My 2¢ Worth

ave you heard the expression, "It takes money to make money?" I'm sure you have. That phrase is even older than I am and I'm older than dirt!

hile there is a little bit of truth to that statement, it doesn't apply to life nearly as much as it used to. The advance of the Internet has made it easier than ever to start a business with very little capital.

ou no longer need thousands of dollars just to start business. A $500 computer, $10 domain name, $10 per month Web hosting and a couple hundred in Web design and you're ready to go! You're already half way there if you're reading this. You already have the computer!

f you have a talent, an interest or a hobby, there's a way to exploit it to make money. Give it a little thought and I dare say you can set up shop for under $400, possible a lot less.

nd when you're ready to build your cyber shop, Paradigm Web Design will be here to build a low cost Web site for you. I can't guarantee that you'll make money or how much when you open your cyber doors — that's entirely up to you...

Feature Article

Determining Keywords

by: Sharon Housley NotePage, Inc.

Determining keywords is a critical step in web design. If your website and meta tags do not contain related keywords, web surfers will be unable to find your website when they conduct searches.

The formula is a little tricky - you will need to locate terms that are popular and relevant to your site. These terms may or may not be terms that *you* feel are relevant terms. The optimal terms in a site should be terms that a potential customer would use when searching for a website with your content. In order to achieve success your website should be optimized with terms and phrases that are descriptive, related to your content, and which receive a significant amount of searches. The caveat, of course, is that you want to find terms and phrases where there is little competition, so you quickly achieve high ranking in the important search engines.

relevant + popular with searchers but not with competitors = success

Markets saturated with other sites competing for search terms make it difficult to find quality keywords. Sometimes it is better to optimize for a less popular term, one that is more targeted at your visitor, as it will likely have a higher conversion rate than a less specific popular term. The first step to determining keywords is brainstorming a list of logical terms and phrases that relate to your product or offerings. This should be done by a number of individuals; sometimes people have very different ideas for search terms and by identifying a variety of people and their search terms you may tap words that hadn't occurred to you. There are a number of free and low-cost tools available online and for download that will allow you to expand and research terms that have been brainstormed. The results typically vary with the tools but overall the tools will assist you in determining where to focus your keyword efforts. The tools will often assist with pay-per-click engines, creating expanded, related keywords or phrases that can be bid on.

In addition to examining log files to see what terms customers are using to find a website, visit competitors web sites and examine their meta tags for additional terms, use a thesaurus to find related terms, include misspellings of keywords in your meta tag keywords, and optimize for various forms of nouns and verbs, including tenses and plurals.

Keyword Tools -

KeywordTumbler - KeywordTumbler takes existing keyword phrases and generates multiple variations, reordering the words. This allows you to build a large keyword list in seconds.
www.keywordtumbler.com

TheDowser - Overture Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Sandbox, Keyword Harvester, Google AdWords report analyzer, Google AdWords optimization tool, log file analyzer, conversion tracking and optimization tool.
www.thedowser.com

WordTracker - Wordtracker helps you choose the right internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use Wordtracker for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine ranking, and that starts with the proper internet marketing keywords. Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information!
www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Suggestion Tools - A handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often. Enter a search phrase below to see how often it's searched for, as well as get suggestions for alternate (but similar) keywords.
www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Keyword Ranking Tool - This utility can be used to check search engines for keyword ranking and track search engine ranking for your various keywords over time, which, as you probably know, is critical when doing search engine optimization.
www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

Overture Keyword Tool - After entering a keyword or phrase, Overture provides a list of related phrases that have been searched on. The tool provides a count that indicates the number of times the phrase has been searched on.
inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Topword Tool - Topword Tool is a free online tool that analyzes a complete web page and counts keyword occurrences, as well as keyword phrases (number in brackets), equal to or above that set in the Minimum Occurrences setting. It supplies a list of keywords and keyword phrases which are most likely to achieve the highest rankings on a major search engine. The tool will also analyze your meta description/keyword and title tags and then, through color coding, inform you of words/phrases which should be included. The main use for this tool is checking your optimization and tweaking existing web sites to rank well.
www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html

Google Suggestion - The Google Suggestion is a new online tool for webmasters. As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type "bass", Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar". Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "progr," Google Suggest might offer you refinements like "programming", "programming languages", "progesterone", or "progressive". You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse. The tool provides a number that indicates the number of searches a specific word or phrase has had.
www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Keyword statistics give webmasters a way to tap into what is on the minds of Internet consumers. When you can match your marketing efforts to the various ways people locate their items of interest on the net, potential customers will be streamed to your site like ants to a picnic.

**************

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and www.small-business-software.net

Creating a Stationary Background

Stationary background images remain in one place even when scrolling through the page. Only the text will move. To create this effect, place the following code within your <body> tag. <body background ="yourimage.gif" bgproperties="fixed"> When selecting your background image, keep in mind that your text will be moving over your image, so try to select an image that won't make your text difficult to read.

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

Marketing - The Life Blood Of Any Business

by: Andrea Lea Churchill FWS Marketing

Marketing is a broad business subject that encompasses a range of activities including advertising, public relations, sales, and promotions. Generally, you will find that people often confuse sales with marketing, when in fact the two are quite different. Marketing is all about getting a product or service into the market, promoting it, influencing behavior, and encouraging sales turnover. Sales, quite distinctly, is the actual transaction of getting a product or service into the hands of your customers.

With so many messages being propelled towards all of us these days, it is more critical than ever for a company to get their product noticed. This means marketers have evolved to being creative. Marketing is not an exact science and managers who know little about it are afraid that the marketing staff within their firm is often wasting valuable money. The truth is that marketing is an investment that always pays off; it just may come back in ways that are not necessarily measurable. So even though one campaign may bring moderate results, another will bring astonishing profits.

Companies not committed to a marketing program are at a disadvantage in today's business world. Those who are still focused on their products, rather than their customers, are doomed to experience lots of failure. Knowing what your clients' expectations are and working to exceed them is the key to ultimate business success.

There are millions of marketing ideas just waiting to be created. If you need to generate ideas, start by brainstorming on paper or on the computer. One small idea generally leads to many other ones. Alternatively you can do an internet search for specific marketing ideas you are wanting to use in your marketing program. If you lack the time or talent to be creative and generate your own marketing ideas, there are marketing companies that can assist you to build a complete marketing strategy.

When you are planning your marketing program, keep in mind the hurdles you may face, and think of ways to eliminate them. Some things that may hold you back from implementing your marketing ideas include budget shortfalls, lack of skill, or being understaffed. Think of ways around this as you plan your strategy for the future.

Finally, think about the specific steps that you can use in a marketing campaign. Your marketing actions might include advertising, sponsorship, branding, and public relations. Or, you may want to stick with direct mail, product packaging and creating promotional materials such as caps or pens. Whatever method you choose, make sure you are pointing excited energy in that direction. It will be reflected in the results!

**************

Andrea Lea Churchill has created a resource site FWS Marketing . Feel free to submit an article if you would like to contribute.

Comments?

If you'd like to comment on any aspect of this publication, send an E-mail to
comments@ paradigmwebdesign.net

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