Notes from BWA Meeting, July 2003
NOTE: This meeting was also audio recorded for the BWA archives.
Speaker: Pat Maher, Maher Media
Sponsored by the Art Institute of Colorado, Center for Professional Development
Summary
Success on the web boils down to two things:
1. Driving traffic to website.
2. Getting the reader to "convert" (buy something, sign up, download,
etc.)
It is crucial to determine who the audience of a web site is. Use this knowledge
to tailor your site's purpose and action desired of the reader.
Internet Marketing-Getting Target Audience to Web Site
Search engine optimization
- You want your page to come in at the top 10-30 of results (for "free"
sites)
- Determine what keyword phrase is-what target audience will type in-then
be at top of search
- Can use commercial software to help figure out how phrases are digested
using various search engines-and how your website is ranked (e.g. Web Position
Gold, WordTracker)
- Unscrupulous websites can be banned by search engines
- 3rd parties who offer to submit/resubmit your websites to search engines-don't
use them. It's unnecessary, a waste of money, and an invitation to spam.
**A good tip for writers looking for work-hook up with SEO (Search Engine
Optimization) folk to write web content for gateway sites/pages. Good writers
are needed to help customize content to generate leads.
Always ask yourself:
- Is content useful to rank you well in search engines?
- Is content useful to your readers?
Top four search engines:
1) Yahoo
2) Google
3) MSN
4) AOL
- Not every search engine builds its own keyword database (some buy
data from someone else)
- Once you find successful keywords (perhaps using commercial tools),
incorporate those keywords into your site (your gateway or doorway site/page)
that will get them to take an action that will turn them into a lead.
Pay-per-Click Search Engines
- The more you pay, the higher your ranking
- Top two pay-per-click search engines:
1. Google-Ranks by using mix of payola/popularity
2. Overture
Pay-per-click is an expensive game-make sure your site "converts"
readers to get your money's worth.
Linking Campaigns-Reciprocal /Trading Links
- Not all links are created equal-you want links to/from reputable, like-minded
sites
-
A link campaign is making a link to another site, asking the site's
owner if he/she would like to participate in your link campaign by putting a
link on their site back to yours.
- Create a link directory on your site to contain all your outgoing links
- Once more people follow links to your site, your site traffic will
increase and your ranking on search engines will rise
- You want links to describe your site. In these links, use the keywords
you've worked hard to develop.
- Zeus is a commercial software package that is great for spidering-to
find sites you'd like to be part of your linking campaign
Web Tracking Commercial Software
- Helps you analyze web traffic through your site
- Example--WebTrendsLive
- It's good to know where your traffic is coming from (Search engines? If
so, what keywords did readers use? Links on other websites?).
Web Resources
Keyword Research
www.wordtracker.com
Page Analyzers/Position Reports
www.web-positiongold.com
Traffic Analyzers
www.netiq.com/webtrends/default.asp
www.clicktracks.com
Resources
www.spider-food.net
www.searchenginewatch.com
