You know that stuff on the top of your pages filled with all kinds of wierd terminology like “meta robots, description, keywords, etc…”? Well, this is the section of your webpage that the search engines will scan to basically learn what your webpage is about. If you don’t optimize your head and meta sections you are asking the SERPs to bypass your webpage and send it into oblivion!

I’ve seen so many different so called “experts” talk about the best way to optimize their webpages. So many different methods, so many different blowhards that will leave you wasting your time and wondering, “why isn’t my page being found”? Well, I’m not going to claim to be an expert, but I will claim that my webpages get found. So you decide…

Using your Title tag:

Your Page Title appears at the very top of a browser window. Most humans never actually see the title after they arrive on your page! This is because they tend to first look at the headline of a page, not at the top of the browser’s window. Search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, give special emphasis to these words when they rank websites for relevance and when they return their search results to searchers, they display your Page Title, exactly the way you write it, as a link to your page.

Must Do’s:

1. Your keyword should appear in your title tag - ONLY ONCE
2. Use your keyword in a sentence if you can. Make your title natural.

Using the Meta Keyords tag:

Search Engines use them to help determine relevance of the website to the topic. Back in the day, this tag was very important, but recently, it has less significance. But it is still significant!

Must Do’s:

1. Your webpage’s specific keyword must appear as the first keyword.
2. Keep your keywords to a maximum of 5.
3. After the page’s specific keyword, use variations of the keyword for the next 4.
4. Keep your keyword phrases to 3 or less words.
5. Never use the same keyword twice in the meta keyword tag.

Using the Meta Description tag:

This is basically an advertisment for your site. When found in the search engines, this para-phrased portion of your site will be shown to the searcher. Because of this, it needs to be ‘catchy’ and grab the readers attention. Otherwise they won’t visit your site.

Must Do’s:

1. Use your web page’s specific keyword in the description - ONLY ONCE.
2. Don’t simply repeat the title.
3. Make it attractive - would you click on it?

Your page’s file name:

www.internetmarketingpursuits.com/internetmarketingphilosophy.html is much easier to read as opposed to something that ends with /php.2x?3f right? Which would you click on? Making your page URL/file name SEO friendly is also very important.

Must Do’s:

1. Use your web page’s specific keyword in the file name- ONLY ONCE.
2. Try to hyphenate the file name if you can; eg: /example-file-name.html

Your page’s robots tag:

The meta robots tag was created initially to allow page authors to prevent page indexing. Over the years, various search engines have added additional support to the tag.

Search engines will index any page they find. But you can put code here to tell them to index your page:

<meta name=”robots” content=”index”>

There’s also a form you can use that adds the command “follow,” which tells the search engines to index your page and also follow any links they find on that page to other pages, which they can then index. It looks like thi

<meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow”>

Personally, I use the following on most of my sites because I want the SERPS to follow all links and index the pages.

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”all”>

Using the following will tell the spiders not to index your page:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>

Using the following will tell the spiders not to follow links on your page:

<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”>

Have you ever hovered over an image on a website and a small title appears describing the image?  Have you ever done a search in Google for a particular image?  Chances are, you’ve experienced both of these scenarios.

The reason you see the image title and the reason these images are found in search engines is directly related to your image and alt tag optimization.  Although optimizing images for websites is not the most important factor to get higher SERP (search engine results page) rankings, it is still very important.  The more you do to increase your rankings, the better.  Right?

Let’s take a step by step approach to inserting and optimizing images on your website.

Step One:

Naming your image. Make sure you name your image appropriately. This helps you understand what image you are using, and makes them easily recognizable. Using an image name like .image123 doesn’t help. Name it something like “flying side kick”, for example.

Here’s our image code so far:

img src=”image-files/example-image.jpg” alt=”" /

Step Two:

Now let’s take a look at the image title.  Using this in your images is important for those that hover over your image. When the users mouse passes over the image, they will see a title describing the image or any other message you put in there. You can use this feature to highlight a product, make a point, etc.

Here’s our image code so far:

img title=”Example Title” src=”image-files/example-image.jpg” alt=”" /

Step Three:

Now let’s take a look at another important part of the image description, the width and height. Ensuring that you add the image width and height, will help your browser load the images faster, which increases user satisfaction. And there is no doubt that user satisfaction is important. To do this add:

Here’s our image code so far:

img title=”Example Title” src=”image-files/example-image.jpg” alt=”" width=”250″ height=”250″ /

Step Four:

With the title, width, and height set you are moving along fine. But let’s not forget the ever important alt tag. The alt tag is what the search engines use to “see” the image. Since they cannot actually view the image, they need text to understand what it is. This alt tag is also used for web readers that are visually impaired. When you add your alt tag, make sure you use keywords that are relative to the page content. Do not “overstuff” your alt tag with keywords, as this can be seen as spam. Keep it simple and relevant to the website and that individual page’s content. Also, make sure the alt tag is in sentence form, not keywords seperated by commas. Looking at the code now, we get:

Here’s our image code so far:

img title=”Example Title” src=”image-files/example-image.jpg” alt=”example keyword sentance”

And this should wrap up omptimizing your image for the web. Let’s recap:

1. Name your image appropriately.
2. Add your image title, and make it appropriate.
3. Add the image height and width.
4. Use a keyword rich, short sentance in your alt tag.

You can do many more things with images such as adding borders, centering them, aligning them left or right, making rollover images, etc. For now, we are only covering optimizing your image and alt tags for search engines to help you get better rankings.

In my next post I’m going to cover the importance of using headlines on your webpages. Often, this aspect is overlooked, and often underrated.

Sounds like it should be a book title, or maybe the chorus line of a song huh? Well, unfortunately, internet marketers that provide their service for a fee is simply not as sexy as that.

While most online business entreprenuers work alone, there are those that provide their services for a fee.  This approach can be very lucritive.  Most of these marketers label themselves as ’SEO experts’ and, for a fee, will help others build and promote a website by optimizing it and marketing it for traffic.

Most internet marketers are not inclined to own or operate traditional brick and mortar businesses.  Therefore, they do not have a physical inventory of products to sell.  They make their living by applying their knowledge to personal websites, or developing other websites for a fee.

Generally, the services that internet marketers for hire can provide for website optimization are:

• Web page optimization
• Head and meta tags optimization
• Keyword research and implementation
• Image alt tag optimization
• Overall website structure and flow
• Website implementation strategy
• Search engine submissions and XML sitemaps
•  External link building programs
• Internal linking plan
• Copy editing and optimization

Other services that directly work towards marketing the website are:

• Adwords campaign management
• Advertisement (banner) creation and implementation
• Press releases
• Email and newsletter marketing
• Social networking management

As you can see, there is quite a bit that the internet marketer can provide to help boost both targeted and organic search traffic to a website.  The truth of the matter is that most web marketers with the knowledge and know-how consider themselves to be elitist and horde these secrets to themselves.  By building and optimizing their own websites, they can effectively corner certain niches and make a generous profit by simply selling advertising and using affiliate marketing programs. 

Many website owners do not have the knowledge, nor the time to implement these key optimization methods.  This is why internet marketing and ‘SEO’ can be so lucritive for those that are experienced at it.

If you are looking for someone to optimize your website, make sure they provide services that resemble those listed above.  If they don’t, there is a good chance that they have limited experience and ability in this field.

Ok, so in my journey into internet marketing, I’ve decided to create a list of good SEO internet marketing forums to post on or read. Forums are a great resource for any web marketer. Finding them is often the problem!

I will be updating this post whenever I find another good and useful forum!

1. Site Sell Forums
2. Vile Silencer Forum
3. PHP Link Directory Forum
4. Link Referral Forum

The independant web marketer looks to take advantage of opportunities that still exist on the net. Typically, this includes finding an unsaturated area that can be exploited by finding a product or service in need, building a website to market it, and monetizing this product or service. Generally, the independant internet marketer will build and manage their websites solely by themselves. They may outsource certain activities, such as link building, but the majority of the research and work is completed on their own.

Some of the most popular types of internet marketing strategies for the individual are:

1. Information marketers: This type of marketer will find a niche area, rich with popular keywords, and create a free content site around this topic (niche) area. By generating traffic through links and organic searches, the independant marketer can monetize the traffic to the website via contextual ads (Google Adsense, Chikita, etc), affiliate programs, and by selling ad (banner) space on the website.
2. Email marketers: The traditional MO of the email marketer is to garner traffic to a monetization source. By collecting email addresses this person will send out regular emails that provide a summarized piece of information designed to draw attention to a specific source. The theory is to drive maximum, targeted and pre-sold traffic to a website that offers a product or service for a price.
3. Affiliate marketers: Affiliate marketers basically sell products and services from another service for a commission. A popular method is to create a niche website, in which a particular product, or genre of products are targeted and promoted. A link to the sellers product page is added, and as visitors click through and purchase, the sale is tracked and credited to the affiliate marketer. Once purchases are finalized, commissions are generated.

So, of course, you can only imagine the potential one has if they are able to incorporate these three main approaches into one right? Well, that is the direction many people are headed to in today’s internet marketing world. The idea is simple really, yet the application proves to be much more difficult. In a nutshell, if you have an idea that is profitable and unsaturated enough to penetrate and you can create content, then you have an opportunity. Now, if you can market your content and drive traffic to it. Well, then you have a gold mine.

As it is though, making a living online proves to be difficult for most independants. Why? Well, the reason is that it takes actual hard work and patience. You have to be willing to fail, and try again and again until you find that ever-elusive niche. Often, even once you find your niche, you’ll realize that it is not as fruitful (monetarily) as you once hoped. This is what leads many independant marketers to create a network of sites that each make a modest amount of income.

Now that I’ve covered the independant internet marketer, I’ll cover the service provider side of internet marketing, in other words, internet marketers for hire.

Not all internet marketers are created equal.  That’s for sure!  We could definately go on and on with this topic, but before I even go any further I’m going to prelude by saying that my main focus for this post is to describe, basically, the two main (in my opinion) approaches to web marketing that people take.

• Independant:  An internet marketer that builds and maintains his or her own website, e-product, affiliate program, et al for profit. 
• Service Provider:  Other internet marketers provide a service to others.  This can come via website development, search engine optimization (SEO), website management, etc.

Before moving on, let’s cover a description of the internet marketer.  For all intents and purposes, an internet marketer is someone who markets products or services over the internet.  This is typically achieved by joining the technical and creative aspects of the internet.  Internet marketers usually specialize in the placement of media along different stages of the web visitor’s cycle.  This is accomplished by Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), advertisments (banner ads) on specific websites, email marketing, and web 2.0 methods.

Typical business models used by the internet marketer are:

E-Commerce:  goods are sold directly to consumers or businesses

Publishing:  the sale of advertising

Lead-based websites:  generating value by acquiring sales leads from websites

Affiliate marketing:   a process in which a product or service developed by one person is sold by other active seller for a commission.

Information marketing:  creating a keyword focused, content rich website that generates income via contextual advertising solutions.

In our current world, there are literal masses of people racing to the internet to find an income.  The web has shrunk the world, and created  a global market place in which the average person can now reach thousands and thousands of potential customers.  With this kind of power, anyone armed with enough knowledge and a little technical know-how can make money on the web.  Over recent years, though, the competition has stiffened considerably, and making a quick buck on the net is not as easy as it once was.

In my next post, I will cover the independant internet marketers in more depth.

The philosophy of internet marketing is to make money online. I bet you didn’t see that one coming! But wanting to make money online doesn’t pay the rent. You have to understand the logic and theory behind internet marketing first.

As the world has moves more and more towards a lifestyle dominated by a web presence, the need for internet marketing has become increasingly more important.  Hence, it is increasingly more important to understand the philosophy of internet marketing.

The reasoning is simple. As more and more business look towards the internet for business solutions, a strong web presence is needed to compete for customers. If your business depends on web-based shoppers or referrals, your website must be found. Without a strong intenet marketing philosophy, your presence on the web will be inconsequential, and your business will suffer as a result.

So what is the philosophy of internet marketing? In a nutshell, the driving theory is likened to the location factor of traditional brick and mortar businesses. A traditional business with a good location is more likely to succeed as opposed to one that is hidden and out of consumer’s view. In other words, out of sight means out of mind. Strong web marketing strategies keep your website in front of your competitors, and hence in front of the consumers.

Before we move on, I’d like to point out that many of you have been made to think that all you have to do is put up a web site and the world with beat a path to your door. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. Web marketing is no less work that marketing in any other arena. It is hard work, make no mistake about it!

Two key components drive internet marketing philosophy.

Increased visibility and increased conversion rates.  Basically these two concepts are the key focus of web marketing.  By increasing your visibility, better known as ‘traffic’, you increase your sales through the sheer volume of consumers that are exposed to your product.  This is more of a shot-gun approach to marketing.  Theoretically, out of ‘X’ number of people, ‘X’ amount of people will want what you are selling.  So if you increase the amount of people that see your product, you will sell more.

Increasing your conversion rate is simply increasing the number of sales derived from a set number of visitors.  For example, increasing your conversion rate from 1% to  2% means instead of one in a hundred people buying your product, two will.  A one percent increase in your conversion rate will significantly impact your business.

Scenario A:  To help present the idea, let’s assume you own a clothing store and you’ve just received a shipment of twenty black designer sweaters for women. You know, from past performance and research that you typically sell one sweater to every 100 women that come into your store (1% conversion rate). So, if you want to sell all twenty sweaters this month, you will need to attract 2000 women to your store in order to accomplish this.  In order to do this, let’s assume you decide to start a marketing campaign.  You take out an ad in the local paper, and send out fliers to your customer list.   This increased visibility succeeds, and 2000 women make their way into your store.  You sell your stock of 20 sweaters and turn a profit.

Scenario B:  What if you can’t get 2000 women into your store?  As any business owner knows, getting people to visit your business can prove to be very difficult.  Another avenue that you could pursue, is increasing your conversion rate.  If you could increase your conversion rate to 2%, you would only need 1000 women to sell the twenty sweaters.  So, considering this, you move the sweater rack to the front of the store so they are visible as soon as customers walk in.  You also place one sweater on a manequin in the store front window with a sign announcing your new shipment.  With these small changes, you effectively increase your conversion rate.  You sell your stock of 20 sweaters and turn a profit.

Imagine what would happen if you combine both strategies?  You’d need to stock more sweaters! Now that’s a situation I’d like to be in!

Ok, so you’ve decided to take the plunge into web marketing. Now you need to decide between the different internet marketing opportunities that exist out there. Before you move on, you should ensure you’ve decided why you want to make money online, and that you have committed to putting in the time and effort that it will require. If you haven’t yet done this, check out this article.

Moving on now. First I’m going to list some popular and widely used internet marketing opportunities, jobs, and methods. I’ll also briefly explain each of them.

Web Designer:

Designing websites can include learning html, css, php, scripting, flash, and image preparation. Web designers build the physical structure and the “look and feel” of websites. There is significant competition for this today as many services offer automated web design. Additionally, many templates and php scripts now allow for almost instant layout designs and implementations. Many people today design their own websites at home for use on sites they own.

Freelancer:

After gaining website design and management skills such as those listed above, many people will offer their services via freelancer. This can create a decent supplemental income.

Niche Marketing

Niche marketing is probably one of the fastest growing and high potential Internet Marketing Opportunities available today. An often used technique for affiliate marketers. By seeking out smaller segments of larger markets, a website can be developed and promoted quickly to uniquely serve a targeted and usually loyal customer base, giving the affiliate a small but regular income stream. This technique is then repeated across several other niche websites until a desired income level is achieved. Income is typically generated through contextual ads, selling adspace on the site, and affiliate sales.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.

Email Marketing

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. Typically, the purpose of email marketing is to drive potential customers to an affiliate network, niche website, or product sales page.

Directory Marketing

A semi-niche marketing tactic that targets website owners and other internet marketers looking to promote their website via submissions to free and paid directories. Owning and operating a directory is one of the more advanced internet marketing opportunities.

Search Engine Optimization Services

Better known as SEO, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

When operating websites, one needs basic SEO knowledge or the website will fail. Period. Many people opt to outsource SEO responsibilities for a fee and focus on content creation. To be able to offer SEO, one must have advanced knowledge of the subject as it is an ever-changing and very difficult subject matter to master.

Website management services

Website management is the process of managing a website for a client. Services can include, but are not limited to website design, content creation, creating images, managing domain procurement and hosting needs, email management, updates, and regular site maintenance. Many businesses do not have the available time to manage their website and outsource this to competent web masters. Often, these business will outsource this to a specialty service, or hire an internal website manager.

Of course, this is not a complete list of money making opportunities on the web. There are many, many others. For instance, you could scribe for medical and legal offices, stuff envelopes, or submit other people’s sites to directories for a fee. But these types of internet marketing opportunities is not the intention of this blog. Those types of services are low paying, low knowledge types of services that usually only serve the purpose of promoting other websites and making other people significantly more money than you.

Stick to the good stuff.

Hopefully, I’ve piqued your interest a bit, as there are plenty of legitimate money making opportunities on the web. But to understand how internet marketing opportunities work, you’ll need a full understanding of the philosophy of internet marketing opportunities.

When Starting Internet Marketing, you must remember that planning and organizing are essential for success. If you don’t have patience and the ability to organize and plan your activities. You should consider a different career choice.

Oh, and you may want to have a bit of knowledge about computers too…just a thought. But don’t fret, there are plenty of resources out there that will help guide you through the processes. And if you don’t want to even try, there are still even more resources that will allow you to build websites and make money on the internet with minimal knowledge required. But I’ll get to those later….

So, first things first. Why are you considering Starting Internet Marketing ? Let’s quickly list some of the reasons people get into web marketing and website development. Here’s my top 10 reasons:

1. To make money.
2. To work from home.
3. To promote themselves, or a personal business.
4. To promote others’ businesses.
5. Side benefit of a web designer/master career.
6. As a hobby.
7. Stumble into it by accident (this applies to alot of bloggers).
8. They hate their work.
9. They hate to work.
10. They have no life.

Let’s hope #10 doesn’t apply to you. Or me for that matter!

Why is this important though? Because making money online takes time and perserverance. Especially for beginners. You shouldn’t do this because you had a bad week at work, or think you are going to get rich quick. Its not going to happen.

You need to be committed…committed to making the best out of it. You need to put in the time, effort, and money. Yes, you will have to put a little money into it at first. Hosting isn’t free, nor are domains, scripts, books, etc.

Enough with the hype…. right?!? I’m sure you want to get to the meat of making money. Well…SLOW DOWN. Take the time now to understand everything and you will save time later.

I’ll repeat.

Take the time now, and you will save time later. It’s that simple.

In my next blog post, I am going to talk about some of the best ways to make money over the internet, and provide brief descriptions of each. Following that will be a short discussion about the philosophy of internet marketing.