The Found Corporation

Anyone doing business online should have a privacy policy clearly posted on their website. This policy serves as protection for visitors. The privacy policy outlines what personally identifiable information the site collects and what the site does with that information.

What is a Privacy Policy and How Does It Differ From Terms of Use?

A privacy policy is not the same as a Terms of Use document. Terms of use, which are legally binding unless they violate the law, state what the visitor may or may not do on the site. Terms of use lay out the expected behavior of the visitor, and make clear what is expected of site visitors. An example of this is sites declaring that no one below a certain age may use the site.

A privacy policy, on the other hand, explains the site’s use of information and informs site visitors what they can expect when they give personal information to the site.

Privacy policies explain what information is collected. This includes information provided to the site when signing for the mailing list or newsletter, information collected by the site through cookies, and any information collected under HIPAA.

A privacy policy also explains what is done with this information. If information is shared, rented or sold, this must be disclosed in the privacy statement.

How to Write a Privacy Policy

One way to write a privacy policy is to use a sample or privacy policy creator. These tools are helpful in creating a privacy policy, but should be used only as a beginning. Any privacy policy should be edited and personalized to the company issuing it.

The first step in writing a privacy policy is to identify the categories of personally identifiable information which will be collected. This may include name, address, email, contact information and medical information protected by HIPAA. Each piece of information collected by the site should be named in the policy. A visitor reading the privacy policy should know exactly what information the site collects.

If the site allows consumers to view and change the information on file about them, explain this in the privacy policy. Instructions on how to view and edit personal information should be clear and easy to follow.

Explain very clearly how information is used by the site. When using a privacy policy creator, be sure to review this section and edit it as necessary. Whether information is collected through signup for a mailing list or newsletter, through cookies or by email, the uses of the information should be made clear. If information is shared with third parties, the privacy policy must explain why and when information is shared.

The final paragraphs of a privacy policy should explain how consumers can learn about future changes to the privacy policy, and identify the privacy policy’s effective date.

Creating a privacy policy is basically a matter of following a particular formula and filling in the necessary information. Privacy policies are less complicated than contracts and can often be created using samples or generators. The resources below will be helpful in creating a privacy policy.

Free Privacy Policy Templates

Templates, or samples, allow site owners to start with a sample privacy policy and build on it to create a customized privacy policy. These samples are generally not specific to any site, but are provided merely as an example for creating a policy.

Search-Marketing.info offers a privacy policy sample with very clear instructions for completing each section: http://www.search-marketing.info/business/privacy.htm

ContractStore.com’s privacy policy can be downloaded in Word format. ContractStore.com asks for a link back to their site: http://www.contractstore.com/news/privacy-policy

FreeNetLaw offers a comprehensive privacy policy including sections on other websites and cross-border data transfer: http://www.freenetlaw.com/free-privacy-statement/

UK businesses can use the privacy policy form PrivacyPolicyTemplate.co.uk: http://www.privacypolicytemplate.co.uk/free-privacy-policy-template.php

Website Law also offers a privacy policy for use in England and Wales: http://www.website-law.co.uk/privacypolicy.html

PowerDMS provides policy statements in Word format: http://www.powerdms.com/landing-page/policy-templates-page.aspx

Surf Safety Net offers a simple but complete privacy policy on their website: http://surfsafety.net/sample2.html

Free Privacy Policy Generators

Privacy policy generators, or creators, allow site owners to plug in their information and receive a privacy policy tailored for their site. Sites created by generators should still be reviewed carefully for accuracy.

GeneratePrivacyPolicy.com provides a privacy policy generator that customizes the policy to the site: http://www.generateprivacypolicy.com/

AdSense publishers may want to use the Adsense-specific privacy policy generation tool at: http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/

Ben Nadel provides a generator for a “generic Terms of Service and Privacy Policy”: http://www.bennadel.com/coldfusion/privacy-policy-generator.htm

Legal River’s website will generate a privacy policy for any site: http://privacy-policy-generator.legalriver.com/

SEOJack.com generates a standard privacy policy/terms of use for a website: http://www.seojack.com/privacy-policy-generator/

Privacy Policy Online creates privacy policies compatible with the major affiliate sites including CommissionJunction and AdSense:http://www.privacypolicyonline.com/

BuildaSiteBookmarks.com offers a privacy policy generator as part of their suite of web tools: http://www.buildasitebookmarks.com/ResourceCenter/FreeWebTools/PrivacyPolicyGenerator

Every website should have a privacy policy. If no information is collected, the privacy policy should say this.

Why is it so crucial to have a policy?

Many affiliate programs, including AdSense, will not accept sites without a privacy policy. Many consumers will also not do business with a site unless they can read a privacy policy.

Having a policy also serves as protection against spam and other complaints from users. By making everything clear and following the policy, a site avoids many nasty interactions which could result in the absence of a good privacy policy.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

The facelift of Google Analytics in November came with mixed reviews. Personally, I resisted the change at first, because I couldn’t navigate analytics as fast as I used to. However, this morning Google sent out an email announcing new features, and that the old version would be removed with the implementation of the features.

So I took a little time to actually get to know the system, and see what the new Analytics had to offer me. I was pleasantly surprised; while I still prefer to use the old version, there are a few things that blow my mind about the new analytics.

The In-Page Tab:

By far the very first improvement I saw with the new Google Analytics was the ease of use for getting to the In-Page Analytics. In-Page Analytics lets you see how users interact with your web pages. For each link, you can see the percentage of clicks that occurred. If you have your analytics linked with Adwords and are running a campaign, you can see the cost per click and percentages of transactions for each link.

Before the update, for each page you wanted to go to in Analytics and see in-page statistics, you had to navigate back to the menu and find the page all over again. Now, with the new and improved dashboards, and the ability to use breadcrumbs to stack filters, you can launch in-page analytics in a whole new way. I personally love to filter for a specific incoming keyword and goal completions, then see where users migrated afterward. There is nothing better than being able to visualize the site traffic to better optimize your site.

However, the real power of in-page comes about not only when you link it to Adwords, but you also take some time to set up specific goal values. Then, you will see for each link that started a goal transaction how successful it was.

Visitors Flow:

What an amazing tool; what more could you ask for when you want to do site architecture optimization? What I mean when I say that is MORE than just flattening the architecture of the site, but getting people to the right pages that have higher conversion rates than others. With the old analytics, you either needed to set up a specific goal funnel and hope that users took that exact path, or painstakingly trace the movement of a specific visitor to get this information

What this tool allows you to do is get an idea of how people are getting to certain pages on your site, and where they go from there. I use it to optimize pages with a high drop-off rate, and create visual goal funnels for myself to help sculpt traffic.

For example, if a lot of people go from the homepage to the bio of the owner of a company, I will optimize the content on that page for their targeted keywords, and insert some sort of contact form in order to make that page have a call to action. Underneath the form, I will link to the most recent blog articles, so if they aren’t willing to convert then, they can stay on the site and possibly convert later. The real value of the tool is being able to use this visual guide to help understand where your users are going, and then use webmaster tools to A/B split test different landing pages. Instead of having to guess where people are going, you know where to run the test at a glance.

Real-Time Audience Overview:

As internet marketers, some of our time is necessarily spent convincing our clients of our worth. Whether it be a “justify your existence” kind of meeting, or an end of the month report, we need to make the information we see palatable and relatable to our clients.

However, sometimes our clients feel that because they pay us, they have a right to ALL of our time, ALL of the time. No matter how strongly you word contracts, it is impossible to keep clients and charge them for all of the time you spend convincing them of your actions, so some of the time is going to come out of your personal time. For those special clients, I would like to introduce you to Real-Time Audience Overview.

Now, for SEO’s, this tab is more-or-less meaningless. What you have on this page is a customizable dashboard that shows some real time data from users on your site, so unless you watch the path of a specific user, and can draw conclusions for it, your time as a marketer is better-spent data mining through your historical data. However, the real power of this tool is giving it to the client to let them feel like they have their thumb on internet marketing. One of our hardest selling points is the data collecting, split testing, and code modification we do. While this tab won’t show them this, it allows them to see some data, to feel that they are a part of it in some way, and for that little extra breathing room, this tab is invaluable.

I have a client that sells wallpaper, and it seems like they spend most of their day calling me to make sure that people are coming to their site. Despite the fact that wallpaper has been a pretty down industry historically, they feel that the success or failure of their business rests squarely on my shoulders. Also, I experimented with over-communicating; sending daily emails inundated with analytics reports, but I found they were just ignoring them and asking me the same questions addressed by the data.

When I introduced them to real-time analytics, I finally had some room to work. They are able to see, in real time, the number of people on the site, the referring site, and the active pages all at a glance. I even added the dashboard widget to show them from where in the country active traffic is coming from.

Pete Wise is a white-hat SEO working for Customer Paradigm. We staff some of the most highly qualified Magento Developers in the business, and I spend most of my day doing Magento SEO to optimize the new builds. Contact Customer Paradigm today for a Quote. If you liked the article, connect with me on Google+

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

Are you leveraging the profit potential of your blog posts? If you are simply writing content for your blog without any regard for optimization and readability, you are leaving potential right on the table.

With a few steps, you can give your readers and the search engines exactly what they want.

1. Find a Unique Topic

Think about a topic that will compel your blog readers to share your content. Make it creative and unique. Here are some quick tips to finding topics:

• Ask! Ask your readers what they want to read.
• Research forum sites and Q&A platforms like LinkedIn groups or Quora to see what people are asking in your industry.
• What are your readers’ needs? Research on Twitter, Facebook or any other social site to determine what problems need to be solved in your industry.
• Spy on other related blogs and sift through the comments to discover trends.
• News is always a welcomed topic because it is “hot off the presses”. The quicker you can report the story, the better. For example, I wrote an article a little while ago entitled: Will SEO be Dead in 6 Months? It discussed breaking, controversial news about Google and generated quite a buzz.

2. Keyword Research

Write your blog around specific keywords. Not just any keywords, but those for which people are looking. If your keyword is only searched by 12 people a month, it’s time to move on. You can use the Google Keyword Tool for your research. If the search value and competition is high, you will have found a good keyword that will interest people. Devise one main keyword and two or three variations for each post.

Tip: Don’t get hung up with this step. If you have an idea for a blog post and you are having a hard time fitting in an exact keyword, write the post anyways if you know your audience will love it. You can do more keyword research for your next post. Focus on value first.

Important: Make sure your keywords are aligned with your audience’s needs. Don’t write about selling to businesses if your audience sells goods to consumers.

3. Write the Blog Post

Write as an authority who is teaching your readers worthwhile information. Write in a conversational tone and avoid selling.

New marketers: If you are just starting, it can be hard to imagine yourself an expert. What you must understand is that everyone is an expert at something. Whether you are a parent, a spouse, a gardener or even a great cook, you have a story to tell. Infuse your expertise throughout your writing and over time you will feel more apt to teach others. If you feel like you are an authority inside, it will come across in your posts and you will be respected as such.

4. Easy to Read

Headlines make every blog post easier to read. They also enclose copy into well-organized sections.

If you remember anything from this article, remember this…internet users have short attention spans so your blog content must be extremely readable. Short paragraphs, headlines and sub-headlines will help to break up your content into sections.

If your paragraphs are more than 5-6 sentences long, you risk losing a reader.

Use bullet points, bold, italics and underlines throughout to add emphasis where needed. Add images, screenshots, infographics or videos to attract the reader’s attention.

5. Optimize

Use your main keyword in the title and throughout your post. You can add emphasis to your keywords by using them for H1 and H2 tags, in your title, alt tags for images and as alt text for links.

Internal linking – By linking to this old post on Site-Reference, How to Write Blog Posts that Keep Your Readers Coming Back for More, I am not only referring the reader to more valuable information, but I am also creating a keyword specific internal link. These links (1-2 per post) will help your content in the search engines.

6. Share

You don’t need anyone to tell you to share your content. Let your valuable work be known. Offer it on your social medial profiles and post it on relevant blogs without spamming. Make sure your blog post includes sharing buttons so your readers can easily share it with others. Your posts should also be available via RSS feed.

7. Track

Monitor your readership over time. You will find certain trends, like which posts do better than others and to what type of content your readers respond. Blog optimization is a work in progress and a dynamic that occurs over a period of time. Pay attention to how your blog moves, optimize your posts, and stay on top of what your audience wants. This is a recipe for blog posting success.

Jenna Scaglione

Jenna Scaglione is a writer, internet marketer, and a lover of family, friends and life. She enjoys learning, growing and discovering the newest and latest trends on the internet. Known as Lady Content, Jenna lives in sunny Socal where she helps her clients around the world increase brand awareness on the internet through content writing and social media.

As many of you may already be aware, search engine optimization can be divided into two distinct parts: on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Both are important in terms of achieving that much coveted top spot in Google that you have been yearning for your website.

This article however will be focusing on the off-site optimization part of the entire process and the different tools that you can utilize in this regard.

Quality Of Back Links

In most other circumstances it’s supposed to be the more the better, but in terms of SEO back linking you actually have to take better care of the quality of the back links that you receive more than the quantity that is coming your way. This is because Google actually gives more weight to the page rank of those sites which are linking back to you even though they may number fewer, as compared to those which are considered as weak back links coming from websites having low page ranks no matter how many they are.

Using Your Keyword As Anchor Text In The Back Links

Consistently emphasizing your keyword in your back links will drive home the point to Google and will make them understand what your site is all about. You must be careful however that the anchor texts would not look awkward in the overall flow of the article linking back to you otherwise Google will also notice this and may classify some of the links as spam as a result. It will also help if you vary your keyword a little bit every once in a while and not use the exact same keyword over and over again as this will not look natural and for which you may be penalized as well.

Be a Guest Blogger on Related Sites

This is one way for you to get noticed and will establish you as an authority on the subject of your blog. Best thing is that the site owners will usually allow you to leave credits and provide links at the bottom of your article so that readers may know how to contact you or find you. If the website where you are guest posting is well respected and has high traffic count then it would be so much better for your site as well.

Leave Comments On Relevant Blogs

Find blogs that are relevant to your site and participate and interact with the author or other readers by leaving comments to their blogs. This is another way to establish your knowledge on a subject matter which can create corresponding trickle effect of goodwill for your site.

Video-Link Baiting

This strategy can also be used for on-site optimization but it’s much more effective if you utilize it through YouTube. Users which might not have noticed you through other channels will be alerted of your site via attention-grabbing videos which you post on YouTube. Just be careful that you stick to ethical standards when you post your videos as bad taste will definitely create a backlash for you and your offered products or services. You don’t want to sacrifice content just for the sake of some short-term grab for attention which will easily wear off anyway and yet the bad taste associated with it will remain for a long time and could possibly rub off on the reputation of your site or product.

George Peterson currently works for one of the leading search marketing agencies in Denmark – Outrider. He currently works as a SEO (interesting to know is that the Danish term is søgemaskineoptimering) manager.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

We all know that we should be engaging in social bookmarking and social marketing for our online businesses in some way, but just as the over-abundance of marketing activities can be overwhelming, simply finding and identifying social bookmarking sites that are worth our time and effort can be daunting.  Your time is valuable to you and cannot be spent on activities that add little to no value to your online business, and as such, finding quality do-follow social bookmarking sites that will actually help your search rankings is often thrown to the site in favor of more immediate and apparent pressing needs.

This article will try to help you sift through this often dull and unrewarding task.  First, we will identify a handful of social bookmarking sites (not all will be of interest to your site directly).  More importantly, we will show why and how these are valuable so you can identify social bookmarking sites that work well for you.  Next we will offer a few good tools that you can use to automate your social bookmarking activities (this is the REALLY important step).

First, A Few Sites to Focus On

What makes a good social bookmarking target?  Most people engage in social bookmarking for one of two reasons: 1) either they want the SEO benefit that social bookmarks can provide, or 2) they hope to generate a following from their social bookmarking activities.  Ideally we would focus on both, but the reality is that not every page we publish or article we write will have a viral effect.  In addition, the SEO benefit of social bookmarks, while still important, can be deprecated due to the high amount of abuse and automation.

With that in mind, here are 15 social bookmarking sites, so do-follow and others no-follow. You do not need to use each of these, but rather use this list as a guide for how to qualify a good social bookmarking site.

1. Google+. The reason for this should be obvious.  As much as many of us groaned at the thought of another social network to become current on, Google+ is making it more and more difficult to ignore them.  In fact, they are nearly making it impossible by integrating themselves into their search results.  Add to the fact that getting +1′s is now a factor in their search algorithm, Google+ offers a compelling reason to become a part of their social network.
2. Twitter.  This as well should be no surprise.  Twitter is a bit of an odd social network in that they have remained relatively consistent and simple over the past few years.  While Facebook seems intent on overtaking our lives, Twitter is content with being the micro-blogging platform that offers website owners thousands of low-value links and the possibility of becoming viral quickly.
3. Delicious.  Delicious is one of the gradfather’s of the social bookmarking scene.  Although its popularity has dropped over the past several years in light of other mediums rising to prominence, this is still a great site to keep in your arsenal.
4. StumbleUpon.   StumbleUpon, like Twitter, has stayed remarkably true to its roots and to its original intent.  StumbleUpon gives website owner’s the ability to have their site indexed in a well managed category system which can be helpful.  In addition, the traffic from SU seems to have some staying power to it.
5. Pinterest.  Pinterest is the up and comer on this list.  The growth of Pinterest is well documented, as is the linking power that this site can throw your way.
6. Buzzflash.  This is one of many niche social bookmarking sites.  This is a site for political news, blog posts, and the like. Niche blogs like this are highly valuable. This is also a “do follow” social bookmarking site.
7. Reddit. Reddit originally started out as a site geared more towards tech heads, but in the past few years they have expanded and allowed anyone to start up a niche Reddit channel.  Once again, this provides you with the best of two worlds: high PR and powerful site along with the power of niche specification.
8. Fark.  Fark is one of the older social bookmarking sites and has proven itself to stay editorially true over time.  This site is geared towards news stories and releases.
9. Chictini. Chictini is a bookmarking site geared towards women and specifically towards fashion.  Do follow niche sites like this are a powerful tool in your overall set of sites you use.
10. Look for more…you can find a nice list of niche sites here.

Social Bookmarking Automation – Tools and Tips

Before we get into this section, allow me to first offer this warning: automating your social bookmarking is nearly required, but it can easily be used in the wrong way thus invalidating any work you put into it.  Social bookmarking is an activity that is easily “gamed” by automation software and unfortunately it is rather easy to identify when it has been “gamed”.  The goal with social bookmarking is to appear as natural as possible.  When using automation software, your goal should be the same is it would be if you were to do your bookmarking by hand.  A proper social bookmarking campaign will result in improved search engine rankings as well as real visitors to your site.

With that said, here are three tools worth looking into:

• SocialAdr.com – SocialAdr.com uses the power of crowdsourcing to generate a very natural link profile and bookmarks to your pages.  They offer both a paid version and a free version, however, for the overworked online business owner, the paid version is highly worthwhile.  With 1-2 minutes per day you can get your site bookmarked across literally thousands of sites from real bookmarking accounts at a natural pace.  Currently SocialAdr uses 21 bookmarking sites which is certainly a good number, but most importantly, those sites are kept updated on a regular basis.  This is by and far the easiest system we have used.
• Bookmarking Demon – If one were to describe Bookmarking Demon in a word it would be “powerful”.  This software gives you an incredible amount of flexibility, automation, and distribution power.  The number of options you have as a marketer are astounding.  The product of this power, however, is naturally some level of complexity.  Learning how to use Bookmarking demon does take a bit of time, and configuring it properly will also take time.  Fortunately they have provided a free guide, or you can also buy this tutorial which is quite comprehensive and will help you guard against those things which could trip up your campaign.
• Social Submitter – the folks over at SEOTools have developed a nice little piece of software that allows you to accomplish much of the same things as Bookmarking Demon, but without the same level of complexity. Naturally this does limit your options a bit, but if you are looking for a happy medium between SocialAdr and BookmarkingDemon, then this may warrant a look.

Social Bookmarking Sites – Properly Done, Proper Results

For any person who publishes content on a regular or semi-regular basis, social bookmarking sites can be a fantastic ally for your efforts. Social bookmarking sites help round out an overall SEO picture, can give you exposure which generates additional external links, and are very good at driving long-tail keyword results in the search engines.

But social bookmarking is time consuming.  To that end, work smart, choose where you will submit, and automate as much as possible.  Then focus on the other parts of your business that require more of your time!

Mark Daoust

Mark Daoust is the owner of Quiet Light Brokerage, an Internet business brokerage firm. He has helped hundreds of website owners over the years value and prepare their businesses for sale. In that time he has also spoken to thousands of website owners, successful entrepreneurs, and seen countless success stories as well as troubled businesses.

 

News Flash…Facebook Answers Back to Google’s Newest Update with a Strategy of its Own.

Did you think Facebook would just sit back and allow Google to use its authority however it pleases?

Continuing from my last article, Why Google + May Become a Necessity for Internet Marketers, recent news has fanned the flames of an ongoing debate.

In the article, I detailed Google’s newest update, Search Plus Your World, and how it personalizes search results for users. Users will see results related to Google+ based on their search behavior. For example, if you follow Britney Spears and Lady Gaga on Google+, you will see related material, images and recommendations based on those musical interests when you search for a related keyword.

What has Facebook and Twitter wanting to revolt? Users are given recommendations of Google+ profiles only. These profiles show up on the right side of the page (usually 2-3 profiles per search) under the “People and Pages on Google+” box.

For example, if you type in the word “chef” like I did in the image to the right, you would see the Google+ profiles of some of the top cooks or restaurants on Google+. But, you will never see a Facebook or Twitter profile listed in that same location, even if these profiles enjoy more fans/followers and engagement than Google+ profiles.

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and friends were not happy with this update, especially since social results from ALL networks already appear in the normal search results. Why wouldn’t Google just use the same data to post the top engagers in the “People and Pages on Google+” box regardless of whether they are on Google+, Facebook or Twitter?

The social media websites answered back and created the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet which can be found on their new website, Focus on the User. Facebook and Twitter engineers consulted with some other social media companies and together they created this snippet of code.

What does it do?

Let’s take a look at the real world example first. After installing this bookmarklet in my Chrome browser, I performed the same search for the word “chef” and the results look like this…

Do you notice what is different?

Though the people in the “People and Pages on Google +” box are the same in both instances, the social media profiles are different. With the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet, the results are now being extracted from Google’s top 10 results rather just Google+ profiles. Also the box has been renamed to “People and Pages from the Social Web”.

When you install this bookmarklet, you attach it to your bookmarks menu and whenever you click on it, you will see the updated results.

Also, did you notice the change to the Google logo? Looks like Facebook is trying to make a serious point.

The “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet is not stealing any API data from Google. It simply uses the results Google already deems worthy to hit page 1 of its engine and replaces Google’s results. The tool is meant to give users the most relevant results on the web regardless of Google bias.

The bookmarklet also addresses the other search functions that show Google bias like in the automatic dropdown menu and for brand name searches. With the “Search Plus Your World” function on, when users type in a brand name like “Target”, they will see the Google+ profiles under the brand name website with no mention of Twitter or Facebook. With the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet, the results are returned to normal with the most relevant results displaying first.

Is Facebook done waging its war against Google? Only time will tell. What we do know is that the social media companies are arguing that this new Google update contradicts the environment Google has been promoting for years: a relevant user experience.

The social media war is in full force…who will be the victor? With conglomerates such as Facebook, Twitter and the “almighty” Google, it’s anyone’s game.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

Why do people search online? What are they searching? Key questions that an SEO would consider while hosting a website for search engine optimization. As per a survey, online searches are done for different reasons which could be:

For Seeking Information – Websites offer a tremendous scope as a means of information ranging from finding the nearest seafood restaurant to the most popular seafood junction in the big apple (New York!). The unending thirst for knowledge could be as mundane as finding the exact measurements to make an apple pie or as bizarre as searching the exact place where the last werewolf was sighted!

The search in such cases is done to seek out info on any given subject, with instant results. The intention of such search does not go beyond the first moment of information gathering. These are non-commercial searches.

For Navigation to a specific site – An online user searching for used cars in his locality would know which site to navigate to. Searches that are made with a specific purpose to a specific site are done mostly by users who know the web address or URL of the site. These searches could either be commercial or non commercial.

For Commercial Data only – Businesses hosted online are the biggest traffic boosters when it comes to such searches. Here the search is done with the sole purpose of a commercial gain. For e.g. a hardware repair person would search online for the best bargains available for his/her hardware store.

Apart from these three online searches involves the research work for education, knowledge, thesis writing, disseminating information for the overall good of the society etc.

By determining the reasons why people surf the net, an SEO can zero in on the keyword strategy. The SEO first needs to determine the target audience/visitors and then search for keywords that are relevant to that niche. So s/he goes about by using a few guidelines:

1. Keywords are Dynamic by nature. Over the years trends keep changing, so does the use of vocabulary. What sounds good today may not be cool tomorrow. Hence keyword search is a continuous process to be undertaken for an effective SEO campaign.

2. Experts are also Novices – So called experts in the field of research have failed miserably when they could not gauge audience’s mood. The people who search the web are not experts in the ‘keyword search field’. Most of them are average people seeking information. SEO;s need to think like them to be able to catch the exact keyword by its tail!

3. Create The List – It is important to create ‘The List’. These are the important keywords that are doing the rounds on the net for the niche. By incorporating these (depending on the relevance) SEO’s can rest assured being ranked high on the searches.

4. Keyword Relevancy in Content – The keywords that are so painstakingly gleaned out need to be placed at the appropriate places or else they might just pull you down or even attract a penalty. Irresponsible and irrelevant use of keywords within a content stand out sorely that irritates the audience.

5. Go back to guideline 1. Research never stops. Period.

Guest Author Divya writes for inetzeal.com, inetzeal.com offers various link building services, content creation, web development services and much more. They’re online since more than 5 years.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

Blogging is a way to share your local business content daily, weekly, or on whatever schedule you choose. With these tips, you’ll better understand what it is visitors expect when visiting your blog as well as some tips on what to do to increase lead generation. These tips are great for those who are starting out with creating a new local business blog page or for those who already have an existing one.

When focusing on the following, you’ll be doing wonders to help optimize your blog to maximize your lead generating efforts:

• Buttons
• Call-to-Action/Subscriptions
• Formatting
• Images
• Preview Option
• Quick Loading

Use share buttons.

With the way social media networking is growing, it’s important to have your blog connecting to any and all of those networks. There are two buttons to consider including to make this happen:

1. One’s for the social media sites you use to allow viewers to follow you blog.
2. The other is buttons that go on your blog so that viewers can share your blog on their social media networks.

With share buttons, it’s important to not have too many. Customers may choose to ignore the buttons altogether if overwhelmed by too many options of where they should choose to share your blog. Only include share buttons for social media networks that you use frequently.

Include call-to-actions.

If wanting to better your lead generation for your blog, then including a call-to-action in each post you publish is very wise. If you choose to do so, make sure to test them to make sure the call-to-action operates properly. You’ll appear unprofessional and possibly lose leads if they don’t. You also need to make sure your call-to-action is easily understandable so visitors will know what to do to subscribe to whatever it is you’re offering to gain access to information

Formatting is important.

The main thing you should focus on when formatting your blog is the headline. It’s what traffic should see when visiting your local business blogging site. Visitors should be wowed by it and be able to easily understand what the blog is for; in this case, your local business.

Images are a must.

I can’t inform people enough about how vital images are when it comes to websites, even blogging sites. They are what people tend to notice immediately and are also what people remember. With the images, you need to make sure they are used appropriately throughout your blog, and they shouldn’t be random. They need to relate to the topics within a specific blog, as well as your local business blog sight itself.

Make your blog easy to search on and view.

Your local business blog site is, after all, where you publish content about your business. With that being said, people don’t like scanning through every post that’s been published to find what they’re looking for or one’s that interesting to them. You should create a digital table of contents that includes a brief preview of recent posts published on your blog that’s easy to locate.

Site speed is a necessity.

If you’re looking to have a low bounce rate, then you should make sure that your blog page loads quickly. Those who visit your site expect to view the content they’re searching for immediately. If your page loads slowly, then visitors will more than likely leave and not return.

Use these tips to create a lead generating local business blog in no time.

Author Chris Marentis is the Founder and CEO of Surefire Social, an internet marketing firm that uses website development, social media marketing, and search engine optimization to boost lead generation for local businesses all around North America.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

Pinterest is a fairly new social networking tool that is attracting people of all types. At its core, Pinterest allows a person to organize clippings from the web, upload their own pictures or re-pin things that they find interesting. Each person has an unlimited number of boards that organize their pins, these boards are then categorized into one of the main Pinterest categories that allow other users to browse through recent pins and follow the pins or boards of people they know of simply have similar interests with. Pinterest can help a company build its brand through creating interest and enthusiasm about the company.

Integrate Pinterest Into Your Website

Pinterest allows users to install a “Pin It” button directly on their website with just a small snippet of HTML code. This will allow browsers to pin images, videos and products from the website to their Pinterest boards with a single click. This can create a significant amount of web traffic simply from people clicking through to find out more about the pin. Companies should also encourage their current customers to pin things from their site and share the images with other Pinterest users.

Sell a Lifestyle, Not Products

The average Pinterest user does not browse boards and pins looking for things to buy. Additionally, Pinterest does not encourage people posting items for sale and treating Pinterest like a classified ad. However, there are many ways to showcase a product or a brand without running a for-sale ad. For instance, a company can pin images that are related to the products they have for sale or pin tutorials or recipes that will use their products. A great example of this is a quilting and fabric company posting beautiful images to free sewing patterns. This is not an item they are trying to sell, but it certainly generates interest in their product.

Inspire Your Customers

Most people who use Pinterest on a regular basis view it as an unending source of inspiration. By providing interesting and exciting boards for users to follow, a company can build their brand and reach new customers. A good example of this would be a hair salon pinning interesting hair styles or outfits to a fashion-centered board. A well curated board will attract a lot of attention and help show people what the business is all about, in this case, a high-end, stylish salon.

Run a Contest

Though Pinterest discourages rampant self-promotion, there are ways to ask users to promote a brand on a company’s behalf. A great way to do this is through a contest. This can be as simple as asking consumers to pin images from the company’s website, blog or catalog and include comments about the items. This will quickly insert hundreds of images into the Pinterest stream on a constant basis for a very small prize investment.

Participate

Like every other social community on the web, Pinterest is only as strong and as interesting as its users. Therefore it is important that a company fully participates in pinning, commenting, and following other boards. Users will quickly be able to tell which companies are trying to cash in on Pinterest and which are using Pinterest as a way to grow their brand while supporting a community. For small businesses, this may mean the owners should spend a little bit of time on Pinterest every day. For a large corporation, there may almost be a full-time job for someone to curate boards and leave comments on behalf of the company.

This guest post was written by Harrison L., whose favorite hobby is growing his own bonsai trees and sharing his interests on Pinterest. Recently he has written an informative article on his blog about indoor bonsai tree care and the tools and materials required to take care of your own bonsai tree at home.

Site Reference published guest articles from experts across the web. This article was one such guest article.

Raise your hand if you get excited when you hear the words “Multivariate testing”?  How about “A/B Split Testing”? Do these phrases ring true with excitement for you?

Probably not.

But do not worry, my guess is that by the end of this article you will be excited about the possibility of what these terms mean.  First and foremost, these words spell a certain relief for most website owners.  This article, unlike so many other articles that focus on bringing more and more traffic to your website from new and various sources, will focus on something quite simple. This article will ask the question: don’t you have enough already?

Let’s take a step back for a minute.  Most website owner’s share a common goal: to get more conversions.  A conversion may be a sale, it may be a newsletter signup, it may be lead, it may be a phone call, it may be a download, etc.  We put websites up to achieve a certain end, and when that end is achieved, a goal is reached.  So with that in mind, how do we increase the number of times our goals are reached? How do we increase our conversions?

There are two ways: 1) we can get more traffic, and 2) we can do more with the traffic we have.  Guess which one of these is usually ignored?

So this is where this article comes in: to discuss doing more with what we have.

A/B Split Testing – Even My Kids Can Do It

My kids do A/B split testing every day.  In fact, if you have kids, my guess is that they split test as well.  This morning my son came up to me and asked if he could have chocolate candy (I hadn’t fed him breakfast yet). Upon hearing my very tired “no”, he then went into the other room and asked his mother if he could have chocolate.  At just 2 years old, he is practicing the simple science of split testing. Unfortunately for him, he started with a losing proposition, so the result was the same.

Split testing is taking one element, creating a variation of it, and then testing the two variations against each other.  My son chose me as the element he would split test, chose my wife as the variation, then tested both parents to see if one created a better result than the other. For your website, you may not want to test your parents, but you may want to test your page titles, a picture, or a disclaimer.

Multivariate Testing – I’m Not So Sure My Kids Can Do It…

…but you can! Multivariate testing takes A/B split testing and puts it on steroids.  Rather than isolate just one element, multivariate testing encourages you to test multiple elements and multiple variations of those elements.  The reasoning here is important: multivariate testing recognizes that it is more than just a title or a picture or a disclaimer that drives conversions, rather, it is a combination of how all things work together on your pages that drive conversions.  Whereas a disclaimer on one page may reduce conversions, a disclaimer on a different page may actually increase conversions.

So how do you go about doing multivariate testing? Well, you don’t do it on your own – you need the help of software and tools.  Multivariate testing creates combinations which will all be tested against each other.  When testing multiple elements and multiple variations, the result is that you can generate a large number of variations rather quickly.  Keeping track of these variations, knowing when to stop testing one, etc, would be too much to realistically handle.

Knowing that multivariate testing is more complex and requires a bit more thought, it may be tempting to avoid it all together.  But to do so would be, in my opinion, a significant mistake.  Multivariate testing can uncover combinations of elements that you would never think to try on your own. When you are trying to get more out of what you already have, it is worthwhile to take the time to test, test, test.

Multivariate Testing Tools and A/B Split Testing Tools

Most multivariate testing tools are built for large organizations that have a staff of statisticians who throw around words like “standard deviation” and “multiple permutations” in their break room as if they were “normal” words (then again, they have a different definition of “normal” as that too is one of a statistician’s favorite terms).  My guess is that most website owner’s do not have the time to break out their statistician hats and start crunching numbers – most website owner’s want to know what works and then move on with their lives.

With that in mind, here are a few tools that you may want to look at to help you start a multivariate test:

• Google Website Optimizer.  No list on multivariate testing would be complete without including Google Website Optimizer.  Why? Because its free, its useful, and its fairly thorough.  Google added its website optimizer in their Adwords center to help advertisers get more from their advertising spend.  However, you do not need to be spending money with Adwords to use this fantastic tool.Google multivariate testing can be a bit tricky to setup and you may want the help of a developer when it comes to integrating the code into your website.  If you use WordPress, you may want to check out this plugin.
• WordPress Split Testing Plugin. Speaking of WordPress, if you would like to run simple A/B Split tests, take a look at this plugin.
• Visual Website Optimizer.  This tool has received plenty of good reviews.  Unlike Google Website Optimizer, it is not free, but unlike Google, it is easy to setup and allows quick changes of tests on your site.  In addition, because it is a paid version, you will get very good support if you need it.
• Unbounce.  For those of you who just want to create and manage landing pages, Unbounce is a nice solution. Unbounce is limited to A/B testing only, however, it is extremely easy to use and perfect for anyone who runs PPC campaigns for lead generation campaigns.

Finding a good tool for your Internet business and needs can take some time, but once you settle in with a tool, you will likely grow addicted to testing.

Don’t Limit Yourself – What Can Be Tested

Testing isn’t just about headlines.  Testing can be anything at all on your website!  Try testing the following:

• Test multipage checkout forms against a single page checkout form
• Test including privacy notices vs. no privacy notices
• Test email subject titles
• Test showing one set of products on your front page vs. no products
• Test having a large “slider” on your front page vs. no slider
• Test signing your name personally to your site against not including it
• Test colors
• Test fonts

You may be surprised at what causes people to continue looking at your site and what causes people to leave.  Being successful on the Internet is not about having good instincts, its about learning to trust metrics and hard data.

I’m Not Excited Yet…In Fact, I’m Kind of Sleepy

At the beginning of this article I promised that talking about A/B Split Testing and Multivariate testing would get you excited about your website.  If you have read this far and are thinking I am a liar, then I would ask that you give me just one more chance.

Let’s talk about results.  Just how effective is testing and what can it do for your business?

To answer this, let’s take a look at a real life example.  At Quiet Light Brokerage, we invite website owner’s like yourself to submit their web businesses for a complimentary valuation.  Our form is simple and straightforward, but our goal is to start conversations with as many qualified people as possible.  As such, we setup Google Optimizer to run a multivariate test on our valuation form to see just how much we could improve our conversion rate.

The result? After just 1 month of testing, we moved from a 5% conversion rate to a 15% conversion rate.  That is an improvement of 3x!  If that fails to impress you, let’s look at what our other option would have been if we wanted to generate 3x as many conversions: we would have had to spend 3x as much on advertising!

What would you do if you could double your sales after just one month? What would be willing to do in order to triple your sales after one month?  Would you consider it worth your time?  Most people would agree that it is worthwhile.

Most website owner’s are overworked and are not specialists in enough areas to take the time to track and test conversion rates.  This is rather unfortunate.  While most of us go around chasing more traffic, new social networks, and the like, well organized and successful marketers make sure that their websites are functioning at their top levels.

Mark Daoust

Mark Daoust is the owner of Quiet Light Brokerage, an Internet business brokerage firm. He has helped hundreds of website owners over the years value and prepare their businesses for sale. In that time he has also spoken to thousands of website owners, successful entrepreneurs, and seen countless success stories as well as troubled businesses.