Day 12: Build A Site That Gets The Click! - Part III
Reminder:
Goal-of-the-DAY... Build a home page, and one TIER 2 Keyword-Focused Content Page.
6.3. Question and Answer Period
Whoops! What’s that? Some hands are up. Questions?...
“How is this different from gateways or doorway pages?”
Tons of people use gateway or doorway pages. In general, these low-value pages fail to deliver good content, and do not address the best interests of the SEs or prospective visitors. Worse still, such sites are in danger of being banned by the SEs. The engines take a dim view of any Web page that has no inpointing links, even from its own domain (a tell-tale sign of a doorway page). As a result, people who use such pages are constantly in jeopardy of losing their businesses overnight.
Your Theme-Based Content Site, on the other hand, creates real content, easily accessible from your home page or TIER 2 pages. You’re creating value, not simply spider bait! You’re addressing the needs of the visitor and of the SEs. Those are huge differences.
Another question?...
“What do the Search Engines look for?”
Answer…
So glad you asked! DAY 13 will examine this question more closely but for now, here’s a quick answer…
Search Engines want to satisfy a visitor’s need by delivering the best possible results for his/her search query. And why does a Search Engine care so much about this? The Search Engines must satisfy its clients.
To determine who the SEs’ true clients are, just follow the money. Advertisers pay the SEs, not surfers. Therefore, advertisers are the true clients!
So the #1 goal of a Search Engine is to provide lots of exposure to their advertisers’ ads. If search results are relevant and of good quality, satisfied surfers will return to search another day, generating more ad impressions. If they are not, the surfer will leave to search somewhere else. If this happens enough times… well, you see where this is going. Ad revenues fall, advertisers go elsewhere, and the SE slowly dies or fades away.
Bottom line?
The SEs’ primary mandate is to deliver relevant and quality search results to surfers. It’s WIN-WIN-WIN all around…
The surfer wins by finding what she needs. The advertisers win by getting lots of exposure to prospective new clients. And, the Search Engines win when they generate the revenue they need to survive and remain competitive.
And how does a Search Engine recognize relevance and quality?
Except for the top executive and a few select professionals at each individual SE, nobody knows the exact algorithms used to evaluate page relevance. However, we do know for certain that on-page and off-page criteria form the backbone of any SE’s ranking algorithms.
Much of what we’ve been covering so far in this course has to do with on-page criteria. Now for a brief note about off-page criteria…
Obviously, an SE will always have to examine the elements of any Web page to determine its context. A page about porcupines, for example, would have the word “porcupine” in the TITLE and heading tags, in the META keywords, and sprinkled throughout the page text. The word “zebra”, on the other hand, would be conspicuously absent from such a page.
And what about off-page criteria?
As Search Engines become more sophisticated, they track more external factors to determine a page’s relevancy. For example, if a high-value, topicrelated site links to your site, the Search Engine considers your site more credible by association. If a dozen sites do the same, your site appears even more so.
I’ll talk about link strategies in much greater detail in the next chapter. For now, recognize that credible links are an important measure of human behavior. Any Tom, Dick, or Jane can use software to create a perfectly optimized page about porcupines, for example. But only a high-quality, relevant document written by a porcupine expert will garner in-pointing links from credible porcupine authorities. It is this combination of off-page criteria that reflect human behavior and on-page criteria (as outlined earlier) that most SEs use to determine relevance.
I was just about to call it a day, but let’s go with one more question…
“Just how important is design?”
Hmm. This changes the direction of our discussion a bit but it’s a good question all the same!
Design is not as important as most folks think. Words do the PREselling, not graphics or colors or font styles.
Start with a clean and welcoming Look & Feel. Add a simple but professionallooking logo. Make your site easy to navigate. Then get out of your own way and let your words do the talking.
(The role of design in PREselling is well covered in Make Your Content PREsell!.)
Geez, I’ve really got to leave. My wife is conceiving a baby tonight, and I wanted to be there. (Actually I stole that from a guy who got off a speeding ticket with that line!)
“Can I follow the C -> T -> P -> M approach on a free Web hosting service?”
Answer… Absolutely. But remember that success is much more than just putting up a site. Don’t be caught by the “cheap-quick-easy” advertising lure…
http://www.sitesell.com/index-advertise.html
Free sites have two huge strikes against them. They’re treated with disdain by both the visitor and the engines.
Let’s talk about humans first. When I notice that a site’s URL is at a free hosting service, I don’t bother clicking to visit. If I have a special reason, I might go – but I arrive at a free site with doubts. Most folks harbor the same kind of bias.
And what about the engines? Free sites don’t get treated with much respect by the Search Engine spiders, and below zero respect by the directories like Yahoo!.
Here’s what Danny Sullivan, the most well-known Search Engine guru on the Net, once said about free hosts…
“...get your own site, under your own domain, rather than doing it within Tripod.com or any place offering "free" home pages. Sites offering free home pages are often looked upon with suspicion by search engines, because search engine spammers also make use of them.
It's like sharing a house with bad roommates. Move out, get your own house, and you'll probably do better with search engines.”
Even on the Net, there's no such thing as truly free. Think about it... a company has to make money to survive. One way or another, hidden or not, the service costs you. But the low credibility of free sites costs you way, way too much… your time.
If engines don’t spider you, or if customers don’t respect the site, or if advertising lures your customers away and hurts the sales-effectiveness of your site, you’re wasting your time. And that’s way more valuable than less than $25 per month to host your own site. You must put a value on your time if you want to succeed. All successful people will tell you that time is their most precious commodity.
A non-free site with your own domain is a prerequisite to building credibility with your readers and with the Search Engines. So find a good Web hosting service and put up a real site. For the $25 or so per month, it’s worth it.
Arrrgh! OK, one last question...
“Geez, Ken. You seem to be convincing folks not to market marketing programs. Rather, they should build sites of passion, write about what they know, and then marry that to profitable affiliate programs. Doesn’t that leave you and SiteSell out in the dark?”
Answer… No, not really. I encourage 5 Pillar Affiliates not to erect Web marketing sites. One thing the Net does not need is another Web marketing site!
But here’s a neat little twist for you to think about. You think that only consumers search for “fashion model” or “fashion designer” or “fashion design”?
Nope! After all, investors are not the only ones who would search for “penny stocks.”
When I was marketing my first product, PennyGold (a penny stock investing software), I must have done thousands and thousands of searches on “penny stocks”... all on the major engines.
Why did I do that? Because I wanted to see how PennyGold was doing on these engines, and I wanted to see who was beating me! And in fact, that’s exactly how I found lots of competitors!
Let’s say that when I was doing my searches for “penny stocks,” you had already created a Theme-Based Content Site that was all about aggressive forms of investing... “theaggressiveinvestor.com.”
After doing your DEMAND and SUPPLY research, let’s say, too, that you had dedicated one of your site’s pages to “penny stocks.” You wrote it to provide high-value content and to also appeal to the Search Engines (more on this in DAY 13).
What would have happened? I surely would have found your page sooner or later, likely several times, on one or more of the engines. Really, there’s no magic involved. After all, you simply followed the basic principles of how to please the Search Engines.
This is not rocket science. Nor is it spam -- you have simply created good content that is of high-value to me, your potential visitor who was searching for your info, and that the engines have ranked highly. So I would have found you listed in the engines’ search results pages, no doubt about it.
You can do exactly the same thing. Except do it for a topic that you know and love... like “fashion.”
If you write a wonderful page about “fashion design,” lots of merchants will find your page. After reading your excellent content about fashion design, you lead into a recommendation about SiteSell products, especially SBI!.
So not only does your “fashion-passion” site generate income for you by sending fashion consumers to a select group of fashion merchants, you can also send fashion merchants to SiteSell, creating an additional income stream!
For example, here’s how your “fashion design” page could do this...
First, you write your content. This content must deliver good “information value” about fashion design. Since this is your area of expertise, that’s a snap. Your content closes by leading to in-context text links (those caught using banners will have a detention!) for small business owners and consumers...
For fashion small business owners...
“Are you a fashion design consultant? Or are you a designer looking to sell your fashion designs on the Web?
The best way to expand your client base is with a Web site that works. Site Build It! has proof of success!
Click here for more information... ”
For fashion consumers...
“Are you looking for a top-notch school of fashion design?
Click here for the best school in the US Northeast.
Click here for the best one in the US Southeast.
Click here for the top institute in the US Southwest.
Click here for excellence in the US Northwest.
Click here for the Fashion School Directory.
(Please contact us if you feel that your fashion school or college belongs in the directory.)”
Each of the “best school” links sends the visitor to a school that you represent as an affiliate!
This is just an example, but I hope you get the idea. You’ve created multiple streams of income from both small business owners and consumers in an area that you love and know.
Try not to fall for the lure of the Web marketing field. It’s too competitive. You would be up against very ambitious marketers who are extremely good at writing to please Search Engines. The outcome is predictable. They would win.
You’ll do far better by working your “niche of passion” and creating your “brand of one.” It’s a flexible strategy that anyone can do. Bend it and twist it. Add your own ideas just like these successful Webmasters have done…
http://case-studies.sitesell.com/resources2success.html
Here’s the bottom line. Every single success story has focused on a niche that the affiliate knows and loves… finance, insurance, children, etc. That’s the fastest road for you, too.
And while you are on this road... if I can have just a small piece of your attention, I’d be most delighted. Our WIN-WIN 5 Pillar Affiliate Program treats affiliates well financially, and provides them with outstanding tools, support, and education. I’d love to have you as a partner-in-sales. To register, please go to…
http://affiliates.sitesell.com/resources2success.html
Before proceeding to DAY 13, please complete your DAY 10-12 Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...
Ongoing Goal... Create one Keyword-Focused Content Page per day. Start with the TIER 2 pages. Then keep adding TIER 3 pages, 1 per day. Create 50- 70 maximum. Then start a new Theme-Based Content Site.
If your time is limited, reduce the goal to a page every 2 or 3 days. Even then, you’ll have a traffic-building, income-earning site in three months. Consistency and discipline are the keys, not speed. It’s OK to be the tortoise…
http://tortoise.sitesell.com/resources2success.html
… as long as you stay the course.
What’s next?
More visitors, more traffic… the lifeblood of your business…
Stay tune for more tips…
Relevant Posts:
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course - Day 1
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course - Day 2
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 3
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 4
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 5
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 6
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 7
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 8
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 9
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 10
Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 11
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