they aren't always the smartest of creatures and may get caught in endless loops built by dynamically created webpages.
Robots.txt
While having Googlebot index your site more quickly is almost always a good thing, there are times when you don't want certain pages or images indexed. Most "reputable" spiders will obey a directive given by the robots.txt file. This file is document that tells spiders what they may and may not index. You can also explicitly instruct a robot not to follow any of the links on a page by the following meta tag:META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="nofollow".
Because of how these bots work and the importance they place on text links, many people have begun placing keyword filled text links to their website in their signatures on blogs and other comment sections. To reduce the impact that these have, you can instruct spiders not to follow one specific link by placing the following in the anchor tag:rel="nofollow". This will reduce the outgoing number of links and help you to maintain your pagerank.
Bad SPAM bots
Now just as in life, not all bots are good. There are "bad" bots that don't care about your robots.txt and are only out there to harvest your email address. To fight these "bad" SPAM bots, some people use javascript to "hide" their email addresses. However, anything that can be written to avoid a bad bot can be broken by an even worse bot. One company is fighting bots by giving them just what they want, email addresses, and lots of them. However, they are all email addresses of known SPAMers. I found the sight to be quite clever.
Hopefully this will clear up some confusion as to what a bot, crawler, spider is and how they go about collecting information. If you have any questions, post them below and we will try to answer as quickly as possible. If you need help with SEO (search engine optimization), we would love to help show you ways to increase the frequency and number of times Googlebot, Yahoo Slurp, and MSNbot index your site.
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Search Engines -- Spiders or Crawler Name
Google -- Googlebot
Yahoo -- Yahoo Slurp
MSN -- MSNbot
Ask -- Teoma
Excite -- Architext spider
Inktomi.com -- Slurp
Alexa -- ia_archiver
Altavista -- Scooter
Lycus -- Lycos_Spider_(T-Rex)
Cuil -- Twiceler (New Search Engine)
Looksmart -- MantraAgent
source: various source
Monday, September 29, 2008
What is name of major search engines spider crawler
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 5:12 AM 1 comments
Labels: difference in robot crawler spider, What is name of major search engines spider crawler
Friday, September 26, 2008
These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily
No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms... SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.
Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the líst.
Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.
1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses that supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must provide quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.
2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.
3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, make sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing of all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... optimized (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters).
Remember, your title and description should be keyword targeted and are the first contact/impression anyone will have of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.
4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffíc and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution, including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sell your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to improve your rankings and traffic.
7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain, but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls, but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.
8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you haven't any knowledge of installing server-side scripts. Besides, search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.
9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming, but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in. I like using the simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.
10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.
First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines. They give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.
Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.
Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffíc into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketíng, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.
Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffíc you're seeking. Just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all.
About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com .
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 2:49 PM 0 comments
Labels: get thousands 1000 visitors by these seo steps, get tons of visitors using these easy steps
Your Website from the Ground Up in 10 Steps
So, you have finally decided to build yourself a website, but really have no idea where to start. The following 10 steps will give you some insight into what you need to address when creating a search friendly website from the ground up.
While this article is not an exhaustive líst of everything you need to know, it does touch base on many of the important aspects of creating a new website.
Step 1 - Keyword Research
Even before you choose your domain name, you should put a little time into some keyword research. Research all the possible keywords that will fit your industry and the website you plan on building. Having a clear idea of what your end targets are will make the rest of your job much easier and help things to just fall into place. Take a look at Keyword Research for SEO, written earlier this summer, for more help on this.
Step 2 - Domain Selection
If you already have an established brick and mortar business and the website will be an extension of that business, using your company name as the domain name is in most cases the best idea. If your company name is either irrelevant, or simply unavailable, you may want to consider a domain that has your target phrase listed as part of the domain.
A great example of this is if your site is focused geographically. Using the location as part of the domain when possible will give you a little extra juice with the search engines and help draw people to your site as they instantly can see the relevance in the domain.
Let's say that you are building a website focused on your home town, "Somewhere USA". A domain you may consider could be "Somewhere.com"; however, this would probably be already taken. Other options such as "SomewhereInfo.com" or "SomewhereGuide.com" may be good alternatives. The same goes for retail stores. "SomewhereCameras".com or "SomewhereBakery".com would also be good choices.
Avoid excessive use of hyphens; sometimes it is appropriate to use one, but if you can help it, avoid more than that as it can appear messy and even spammy in some cases.
Step 3 - System Back End
If you plan on having a large scale website that will grow and change constantly then you may want to consider a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla. If you decide to go this route, you want to ensure that whichever CMS you choose is search engine friendly and offers items such as unique title tags, custom URL's, and full control over content, heading tags, image alt tags, etc.
Starting a website using a non-friendly CMS is like buying a car without an engine. Sure it may look great, but it won't get you anywhere.
Step 4 - Site Structure & Navigation
This is really one of the most fundamental aspects of your site creation. If the structure of your site does not work well, then your site may be doomed from the very beginning.
Take a look back at your keyword research and brainstorm all the areas of your site that you may want to develop content for. In some cases you may find valuable keywords that would fit perfectly into a few pages of content for your site. If the phrase and the content would be a good match for the theme of your site, go ahead and note them as pages to create. Get a líst, or flowchart, of all the content you plan on adding and sort those pages into relevant categories.
Be sure your site files are saved in a way that makes sense - this includes both the file name, and the complete path to the file. Save files, including similar content in a relevant subdirectory, with simple file names representing each. Let's take an example of an informational site dedicated to a specific geographic location. If you have a series of pages dedicated to recreation, you may save them as:
/recreation/parks.html
/recreation/trails.html
/recreation/beaches.html
Keeping your URL structure clean and tidy can not only help with search engine rankings, but it will give a good visual impression to the site visitor as well. Often, using each of these categories as main points for your primary site navigation may make the most sense.
Also be sure to keep your site relatively flat, with as few layers as possible. Don't make the search engines follow a dozen links to get to the deepest levels of your site. Unless the site is literally tens of thousands of pages, there is no need to click more than 2 or 3 links to get to any deep content. The shorter the path to an internal page, the more credít by the search engines.
Step 5 - Navigation
When developing the end site, you also want to make sure that your site navigation is search engine friendly - this is critical if you ever want free organic listings.
If possible, use a text based form of navigation. You can use CSS to style the text links to fit into your graphical design. Text links are the best method, but image based navigation and even some forms of drop down menus are also search engine friendly.
If you choose to use image based navigation be sure to include image alt text relevant to the link to give something for Google to associate with the linked page. If you absolutely must use Flash, or any form of navigation not friendly for search engine spiders, be sure to supplement this with text based links on another location of the page.
Step 6 - Analytics
It isn't ever too early to start thinking about your stats. Before your site goes live you must have some form of accurate analytics in place so you can measure your site's traffic and progress.
There is an endless supply of analytics options out there to choose from. You can simply use the stats software that comes free with your web hosting, however, more often than not, they tend to be very basic with no flexibility. Advanced choices such as ClickTracks can give you rather in-depth statistics, but for a very small mom and pop operation it may be too expensive. Google Analytics, is a free option that can give you most, if not all the data you will need and does not require access to your raw log files.
If you do opt for an option such as ClickTracks, check with your host to ensure that you will have the raw log files you require. StepForth can also help you with your statistical analysis and offers a number of inexpensive
Step 7 - Content Creation
Now is the time to get that new, fresh content posted to your site with the SEO in mind. Make sure that the content you write reflects your industry and target keywords. You don't need to flood the content with your target keywords, but make sure they are in there a few times. When it makes sense to do so, also include some acronyms to help Google establish the overall relevance.
If you perform a search in Google for "~keyword", any words that Google bolds in the search results will be acronyms that Google deems relevant. Include some of these where possible.
Step 8 - Basic SEO
Ensure that ALL pages of your site include unique
Step 9 - Initial Promotion / Launch
Now that you have your new site all up and ready to go, you want to give it that kick start to help drive some traffic. It will be a while before the search engines fully index your site and even longer before you start to see organic rankings for your target search phrases. It is important to start off right away to get the ball rolling.
Start off by issuing a press release to announce the launch of your new business website. Press releases are a great way to get some traffic and a rather valuable first link into your site. Submitting your press release using a company such as PRWeb will get your link in the engine's path and should help your site to be initially indexed by Google right away.
Next submít your site to some relevant directories starting with DMOZ. It can take months, even years, to have your site listed in DMOZ, so it is important to get it submitted right away. Consider submittíng to other industry relevant directories. For some information on how to select the right directories take a look at Building Links with Directory Submissions.
Work on getting as many links from relevant industry websites as possible. The more links you can get from reputable sources, the better the overall performance of your site.
Step 10 - Ongoing Promotion
Once you have completed the site, the content looks great, and all appears finished, you've still got work to do. For long term success, especially for a brand new site, you need to continually promote your site. You should always be looking at ways to build your inbound links and your relevant content.
Consider creating accounts with various social media platforms to help promote your site. These can not only give you a link back to your site, but they can help you drive traffic and raise awareness about your business and product.
A site that is always growing, and always getting new links, has the best chance of getting a stable top 10 listing in Google.
About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott's articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at news.stepforth.com
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 2:45 PM 0 comments
Labels: 32 Most Important SEO Tips, boost your website with 10 easy seo tips
SEO - Be Direct, Be Clear
If you are like most people, it is probably safe to say that you are often annoyed when sales people become... pushy. And it doesn't matter if it's a car salesperson or someone blocking your way past a kiosk in the mall, these sales people have something in common, and that is persistence and the belief that they can persuade you to buy anything and/or everything.
If they talk fast enough, or maybe if they fill your head with so many claims, they feel that you can be convinced.
Unfortunately, there are many sites on the Internet who feel the same way, that if they inundate the friendly neighborhood visitor with claims and boasts and incomprehensible numbers and figures, they'll persuade you that what they are offering is exactly what you need. And surely you'd agree with them... once you've waded through all the claims.
Or, there is the other situation, the one in which you wander into the wrong store, either because the name was misleading or you just weren't paying enough attention. The same thing happens online. SEO practices can get certain websites to the top of the ranking for a given keyword, even if the searcher's intent doesn't quite match up with the content of the site. The visitors who click on your site need to know they found the right place before they have the chance to beat a hasty retreat.
Given these experiences, it should be obvious that being direct and being clear is at least as important a part of SEO as keyword rich content writing or link recruitment. Well, to rephrase, it is important if you want to increase your conversion rate and not just the number of visitors.
Often SEO developers are focused on creating keyword relevant content, and advertisers are focused on finding that great turn-of-phrase or magical call to action that will persuade a visitor to make a purchase. But the truth of the matter is that often it is the simple act of making your site clear that will do the most good for your business.
By clear and direct, this means that a potential customer will need to know immediately where they are, what they can do/buy there, and why they should choose you over the competition.
For example, an old SEO tactic (a bad tactic, it should be added) was to redirect visitors to a different page. But it doesn't have to be that dramatic, either. If a visitor clicked on a PPC ad that claimed there was a free download/membership/whatever at the other end, yet when they get to the site there is no clear path to the freebie, this can lead a consumer to believe that they found the wrong place and they will try somewhere else.
Helping them understand what they can do on your site should happen next, and it should happen very quickly. Don't make them wade through lines of text before giving them an option to do something. That option should be available to them from the beginning, and they should know exactly what that option entails.
Finally, they need to see why you are the right choice instead of your competition. This does not mean bragging and talking yourself up. When you do that you've just reverted to the care salesman mentality again. And no one likes dealing with these personalties unless they absolutely have to. Clear comparisons and honest testimonials will go a lot further than hollow promises and claims.
Many times content writers feel like they need to answer the "why" before the "what" and the "where". This only leads to cumbersome dialogue and weary customers. Proper content needs to quickly confirm where they are and what they can do. Do not try to present the solution before the problem. When you address these issues you can start to create a site that will interest your customers and help them choose to do business with you.
About the Author: Andy Eliason is a writer at Main10, Inc, a Utah SEO firm.
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 2:44 PM 0 comments
Labels: SEO what to do what not to do
Saturday, September 13, 2008
How Google Suggest influences the traffic you get from Google
Last week, Google added the Google Suggest feature that had been available in beta for a long time to its main page. This might sound like a small change but it can have a big effect on the traffic that you get from Google.
What is Google Suggest?
Google Suggest adds suggestions to your search query while you type it. For example, if you type "Chicago" in Google's search box, then Google will suggest "Chicago Tribune", "Chicago Cubs", "Chicago Airport" and a variety of other keywords.
Why does this change the traffic that you'll get from Google?
The implementation of Google Suggest on the main search page might have several effects on the keywords that web surfers use:
1. People might search less for one or two word keywords
MP3 is a very popular search term. However, it's unlikely that a search for "mp3" will return the results that the web surfer searched for. When you now search on Google, Google will suggest "mp3 player", "mp3 downloads" and "mp3 converter" among many other suggestions. It's likely that the web surfer will choose one of these suggestions because they describe more accurately what they are looking for.
2. Web surfers might become less creative when they search
Some people might think that the options offered in Google's suggest box are the only possible keyword combinations that can be entered. Other people might rely on Google's suggested keywords out of convenience.
Technically less adept web surfers or lazy people might stick with the default suggestions instead of really typing what they are looking for.
3. AdWords prices for some keywords might go up
Instead of many different keyword combinations, the same (suggested) keyword combinations might be searched over and over. This could result in increasing AdWords prices for these keywords and in increased competition for these keywords.
4. Long-tail keywords might be negatively affected
Long-tail keywords are keywords that typically consists of 4-6 words. These keywords are usually very targeted and they often lead to conversions because people who enter long-tail keywords know what they're looking for. As Google mainly suggests keywords that consist of up to 3 keywords, the amount of long tail keywords might decrease.
5. Long-tail keywords might be positively affected
On the other side, Google Suggest might show some people that it is possible to refine search queries. Web surfers might use Google's suggested keywords and further refine the queries with their own words. People who never thought about their search terms now might start to do so.
This is your chance to get an advantage over your competitors
The keywords through which websites get traffic from Google are likely to change. You should optimize your web pages for targeted search terms that consist of multiple words.
This is your chance to get an advantage over your competitors. Optimize your web pages now for these targeted multiple word keywords before your competitors do it.
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 5:12 AM 0 comments
Labels: How Google Suggest influences the traffic you get from Google
The Most Valuable Source for Leads
Would you like to tap into the most valuable source for leads? You might be surprised to discover that you are climbing over the low hanging fruit in an effort to get to the top of the tree. In your haste to shout your message to the masses, you could be shouting over the heads of the potential business that is already in a queue at your door. Slow down and reflect for just a moment. Then tap into the most valuable source for leads.
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has just completed a study of channel executives, distributors, resellers, and other channel representatives. The results of the surveys may not surprise you, but the contrasts of the responses provide a shocking insight into the sheer volume of missed opportunities. This is good news for you, because missed opportunities by others can create new opportunities for you. While you may agree with the initial results of the survey, consider how you can adjust your approach to the market and leverage these opportunities.
According to the survey results by the Chief Marketing Officer Council, most valued source of leads is from customer referrals.
54% Customer Referrals
14% E-Mail or Direct Marketing
8% Internet
7% Events
7% Leads from Vendors
3% Third Party Lead Generation Organizations
8% Other
Would you agree that the best leads come from the referrals of satisfied customers? Is it surprising that customer referrals were ranked as four times more powerful and valuable than E-Mail or Direct Marketing campaigns? Customer referrals were ranked nearly seven times more likely to result in sales and new business than leads derived the Internet.
Customer referrals are a means of providing immediate credibility. With the increasing ability for consumers to share personal expression on the Internet, Blogs, E-mail, and word of mouth, the ability to communicate has enhanced the voice of the customer. In business-to-business transactions, a customer referral is more likely to lead to an appropriate contact with a relevant message, which is far more powerful and likely to result in success than a cold call from a third party lead generation. Events and trade shows can be a powerful platform to market a brand, but fall short in delivering valuable leads.
With all of this insight, how did the same channel executives, distributors, resellers, and channel representatives respond to the survey by Chief Marketing Officer Council with regards to tactics for generating new leads in the coming year?
14% Plan to use Direct Marketing and E-mail campaigns
13% Plan to use Sales Brochures and collateral
10% Plan to focus on Tradeshows for lead generation
8% Will use Seminars to generate leads
7% Will rely on Print Advertising
7% Plan to use Public Relations and Article Placement
7% Plan to use the Internet and Online Advertising
6% Will revert to Telemarketing
6% Plan to invest in Internet Search Engine Marketing
5% Plan to engage customers in User Group Gatherings
4% Plan to rely on Yellow Page Advertising
4% Will experiment on the Internet with Blogs and Social Networking
3% Will use Online Directories
3% Will create Webcasts
1% Plan to use Content Syndication
2% Will try something completely different
The results of the survey regarding lead generation tactics for new business acquisition are hardly surprising. Very little has changed in the planning and tactics as conveyed by the survey response, and yet, the contrast in comparison to the most effective and valued leads is staggering. Even though 54% of respondents acknowledged that the most valued leads are based on customer referrals, the first mention of leveraging this goldmine occurs in the 4% of respondents that plan to engage customers in user group gatherings.
Fortunately, it would appear relatively that fourteen percent of respondents believe the most valuable lead generation comes from Direct Marketing or E-mail, and fourteen percent plan to use this tactic for lead generation in the coming year. However, even though only seven percent believe that the best leads come from trade shows, there are ten percent planning to take this tactic, and another eight percent who will augment this activity with seminars.
Although only eight percent believe that the highest chance for success comes from leads acquired by the Internet, there is a staggering number of diverse plans to leverage this channel of communication. The tactics include seven percent Internet and Online Advertising, six percent investing in search engine marketing, four percent using blogs and social networking, three percent using Online Directories, and another three percent experimenting with webcasts. The Internet provides an exciting vehicle to be creative, showcase the brand, and communicate to a very large audience. However, is it targeting the most valuable audience by engaging the most valuable leads that come from customer referrals?
As you can see, the tactics are not groundbreaking or unusual. On the contrary, the approach to market is contrived on establishing a brand, shouting a message to the masses, and hoping that the merit is recognized by the appropriate lead. The Internet, Trade Shows, Brochures, and Advertising, provide effective, if not innovative vehicles for spreading the slogan. While it may be necessary to invest in these channels of communication to maintain competitive placement, there remains untapped opportunity for higher rates of success when tactics engage customer referrals.
Stop what you are doing right now and imagine how referrals from satisfied customers could generate valuable leads and grow your business. It does not matter what kind of business you are in, or what responsibilities you have in the organization. Every member of an organization contributes directly, or indirectly, to customer satisfaction. Your actions may results in testimonials, endorsements, or positive word of mouth. If you could harness the power of customer referrals, your sales force would blossom with representation from independent trusted advocates.
So, how do you encourage and empower customers to grow this incredible pipeline of valued referrals? You ask them, of course. However, before you make such a bold request, your customers must know that you are fully engaged and obligated to their aspirations. When customers are assured that you are a trusted advocate, committed to customer satisfaction, they have the confidence to share referrals and recommendations.
Once customer confidence is established and the relationship is mutually rewarding, then it is just a matter of creating the appropriate opportunity for referrals to occur. This can be as simple as asking for referrals, or as formal as creating gatherings for existing clients and potential prospects to meet and exchange experiences. Introducing existing clients to potential prospects demonstrates immense confidence in your own relationship with your customers, because you are not fearful of losing the mutually rewarding relationship. Group gatherings and communications creates a unique opportunity to endorse your customers, grow their circle of influence, and for them to provide a third party endorsement of your efforts.
There are many ways to empower customer referrals by engaging individuals in group gathering or discussions, leveraging the Internet or Advertising, or by collecting a powerful collage of testimonials. The tactics for getting the most out of this goldmine pipeline are as diverse as the markets and customers in them. It all begins with recognizing the most valuable source for leads, acknowledging the value of these resources, and creating specific action items in a plan to unleash these untapped opportunities. Actively and effectively mining the most valuable source for leads will give you an advantage over 95% of your competition.
About the Author: John Mehrmann is author of The Trusted Advocate: Accelerate Success with Authenticity and Integrity. The book that is changing everything by reawakening personal values in business as a competitive edge.
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 5:11 AM 1 comments
Labels: generate lead get business, How to generate lead for your business
Friday, September 5, 2008
Video Search Engine Optimization
Most of us know that a site that's well configured for search engine access is a major part of getting high traffic levels. However, you might not have thought about optimizing your video as well as the rest of your site. Since multimedia content is becoming a much more popular way of distributing information, correct video search engine optimization is important.
For instance, on YouTube alone (which accounts for more than ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year. That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video search engine.
YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site.
For owners of video content, video search engine optimization is a good way to get exposure, ad income, and free traffic. Being discovered by the viewers has to happen before you can get lots of views. That means making sure that your data is rich in meta information, and that you use quality RSS or MRSS feeds that you update on a regular basis.
Make sure that your meta data is well placed and relevant to the topic. A cleaner can help you remove distracting or irrelevant meta information from the file.
Only after you produce well optimized content should you contact the search engines and submit your video. This places you in the queue of web crawlers, and means you'll be indexed more quickly and more often than if you hadn't bothered to submit. The more regularly your content is crawled, the better your chance of rating well on search results.
Index your site on other engines than Google or YouTube. They can spread your video to other search engines you may not have thought of. For instance, indexing your site on Blinkx will cause it to show up on Ask and MSN, among others.
One important part of your strategy should be a series of related videos. When a viewer sees a video online that he or she likes, there's a good likelihood that this viewer will look for others like them. While a single great video will be popular and welcomed, you'll do even better if it's part of a series.
Use an embedded video player, too. Many viewers will be more inclined to view your submission if it's part of your site or blog than if they had to go to your video hosting service to see it. However, you should avoid players that use only Flash. Don't use pop-up players, which annoy more people than they amuse, and will actually cause you to lose views.
The more views you get, the more likely you are to be picked up by other sites, linked to, and rank well on video searches. You can even customize embedded video players to display playlists related to your company, and adjust the layout, and other information.
Create traffic by placing a video search box on your site. This adds unique content and boosts ad revenue. Make sure that you create a video of the appropriate length for your audience, and that you're looking for the right response.
You can use analytics to find out how long a customer stays on your video page, which will tell you if your video is too long. You can also use analytics to tell you which of your videos get the best response. Once you know this, you'll be able to decide which content should be linked first on your home page.
Remember that no webcrawler has ever bought a product or a service. If you're a local business using video to advertise, clicks are a lot less important than calls. Include a call to action with your contact information as part of your video - thumbnails are an excellent way to do this. You can use YouTube to create thumbnails at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks. Making sure that you have both a local listing and a video listing on Google's Search Engine Results Page also increases your likelihood of getting visits.
You may also wish to make sure that your videos are high enough quality for and in the right format for television. Google TV is very affordable, and lets you create closely targeted video.
Don't use Active X controls and export all files as swf format. Use Google Video sitemaps to help with navigation, and build a separate page for each video, rather than hosting many videos on the same page. Use a simple text title and description, and optimize that page as you would any other. Then, link to it from the index page.
Descriptions and titles need to be consistent across all your sites, and file names should descriptive and make sense to the viewer. Remember that Different communities require different approaches. Prominent keywords can help on many sites. However, while keyword rich content will help videos hosted on your site be noticed by Blinkx or Truveo, it won't help on YouTube.
You'll need to get the attention of the community in general. Video responses to popular, related videos can help get others to visit your contribution. Your content will appear in close proximity to videos that are already popular. Make sure you include an active URL in the description of your video, and end the video with a mention of the link. Annotations can help you link to other YouTube videos. Be sure to allow comments!
Don't tag with irrelevant search terms, no matter how popular they might be. Remember that you need to appeal to real people, rather than just optimizing blindly. While you might turn up early in a search with good optimization, an unappealing video will cause people to pass you by. If you know what kind of content your audience prefers, you'll be able to create the right video marketing plan for your business or organization.
Video search engine optimization is an important part of any video marketing strategy. If you're planning to market your business or organization using multimedia content, creating it correctly and surrounding it with the right keywords and other information can help it be noticed. Before you submit a video, make sure it's optimized.
About The Author
Randy Zlobec, president of RZ Concepts, Inc. an Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization company specializing in top placement throughout the Major Search Engines.
Posted by Abhay Mathur at 10:20 AM 0 comments
Labels: how to optimize a video, Video Search Engine Optimization, video seo