Up until now we have focused mainly on keywords, but what about using long tail keyword phrases? Can they be used as well to effectively increase the targeted traffic you need?

Most of us are aware that a keyword represents a single word that we expect people will type into a search engine when they are looking for information. We are able to identify these keywords, and by using these keywords on websites, optimize our content and pages with them so that the search engines bots and spiders will find them when they are checking out what we have to offer. By using targeted words your customer is most likely to use, you increase your chances of showing up in the top results when that customer is searching online.

But what about using long tail keyword phrases? Are you optimizing for those as well? While it is true that people will type in a specific word when they are searching, they seldom type in just one word. Whenever someone types multiple words into the search engine, they are submitting a keyword phrase. Simply put, a keyword phrase is a search term that includes two or more words combined.

Going back to our example of dog training from an earlier post, if someone was to type in just the word “dog” or the word “training,” they would end up with huge list of results that most likely will have nothing to do with dog training specifically.

This is the downside of using singular keywords for both the person searching and also for the online marketer trying to reach a targeted audience. The results from singular keywords are just too broad. So, in the case of the searcher, they give it another try.

This time they are more specific and they type in a long tail keyword phrase like “dog training”. Any time more than one word is used for a search, you have what is called a long tail keyword phrase. The results the search engine will show them this time are probably a lot closer to what they were looking for.

It depends of course whether they were looking for general information or if they had something more specific in mind. If their real goal was to find a dog training facility in San Diego, these results would probably still not give them what they are looking for. So, once again they try a new keyword phrase.

If they were to type in a long tail keyword phrase like “dog training san diego,” the chances are pretty good that they will find the specific information that they are looking for. The results the search engine will return will be focused on websites and ads that are targeted to the keyword phrase “dog training san diego.”

We can see that the searcher is finding the targeted results he or she is looking for by using long tail keyword phrases, and because of this, we also know that we can use this to our advantage and target long tail keyword phrases that our intended audience and traffic are looking for.

When you use a keyword tool to research a keyword, the results returned include long tail keyword phrases along with the results for the initial keyword. Because of the make up of some of the phrases that are returned, it is harder to use them in a natural manner in your content.

They may, however, work well in page titles, anchor text, image tags and headlines. Or you may want to create a unique page for the long tail keyword phrase of your choice and use anchor text to connect it to your other related content. The “KEY” so to speak to using long tail keyword phrases effectively is to ensure that they are placed in such a manner that they appear to be a natural addition.

Using keywords on websites is not an option and neither is using long tail keyword phrases. Find, use, and target long tail keyword phrases that your intended audience might use to find what you are selling. This will help people find you quicker and improve your search engine ranking.

As a bonus, not only do long tail keyword phrases zero in on your targeted audience more effectively, but they also tend to be less costly if you are using them in conjunction with a PPC campaign.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

When someone is looking for information, they hope to find content that is relevant and useful to them in explaining an issue or helping them to solve a problem they are having.

Generally, they don’t particularly care what form that information is provided in, however, there are some that simply do not like having to read to find what they seek. The use of video media as a means of providing content is yet another tool an Internet marketer can use to increase website traffic.

A lot of people shy away from learning how to create videos as they expect it will be costly. However, we are not talking about creating feature films here, so take a step back and a deep breath and relax. Many of the videos you find on the Internet today were created using computer software found on the average computer. The addition of a webcam and a USB connection with which to hook it up may be all that you need to become the star of your own videos.

As the business owner or product creator, who is more qualified to tell your story than you? A rule of thumb in content video creation is to stay front and center so that those watching will see who you are and hear what you have to say. This a where you are able to showcase your expertise for your viewing audience.

There are many places out on the Internet that provide information on learning how to create videos. Check out YouTube as one helpful resource. It can’t be all that hard as thousands of videos are being uploaded every day for mass viewing by people with relatively little in the way of computer experience. As long as you are not expecting your videos to gain the same viral fan base that one on Brad Pitt will, you will do fine and in the process, develop an additional source of traffic for your website.

Take the time to read the submission guidelines posted on the video sites that you plan to use. Read all of the fine print as well to ensure that the video you have spent time creating will be accepted when it comes time to upload it.

If you have your own website, you can also upload your videos directly. One of the benefits of doing so is that you are not limited in the length of the video as is the case on many video sites. On the downside though, your web hosting needs to be able to handle the increased bandwidth required by these videos.

One of the benefits of using a video site is that the video is then hosted on that site, reducing the load on your own site. As well, you are still able to feature the video on your own website and at the same time, video remains available to the masses.

Create videos that show how to use your products. These how-to videos will increase consumer confidence by showing them how to use them most effectively. If you have a knack for teaching, these how-to type videos will be welcomed by those interested in your niche. There are very few limits on what can be done with video as long as it remains in good taste. One look through YouTube will show you a range of topics for content video creation are only limited by your imagination.

Practice Your Technique

While you are learning how to best work with video, it helps to realize that you will most likely make a few trial runs before you have something you are comfortable with sharing. Watch your test runs and ask yourself if this is something that you would be interested in viewing to the end. How relaxed do you appear? How does your voice come across? Do you sound relaxed and conversational? Or do you tend to speak in a dry monotone. People respond best to conversational tones, so talk to the camera in the same manner you would to a friend over coffee.

Take some time to learn how to shoot and edit your video so that your informational content comes through clearly to the audience. No one wants to get sea sick watching a video that is rocking back and forth constantly, nor will they get much out of something that is out of focus or too dark to make out.

Like with everything else in life, learning how to shoot video takes some practice to get it right. On the other hand, don’t spend so much time looking for perfection that the video never gets published. No one is expecting you to produce videos that qualify for the Emmy Awards.

Make Your Video Your Own

No matter what topic you choose for your video media content, chances are that someone else has already done a video on that topic as well. Finding a unique hook to gain the attention of your intended audience and using keywords that audience will be looking for in your video titles will significantly increase the chances of your video being noticed and watched. Once your video has been noticed, it is then up to you to keep the attention of your audience throughout the presentation.

Have fun with it. The more you are able to convey to your audience that you are interested in and enjoy the subject you are presenting, the more they will enjoy it as well and the more likely they will pass on the link so that others can watch it as well.

Advertise Your Videos

Make reference to your website in your video and include a link so that the viewer is able to enter it and check out your website. Some types of video editing software give you the ability to add clickable links at the end of the video or even redirect viewers to another site.

Redirection is not something you would want to use on a video that is publicly posted, unless the viewer has been explicitly informed that this will occur, as it could upset the viewer. However, for a video that is posted on your own website, it could be used to redirect someone to a sales page or opt-in form.

Use your social connections and friends to get the word out about your video. Invite people to check it out, pass the link on to their own contacts and submit comments. Use any constructive criticism given as a tool to help you to improve your video skills.

Learning how to create videos for your business provides you with another way to provide your followers with informational content. Many marketers say that producing video media content is one of their most enjoyable means of creating content for their visitors and followers. So, become the star of your own videos and increase website traffic with this traffic-generating tool.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

Site Statistics

It’s all about traffic. Without traffic to your website there are no sales and your business will not grow. While a marketing plan may be used to guide you through steps to take that will increase the traffic visiting your website it isn’t foolproof.

Unless you are able to measure the results produced by your efforts, you have no way of knowing what is working and what is not. This is where using site stats to measure your results comes into play. Here are a few examples:

1. Unique And Returning Visitors – In order to grow your traffic, you want to know that the number of unique and returning visitors is increasing. Unique visitors are people that are visiting your website for the first time.

When they arrive, it is then up to your website to convince them to stay to find out more about what is offered and also return to remain updated on any changes made. Growth in the number of returning visitors shows that your ability to convince new visitors is working.

2. Keyword Tracking Analysis – Site stats provide you with information on which keywords are attracting visitors to your website and which are not, helping you to better optimize your site and focus any advertising efforts.

3. Visitor Conversion Tracking – This is the measurement of how many of your visitors take the step from just reading your content to the one of purchasing your products. This measurement once again shows you which efforts are paying off and which need to be refined or removed.

4. Web Page Analysis – Did you know that it is possible to track a visitor’s progress through your website and see whether they have viewed any pages in addition to the one they landed on? This type of analysis provides you with added information on what your visitors are interested in.

5. Tracking Page Views – The ability to determine which pages receive the most traffic.

These are just a sample of a few of the statistics that can be gathered from the traffic visiting your website. These statistics help you to determine which of your marketing efforts receive the best response and which have a negative effect or no effect at all. When testing changes, keep an eye out for fluctuations in related stats.

Because statistics are generally gathered on a monthly basis, it can take several months to recognize trends or results from changes made. Trends are an indication of the way your marketing plans are shaping up. The lag time involved means that it may take several months for these trends to appear on a consistent basis and requires patience on the part of the website owner to allow for this development time.

Frequent changes are not recommended for purely testing purposes. Changes made will skew the results making it difficult to determine what is working. The amount of traffic being analyzed needs to be factored into the equation. A site with low traffic volumes will need more time to reveal accurate trends.

Site stats provide a snapshot of activity in a given time frame. Without this ability, you are unable to measure the results of any changes or added marketing efforts you make. Working without stats is akin to shooting an arrow into the dark and hoping it will hit its intended target. You have no means of correcting your aim. While not foolproof, using site stats to measure your results will give you a more reliable insight into where changes can be made to improve your business efforts.

Using site stats to measure website performance is a key component in SEO basics. There are many software tools (both free and paid) available to help you compile these stats. There are also many companies that can be hired who are able to measure this information for you and provide you with an analysis of the results, but for most smaller website owners, a good analysis software program will be all that is needed.

Are you using a software program to help you gather site stats to track your marketing efforts? Leave a comment and share the programs that you find helpful so that others may learn from your experience.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

A hobbyist, turned niche marketer, may find that conducting the necessary research for defining their niche market does not necessarily come to him/her naturally.

One of the reasons many find it so difficult is that they have been conditioned over the years to base their efforts in a manner that appeals to a mass audience as opposed to one that is narrowly defined. This is where Internet marketing software can help you find and reach your market.

Software developers and marketing companies have been working to make it easier for the newbie online business owner to quickly learn the art behind conducting market research.

Newly developed Internet marketing software is being released frequently to meet the many needs of getting an online business up and running. Software focusing on compiling niche market information is one of the needs that is being met.

Areas where software can help you include:

Keyword Research Software

Keyword research software programs assist you in finding the most popular keywords and phrases that relate to what people are searching for in your chosen niche. They do the dirty work for you by compiling results taken from various search engines and returning the highest performing results to you. This is definitely not something you would want to have to do manually.

Protection

As the niche marketing field has grown, so to has the opportunity for those that are less than scrupulous to take advantage of the hard work that you have done. Many software companies include programs that help the niche marketer to protect their investments from being taken advantage of by those who would use your hard work for their own gain.

Additional software that every online marketer must have includes good quality firewall, the windows version is better than nothing, but isn’t the best, and of course, virus protection software. There are still a few free ones available for you to try. Two that you may consider looking at are:

Firewall: Comodo Personal Firewall
Virus Software: Avira AntiVir Free

Email Marketing Campaign Services

Developing a email list is one of the top recommended practices for niche marketers. Doing this by hand would be a formidable task. Fortunately there are email marketing campaign services available that helps you automate most of the tasks involved in working with an email list.

One program that is highly recommended is by a company called AWeber. They provide email marketing campaign services that meet the various needs a niche marketer has for setting up and automating their email marketing campaigns. There are other companies that have similar products. Take the time to thoroughly research what is offered to find the one that is best suited to your own needs.

Link Building Tools and Software

The importance of creating quality backlinks to your website can not be stressed enough. These links need to be created in places where your niche audience will be found.

Focusing on sites that are specifically related to your niche will bring far better results than catering to the masses with unrelated sites. Many online marketers use link building tools and software to help them to identify good locations for their link placements.

Information Management Tools

The Wordpress blogging platform is just one of the many information management tools that people use to manage and organize the content on their sites. Along with this platform are an abundance of free templates and plugins to give a Wordpress blog a great look and greater functionality.

Those marketers that took the time to ensure that the hosting service they are using provides Wordpress friendly blog hosting will find this platform easy to learn and work with.

Finding what works best for you in your niche market will take some research as well as a fair bit of trial and error. What may appear at first to be a great information management tool, many turn out to be more bother than it is worth. Most software available is designed to only focus on one aspect.

Keyword research software will typically only perform that one function and not provide you with any help in the area of content management. So, be prepared for the fact that while Internet marketing software can help you find and reach your market, you will need more than one program.

If you purchase software to help you with any area of your niche marketing, be sure the software performs in the manner you need it to. There is a lot of software out there and often it is highly hyped and promoted, but when it comes to using it, it fails to perform up to your expectations.

Making sure that the software comes with a money back guarantee and that your payment is being accepted through a recognized payment portal such as Paypal or Clickbank will help to protect you should you find that the software does not perform as needed.

There is a lot that goes into learning niche marketing. Finding and using internet marketing software to make your job easier is a learning process that never ends as there will always be new and possibly better software for you to evaluate and use.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

We are all familiar with the various tactics that traditional businesses use to catch our attention and our interest in visiting their locations. Flyers, newspaper copy, signage and media ads all compete for our attention. In the world of online business we also use many of these same methods in an electronic format.

We’ve all run across website content in our everyday searches. One of the keys to writing for online business is knowing when to write and when not to. Believe it or not, many website owners do not write all of the content found on their websites. Instead they may take advantage of the free resource that article marketing represents to provide quality content for their readers.

These articles have been posted to article directories for the express purpose of being used as content on other websites. Their use on your website provides you with a timesaving technique, which allows you to keep your website filled with fresh and up-to-date information for your customers and readers. Writing for online business is significantly easier when you use this time saving resource.

What Is Article Marketing?

Article marketing at its heart is the practice of writing articles that can be used by others. The article writer does not receive payment of any sort for writing and posting these articles to article directories.

However, if the article is well written, other sites are able to reprint them as content on their own websites and blogs, along with the author’s information. If one of your articles is reprinted, it will then give you and your site added exposure.

There is very little up front cost involved with producing articles other than the time it takes to write your articles. That is, provided you are writing these articles yourself and not using the services of a ghostwriter.

Most prefer to do the work themselves initially to cut costs and some have no problem producing several articles in a day. Take a look around your computer as you may have plenty of material just sitting there gathering digital dust that could be cleaned up and used to help you get the ball rolling.

Making Article Marketing Work For You

The articles that you have either written or had written for you are submitted to the various article directories available online. These directories contain thousands of articles people have written on a wide array of topics. Here are some you may already have heard about:

• EzineArticles.com
• Articlebase.com
• Buzzle.com
• GoArticles.com
• ArticleStars.com

This is just a small sample list of the directories available. Some directories specialize in specific content, while others accept content on a wide variety of topics. For a list of the top 50 article directories, visit Vretoolbar.com.

Every article directory has its own rules regarding the content that you are able to submit or reprint. Part of making article marketing work for you will include taking the time to carefully read through these rules and follow them exactly. One method you can use to help make the creation and submission of articles easier is to keep a spreadsheet of the directories you belong to.

List the name of the directory, the access URL, your login details, and any requirements they might have that will directly impact how your articles will be written. Details such as required article length, number of allowed links and any requirements for the type of link (personal or external) can be noted.

Some directories have restrictions on how many other sites can have the same article, and some require that they have the only copy. If these requirements are listed in a spreadsheet, you are able to view them quickly rather than taking the time to re-read the directory rules when it is time to submit your article

Once your article has been submitted, the directory has the option of accepting it, rejecting it, or sending it back to you with recommended changes. Taking the time to ensure your article is well written from the start will save you and the directory editor’s time.

Don’t forget to include SEO factors in your articles by optimizing them for the keywords or phrases you are targeting. Hopefully it goes without saying that the content of the article should be related to the content of the blog or website you are directing people to in your resource box.

In addition to the ability to submit your articles, you are also given the option of making use of the articles submitted by the directory’s other authors as content for your own sites. Once again, it is important to read the rules the directory has posted in regards to this use.

For example, Ezine Article’s TOS , at the time of this writing, will allow you to use 25 of their articles on a single domain per calendar year. Those with multiple domains are limited to a maximum of 250 articles, which is further defined as 25 articles spread over 10 domains. The 25 articles per domain limit, as you can see, is still in force when you have multiple domains.

Article marketing provides you with three main benefits. First it allows you to submit your own content that may be picked up and published by other sites. Second, it assists building your business’ online presence with article marketing efforts when other sites pick up your content and publish it on their own sites.

This helps increase traffic to your website or blog and gives you a higher level of credibility in your niche market. Third, you are able to take advantage of this free article resource and reprint articles from directories on your own website or blog, lowering the time you spend on your own writing for online business tasks.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

Here are some blog monetization tips and tools that you can use to outfit your blog to make money.

1. Choose Your Main Keywords

Choose your main keywords or keyword phrases for your site, domain name, and copy. Use keyword software to find the most popular ones for your niche and keep a list of them in a spreadsheet for easy reference. Once you have these base keywords and phrases, you are then able to find new variations and combinations to use.

2. Naming Your Blog & Choosing The Best URL

Naming your blog is a key decision you will need to make. Not only will the name you choose become the name people know it by, but it is also a key opportunity to include the main keyword that relates to your blog so that visitors will find it easier. The name you choose will become the domain name for your blog and this can take a bit of time as you may have to try several names to find one available in the domain registry.

How you choose to portray the URL of your domain name is another key decision. One part of the blog submission process is choosing the best URL your blog. Will it be known as http://yourblog.com or will it be known as http://www.yourblog.com/ This is important because the one you choose will be the one that you submit to the search engines as well as the one you will use for links.

These two URLs are different in the eyes of the search engines and the traffic they generate will be split between them. By choosing one form for your URL, you will optimize its traffic. Use the robotics.txt file on your server to point the second form back to the one you are optimizing.

Type your domain name into a browser window. Does it’s natural name come up as http://yourblog.com or as http://yourblog.com/. That one character also plays a role in the URL submitted and optimized.

One last point to consider when naming your blog is the length of the URL it will produce as a domain name. http://www.yourblog.com/ has more characters than http://yourblog.com/. While many feel that the www adds to the professional look of a URL, it may hinder you should you decide to use PPC advertising as most PPC ads have a specified character length they allow for the display URL.

If the URL of this blog was http://worldsbestonlinebusinessresources.com it would be too long and would not be usable in a Google PPC display URL where the limit is 35 characters following the http:// portion of the URL. So you see, naming your blog and choosing the best URL work hand in hand and despite what others may say, length does matter.

3. Submit Your Blog To The Top Search Engines

Before others will be able to find you online, the search engines have to be able to find you. If they do not know you exist, their bots and spiders won’t drop in to crawl all over your content and your site will not be ranked or given the possibility of being shown to searchers.

In order for you to submit your blog to the top search engines, you will need a sitemap. A quick and easy way to generate a sitemap for a Wordpress blog, is to use the Google XML Sitemaps Generator for Wordpress.

This plugin will create your sitemap, rebuild it when you add posts blog and resubmit the changes to the major search engines where you are signed up. You also have the option to manually rebuild the sitemap if you have made major changes that do not require a post.

If your site is not using Wordpress and there are no handy sitemap builders available, try out XML-Sitemaps.com.

4. Set Up An RSS Feed

An RSS feed makes it easy for readers to remain connected to you. Once a reader subscribes to it, they will be kept updated on your new postings without the need to visit your blog daily.

5. Join Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is all the rage at this time and many allow you to add your RSS feed so that your new posts will appear on these sites as well. Other sites allow you to manually submit posts where members viewing your content will often vote on how much they like it. Take care to read the guidelines set out by these sites before submitting to ensure you are not doing anything that would be inappropriate.

6. Toot Your Own Horn

Let others know just how popular you are by using a blog log profile. These profiles show your readers how many fans you have, which in turn will encourage those readers to become fans as well.

7. Make A List

Make a list of any other blogs or affiliations that you have for your readers. A popular place to do this is on the About page. This information will give your readers a more in-depth idea of who you are and help them in their decision to remain associated with you.

Just as you would take care to dress your best for an important occasion or interview, you must also properly outfit your blog to make money. Making a good first impression on your audience will go a long way towards increasing your blog monetization ability and is something you will want to continue to tweak over time.

Keep in mind though, that regardless of how spiffy your blog, it will not matter if the search engines do not know about it. Make the decision to submit your blog to the top search engines a top priority.

Blog monetization is in part about making is easy for your visitors to help you out. Starting with the tools and information listed above will get you started on the right track.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

As someone interested in doing business online, it is up to you to find the people who will be most interested in the product or service that you are offering. But, before you can do that, you first have to choose your niche.

Knowing to whom you will be selling is part of being a successful product salesperson. One of the worst things that can happen is to invest your time and energy into a product that no one wants. So, it just makes sense to start off with defining the niche you will be targeting.

List Building Tips To Help You With Choosing A Niche & Building A Successful List

1. Do Your Research When Choosing A Niche

Ok now, no need for the sour face. Very few of us find the research phase to be highly stimulating. But, it is a necessary phase if you intend to be successful with your niche.

You use research to find the best keywords for your content and SEO right? Research is equally important when it comes to defining which niche to market your product in if you already have a product to work with.

2. Getting Started

Getting started is the most difficult part of the process and how you begin does depend on whether you have a product already or have simply pin pointed a niche that you would like to pursue. In both situations, you will need to identify who your audience will be or possibly, if there is any interest at all.

Let’s take the pet niche as an example. If you were thinking that there are hundreds of possible sub-niches in this niche, you would be right. Even the sub-niches, such as dogs as pets, have hundreds of even narrower niches within. There are hundreds of breeds on which you might choose to focus your niche. If so, find out if there is interest in the breed you would like to target.

Far too often people invest a great deal of time and effort into a niche because they are interested in it without determining if that interest can be monetized.

Just because you are interested in schnauzers, it doesn’t automatically mean that there are enough others who are also interested, to create the traffic you need to be profitable. Lack of interest will certainly hinder you when it comes to building a successful list as well.

If there does appear to be sufficient interest, who are your customers? Are they people who already own a schnauzer or are they potential owners? While they may appear to be one and the same at first, it is important to distinguish between them.

If you already have a product such as a kennel or grooming tools for schnauzers, people who already own this type of dog will most likely be the best group of customers for you to target. However, content focusing on how to train your schnauzer to sleep in their own bed instead of yours will have little appeal to someone who has not as of yet decided to purchase a schnauzer.

Join A Niche Forum

If there are no forums for schnauzer owners, possibly the niche isn’t broad enough to turn a profit for you. Or, it may be that schnauzer owner’s hang out in other places, so use your research time to find and join these places.

Become a part of the conversation schnauzer owners are having and find out not only if your product is something unique, but also if these owners would be interested in your product. Take care that you don’t come across as though you are cross-examining the members or trying to push a sale on them.

The research you gather will assist you in choosing a niche that has the possibility of being profitable. It will also help you to fine-tune your marketing presentation for your product or service to your list.

You want to avoid having a marketing plan that is too general in nature or focused on the wrong audience. And, by first taking the time to research if a niche is viable, you will increase your chances of building a successful list from which to profit over time.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com