Tom Antion (guru) A Hypocrite

Please note, I did not write this article. I am only placing it on this site as a means of allowing free discourse. My SEO strategy has always been to do no harm. So when competitors have a spat, I’ll link to their information, in the intrest of offering fair and balanced analysis.

Read the argument by Knox Denver Web Guy

Filed under: SEO on March 17th, 2005 No Comments »

The Importance of Content

by Scott F. Geld
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

“The content is very important”. It’s true that this line has become monotonous, but you would still hear it more often from all the marketing icons. The reason is quite plain and simple; when you have a web presence, Content is the thing that attracts customers and retains their attention. It is the one and only means, which would bring customers to your website and turn leads into sales through all your advertising campaigns. This is what you are selling, and you should hit right on the bull’s eye for it. No place of compromise when it comes to content of your website.

If you do not feel confident enough of writing great content yourself, it’s better to hire a good writer to do it for you. But before choosing an appropriate copywriter, you should know whether he possesses Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) copywriting experience or not. This is the most important point, as your have a commercial website which is selling your business, and your main aim is to bring traffic to your website. So an adept person, with an experience of SEM/SEO, can do wonders for your business.

With clear, concise and compelling information presented attractively about your product and service, you hope to move the visitor to view your web site favorably when determining their action.

Descriptive and reflective website content with rich information about product and service targeted to sell, makes way towards success. Internet sales got doubled in the last decade, even when the economy was struggling. In this light, you would have been surprised to know that large fancy corporate websites and dot-coms are losing money. Most of the time you can’t even locate what is on the sale at their website. When visitors hit your home page, they want to know your identity and what you can do for them. Just fancy sites don’t sell, strong content does.

This same painstaking consideration is rarely given to the search engines that are the determining factor in your ranking position, which they assign your web site. Your search engine ranking is the key to the amount of visitors, and the success of your website, finally.

So, give importance to the content you have on your website and do all the things necessary to promote your web business. Hard work always pays; contrary to no work, no pay. Learn and analyze what other people are doing. Learn about success stories and implement them in your business plans. Everyone is making money on the web; so can you. Some are making less and some are making more but there is a whole world out there to be explored. Get started today!

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic and direct links. For more info: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Filed under: Copy Writing on March 16th, 2005 No Comments »

Kick Start Cart advanced promotions

Question: I have a client looking to upgrade their shopping cart, but they had a question I haven’t come across before.

Can you setup the Kick Start Cart to do a buy 2 get 1 free? basically they buy anything and can choose from anything in the product database

Answer: I don’t know of a direct way to do this, if you have a number of items and want to offer the choice of which item you get free.

You could however, create a special product so the purchaser knows they bought a buy 1 get 1 free and let them type in the product they want free in a custom field.

Filed under: FAQ's, Shopping Cart on March 6th, 2005 No Comments »

ACS Blog by ASPPress

I recently did a bit of research looking for a Blog that would run on my clients windows hosting packages. Most of what I found was poorly written, limited, or just plain not worth the effort to install.

After many hours of research I came across ACS Blog by AspPress.com. It isn’t as feature rich as WordPress, but it does allow for catagories, RSS feed and only took 10 minutes to actually configure on the server (most of the time was spent asking the hosting company to give the database write permissions).

Customization takes a bit longer, if you don’t want the default blog look (colors are easily changed). The AspPress website is a good example of the customizability of the Blog. The entire website is their blog!

To use this Blog on a commercial website, there is a small fee of $10.00, but it is Well worth the cost.

Filed under: Blogs Forums CMS on March 3rd, 2005 No Comments »

Getting Your Ads Noticed

by Scott F. Geld
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Do you participate in forums, message boards, newsgroups or e-mail discussion lists? People will usually read the subject line before they read your ad or message, so it’s important they get noticed. Below are ten simple, but powerful tips to get your ads or messages noticed.

  1. Use extra white space creatively in your subject line. You can add extra blank spaces between your words or letters.
  2. Combine capital letters with lower case letters. Use all capital letters in every other word or use a capital letter between every other lower case letter.
  3. Add text symbols in your subject line. You could use them between words and letters. Start and end your subject with a text symbol. ( *, $, >,{,] )
  4. Begin your subject line with the word “STOP!”. People have been trained their whole life to stop what they are doing when they see that word.
  5. Ask people a question in your subject line. We all went to school and were repetitively branded to answer questions.
  6. Use the word “FREE” in your subject line. Your offer should be attractive to your target audience. It could be free information, software, trials, etc.
  7. Begin your subject line with an “online smile :) ”. People use smiles offline to gain people’s attention and to win their trust, why not use them online too.
  8. Don’t use unbelievable claims in your subject line. People have or know some who has been ripped off and trained themselves to ignore those claims.
  9. Don’t use all capital letters in your subject line. It is hard to read, looks unprofessional, and on the internet it’s considered a symbol for shouting.
  10. Test different subject lines to see which ones draws the most traffic to your web site. Also, read the FAQ before posting a message or ad anywhere.

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic that repeatedly beats the “big guys” in for conversion rate and ROI. For more information, please visit: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Filed under: Marketing & Publicity on March 3rd, 2005 No Comments »