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A Lesson In Email: The Money Is In The List... With The Back-End Sales
Firstly, back-end sales is eMail Marketing at its best, so for this to work you need to already have a list of customers that have bought from you before.
The reason for this is because Back-end sales, are the ultimate way to...
Got Blog?
In 1999 I asked my friends and colleagues if they blogged. The responses I received ranged from odd looks to questions about the blogging practice. The end results of my findings was “Blog” was a new term and not highly recognized. That was then,...
Motivating Shoppers with Online Coupons (Part 2 of 2)
Last time we discussed how online coupons and promotion codes can motivate buyers. We discussed examples of coupons and some of the aspects of these offers that can boost sales and generate urgency to a purchase. Today we’ll focus on how to...
Successful Planning & Deployment of an E-commerce Portal
Many retailers think they have Ecommerce on their website and are not happy with its performance, yet all they have is a basic shopping cart, and, although most web sites with just a catalogue/shopping cart are good enough to ensure a satisfactory...
Three E-zine Alternatives You May Not Have Considered
After my live talks, I always get a few people who say to me, "You know, publishing an e-zine sounds great, but I just don't think I have the time to do it on an ongoing basis." Or, "I'm not sure if I'll have enough content to publish an e-zine." ...
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Harmonize Elements for High Ranking
Ranking high in search engines is like a carefully balanced high-wire act:
you can't tip too far to either side or you will not reach your goal. When
creating a website, you must use both content and meta tags effectively, but
not excessively. There are four main elements that you must harmonize: Meta
Tags, Description, Title and Content.
Meta Tags
By now, most people know that a meta tag is a word or group of words
included in the web site's hidden HTML code and includes a description of
the web site, or a set of keywords that reflect the site's content. Search
engines use the meta tags to retrieve content about your site. But do you
know how to place them? Do you know how to use them effectively? There are
several websites that offer tools to help you create meta tags such as
and .
These sites will walk you through the process of listing keywords and
placing the code inside the tag, just after the tag. This is
most important! Proper placement of the Meta tags is crucial to being found
by search engine spiders as they travel the web. There are three things
that you should never do when creating meta tag keywords:
* Never repeat keywords needlessly just to include more
keywords.
* Never hide keywords by using text of the same color as the
background
* Never use keywords that have nothing to do with your website
Description
The description of your website will appear in your meta tag, name="description" content="Brief description of your website">, as well as
in the listing that the search engine returns. Choose descriptive words
carefully, ensuring that at least some of them are repeated in the content
on your site, your meta tag keywords, and in your title. Now add a little
clever marketing pizzazz! "Click Here for ___", is a great phrase to add to
your description. Fill-in the blank so that the user is inspired to click
for details, promotions, demos, online orders, etc. For instance, "Click
here for free samples" is appropriate, but don't overuse "hype" words such
as "free" or they could actually lower your ranking.
Title
Your website title is truly the crown of your page and should harmonize with
your meta tags
and content. It is picked-up by spiders, displayed in search
engines and on the title bar of the browser. Make this descriptive but not
too long; anything over 100 characters needs to be re-thought. Remember
55-65 characters is about all that the user will see on the title bar,
depending on their screen size and resolution. After that, the site title
will truncate and they will see the browser name and version. So make those
first characters count! If your company name is long, try to shorten it to
just one or two key words; enough so that the user knows who it is, but more
importantly what it is. What your site is about is imperative. Sure you know
your company name and what you do, but will the user? Many people only look
at the title first. Then if the title fits their need, they will bother to
read the description, or better yet, to make the click and jump to your
site. Remember, this is online reading, not print. There is a big difference
in how the user approaches the process of reading for information on the
web.
Content
Content is still king and it reigns supreme over any other clever tactics
anyone can come up with. Your site must have verbiage to back up the title,
tags and description that you have already created. Repeating keywords or
phrases from your description boosts your rankings as well as your
credibility. This demonstrates that you are what and who you say you are.
Say something substantive about your product or service. You can place
little tidbits on the page to reflect these statements if you can't seem to
work them into other paragraphs. Don't use an image of text use actual words
instead. Using text in an alternative image tag is also a great complement,
but it won't replace what you actually say within the website. You want to
confirm to your viewers that while you may have used clever marketing
techniques to get them there, their click won't be wasted.
About the Author
Bet Cox is the owner of Creative Sols, http://www.creativesols.com, an
information development company that specializes in delivering targeted
business content for print, presentations, training and the web. You can
reach her by email at bcox@creativesols.com.
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