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"Starting
Smart!"an
online e-zine for newbies and semi-seasoned Internet marketers
alike.
Issue: February 14, 2004
"Does
Having Dashes In Your Domain Rank Higher?"
"Starting Smart!"
The Ezine for the Online Marketing
Newbie
and Junior level Internet marketer
February 14, 2004
Karl Augustine - Publisher
Subscribe Link:
http://startingsmart.9mistakes-online.com
*Greetings, I hope all is well with you...
Hello,
Welcome new subscribers, thanks
for being here! Without you, none of this would be worth
a hoot.
Lots going on as usual...I
am in the middle of JV arrangements with a search engine
optimization expert so I apologize if this is a little late.
Happy
V-Day!
I hope you enjoy(ed) the weekend!
Tell your loved ones how you feel.
4 quick things
to talk about...
1. Email etiquette
2. Product support
3. Sales copy
4. Increased rankings via
incoming links - affiliates.
1. Email etiquette
Be smart, be nice,
be straightforward, and answer in detail if at all possible.
Wow, I cannot believe how
many marketers forget this or take offense to general questions
via email. It is very unfortunate because when marketers
don't answer nicely or with any detail, they lose money
and they lose repeat customers. Last week I emailed a marketer
about some software I was considering and got a 1 word answer.
I emailed again asking another question and got a reference
to the 1st email he sent! What?
So, naturally I sought out
a competitor and emailed him. He answered me in detail and
was professional through and through. Who would you
rather buy from?
2. Product Support
If you're going to sell something
online, have a strong support mechanism in place. Help people
through any questions or 'after-purchase' issues they they
have, it is only fair. More importantly, it is vitally important...you
want your customers to be advocates of your product(s) don't
you? Of course...
Example:
I use Adrian
Ling's Easy Clickmate software so I can have multiple
products with 1 Clickbank account and track which products
sell best. I love it, it is fantastic software! Back when
I was thinking of buying it, I emailed Adrian...he answered.
He was nice. He answered in detail and wished me the best
and told me I could contact him anytime. This is the way
it is supposed to be done.
3. Sales copy
It is really rough for newbies
or junior level Internet marketers to grasp how to write
good sales copy. (It took time for me to learn, that's for
sure and I am still learning!) It is laborious but if you
do it right but it pays off in spades!
One key thing to remember is
to re-read it over and over and make it conversational.
Read it aloud also, multiple times and keep refining it.
In addition, make sure your really do recognize that every
word means something, every word
counts. This is a tough concept to believe but its true...every
word counts.
People don't have strong attention
spans sometimes and on the web, it is easy to get distracted.
Make sure that, if you reel someone in, don't lose them!
The copy should be solid all the way through...the goal
of course, is for the reader to begin looking for order
links well before he or she gets to the end.
4. Increased rankings
via incoming links - affiliates.
There's a section in "9
Deadly Mistakes..." where I discuss affiliates,
and how to choose them.
Here's an example of why doing
a little homework before approaching "would be"
can pay off.
A few weeks ago, I contacted
a site owner who is in another niche with the hopes if getting
my link (his affiliate link) onto his site to sell a product
of mine. He agreed and began making sales immediately. I
sold more products and my traffic doubled overnight. Why?
Because this site owner is one of the top leaders in traffic
in this particular niche. I'd guess his site has to be getting
well over 1500 unique visitors a day, all who are looking
for information related to that particular niche. Now that's
targeted traffic!
Great partner to have eh?
The bottom line is, do your research and choose
who you want to do business with and approach them professionally.
I am launching a new site
and will do a case study that I will share with you (probably)
regarding rankings from SE's and how domains relate to SE
results. More on that next issue.
I hope that
you start your online business if you haven't already. It
certainly is fun, rewarding, and not that tough really if
you just decide to keep going!
The password to the Members
page for "Community
Chest" is in the email sent to you
announcing the online version of this newsletter.
And last and most
importantly...
Thanks for being a subscriber
to "Starting Smart!"...
if you have any questions, suggestions,
ideas, JV opportunities you'd like to discuss, etc., email
me directly.
MAILTO:karl@9mistakes-online.com
Thanks for being here and
enjoy the rest of the issue!
Karl Augustine
"The Regular
Guy"
Also in this edition...
*Viral
Marketing
*Products every Internet marketer should have
*Featured Article #1:
"Does
Having Dashes In Your Domain Rank Higher?",
by John Ricera
*In the news...
*Featured Article #2:
"Why You Need An "Add URL" Page"-
by James Brausch
*
Subscriber Spotlight-
New Feature!
*Welcome New Subscribers! Help us grow...
*F*reebie(s) of this issue in the
"Starting Smart Community Chest!"
*Copyright and Publisher Info
*Viral marketing
LOOK:
All Publishers and List Owners
Since this Viral eBooks are
the subject of this issue, seems fitting to piggyback eh?!
Remember to increase traffic
to your site and promote your affiliate links by using 1
of the 2 versions of the min brand-able version of "9
Deadly Mistakes...". One version is for people who
have been members of certain affiliate programs for a while
and are in programs that have been so successful, that they
aren't allowing new applications.
The other version is a trimmed
down version that anyone can profit from.
The pdf branding software
is fantastic and extremely easy to use, branding the book
only takes 1-2 minutes. Send an email now to MAILTO:brand9@9mistakes-online.com
to get the 2 brand-able versions and begin increasing traffic
to your site and promoting links. In my reply email, you'll
receive full instructions and the link to use to brand either
book.
Give the pdf branded Mini
version of "9 Deadly Mistakes..."
away to your list.
MAILTO:brand9@9mistakes-online.com
*Special Gift from
Paul Myers
This is a
report you should read, FULL of content...
No cost report about consistency
in your marketing and the user experience...click below
to download.
Viral
Study
Once you have downloaded the
"Viral Study" pdf,
I strongly encourage you to subscribe to Paul's newsletter
"TalkBiz News". Paul's
been doing this for years, and is one of the web's most
prominent copywriters and marketers and he only puts out
top quality stuff. He's got a good sense of humor too!
Paul isn't aware I am doing
this and I have no stake in it whatsoever. But, as someone
dedicated to helping newbies and junior level marketers,
this is an automatic thing...you'll learn a lot from Paul.
Subscribe by sending a blank
mail to TalkBiz
*Products every
Internet marketer should have.
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read on online marketing, the ultimate course for the Internet
marketer. It helped me develop a profitable business!
Cory Rudl's Latest Version
of his #1 Selling Course, "Insider Secrets
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*Attention:
Anyone who has an online business!
There
is a new tool offered by Terry and Marc Goldman of "JV
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price...it helped me close many a JV deal.)
This tool
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could ever need to run an online business.
Here's
a small and partial list of the tools you
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Shopping Cart,
list server, ad tracker, pop up maker, site tracker, rotator
for headline tracking, survey creator, unlimited auto responder
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All of these
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I am not going
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*Featured
Article:
"Does Having Dashes In Your Domain Rank Higher?"
by Jon Ricerca
This question is debated hotly
in many SEO (Search Engine Optimization) forums. The answer,
like so many others can be easily obtained by performing
a statistical analysis of the actual results from the leading
search engine. This article presents the results of such
an analysis.
I used the following methodology
to answer this question. I gathered the results of the queries
I naturally performed last month using the leading search
engine and analyzed them. I then counted the number of listings
that had at least one dash in the domain vs. those that
didn't have any dashes. This data was tabulated against
the ranking for the first 8 search engine listings.
Here
is the graph:
The X-axis shows the ranking
from 1 through 8 on the leading search engine. The Y-axis
shows the number of domains that contained dashes. There
is no obvious correlation, which indicates that domains
containing dashes are generally equally distributed. They
are neither more likely to be ranked higher, nor lower.
There is an odd result for
the first three positions, which I suspect is merely a statistical
quirk. I generally look for an overall correlation (scale:
-100 to +100) of above +33 or below -33 to consider something
statistically significant using the amount of data I studied.
The ranking correlation in this case was -21.
The fact is that the leading
search engine, on average, did rank domains containing dashes
slightly lower than domains that did not contain dashes,
but not significantly so.
Note:
For the purposes of this test,
only the domain portion of the URL was studied. Dashes present
in the rest of the URL were not counted as domains with
dashes if the domain itself did not contain any dashes.
Conclusion:
When looking at the first 8
positions, the leading search engine ranks domains containing
dashes slightly lower in the data we studied, however the
correlation is not solid enough to be significant. This
is merely a correlation study, so it cannot be determined
from this study whether the leading search engine purposefully
entertains this factor or not. The actual factors used may
be far distant from the factor we studied, but the end result
is that this search engine does, in fact, rank domains containing
dashes slightly lower than domains containing no dashes.
Jon Ricerca is one of the leading
researchers and authors of the Search Engine Ranking Factor
(SERF) reports at SearchEngineGeek.com.
For access to the other SERF
reports, please visit:
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com
In
"the news"
You
Are Being Lied To About Reciprocal Links!
*Featured
Article:
"Why You Need An "Add URL"
Page"
by James D. Brausch
http://www.quitthatjob.com
Exchanging links with sites
of a similar topic is one of the most effective free forms
of advertising I have ever found. It really is the most
direct way to improve your web presence. This is the nature
of the Internet... The more paths you have to your site,
the more traffic you will have. It is important to have
an "Add URL" page.
This article discusses the
important elements of your own "Add URL" page.
What is an "Add URL"
page? It is a page where you describe how you would like
others to link to your site and invite them to submit a
link to be listed on your site. Here is an example which
illustrates most of the points I'll make here:
http://www.athomebusinessportal.com/links/addlink.html
It is a lot of work to get
your first 200-300 inbound links to your site by finding
and soliciting link exchanges from other sites. Once you
do that work, you deserve a reward. Having an "Add
URL" page like this one is part of your reward. After
doing all that work, you will have enough traffic that you
will start receiving link requests from your own "Add
URL" page with no work to go find these sites.
Pretty cool, huh?
Let's talk about the important
elements of your "Add URL" page that will maximize
its effectiveness:
Place a link to your Add URL
page on every page of your site. This page is important
enough to warrant it's own place on your navigation bar.
Make your link say "Add
URL", not "Submit Site" or "Add Link"
or anything else. Trust me on this. I have already performed
all of the click-thru analysis on every
combination of words imaginable. You will receive your best
response if the links to your Add URL page use the words
"Add URL".
Once you have dozens of sites
(if you ever do), you may want to experiment with other
wording to make your sites more unique.
At the top of your "Add
URL" page, use your major keyword in a large heading.
The major keyword for the example page is "Home Business".
You'll notice that it says "Home Business - Add URL"
in large type at the top of the page.
This will help the search engines
know what your page is about. After some time, you'll start
getting traffic directly to your "Add URL" page
from the search engines for phrases like "[your keyword]
add url".
Next, encourage your visitors
to link to your site before requesting a link. Don't be
tempted to start making your visitor jump through hoops
to prove that they have already linked before going on.
You want them to submit their link even if they don't immediately
link to you. If everyone refused to provide a link before
the other site linked to them... well... no-one would ever
link up; would they?
Be sure to have a form. Do
not require them to email you to submit their link. You
will receive a lot more requests for links if you use a
simple form. In addition, you will be controlling the format
of the link requests. That way you will avoid having to
email back and forth to get more information.
Guide them in how to link to
your site, but leave it up to them to create a link of their
own if they want. There are as many different kinds of webmasters
as there are different kinds of people. You need to recognize
that some are lazy and are only willing to copy/paste some
code you provide... while others have a very specific format
for links on their site and want to do everything for themselves.
Don't wait to put up your own
Add URL page. Every inbound link means more traffic to your
site. Having your own Add URL page will really encourage
others to link to you and request a link from you.
The author, James D. Brausch,
is the coach and webmaster of QuitThatJob.com, a site dedicated
to providing step-by-step instructions to start your own
profitable Internet business and Quit That Job!
For more information, please
visit:
http://www.quitthatjob.com/
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"9 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid When Starting An Online Business".
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Thanks!
Cookies Anyone?!
I had the pleasure of tasting
Gramma Walt's cookies last week. Wow! Very good, and I am
certainly not a sweets fan...but my wife is. She absolutely
loved them.
We had the "Rocky Mountain
Ranger" kind, but there's lots to choose from.
Thick, rich, large, and chewy...best
I've ever had...definitely gourmet.
If you like great cookies,
visit Gramma
Walt's Gourmet Cookies.
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All
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Karl Augustine
"The
Regular Guy"
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