Do you know how your blog scores with Search Engine Optimization?(SEO)

Well, I plugged a couple of mine into this really great free tool and found out that I have a lot of work to do.

Give it a try at Website Grader.

You can get a FREE SEO kit from Hubspot. Okay, just a reminder, SEO means Search Engine Optimization.

Below is an excerpt from their website:

HubSpot’s free Social Media Marketing Kit gives you the tips and tricks you need to harness the power of the social mediasphere - facebook, digg, del.icio.us, twitter, and many others - to get found by more potential customers, develop meaningful relationships with others in your industry, and position yourself as an expert in your field. Learn:

-Why social media is important for your business
-How to start engaging in social media to reach customers and the media
-What and how to measure results from your social media marketing efforts

:

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

Pay per placement
Pay per performance
Pay per ranking
Pay per position
Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

Discount offers
Testimonials
Celebrity/famous endorsers
Money-back guarantees
Free trials or sample offers
Freebies
Reverse psychology
Major benefits (”Lose weight”)
Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Matthew Meyer is an internet marketer who manages http://www.thefreeadforum.com where you can post your permanent free advertising to over 50,000 members daily. Click here to visit http://www.thefreeadforum.com

Pay Per Click is a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

Pay per placement
Pay per performance
Pay per ranking
Pay per position
Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

Discount offers
Testimonials
Celebrity/famous endorsers
Money-back guarantees
Free trials or sample offers
Freebies
Reverse psychology
Major benefits (”Lose weight”)
Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Matthew Meyer is an internet marketer who manages http://www.thefreeadforum.com where you can post your permanent free advertising to over 50,000 members daily. Click here to visit http://www.thefreeadforum.com

A warm hello to all blogging for boomers readers!

I have finally found some time to get a post up after Rosie was so kind to ask me here as a guest speaker.

Unfortunately trying to find time to extra bits and pieces is not always easy considering how buys our live are these days. Added to this I just couldn’t come up with a great topic to discuss.

Do I discuss blogging for the sake of blogging as a hobby, blogging for your business, blogging and SEO and the list goes on. Well, the idea or ideas were finally sorted as I was updating my hosting service panel.

My new panel allows me to offer free hosting. So as Rosie and I are such big fans of blogging and wordpress I thought why not offer some free trial hosting so people can get there hands down and dirty with wordpress (wordpress.org) on a proper domain?

Continue Reading »

 A special thanks to all who posted on the post, “Why Do I Blog?” You can still make your comment and please share your sites. My class will enjoy it! You can click here to get to the post, Why Do I Blog?

A big THANK YOU to everyone who answered the question.”Why do you Blog?” It is still not too late to give your answer and promote your sites. My class will enjoy it! You can click to the post, Why do you blog? right here.

The debate held on Oct. 15, 2008 made quite an impact. Regardless of your political stand you cannot ignore the drama that takes place after debates. For example, how many people actually Googled “Joe the Plumber”, wrote ads or brought variations on the name as a domain url?

Boomer bloggers, think about posting soon after major events. Keep the terms you hear about in the news as part of your key words, like “Joe The Plumber”. Trust me you will probably be picked up by Google. Also, be sure to add it to your tags.

Read this interesting post as an example of the wide world of blogging as it relates to trends. This post is on the impact of Joe The Plumber.

Feedburner is now owned by Google. You should, if you do not have an account. This is especially helpful for folks using Blogger platforms because it is another way of getting stats for your site. So go and study the site. Activate some of the features. If you want a tutorial or two about it let us know.

Feedburner can also generate the link that allows folks to subscribe to your site and be alerted when you post via email. This is great for many who are not using RSS readers yet.

Here is a video by an author who shares how to make money with your Wordpress blog. A big focus on afflliate marketing. It is short but gives you a good introduction. Great teachers at Word Press Video How To!

If you blog on a Mac you just must listen to these dynamic podcasts at the Mac Roundtable. But beware, lots of meaty, challenging and empowering information. Special thanks to my Baby Boomer Hubby, Ray Horner who came home all excited about this resource. Enjoy. Once again go to the Mac Roundtable.

Yes, every baby boomer blogger should know about social media sites. She talks fast delivering a lot of information. It is very valuable. Stop the video and actually explore each site. I did not put the video in this post this time but linked directly to the site. Don’t forget to get the free download.

She shares information about some of the top ranking sites right here.