Recognized Expert - Blogs http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/ Internet Marketing for Professionals: Become The Recognized Expert In Your Field en Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:12:52 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/images/misc/rss.jpg Recognized Expert - Blogs http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/ Simple Study: Storefront Keywords http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/140-simple-study-storefront-keywords.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:09:12 GMT I'm going to make this short, but just trying to make another point as to how important keyword research truly is. Here is really simple keyword phrase that I believe it helps show the importance of keyword research.

The Business:
"A storefront that sells Apple Computer products on Maui"

The Keywords:
Maui Apple Store and Apple Store Maui

Search ratio is 1:5. So for every person that searches for "Maui Apple Store," four more just searched for "Apple Store Maui."

Where would you focus your time and money?

Pay attention to the keywords you choose as you may be missing the bulk of your customers! ]]> Josh Sommers http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/140-simple-study-storefront-keywords.html The Difference Between SEO, SEM and Internet Marketing http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/bob-sommers/138-difference-between-seo-sem-internet-marketing.html Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:34:31 GMT So what's the difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Internet Marketing? Where should I start? Let's start with SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the practice of optimizing your website, blog or web page so that it will show up high in the organic results in the search engines for your keyword or keyword phrase. The way to do that is to create a web page that is the most relevant and organized web page on the subject for your keyword or keyword phrase.

For example, we used search engine optimization (SEO) for our blogger training website, MagicWithBlogs.blogspot.com. In doing so, we were able to take the top position for the term, "blogger training" with over 23,000,000 competing pages on the Internet. As you can imagine, being at the top of the search engines for this term has been very rewarding with respect to getting traffic to our website ... and we don't pay for the traffic, it's free.

Some of the on-site techniques involved in search engine optimization include:
Using your keywords or keyword phrases in your:
  1. Website title
  2. Header
  3. Text
  4. Footer
  5. Internal links
  6. Alt text for your photos and graphics.
  7. It's also important to have an organized site written for your human readers.
A more important aspect of getting your site to the top of the search engines is what is known as off-site optimization. One of the best ways search engines determine what your website is about is by following the links leading back to your website from other websites.

You can learn a lot more about the process of link building by watching a video we created on the subject in our Article Marketing for Professionals video program.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of work involved in SEO but the rewards are amazing.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM includes both SEO and paid inclusion in the search engines. Along with having your website or blog listed in the organic (free) section of the search engines, you can also pay to have a link to your website show up in the sponsored links section for your keywords or keyword phrases.

This is known as pay-for-placement or pay-per-click advertising. One of the more popular programs is Google Adwords, where you can have your ad show up in the Google search engine. Yahoo!, MSN and the other search engines offer similar pay-for-inclusion services.

The thing to remember with both SEO and SEM is that these marketing practices focus on the search engines. SEO generates free traffic while you pay for SEM traffic. There are, however, a lot of other ways to reach your clients other than using search engines.

Internet Marketing
Internet marketing is a much broader marketing method. It includes SEO, SEM and many other forms of marketing on the Internet.

The primary goal of Internet marketing is to take advantage of the entire Internet to market your product or service. The top Internet marketers understand that there are many other ways to reach potential clients then through just search engines. For example, you can reach potential clients through:
  1. Article Marketing
  2. Video Marketing
  3. Social Bookmarking
  4. Social Networking
  5. Email Marketing
  6. Joint Venture Marketing
  7. Website Advertising
  8. Blogging
  9. Podcasting
  10. Affiliate Marketing
These techniques have nothing to do with the search engines, but they're oftentimes overlooked by new marketers on the Internet.

If you want to learn how to use SEO, SEM and Internet marketing to promote your business, join us in the Internet Marketing forum.
 ]]> Bob Sommers http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/bob-sommers/138-difference-between-seo-sem-internet-marketing.html Ezinearticles.com vs. ArticleMarketer.com http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/bob-sommers/136-ezinearticles-com-vs-articlemarketer-com.html Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:44:41 GMT
I've been spending some time now promoting the benefits of using Article Marketer as an article distribution site. Truth is, I've been so engaged with Article Marketer, that I have not spent any time looking at the alternatives.

In this blog post, I want to compare the distribution of one of my article marketing articles distributed on Article Marketer with an article marketing article uploaded to Ezinearticles.com.

For the purpose of this comparison, I've done an exact search for both articles by title on Yahoo! Here are the results.

Ezinearticles.com
The first article is an article by Sean Mize who is an article marketing guru. He's the most prolific writer on the subject of article marketing and I love his content. Sean is a huge Ezinearticle.com fan and he uploads all of his articles to that site.

Ezinearticles.com is a free site and they do not go out of their way to promote your article onto other websites.

The title of the article I selected from Sean's list of articles was, The Myth Of Free Traffic Online - Part 3 (Related To Article Marketing) and it was uploaded to Ezinearticles.com on May 27, 2008. This article has been on the Internet for 120 days.

Here are the results on Yahoo! for an exact search for Sean's article by title.


The results show that Sean's article shows up on the Internet 31 times.
ArticleMarketer.com
Now let's look at the results of an article marketing article that was written by my favorite author ... Bob Sommers :-)

This article is entitled How Article Marketing Can Extend Your Reach and it was uploaded to the Internet on August 20, 2008. This article has been on the Internet for only 37 days.

Here are the results on Yahoo! for an exact search for my article by title.


The results show that my article shows up on the Internet 749 times.

This is not a fair comparison


Ezinearticles.com does not promote itself as an article distribution site. The only reason I did this comparison is because there are thousands of authors who don't understand the value of sites like Article Marketer.

If you're going to take the time to write an article, why not get the very most out of that article. In the example above, Article Marketer was able to distribute my article to 24 times as many sites as an article by a very popular author on Ezinearticles.com.

I would love to read what you have to say on this subject. If you're interested in learning how to promote your website through article marketing, please watch our Article Marketing for Professionals video series.
Attached Images
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File Type: png yahoo.png (643 Bytes, 143 views)
File Type: png yahoo2.png (570 Bytes, 138 views)
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]]> Bob Sommers http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/bob-sommers/136-ezinearticles-com-vs-articlemarketer-com.html Simple Links, External Content and Instant Rankings http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/132-simple-links-external-content-instant-rankings.html Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:07:40 GMT *Keyword Domination* We all know how powerful video and article marketing (http://www.recognizedexpert.com/traffic/article-marketing) can be.... Keyword Domination
We all know how powerful video and article marketing can be. Instant rankings for long tale keywords and thousands of powerful links back can't be beat!

So I'm going to start looking into some of the other off-site-sites ;) that will allow you to add content relevant to your long tale keyword. (Basically shooting for instant rankings for long tale keywords...)

Here are a few that I'm going to start looking into:

eHow.com
hubpages.com
squidoo.com

I'll let you guys know what I discover, but in the time being I would love to hear of your experiences with these sites as well as any other sites you use. ]]> Josh Sommers http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/132-simple-links-external-content-instant-rankings.html The Search For Keywords: A Never Ending Story http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/130-search-keywords-never-ending-story.html Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:15:30 GMT http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh/attachments/58d1221866187-search-keywords-never-ending-story-keywords.gif* Keyword Chaos* It...
Keyword Chaos

It seems like there is a lot of confusion regarding keyword research. And hopefully I can add to the chaos. :)

Different goals warrant different keywords. Some people are looking to generate traffic, others are looking for a high click through rate (CTR), many seek high payout terms, while the rest of us are looking for the low competition niche keywords... there are so many different TYPES of keywords.

Many Internet marketing courses/sites/experts/companies fail to mention that there is no "best" or "one size fits all" keyword. You really have to understand your audience and your goals.


So, what are the different keywords?

Types of keywords (extremely basic list):
High Paying - Important for AdSense campaigns.
High Traffic - Important for inbound links and overall site traffic.
High CTR - Critical for AdWords and landing pages.


Is There A Secret?

It seems there is no single metric that can gauge how "good" a keyword will be.

You have to take in account how much competition there is for a given keyword, how many searches are being done, how many people are advertising with the term, how much they are paying, if that keyword is seasonal, and if it is on a trend of sorts. Each factor weighs differently for each "type" of keyword also. For example, a highly searched low competition keyword will be good for traffic unless the term was "pumpkin" the day after Halloween.

So there are just a few of my thoughts on keyword research... I hope they help someone! :)

Can anyone recommend any keyword tools? I have been using KeywordCountry for a while now and really like it, but I'm always looking to try new tools.
Attached Images
File Type: gif keywords.gif (16.6 KB, 143 views)
]]> Josh Sommers http://www.recognizedexpert.com/expert/blogs/josh-sommers/130-search-keywords-never-ending-story.html