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Seven Deadly Mistakes That Can KILL Your Search Rankings

March 28, 2012 By Benjamin

Whether you’re brand-new to Internet marketing, or you’ve been selling online for a while now, search engine optimization is the one strategy you can’t AFFORD to ignore!

Earn high rankings in the search engines, and you’ll be rewarded with endless streams of quality FREE traffic heading straight to your website.

But neglect your rankings, and you’ll spend ALL of your time trying to convince even a few visitors to stop by your site (and chances are, they won’t even be interested in what you’re selling when they show up).

Fortunately, optimizing your website for the search engines is neither rocket science nor brain surgery!

Armed with just a few tried-and-tested techniques, you should have no problem getting those coveted high rankings for your site.

The challenge, though, is that the search engine industry changes more quickly than most, so something that used to be a sure-fire SEO strategy can suddenly become useless…

… and it might even get your listings demoted to the back pages!

So to make sure you don’t get penalized by the search engines — or just plain IGNORED — watch out for these seven deadly search engine optimization mistakes:

Deadly Mistake #1: Improper Use Of Your “Title” Tag

Not only does your title tag tell the search engines what your webpage is about, the title also appears in the search results for your site, as well as at the top of your visitors’ browsers while they’re on your site.

So this is DEFINITELY where you should put your best keywords!

But we routinely see site owners making pretty basic errors with their title tags, costing them good rankings, and sometimes, even their credibility.

So avoid these common title tag mistakes:

a. Not including a title tag at all

If you leave your title tag blank, your visitors will see “untitled document” in the search results, and the top of the browser.

This makes you look careless and unprofessional. Besides, who searches for untitled documents? You’re squandering an opportunity for better SEO, and you’re missing out on sales!

b. Using your URL as the title

Some site owners use the URLs of individual pages as the titles.

But, while a title tag like “sallysbeautyshop/cosmetics/product123.html” does contain the business name, the product category, and the product name itself, it’s not very helpful to your rankings.

Remember, your title tags are for keywords.

c. Using a friendly greeting instead of a keyword-rich title

There’s nothing wrong with a friendly greeting… in person.

But your title tag is the wrong place to say hello to your audience. And again, who searches for welcome messages?

d. Stuffing the title tag with single words

Don’t take the shotgun approach and fill your title tag with a list of words off the top of your head in the vain hope of attracting traffic.

Instead, use one or two of your TOP keyword phrases (but keep it under 70 characters so it fits on one line).

Your title tag is easy to find and easy to change in your HTML code. On most web pages, it’s right at the top, below your “head” tag, and looks like this:

<head>
<title>HTML 4.01 Tag Reference</title>
</head>

Deadly Mistake #2: Misusing Your “Keywords” Meta Tag

Once upon a time, the search engines really cared about keyword meta tags, and would determine your site’s relevance based on the content of this tag.

Well, those days are long gone, and a keyword meta tag — even one that’s well-written and contains just a couple of your best keywords — will NOT help you get a higher ranking.

BUT… a poorly written meta tag CAN get your site penalized!

So our best advice is to use the meta keyword tag for what it was intended: to help you quickly and easily identify, in one line of HTML code, what keywords you’ve optimized that page for.

Meta tags only appear in your HTML code, not anywhere on your site. They’re usually placed very close to the top of the page, near your title tag, and look like this:

Deadly Mistake #3: Keyword Spamming Or Stuffing

The more keywords you have on your site — and the more places you repeat them — the better your search rankings will be, right?

Wrong!!

That may be the way it worked in the “olden” days, when the web was in its infancy, but the practice helped websites get high rankings for topics they didn’t even cover.

So these days, Google’s algorithm (the formula it uses to figure out where to rank pages on the search results) is much more complex than that, thanks to years of dealing with people trying to fudge the results.

So don’t even bother with these outdated tricks…

Typing your keywords over and over again in very small font at the top and bottom of your page — blocks of tiny text either in the copy or the header tags don’t improve your relevance
Increasing your keyword density above about 10% — you end up with a page full of text that doesn’t make sense to anyone reading it
Using “invisible” keywords (white text on a white background). This one is SO frowned-upon that it can get you delisted from Google altogether!

The only foolproof strategy is still to find out what kind of quality, relevant information your customers are searching for, and then give it to them. In the long run, it’s by far the best strategy.

Deadly Mistake #4: Using Irrelevant Keywords To Attract More Traffic

So, you found some great keywords with low competition and great traffic numbers… but not quite on target with your website?

For instance, when Sarah Palin broke big in 2008, she was one of the most searched-for terms in the country. But if you’d put an article about her on your website, it wouldn’t have increased your sales!

If people come to your page or website in search of a keyword phrase, and find that your site has nothing to do with it, they’ll just leave again…

… so all the traffic in the world won’t help you if it’s off target.

And you can even end up diluting the theme of your website and irritating people so much that they report your website as spam to the search engines. And that’s not worth any number of extra visitors!

Deadly Mistake #5: Creating Useless Content

The Internet is swamped with low-quality articles and blog posts that are created for NO other reason than to get better rankings.

But consider this: It can take potential customers 6 – 8 visits to your website — and significant exposure to your content — before they feel comfortable enough to make a purchase from you.

If the only content you’ve posted is just a few keywords repeated without any real substance, why would anyone bother coming back to read more?

This tactic can harm your reputation and your credibility… and once those are gone, it’s almost impossible to get them back!

Deadly Mistake #6: Using “Doorway” Pages

When was the last time Google or Yahoo purchased a product from you?

We’re guessing NEVER, right? So why would you create pages on your website that are exclusively for them? But that’s exactly what people do with “doorway” pages (pages with very little text, but very high keyword density).

For example, if your page only has four words on it, and two of them are “sailboat,” that gives the page a keyword density of 50%, which is great for search results…

… but if someone actually searches on the term “sailboat” and lands on the doorway page, there’s nothing there for them! They’ll have to click further into your site (and for each unnecessary click you ask visitors to make, you lose a large percentage of them).

Doorway pages are really frowned upon by the search engines, because they clog up the index with junk. It’s just too easy to produce thousands of these pages that have a very high keyword density, but no real purpose, other than trying to build links and direct traffic to a single site.

Before you put a doorway page up, remember to ask yourself if it’s actually providing useful information to your potential customers. If so great. If not, don’t do it!

Deadly Mistake #7: Bait and Switch – “Magic” Pages, Redirects, and Cloaking

Search engines want to make sure that once they’ve indexed a page, the visitors they send there see the same thing they did. However, this isn’t always the case.

Some site builders build two versions of their sites. The one for the spiders is full of the kind of stuff the search engines like. The one that regular visitors see is full of the flashy, off-topic effects that look cool, but it isn’t the relevant, content-rich site it’s advertised as.

This is a strategy that will end up hurting your business!

Your customers end up at a website that may not contain the keywords they were searching for, and instead, get to one with animation and all the bells and whistles that may not be important to them.

More importantly, the search engines feel ripped off, too.

When customers start pointing this kind of fraud out to them, the search engines are pretty good at delisting the offending sites. Is a few weeks of increased traffic really worth the risk of getting booted off Google for good?!

Finally, don’t use spammy redirects on your site. These redirects send visitors from a page they think they’re going to (one that’s been optimized for the search engines), to another one altogether.

This deceptive method has been overused, and the search engines no longer fall for it. It can get your site penalized or delisted.

How You Can Avoid Being Penalized — Or Worse — By The Search Engines

These are just seven of the MANY search engine optimization techniques that can have a harmful effect on your site’s rankings, some of which can potentially get you into hot water with the search engines!

So why take a chance?

If you’re going to save yourself a TON of money by doing your own search engine optimization,

make sure you get ongoing advice from an SEO expert who can tell you which strategies are working right now…

… as well as show you the strategies that you should AVOID.

If you’re interested, we have our own in-house SEO experts who can give you some advice (and we have TOP rankings for our websites out of MILLIONS of competitors, so you know we’re doing something right 😉

You can ask our experts as many questions as you want about improving your search engine rankings, and you’ll get a personal, step-by-step action plan, within 24 hours.

PLUS, when you work with our experts, you’ll ALSO get access to a special members-only website that’s stuffed full of FREE tools you can use to improve your search engine rankings… enjoy a comprehensive learning center filled with videos and articles that will show you exactly how to optimize your site (even if you have NO experience)…

… and once a month, you’ll receive a newsletter updating you on the latest techniques and strategies that are working right this minute!

If you’d like to see for yourself if we can help you improve your search rankings and traffic, we have some 21-day trials that we’re currently giving away.

For three full weeks, you can get UNLIMITED help for optimizing your website from our in-house experts, without risk or commitment.

So if you’d like to try it out, we recommend that you activate your RISK-FREE trial right away.

To your success,

The Internet Marketing Center Team

Seven Deadly Website Design Mistakes

March 21, 2012 By Benjamin

By Andrew Mallory

Whenever I go surfing on the Web, I’m always afraid of what I’ll find…

… Because I come across so many sites suffering from DEADLY design sins, I want to stab out my eyes with a pen!

Think I’m being dramatic? Maybe just a bit… but these fatal errors are guaranteed to be killing the sites’ conversion rates — and I just want to grab the site owners by the shoulder and tell them, “It doesn’t have to BE this way!!!”

So today, I’d like to tell YOU about the top “seven deadly design sins” — so you can make sure you’re not committing any of them on your website. (Because any one of them could be pulling your potential sales right into the gutter!)

Here they are…

Deadly design sin #1: No eye-catching headline to grab your visitors’ attention

It takes average web surfer 10 seconds MAXIMUM to decide whether to stick around on a site or move on to another one. You have to make those 10 seconds count!

You have to capture your visitors’ attention RIGHT AWAY and convince them your site has exactly what they’re looking for. And the best way to do that is with a well-formatted, attention-grabbing headline that’s packed with intriguing benefits and compels them to read further.

Here’s an example of a well-formatted, benefit-laden headline…

Discover the secret to eating as much as you want, whenever you want
— And stilllose all the weight you need —
While buzzing with the non-stop energy of a 9-year-old kid!

(Please note the benefits of “eating as much as you want,” “losing all the weight you need,” and “non-stop energy” are either bolded or underlined so they pop out at the reader.)

… and here’s an example of something that’s NOT:

Welcome to my diet site! I sell over 50 different weight loss products, from pills, to nutritional supplements, to popular weight loss books. Feel free to browse through my selection and find the product that’s right for you.

… See the difference?

Above and beyond the lack of formatting, there are no benefits listed in the second example at all. It talks about what the site sells, but not about what these products will DO for the people who buy them.

Plus, by telling visitors they have to browse the site to find what they’re looking for, you’re putting all the hard work on THEM. Your copy should lead visitors straight to the solution they’re looking for — not make them have to hunt for it

Deadly design sin #2: Distracting banners and links!

On your site, don’t put up banners or links that send people to someone else’s site! (And that includes Google Adwords ads.)

You want to keep people on your site — not drive them somewhere else!

Everything on your site should directly relate to its ultimate PURPOSE — whether it’s to get more opt-ins for your email list or to sell your product! Anything on your site that doesn’t serve this main purpose should be immediately deleted.

Of course, if the purpose of your site is purely to promote affiliate products or sell advertising space, then obviously you’ll want to include banners or links… but otherwise, you shouldn’t have them on your homepage at all.

If you try to promote affiliate products on a page that’s also meant to sell a specific product, you’ll end up doing a lousy job of both.

Deadly design sin #3: Too many dizzying colors or fonts

Nothing screams “amateur!” louder than a dizzying mishmash of different fonts and colors.

To make your site look professional, use a basic color scheme with just 2-3 colors maximum and a couple of fonts only. Look at any well-designed site and you’ll see that they’re pretty conservative about the colors and fonts they use.

(Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to read the words on your page!)

Deadly design sin #4: Patterned backgrounds

Make sure your background stays in the background!

If you add textures or use dark backgrounds on your site, people won’t easily be able to read your copy. And if you aren’t making it easy for them to read your copy, you aren’t making it easy for them to buy your product!

Tests have shown over and over and over again that the highest conversion rates are seen on sites that have BLACK text on a plain white background, with colors limited to the margins.

It might seem “boring” from a design perspective… but better sales are pretty darned exciting from an income perspective!

Deadly design sin #5: Too many distracting graphics, animations, or video clips

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that having LOTS of images, fancy graphics, animated gifs, or video clips will make their site more interesting. Wrong.

Unless those visual elements help persuade people to buy your product — by showing visitors what your product looks like, or demonstrating how it works, for example — then they’re useless decorations that will distract your visitors and prevent them from following through on the action you want them to take.

Deadly design sin #6: Slow-loading pages and graphics

How long does it take for your homepage to load? If your answer is longer than, say, 3 seconds, you’ve got trouble on your hands!

Remember the 10-second rule… if your homepage doesn’t load quickly, your visitors will lose patience and click away. Web surfers are extremely impatient people. If they can’t begin reading or viewing your page right away, they’re going to leave and go to another, more user-friendly site.

If you absolutely MUST use large graphics on your homepage, provide a small icon that links to the larger graphic and warn people they may have to wait as it loads.

And last but not least…

Deadly design sin #7: Huge blocks of text that are nearly impossible to read

Here’s a question for you… Which of the following text samples do you find easier to read?

Sample #1:

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and painfully denying yourself all your favorite foods but never seeing any lasting results? Or joining the latest supposedly “healthy” eating craze, only to discover a few months down the road that most health experts say that following that eating plan is actually BAD for you? I know exactly how you feel. For decades I was a “yo-yo” dieter. I would try out the latest celebrity diet trend and lose maybe 5 – 15 pounds, but then gain it all back as soon as I started eating “normally” again. In fact, usually I’d end up gaining even more weight, which is why I got on the scales one day and discovered to my horror that I now weighed over 200 pounds, not exactly a healthy weight for someone who’s only 5′ 2″! In my desperation to get back to a “normal” weight, I tried every single diet plan I could. I ate nothing but pre-packaged calorie-reduced diet meals. I took pills. I drank diet shakes for breakfast and lunch, and forced myself to ignore my growling stomach all day long. And yet time and time again, I broke under the strain of self-denial and ended up “cheating.” I can’t tell you how many nights I’d cave to my cravings and end up gorging on bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, and entire pans of brownies. And then I’d wake up the next day, absolutely sick with self-hatred. Well, I’m happy to tell you that those days are now over for good! Because FINALLY I discovered a healthy approach to food that allows me to eat my fill and walk away from the table feeling satisfied, and stay at my “ideal” weight of 125 lbs, which I’ve been able to maintain for over two years and counting!

Sample #2:

Are you sick of trying diet after diet — and painfully denying yourself all your favorite foods — but never seeing any lasting results?

Or joining the latest supposedly “healthy” eating craze, only to discover a few months down the road that most health experts say that following that eating plan is actually BAD for you?

I know exactly how you feel…

… For decades I was a “yo-yo” dieter. I would try out the latest celebrity diet trend and lose maybe 5 – 15 pounds, but then gain it all back as soon as I started eating “normally” again.

In fact, usually I’d end up gaining even more weigh — which is why I got on the scales one day and discovered to my horror that I now weighed over 200 pounds.

Not exactly a healthy weight for someone who’s only 5′ 2″!

In my desperation to get back to a “normal” weight, I tried every single diet plan I could. I ate nothing but pre-packaged calorie-reduced diet meals… I took pills… I drank diet shakes for breakfast and lunch, and forced myself to ignore my growling stomach all day long.

And yet time and time again, I broke under the strain of self-denial and ended up “cheating.” I can’t tell you how many nights I’d cave to my cravings and end up gorging on bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, and entire pans of brownies.

And then I’d wake up the next day, absolutely sick with self-hatred.

Well, I’m happy to tell you that those days are now over for good! Because FINALLY I discovered a healthy approach to food that allows me to eat my fill and walk away from the table feeling satisfied, and stay at my “ideal” weight of 125 lbs — which I’ve been able to maintain for over two years and counting!

… As you can see, Sample #2 is MUCH easier to read. Its “choppy” paragraph allows visitors to skim read the text and immediately grasp its meaning. In contrast, Sample #1 forces you to read every single word — and even then, it’s hard to keep your place in the text!

When writing for the Web, you should limit your paragraphs to six lines maximum. And make sure you vary your paragraph lengths so they don’t all look the same! A “choppy” paragraph structure makes online text MUCH easier to read.

And if you want your visitors to read all the way to your “order” button, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so!

… So there’s my list of the “seven deadly design sins” that all serious website owners absolutely MUST avoid if they want their sites to do a good job of converting casual visitors into eager customers. If you’re committing one of these fatal errors, make sure you start working on getting it changed today!

[Ed. note: Andrew Mallory is one of our top Internet Entrepreneur Club experts.]

7 Tips for Getting Great Traffic with Classified Ads!

May 30, 2011 By Benjamin Leave a Comment

In the offline world, there has always been a marketing tool that small businesses have used over and over again to reach HUGE audiences with minimal investment.
… I’m talking about classified ads!

But did you know that ONLINE classified ads can be just as effective?

Not only do they put your product in front of people who are actively looking to BUY something — they also give you great inbound links from high PageRank sites!

Here are some great places for you to post your classified ads:

However, in order to get the best results from your classified ads, you have to know how to write a winning ad!

Here are 7 tips that will help you score the greatest number of targeted visitors with your ads…

Classified Ad Tip #1: Make your headline compelling

The first thing people will notice is your headline. Use “power words” such as, “free,” “guarantee,” and “save” to make sure it grabs their attention right away! Otherwise, they won’t bother reading the rest of your ad.

Classified Ad Tip #2: Don’t be too “wordy”

Keep your message short and sweet. Focus on a single benefit, and make it really compelling!

People don’t want to read something long and boring — they need to be able to scan your ad quickly to determine whether or not they want to click on it.

Remember, the point of your ad isn’t to sell your product — it’s to encourage people to click through to your salespage and then let IT do the heavy lifting.

Classified Ad Tip #3: Tailor your ad to the category it appears in

Classified ad sites are usually broken up into different categories, making it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. Make sure your ads are properly worded for the categories they will appear in. If necessary, write different ads for different categories.

Classified Ad Tip #4: Post your ad in multiple categories

Always place your ad in multiple categories and sub-categories. An ad in 10 categories running for one week will usually generate a better response than a single ad in one category for 10 weeks.

Classified Ad Tip #5: Check out the competition

Before you write your ad, snoop around to see what kinds of ads your competition is placing. Figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are, then use this information to make YOUR ad more compelling.

Classified Ad Tip #6: Check your ad position regularly

Classified ad sites change quickly. One day your ad will be at the top of the page, and the next it will have disappeared four pages down. Be prepared to resubmit your ad on a regular basis.

Classified Ad Tip #7: Use a “dummy” email address

If you post your email address in your classified ads, it will almost certainly be harvested by spammers. Unless you want your inbox to be swamped with a ton of junk mail, you should use a dummy email account you’ve set up through a free service like Hotmail or Gmail.

… By following these 7 tips and getting your classified ads posted on numerous different classified ad sites and ezines, you’re bound to see a huge boost in your traffic numbers.

And that’s the kind of “classified info” you’ll want to share with the world!

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