As of this writing, I own the #7 spot on Google for the keyword phrase “rachael flatt”. Rachael Flatt is the reigning U.S. ladies national silver medalist and reigning World Junior Champion in the sport of figure skating. Until this morning, I didn’t even that I owned that coveted #7 spot because, quite frankly, I had never checked. Several weeks ago I put up a very, very basic fan site for her after meeting her in person at a figure skating competition. Her silver medal performance at the 2008 U.S. Nationals was a significant inspiration for me finally getting off my duff and starting to skate myself.

So, what made me check? Apparently, her agent did a Google search to see what was out there about her, and found my bare-bones fan site. She then contacted me about the possibility of creating a more expansive site to help promote Rachael in the figure skating sphere.

This led me to one of the very initial steps involved with any sort of online enterprise: keyword research. When it comes to Internet marketing, keyword research is a major component of several tasks that go by different names, such as “market research”, “niche selection”, and “search engine optimization.” Keyword research is a very important aspect of each of these business building tasks, and is often the first place to start whenever a new idea emerges.

Why would I want to do keyword research for a FAN site? Quite honestly, it has to do with niche selection. There is an entire universe of athletes out there, and converting a basic fan site into a full blown project requires the knowledge ahead of time about whether that athlete has enough search traffic to warrant the effort. In addition, it’s wise to know what other keywords relevant to the project need to be targeted for optimization.

Where does one start with keyword research? Personally, I use a very methodical approach, which has evolved over time as tools and technologies change. Here’s my current keyword research checklist, verbatim out of my own playbook:
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I’ve created a new category here on this blog for those interested in the wonderful world of selling on Amazon. This category is intended to be a platform for presenting tips, techniques, and information about becoming a “power seller” on Amazon.com. Most of the information here is intended for those individuals that are either:

1). Marketing consulting clients of How To Earn, LLC;

2). Participants in our reseller/dropship program for our line of audio CD titles;

3). Owners of any of our “How To Earn” line of business and marketing CDs.

The goal of this blog is to educate and spur to action those that are looking to build a small, part-time side income. James Orr and I often discuss the power of building a small side business in increments of about $400. The reasoning behind this target figure is because the vast majority of Americans are within that dollar amount of being broke every month, so it represents a good target for people to aspire to in order to obtain breathing room in there monthly budget.

Amazon is an incredible platform for selling certain categories of products. We focus our efforts on audiobooks, since that is what we publish. However, there are a multitude of other things you can sell on Amazon as a Pro Merchant besides books, tapes, CDs, and DVDs.

Why am I so big on using Amazon to get products to market? Oh, let me count the reasons:

1. Going to the traffic is easier than attracting the traffic to you – Amazon has over 66 million active customer accounts.
2. Amazon Pro Merchant accounts have a flat $39.99 monthly fee to list as many items as you want (in contrast to eBay’s per listing fees).
3. An automatic $3.99 shipping credit on all orders for standard shipping (higher for expedited shipping).
4. Low per-transaction charges: Amazon collects a commission (15% maximum) and a variable closing fee dependent upon your item category (complete list of Amazon fees).
5. Integrated credit card processing, shopping cart, etc.
6. Extensive reporting capability.
7. Volume listing tools and pretty good inventory management systems.

For these reasons and more, I absolutely love Amazon as a selling platform. I look forward to working with many of you in the future to help you build your own Amazon business.

Until next time,

_

First, some definitions are in order.

Internet Marketing

The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer via the Internet; particularly the processes implemented by sellers to attract buyers.

Search Engine Marketing

The process of attracting buyers to a web site via listings on search engines for the purpose of transacting business.

Search Engine Optimization

A general term used to describe specific techniques that can be used on websites to rank high in search engines for specific keywords, resulting in increased visitor traffic to a web site.

For many small businesses that have invested large sums of money into an attractive, user friendly web site, there is a belief that once they have a web presence, visitors will flock to their site. Much to their dismay, they discover that this simply isn’t the case. Just as a retail storefront is absolutely worthless without customers walking in the door, a web site is useless without visitors.

Having a compelling, effective web site on the Internet is the first step in building the online presence for your business. However, a web site is virtually useless without visitors. Attracting visitors to your web site and developing a legion of regular users of your web site content takes time to build and should be a focused part of your overall marketing plan.

Attracting Visitors is the Core of Internet Marketing

To begin attracting traffic to your web site, ensure that your URL (web site address) is listed on items that your existing customers routinely receive, such as business cards, invoices, advertisements, and flyers. Your existing customer base is an excellent initial source of web traffic. If you operate a bricks and mortar location, in store displays announcing the birth of your web site are also helpful.

To begin attracting visitors from the Internet at large, it is important to understand just exactly how most people find web sites. Consider your own Internet habits as an example. If your web site and your products and services serve a specialized market, then it may be safe to assume that your audience will display similar traits and web surfing habits as yourself. Participating in online discussion forums (with your URL included in the signature line of your messages), banner advertising on other popular web sites that are information resources for your industry, and advertising in e-mail newsletters particular to your audience are good marketing options to explore.

If you are like most Internet users, when you are looking for something specific on the World Wide Web, you probably use some sort of search engine or directory, such as Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, etc. In fact, according to a GVU Users Survey, 84.8% of Internet users use search engines to find the content they are looking for.

How Search Engine Marketing Increases Web Traffic

Search engine placement is considered to be the most effective, and definitely most cost effective, method of Internet marketing. In a study released by ActivMedia Research in September 1999, Search Engine Positioning was ranked as the #1 website promotional method used by eCommerce sites. Even though this study is slightly dated by technology standards, the result is still accurate.

For a better look at how people find web sites, let’s look at data from a survey conducted in April 2000 by IMT Strategies (www.imtstrategies.com):
“Top Ways Websites are Discovered”

Banner ads: 1%

Targeted email: 1.2%
TV spots: 1.4%

“By accident”: 2.1%

Magazine ads: 4.4%

Word-of-mouth: 20%

Random Surfing: 20%

Search Engines: 46%

As you can see, search engines account for almost half of the traffic generated by web site users. Focusing on word of mouth marketing and search engine placement are, therefore, critical to the success of your web site.

In order to generate a lot of web site traffic from search engines, your web site must appear within the first two or three pages of search engine results.

Search engines typically rely upon software programs called spiders or crawlers to surf the Internet and index content. As such, there are a number of tasks that must be completed in order make a web site search engine ready. The term “search engine optimization” is commonly used to describe the tasks associated with making a web site readable by search engines in such a manner as to give the web site the best odds of receiving a high relevancy ranking when a user performs a search containing certain keywords.

The Process of Search Engine Optimization

In fact, keyword selection is the first, and probably most important, step towards obtaining high search engine rankings. Remember, search engine users are after specific information, so it is our job to make sure that we define those keywords that most appropriately describe the information contained on a web site.

After defining keywords, an existing web site must be analyzed to ensure it meets certain parameters that will increase search engine ranking. If this analysis turns up any problems with the page that may impact search engine positioning, then these pages must be optimized. Once optimized, it is important to then submit the newly optimized site to search engines, monitor positioning of the web site, and work on increasing the number of reputable web sites that link to your own, as this is a factor that some search engines use in their ranking schemes.

Any business owner that has had experience with marketing and advertising understands the value of attracting qualified buyers. On the Internet, this is done through a variety of means, and by far the most important is to ensure that your web site ranks high in all the major search engines for the keywords which people will actually use to find your particular product or service. What better prospect is their than somebody that is actively searching for your product or service?

As with traditional marketing, there are many things that one can do for themselves to attract business. However, most businesses recognize the value of seeking professional assistance with their marketing. It is no secret that hiring marketing professionals and placing print, radio, and television advertisements can be expensive, especially to the small business owner or a startup company with limited operating capital. Typically, Internet marketing cost figures are no different.

If you are interested in learning more about search engine optimization, we have several resources to assist you. This blog contains numerous articles and tools to assist you in your SEO efforts.

I’ve never been big on mass email marketing. Building your own in-house list from scratch – yes. Mass mailings to lists from other providers – no.

What I’m talking about here is “technically” not spam. I’m referring to small ads in other people’s ezines. Buying double opt-in lists from list brokers. Mailing to people that, probably without reading the terms of service, unwittingly agreed to receive messages from anybody that the company they were giving their email address to wanted to sell said information to.

I finally broke down and bought some lists for doing some testing. Out of almost 62,000 emails, I actually mailed to about 30,000 over the past few days. The results? Pffft. I saw no increase in traffic period, and no hits that could be attributed to the email marketing campaign.

Therefore, here are some thoughts on lists if you’re thinking about buying into one:

1. Blind access to somebody else’s mailing list is probably useless without validation from the owner of the list – since the people on the list trust/respect the opinion of that person.

2. Ezine’s with subjects outside the immediate scope of your own endeavor are pointless to mail to (i.e., real estate stuff to a “biz opp seekers” list).

3. Blind lists are the worst of the bunch. Here I define a “blind list” as a generic double opt-in consumer email list where the people signed up simply because they were after the free ring tone, free iPod, or whatever other gimmick was used, and the conditions for which include allowing their email address to be given to, well, ANYBODY.

These are things that I already knew by intuition, but I’ve never been a big email marketer (it’s mostly spam to me) so I’ve never tested it. It’s nice when actual results can vet your own instincts, eh?

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) for a web site, many people think that items like your keyword density and whatnot are the most important factors that determine your rank in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

However, this simply is not true. The absolutely most important factor in determining your search engine ranking is having numerous links to your site from other, high quality sites, and where the link text to your site is the keyword phrase you’re targeting.

You can buy software programs or subscribe to web site services that assist in automating the process of link building, or you can do it manually by querying the webmasters of sites that are relevent to your industry or product/service category. Either way, you need to make sure that the link back to your site is anchored by the keyword phrase you are trying to optimize for.