Let the name stick

Names that are easy to remember because of their uniqueness or because of generic value, will be more memorable than names that can be confused with other domains. Also keep in mind that if the name is difficult to pronounce that the users will most often make mistakes when typing the name and may even land at competitor sites in the process. This could spell disaster. The name should be unique enough to remember and not be confused with that of a competitor.

Shorter is better

As with anything that has to do with web marketing, shorter domain names will be better. The shorter the name the easier to spell it, remember it, and refer others to it. Shorter domain names can be used in the logos, forms, and paid advertising. The longer names usually get misspelled and with many users being unsure of the correct spelling, some may give up altogether and not visit the domain again.

Extension counts

Domain names can have many extensions such as .net, .org, .cc, .com, co.za, co.uk etc. Domain names ending on less frequently used top level domains may be suspect and will leave a lot of room for domain hijackers to come in and sow havoc in your web marketing efforts. As such select an extension that will fit with the audience. If your market is international the best extension will be .com, but if your target audience is in your country then use your country’s extension for example, co.za for South Africa or co.uk for the UK market.

Relation with business

If you really want to confuse web users then the name will be unrelated to your business. They will wonder whether they are at the correct site. They may even ignore your electronic newsletters because the name has no relation to the main topic of your site. Get descriptive domain names that will show your main business. Take for instance, a site about careers. If the name says careers.com it will be easy recognizable. If the name however, looks like an acronym such as johnjenkingslabour.com the users may think it is a site about labour law.

Brand building with domain names

Consider the value of a solid domain name. Large companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi do because they know how important association with a brand is. First before you start branding with the domain name, check whether the name is still available. Then also consider trade marking.

Where to get inspiration

If you cannot come up with good domain names consider places such as domainfellow.com to get possible combinations or perhaps even an older place such as nameboy.com.

Poor domain names cost their owners money

Domain hijackers love domain names that can be misspelled as they register the misspelled form of domain names and then whenever a user misspells the name, the user will land at their website. Convenient for them and a terrible loss for you. It is thus important to invest time in the selection of the correct domain names before you start with your web marketing.

“Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today.”

How directories can help to get links for pushing up website ranking on the internet

The quickest way to get links without paying for them and which will thus legitimately drive up website ranking, is to submit your site to as many as possible relevant and high ranking directories on the Internet.

Sites with high page ranks which link to your site will help to improve your website ranking. As a rule of thumb don’t seek links from sites with lower page ranking than yours. Your site will benefit theirs and not the other way around.

To improve website ranking on the Internet you need to get links which don’t require link backs. If you need to link back it will defeat the object. Remember that your site should generally have more incoming than outgoing links to get a good standing on the Internet. Blindly submitting to directories without careful planning is not recommended. The first step should thus be to prepare the various directory listings.

Preparation for submission to directories to get links

Create about five listings which can go under different categories. By preparing the listings beforehand you will save time and ensure that you can simply copy and past the information into the spaces provided by the directories. In this way you will also prevent unnecessary mistakes and ensure consistency.

Elements to be included

For each listing prepare a title, description, three keywords, and decide in which categories it will fit.

The title will be the website title which must include the keyword that you wish to obtain good ranking for. Also prepare a listing with the company name as title as some of the directories are rather specific and only allow company names.

The description must contain all three keywords for which you want high ranking. Keep the description short. Some directories on the internet will allow up to 250 characters (including spaces), but to ensure that your descriptions are short enough keep to 150 characters. The description should accurately describe the website. Keywords must be selected carefully as the keywords will be what will help to rank your web pages high for specific terms. The keywords are the words used by internet users at search engines and directories to find sites about specific topics. Prepare a list of keywords that will be relevant. Keep to three keywords per listing that will fit the specific description.

Selecting the categories

The category is important if you want to get links that will be valuable for website ranking on the Internet. Make a list of categories beforehand and before submitting the page to each of the directories, carefully study their categories to select the most appropriate categories. Remember that although you will use the directories to get links, you will also benefit from the incoming traffic generated by users clicking on your site at the specific directory. If the site is under the correct category you will get more relevant hits.

Which directories to submit to if you want to get links to drive up website traffic

Submit to the main directories first such as the Yahoo Search (even though it is a paid directory). Don’t add any marketing words which will lead to disqualification. Also consider the Open Directory Project which is free and be ready to wait for inclusion, but don’t miss out on this great link builder. It should be noted that at most of the directories with free listings you will have to wait a few days before your submission is accepted and will go live. It is however, worth the wait. Another free directory worth the submission is Jayde.

Now do a search at Google for business directories or directories relevant to your specific website. Submit to each one. You can also make use of bulk submissions although many of the directories don’t accept automated submissions. If you are in a hurry for links you can use a tool such as WEB CEO or SubmitWolf to get automated submission to quite a few directories at once. Don’t get links from free for all sites as these links will not do you any good.

You can do all the above in one day and confirm submissions within 24 hours to get links from directories that will drive up website ranking on the Internet.

“Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today.”

Always keep in mind that Internet users don’t read the website content from page one through to page 80 as would be the case with a book. Every article should thus be written to be able to stand alone without the reader having knowledge of the other pages. All the content must be related to the main topic of the website as to prevent confusion. Rather create another website for topics unrelated to the main subject if you have a diversified subject field.

All of the above taken into account you will still need to create coherent website content even though each page must be able to stand on its own. The relationship between the various pages must thus be obvious. The Internet makes it possible to jump from one page to another and to other websites. It is thus imperative that the relationship among pages will be noticeable.

You cannot for instance, have a website about flowers and then have an unrelated page about dog training among them unless you can show the relationship between a dog and flowers. To create relationship you will have to show in the article how dog training can help prevent a dog from trashing your garden.

When writing website content you will also have to keep in mind the pages read before the user got to the present page as well as the pages that the user will visit directly after reading the specific page. If you for instance, write about furniture selection for the dining room, the user most probably read the page of furniture selection for the house or furniture selection for the lounge first and may probably read the page about furniture selection for the bedroom or the study next.

Navigation can become tricky on the Internet

With the user being able to click on a link within a web page and then suddenly jump to another page in the website, you will want to create continuity so that the user can still see the relation between the page jumped to and the page jumped from.

Keep in mind that the user will not always get to a page through the same path. The user could have landed at the web page through a link from another website, banner ad, organic search results, affiliate marketing site, a referral from a friend, a direct link placed in an email or from pay per click advertising. The user could have reached the web page from the main page of your website, the sitemap, a link in another page on the site etc.

The solution

The secret is to help the user see immediately where they have landed and what the relationship to the other website content is. The best way to do this is to have each of the pages on your website start the same with a headline and introduction to help them understand what the page is about and how it is related to the rest of the website content. Also guide the users at the end of each page to related pages with links for further reading.

“Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today.”

First Step – Select the right topic that will be of interest to you

It makes no sense in selling a product or service of which you don’t know anything and don’t care to do so either. If the topic interests you and you believe in the product, service or idea, it will sell better. Remember that you will spend an awful amount of time working with various aspects of the topic and there is no way that you will want to write about or work with a topic that bores you. Essential thus for the success of an internet income generating website will be the topic chosen.

Keep in mind that you will have to write many pages on the topic every month. To lessen the overall strain it will take, get in the help of an Internet marketing company such as Intoweb that has a whole team of copywriters and SEO specialists to do the work on your behalf, leaving you more time to enjoy the income generated. To ensure that you have selected a topic worth pursuing ask whether it will be possible to generate hundreds of content pages about the specific topic and whether you will get bored with such a topic within the first week or so.

Second Step – Select a subject that will also interest other people

It is just fine to select a topic that will interest you, but will other people also find it interesting? The idea here is to find a topic that will spark interest and that can be extended to also sell e-books and various products from the same page. It is essential to select a topic that will stay in favour for more than a month and if seasonal then select a sub-topic to be treated for the rest of the year. Think about what people do after work in their spare time? If you want to create a website about money making, then you will have loads of traffic, but you will also compete with thousands of other websites for the same topic. If that is for instance your choice you have to create a niche within the popular topic and find a product that will sell well within that niche.

Step Three – High in demand topic and low supply to guarantee success of internet income generating website

You now already know what your passions are and have an idea of the passions of other people, but now you have to select the topic that will always be high in demand and for which there are not that many websites. To come back to money making – it is a high in demand topic, but the supply is also high. If you select a niche within the high in demand topic it will be easier to find a low supply area. Take for instance a topic such a making money from the Internet. There is a high demand and supply. To get the better of it you will have to select a unique area of making money on the Internet and work with that. Keyword research tools such as Wordtracker can be used to find appropriate keywords to find such a topic on the Internet.

Now work on the topic and get the help of a web design and SEO company to get in the traffic through an effective marketing mix and for help on writing thousands of content pages for your internet income generating website.

“Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today.”

Difference between the blog and articles

Articles are normally static. This means the article is uploaded and it can take a week or more before it will be indexed by the search engine. Once indexed however, it will create loads of traffic if done correctly. Now add blogging to the equation and you will have more traffic to the articles and essential sales pages of the website.

By adding a blog to the website, you can write several shorter articles called posts and link the blogs to the articles and important sales pages. This creates inter-linking which is great for ranking and will ensure that the user spends more time at your website. The blogs can be written and pre-scheduled to be uploaded on a daily basis. This means new content everyday even if you have written a whole bunch at once. Every time the page is updated you give the search engines reason to come back and crawl the site. Blogs are indexed faster than articles and although the blogs can quickly shift to page three or even twenty, the fresh content and interlinking will be worth the effort.

Other uses of blogs for marketing on the Internet

Besides building links to static pages and helping with the page rank, blogs are also the ideal tools for gathering of information about customers, trends, and competitors. Users can leave comments and that interaction will be vital. Any user that has left a comment will want to know the response of the blogger on the issue. Funny enough once conversation is sparked other users soon join and automatically help to create a buzz also with the search engines. The comments are new content which search engines love. The secret is to react to comments in an open way to spark conversation.

Tap into the 25% market

About a quarter of internet users regularly reads and follows blogs. By using blogs for marketing on the internet, you will not reach 100% of the internet users, but a quarter of the market is all that will be needed as you will already reach the rest of the market through articles and pay per click advertising. The quarter reached however, will be important as blog followers love conversation and will evidently also tell others about the blogs. Blog readers are buyers as well. Many of them are looking for reviews on products or places. They want information to help them make buying decisions whether to buy into an idea, service or product.

Brand building

Although the term brand building is used for almost any type of marketing today, blog marketing can also be top brand building tools. Create review blogs, advice blogs such as “how to” and news blogs for clients and you will develop a loyal customer or brand base by using the blogs as part of marketing on the internet.

Blogs link liberally

Blogs are great link building tools. If another blogger finds the content on your site useful, the chances for linking will be tremendous. Best of all you will not even have to ask for the link. Just create valuable content and see the links coming in. Every link will help to push up rankings and to create essential traffic.

In conclusion if you are serious about online marketing then blogs must form part of the marketing on the internet strategy. If you don’t know or don’t have the time to setup and run a blog get in help from an SEO or website marketing company that has the team to do the work for you.

“Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today.”

1. Use impossible site navigation
2. Put up more advertisements than actual content
3. Don’t bother to maintain your website
4. Include too much information
5. Be too cutting edge
6. Crash your visitor’s browser
7. Use sound on a business site
8. Use too many images
9. Embed too many tables
10. Pay no attention to your visitors

"Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today."

"Intoweb Marketing offers internet marketing solutions for your website in South Africa. Contact us for a internet marketing quote today."