Top 10 Online Business New Year’s Resolutions

At this time every year we review our lives and come up with resolutions to try and improve upon in the year ahead. Your Web site should not be excluded from this important effort considering online is more fluid and ever changing. Web site owners are safe to assume that there is no standing still or resting on your laurels when it comes to doing business online (That’s when your perceived competitors fly right by you!).

So I’ll note below the Top 10 issues, that in my experience, most Web site owners have resisted to acknowledge when it comes to their Web site program. I’ll also pepper each with links to other articles here on my site that cover each item in more detail for your convenience:

10. First I need to do a genuine self assessment to ensure I am up to the challenge that online success requires of all who do business online. The build it and come days, are years behind us. Online is now the playground of serious businessmen and women with the insatiable desire to succeed which means doing things right. Are you honestly up to this challenge?
9. I will review my e-mail and customer service practices to ensure all communications with customers are grammatically correct, professional in appearance and tone and include the information the customer desires. I will respond to e-mails as quickly as possible realizing the rabidly competitive environment online will settle for no less — only Extreme Customer Service will do! This includes using my site’s domain name for all business e-mail communications which lends to my credibility and my initial responses to inquiries being recognized instead of being misidentified as spam.
8. I will review my site at the beginning of the year, then minimally quarterly, to ensure information is current and updated at all times. This includes updating my “About” page to reflect now — not yesterday. I realize by not updating, my site is stale, offers no real value to my site visitors and hinders gaining any relevant rankings with search engines.
7. I will finally embrace the concept that to have a chance at any relevant organic (free) search engines rankings that I have to change how I view my site. Not as brochureware, but as a living, breathing interactive tool used to acquire, support and maintain customers and cater to their needs. If I don’t have a Blog to accomplish this task, I will set one up Q1 and commit to posting at least 3 times each week with new useful and relevant information my site visitors will appreciate.
6. Inline with #5 above, I will learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) basics and principles, so that I have a solid understanding in regard to how search engines actually work, how they rank sites, and what I need to consider when adding content to my site. Without a solid grasp of this information I am literally handicapped and working at a deficit. (Click here to view the numerous posts I’ve written on the topic of SEO so you are firmly planted in the reality of what you need to know.)
5. While content is King; promotion is Queen. After writing a new article I’ll then submit it to article repository Web sites so that it is available to be published on other sites and newsletters. I will keep a notebook with me at all times so that when I get an idea to Blog about, create a video or for an article or informative white paper, I’ll write it down and not forget to follow through. Unique helpful information is what makes Web sites popular and valuable which assists to increase ranking popularity.
4. I will sit down and create thorough and comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for my site to include the questions I get asked most through my site and to provide the necessary information customers need to know to determine that they want to do business with me. If I already have a FAQ page, time for an update. No doubt I have been asked new questions that can be added to this Web site staple.
3. I will setup alerts through my favorite search engines to keep tabs of competitors, manage my company reputation and track my targeted keyword phrases. By tracking this criteria I am then aware of what is going on in my industry and what others are typing about. This is crucial for me to keep up or better yet — ahead of the competition. Alerts also give me the opportunity to network and comment on other Blogs that cover my area of expertise by informing me of current conversations and posts.
2. I will update my site’s visuals and functionality if my site is now more than 3 years old. Moving to WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) will allow me to easily accomplish much of the above. I will then investigate all the social media networking opportunities and establish my site’s feeds wherever possible. Twitter, Linkedin, Technorati are just a few of the sites I need to setup profiles on and use on a regular basis to brand and market my business.

And the number one resolution that every site owner needs to embrace to succeed in the year ahead….

1. I will pledge to use interactive technology as it is now and whatever it evolves to be in the year ahead to its full potential for my business. From Blogging to Videos and everything in between, by not investigating how to best use these applications for my business is simply lost opportunity. I understand this will take some time and a bit of a learning curve to learn about using these resources effectively on a daily basis, but I’m a smartie and I know if it needs to be done for the health of my enterprise — I’m there!

Those site owners that embrace the interactivity options available to them will be found, will gain new customers and will maintain more business than those site owners who do not openly welcome these opportunities. If you do not embrace these 10 items in 2009, you can bet your competitors who do will reap the rewards.

With all the doom and gloom being fed to us in anticipation of the year ahead, I’m choosing to take a different stance and that’s why I’ve written this article for you. As one commentator I recently heard said, “Time to man up and make 2009 what you want it to be. Don’t be a passive observer but an active aggressive participant. Man up!”

And that’s exactly what I plan on doing here @ TheIStudio.com! Wishing you all the best in the year ahead!

Keyword Elite 2.0: The New Generation Of Keyword Research Software

To put it bluntly, Keyword Elite 2.0 blows away every single tool on the market…

If you’re looking for high profit, low competition niches, this will show you them… fast.

Anyone not using this tool is allowing their competitors to get a distinct tactical advantage over them… And in the modern marketing world, that’s deadly…

You see, not only will Keyword Elite 2.0 do anything that any of the other research tools do… and that includes the hyper-expensive monthly subscription ones…

But it will also go way beyond that. This thing can do things you won’t believe. And it’s all designed with one clear goal: to make you more money

Don’t just blindy take my word for it. Listen to what these customers had to say about Keyword Elite 2.0, less than 24 hours after they purchased it!

Dominate Niche Marketing: Know exactly what the “money keywords” are. The keywords that BUYERS are searching for! Use these keywords and easily quadruple your sales. Nothing else will show you these.

Dominate Google Adwords: Instantly…Yes, and I said instantly, AND with very little money by seeing who is already running a profitable Adwords campaign AND then “borrow” their entire Adwords marketing strategy shown by the software to guarantee you make money too!

If you don’t understand Google Adwords, it doesn’t matter. The software is Fool Proof. It had to be if I was going to use it!

Dominate The Search Engines: Virtually guarantee that YOU get 10x the amount of traffic to your site that you’re getting now, WITHOUT paying a dime.

And there are literally HUNDREDS of completely different ways this new tool will allow you to do those things… Ways that the developer 100% guarantees you have never heard of and didn’t think were even possible. It WILL blow your mind, so click on the link below to get specifics.

Keyword Elite 2.0: The New Generation Of Keyword Research Software

More Search Engine Rankings with Less?

Organic or natural search engine listings, the free ones you don’t have to pay for, require some strategy and forethought to acquire. One of most important factors when it comes to free search engine rankings is relevancy. To pull on that coveted top page your site has to be one of the most relevant sites pertaining to the search at hand.

When a search is performed, those sites that are deemed the most relevant, at that point in time for the search being performed, will be listed in order of their level of perceived relevancy. Be about a ton of things – you are on page 100; but using the “less is more” methodology you may just be able to get on that coveted top page.

One of the most common misnomers I get approached with on almost a daily basis is the assumption that one’s site should pull on the top page for any term they desire simply because they will it to. First and foremost you have to be realistic and think about why your site deserves to rank higher than those already listed. “Wanting” has nothing to do with rankings unless it is backed up with a long-term consistent proactive strategy to acquire the desired results.

Don’t fall for the hype or misinformation that is so prevalent on this topic. The noise can be overwhelming and confusing when actually the solution is quite simple. When it comes to your search engine rankings, if you remember anything, remember that less is more. The more you are about or try to cram on one page, the less you are relevant for any one thing and the more difficult it will be for you to hope to get on the top page.

Being searchers are looking for one targeted issue, topic, service, or product – you want to determine what those most searched for terms are for your product or service and make sure your site is optimized for those terms. In addition, by simply concentrating on targeted phrases you will benefit from a more targeted site visitor too!

Using your top page as an example, integrating 30-40 “keywords” covering every possibility of how you want to get found does not make you relevant about any one topic. You are a mishmash of 30-40 things – your efforts are clearly diluted by not being solidly about any one thing! Less is more! The pages or sites that are solidly about one single topic that the searcher is seeking will naturally be listed before yours. No way around this – this is the way search engines, for the most part, work.

To try to pull for one word terms is a futile effort at best; the numbers are against you. And to guess what you “think” folks may use is not your most productive approach either. What if the phrases you “think” searchers are using is not what searchers are actually using to find a site like yours? That is why it behooves you to investigate the available data at sites like Google and Yahoo! Search Marketing to see what your potential customers are in fact using before and during the development of your site, and then moving forward as you grow your site.

Begin by rewriting your top page to include no more than one or two of the top phrases your target market is actually using. About 250 words of readable, customer catering verbiage will do. No more! Remember, the more you add, the more you will dilute your efforts. Then for every additional keyword phrase you would like to eventually have hopes to acquire reasonable rankings for, write an article around that topic and give focus to that individual keyword phrase on its very own page. Turn your wealth of information, knowledge and experience into an article archive or Blog! Now that’s how you get rankings!

Moving forward, as topics arise and time allows write a white paper, resource page or article on each topic/phrase you feel is of importance to your site visitors. This approach automatically translates to you improving the chances of your site getting found. Don’t try and fool the search engines with random babbling and incoherent text – you want to have valuable information. Information that serves three critical purposes!

First, having targeted pages makes your site visitors happy because they have found the helpful, useful information they were seeking and will be more likely to contact you. Secondly, valuable information and articles also better your chances of acquiring those cherished inbound one-way links that contribute to your search engine popularity factor (another factor in achieving healthy rankings). And, thirdly, more content combined with the above will naturally help your rankings to improve.

Remember, we don’t care which page your site visitors enter your site through! If you have a quality design and consistent navigation, every single page of your site should be thought of as a potential doorway to the rest of your site. So go take a look at your site now and integrate the “less is more” methodology and watch your rankings turn from less to more too!

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