Internet Business Guide

Using A CMS For A Content-Rich Website

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, HTML, CSS, Design, SEO

It was when I visited my good friend, Daniel Levy, in Paris that I heard of the term CMS for the first time.

If you’re now wondering (like I was) what the heck CMS means and for what it should be good… outspoken it means Content Management System, and it can be useful for organizing and managing content that you publish on the Web. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

There are free or open source and paid content management systems available.

Up to that point, I was using Macromedia/Adobe Dreamweaver for my websites (except for this very blog). But when Daniel and I were talking about the future of my Blue Baby, MyGermanCity.com, a travel related content-rich website, and the plans I have with it in terms of features and number of pages, his reaction was: “You need a CMS!”

“CMS?” I asked.

“CMS,” he said. He then went on and explained what CMS means, what it is, does, and the advantages — and possible disatvantages — of using one.

It made sense to me so I went ahead and researched both costly and open source top content management systems. One tool I used was the CMSMatrix.org, although their database was — and still is — partially outdated. (Showing WordPress version 2.2.1 when the current version was 2.6? That’s a huge difference.)

I also went to OpenSourceCMS.com, but take it with a grain of salt since feedback is marbled by spammy comments of users and partners or owners of the respective software.

Additionally, there were at least 40 reviews and reports whose URLs I purged; though I’m sure you’ll find them using Google’s powerful search engine. ;-)

This entire research (plus testing, and testing, and testing…) took me almost three months.

Which content management systems did I test?

In alphabetical order:

• Bitrix Site Manager (7.0)
• Drupal (5.10 & 6.4)
• e107 (0.7 — six years old and still no version 1?)
• ExpressionEngine (1.6.5)
• eZ Publish (4.0)
• Joomla! (1.5.7)
• Mambo (4.6.5)
• MovableType (4.2), and…
• WordPress (2.6)

There were a few more, but due to the fact that I removed them from the test domain within a few minutes — or did not even bother installing them due to detailed reviews — I avoid mentioning them here.

Daniel also mentioned the name CMS400. At that time, the company behind this software, Ektron, did not provide prices on its website (hmm…). And when I contacted an Ektron representative, all the person did was ask questions… still no price.

End of conversation.

At the time of this writing, Ektron does provide prices on its website, starting at a whopping $5,000 per URL for the Standard Edition. But what I would have needed would have been the Professional Edition for which it says, “Ask your sales person for details.”

Sure…

You can see that I was not necessarily after a free or open source content management system. No CMS is “for free.” You always spend time (= money) and energy figuring everything out and familiarizing yourself with it. Or you have someone else do it for you, in which case you spend money, too.

Of course, I could have outsourced this task. The thing though is that I wanted to familiarize myself with it to know whether I want to work with it for the next few years, and to see which is the best or most appropriate CMS for MyGermanCity.com.

At one point I narrowed it down to Joomla! and Drupal with tendency towards Drupal. The thing was I would have spend at least $1,500 just for transitioning the existing template alone. Plus, I also needed someone for setting everything up.

What actually pushed me away from it, however, is the lack of plugin development (which they call modules).

You need to understand that modules are being developed for certain main Drupal releases (ex., 5 or 6) since the main Drupal versions are backward INcompatibel. Now, there were a couple modules that I needed upfront or soon, but they were not available for version 6. So I would have been forced to use Drupal 5 instead. Not that bad, perhaps, but what if I want or have to upgrade from 5 to 6?

That’s a huge task, they say.

This got me to remove both Drupal 5 & 6 from the test domain.

OK, then I was ready to use Joomla!.

Gosh, what a software… really impressive, speaking of customizability and features available right from the start! I even was about to fall in love with it (buy me a t-shirt!), but then…

Writing a simple content page, publishing it, and trying to access it on the Web (using the URL alias, not the ugly dynamic URL), displayed a 404 error… WTF?

The thing was this: If you do not assign a page to a left or right hand navigation bar, a Category, or a Section, you canNOT see the page on the Web using the pretty or search engine friendly URL!

End of discussion. What a pity, but Joomla! was removed from the server within a minute.

Another possible CMS was the Bitrix Site Manger. Again, it does have a cost upfront, but this can be compensated by the fact that most tools are already included. This may save you a lot of time later on.

As an example, one developer I got in contact with said that Drupal can do the same things Bitrix Site Manager does. The difference in terms of cost?

Almost non-existent.

I would have paid a similar amount of money for either CMS. The Bitrix Site Manager as it’s being shipped plus transitioning the theme: up to $3,000 altogether. Letting a developer set up Drupal, hand-code and/or customize certain modules, and have another or the same developer transfer the existing XHTML/CSS template to Drupal: up to $3,000 altogether.

Someone may argue that the Bitrix Site Manager does have a whole bunch of features built-in — tools one would need to develop for a Drupal powered site first. Plus, the assurance that Bitrix will maintain and improve those tools further since they’re part of the whole package, whereas one may need to hire a developer for maintaining and improving a Drupal powered site.

So again, both may sum up to an equal amount of time/money.

The thing that made me uninstall the Bitrix Site Manager was that file names are supposed to end in .php. They did say that it should work without the .php, but my testing consistently displayed nothing but error messages.

Another point was that this software is fairly complex (installation consists of thousands of files and folders), and, again, the need of someone to convert the existing site template to the Bitrix Site Manager would likely amount to up to $1,500 (which one may pay for a new but not for transitioning an existing custom template).

Next station was ExpressionEngine, which was recommended by the gentleman who created MyGermanCity.com’s site template — a coder extraordinaire, Pat Heard.

I can code HTML and CSS on my own, but Pat does it better, he does it in lightening speed, and he’s an expert in JavaScript.

If you’re ever in need of a first-class coder — one who exceeds your expectations — I highly recommend Pat Heard of fullahead.org. Let me warn you though… he’s usually booked out for weeks if not months.

Now, he did not only recommend EE, he also gave me a very important tip:

The choice of CMS is highly personal. Usually, once someone has invested the time to learn WordPress, TextPattern, Joomla, etc., they’ll swear up and down that it’s the best out there.

His comment set me up brilliantly. It made me look beyond the reviews of “raving fans.” ;-)

Back to ExpressionEngine…

The backend looked promising. Somehow, I felt comfortable right from the start. Plus, they promote their excellent forum and staff. Sounds good. They further promise to be extremely flexible. Also good. But then…

You CAN customize the layout to your hearts content. The downside, though, is that it affects the URL structure of your site!

As a side note: You can, somehow, program the software (or add something to the .htaccess file) to remove those template related words from URLs, but they strongly recommend you to not do that. “Extremely flexible?”

The other CMSs also just didn’t make it. e107 is too plain and doesn’t meet my needs; eZ Publish was a bit difficult to get to work, plus I couldn’t figure out how to do certain tasks; and Mambo — I dismissed that one, somehow… (doesn’t it lack development power now that some of Mambo’s previous core developers are in on developing Joomla!?).

That was the point where the thought of using WordPress as a content management system started to grow. But before that… “let me give MovableType a chance”.

First off, they consistently announce which websites use their software, and I don’t care who is using what. What interests me is what a software can do for me and my visitors, and its momentum in terms of development.

Long story short, what got me uninstall MovableType were mainly two things:

1) Somehow, it stands on its own. URLs with underscores?? And you have to be a registered user to enable things such as showing your own image next to your own comment?

2) To me it seems as though their marketing and vision is blurred and fuzzy. One day they decide to have this price; another day they decide to release MovableType as open source — with limited features over MovableType Pro. Yet another day they decide to remove those limitations and have the open source version match exactly the Pro version. Yet another day they change the price structure, again.

What about consistency and a clear plan?

Another thing that underscores my thesis is that their staff often writes mt.com or mt.org instead of movabletype.com or movabletype.org. Laziness (or fuzziness) can lead to strange destinations… ;-)

Enough said; on to WordPress.

But can it do what I need it to do?

I quickly realized that it can, and much more.

• Custom page templates without altering the URL.
• Custom breadcrumbs navigation (and many more custom fields) by utilizing the Custom Fields options when creating pages or posts.
• Customize the file name structure to your heart’s content. You could even add any file extension to it, if you wish.
• Compared to other CMSs, to create a WordPress template is very easy and pretty straight forward. In other words, the transition from a static XHTML/CSS template to a WordPress template was done within a few hours — by myself, a PHP newbie.
• The momentum and professionalism in terms of development and improvement is unmatched. Really impressive. New version after new version; plus, plugins are consistently developed and improved. And if not, it should be comparably simple to create a new custom plugin or alter an existing one — or to find someone who can alter or create and maintain one for a reasonable price.
• WordPress with its array of plugins may save you thousands of dollars in comparison to certain other content management systems.

That’s about my decision of using WordPress as a content management system for a content-rich website. :-)

—Marcus Hochstadt

32 CommentsPermalink Tags: cms, content management system

Utilizing Headers And Titles For SEO

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design, SEO

Did you know that there is a difference between off page optimization and on page optimization? Yes, there is. And what I will talk about here has to do with optimizing with “on page” techniques. These are simple remedies to increase your traffic.

You already know how important keywords are in your copy. That almost goes without saying at this point. ;-) And you should put the most effort in your Web site development with the use of keywords. It’s not something to ever neglect. This is vital!

You may have already been told that it is ideal to have your main keyword within your URL. However, that’s not always possible at this late date. You might already have your URL and can’t go to the trouble of changing it.

But there are things you can do now to make your Web page better optimized. And you should take each page and treat it as a separate entity. I’ll explain…

The first trick here is to make good use of title tags. You do this by having each page with the targeted keyword appearing in the title of the page. If the entire Web site is about printers, then, depending on your market & keyword research results, most Web page files probably start with or contain the keyword printers. You can name them printershp.html and printerscanon.html and the like. I’ll bet the search engines will like this. ;-)

Another important point is to take care in using Header tags. You will find that most SEO people will recommend only having one single H1 tag per page that contains the main keyword. Then your other H2 and H3 tags should have within them the secondary keywords.

You could consider this a sort of puzzle game, listing out all the main keywords, the secondary keywords and then working out where to put them. The content will have to read correctly and be of high quality, of course.

These are changes you can easily make to optimize your Web site. Get those keywords in there where the search engines can find them. Use Headers and Titles intelligently.

You want those search engines liking your site, for when they do, you get indexed. And when you get indexed, you will likely show up higher and higher in the results when folks search for your product or service.

All these recommendations are geared to make you more successful with your site. I like to see my friends make more money and increase profits!

—Marcus Hochstadt

36 CommentsPermalink Tags: header tags, SEO, title tag

Content Vs. Design

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design, Marketing, SEO

I will offer some opinions here, and you can take them or leave them. However, due to my experience (and actual tests run), I hope you will take what I have to say to heart! :-)

What is it that gets visitors to your Web site to stay there, browsing, looking and buying? Is it the design? Is it the layout? No, it’s the CONTENT. The written content keeps your visitors on your site and viewing your pages.

What causes your visitors to purchase from you? The content. They read, they read some more, they find good points that creates enough interest for them to purchase.

Let’s imagine you go to a Web site and the design is wonderful. Fancy, creative graphics. It really wows you. But the content is boring, or hard to understand, or it simply doesn’t capture your interest. Will you be encouraged to buy from them?

Another important question: Will you come back? It’s extremely doubtful. Maybe you’ll go back to get that wow effect from the design again, but not because of the content. Right?

On the other hand, if you go to a site that provides excellent content (like articles or informational text) you will likely bookmark that page. You will probably share that site with others.

Maybe this page with fantastic content has just a basic design, or an ugly default WordPress template. But you still bookmark and share it. You are likely to return for a visit. And this is because there is content that is more than interesting to read and that holds your attention.

Finding a template for a Web page should be a fast and painless process. Google doesn’t care about your design, they only care about the written content and the human behavior based on that content.

My opinion is that folks spend too much time on the design of their site, modifying the template, etc… way too much time. They miss the boat in this regard. What they should concentrate on is having great content that captures interest and encourages people to return.

High quality content goes a long way to getting your visitors to come and stay. You will attract many more visitors through the search engines. You will SELL your product because of that.

Obviously, the above wouldn’t necessarily apply to those selling templates or promoting design services… ;-)

And I can’t say I am completely innocent when it’s come to getting carried away sometimes with the design. But I am ridding myself of that compulsion step by step!

—Marcus Hochstadt

18 CommentsPermalink Tags: design, SEO

Increase Ranking With Contextual Linking

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO

Do you have a “link page” on your Web site? Well, think about changing. A better and more effective way to have quality links on your page is by using contextual linking.

What is contextual linking, you might ask? Well, the answer is simple… it’s adding links that are embedded in your existing content-rich pages.

Forget those pages where you’ve just added a whole bunch of links to various companies. Even dividing them into industries doesn’t help (unless your Web site happens to be a directory). There’s no CONTENT on these pages to make the search engines happy. And who is going to voluntarily visit your link page? Probably nobody; conduct a survey and you shall see… ;-)

A simple text link will normally consist of a few anchor words, with a link to that other Web site. They aren’t within actual content on the page. But a context link will exist within lots of text that is relevant.

The number of links within that text should not be overwhelming to the visitor. And it’s important to know that these contextual links are particularly high quality. Search engines will rate them as such because of the content of your pages, as well as rating the quality of the content of the pages that your link links to.

You can ask others to add your link into their pages by already having their link on your page, but you will find that if you are not indexed in the major search engines, they will refuse to reciprocate. Why? Because no one is going to find that link. Ensure you are indexed. How to find out?

Type in your Web site address into Google. Does your site come up? If so, you’re indexed.

Also, be sure that the site you are asking to contain your link comes up as being indexed. Place their Web site URL into Google as well. If they aren’t indexed, forget about them for now.

Having contextual links has become a viable way to drive traffic to your site. You’ll find targeted traffic will arrive, eager to see what you have available.

Remember: Relevant text is important. You don’t want to be selling services as an auto mechanic and have links to laser printer sales companies. But if you have links to businesses that sell auto parts or cars or tires… well, you see what I mean.

Here’s an example of how it could work. Let’s say you have a Web site where you’re writing about your travel experiences. Here’s a part of your possible content and a contextual link…

The last time I traveled to Europe I booked my ticket to Germany at TicketsFor99.com.

That “ticket to Germany at TicketsFor99.com” is an in-context text link, a link within and relevant to the content.

Doing contextual linking will set you up to get more quality traffic and thus more sales. Do it!

—Marcus Hochstadt

20 CommentsPermalink Tags: link building, SEO

Keywords, Search Engines, And Your Content

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO

When creating content for your Web site, you should be aware of some tips in regards to keyword placement that will make for happier Search Engine results. You want to have interesting content as well as keywords in the right places and in the right density. Here are some ideas for you to make optimizing your site much more effective.

How People Search

When someone wants to find something using a Search Engine, they usually use some sort of word combination. For instance, when looking for information about where to go in San Francisco, they may type in “san francisco sights” or “activities san francisco.” You would consider this to be a specific keyword since they do not use general info about San Francisco but info specifically about sights and/or activities in that area.

Another example: Someone wants to purchase a fax ribbon. They might type in the model fax they use and “fax ribbon.”

The first thing you want to do is consider how people would search for your service or product to come up with the specific keywords you want to use. The more specific the search term is (i.e., San Francisco as the specific word and Bay Bridge for the general term), and the more specific you present your page’s content, the more targeted your visitors are supposed to be.

Headline

Your headline, of course, has to pull the reader into the rest of the body copy. So it not only has to be exciting and stimulating, but it also is advantageous to contain your specific keyword. In addition, you can also include general keywords if they fit in nicely. If you entitle your article something completely different in trying to be creative, you may find that no one will be reading it, because Search Engines and humans may find it confusing.

Then you will take the picture your headline has painted and continue it into the main body of your content.

Placement of Keywords

Before we get into covering the body specifically, we should go over the placement of keywords (although I strongly recommend you to write the content first and then go to “editing mode”!)

You will need to put the specific keyword into the text just a tad more than “normal” writing. But you also don’t want to overuse the word. One trick is to use related words or synonyms with it. To use the above example here, you would not only have “San Francisco” appear by itself, but could mention “San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf” or “the sunset over the San Francisco Bay.” You can work out combinations to use with general keywords, as well.

The closer to the beginning that your specific keyword appears, the higher you will likely score in the search engines. Put the specific keyword in the first sentence of your first paragraph. If you can include it within the first 90 characters, all the better! But if that reads awkwardly, you can put it a little later in the text. It won’t be the end of the world. And be sure to include it in the last paragraph of your text.

Now put your specific keyword into the rest of the text in a pattern something like an hourglass. You will have the word appear more frequently at the top and bottom, but it should still appear in the middle—just less often. If you put it in too many times, you may show up in Search Engines as a “keyword spammer.” This will hurt your ratings.

Formatting and Style

Formatting is important. You don’t want content that will fail to interest the visitors. If too short, it won’t really catch their attention and cause them to read on, and if too long, they will lose interest and not keep reading either.

You want a correct length that will provide high quality information that is informative and exciting. A conversational tone is excellent to engage readers, keeping to maximum five lines per each paragraph and using active verbs. Sentences shouldn’t be too long.

Text Body

Now as you tell your story, you need to remember to start strongly. What you write in your headline and the first part of your content will most likely appear in some of the Search Engine listings. You want to compel the person to click on your listing when it shows up.

You are basically building your content around that specific keyword. In other words, each page of your Web site should focus on one specific keyword.

When you over deliver with superior content, the visitor will be more inclined to read down the whole page and get to the links that will mean income for you. The content should be answering the visitor’s question of “What is in it for me?” That would be the question they have when they arrive at your site.

And with correct keyword placement, the Search Engines will “understand” what your page is about, without “feeling” they are being manipulated.

Really, the engines and human visitors both want the same thing, excellent high-quality content. So the bottom line is to have proper keyword placement, and a smart use of related words, increasing your relevancy and getting your visitors to buy your service or product.

—Marcus Hochstadt

5 CommentsPermalink Tags: keyword placement, keywords, search engines

SEO vs. Design

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO

There’s a constant debate between designers and search engine optimizers… and maybe you can guess what it is! It’s the war between including fancy designs with images versus focusing on providing relevant text.

Web designers usually want to avoid lots of text that distracts from their aesthetic page and from their design standing out to visitors. They can get carried away with very fancy graphics and all sorts of things.

On the other side of the coin, SEOers know that just appearance isn’t the only characteristic of a good site, and they, therefore, try to achieve plenty of content that will work the magic of converting visitors into paying customers.

To be clear, design really focuses on the appearance of the pages. What sort of graphics you have on your pages, how they are laid out, and of course, the color schemes and such. That’s your design.

SEOers are looking to the optimization of your site. They focus on the quality of the text as well as the quantity. The copy also has to attract search engines. If search engines don’t find your page, you won’t have any visitors to your pages at all (unless you pay for traffic)… therefore, no one to admire the design!

You will have to get the important concept here. It’s vital that visitors receive your sales message. When you have an Internet business, you’ll have to ask yourself, “What will work the best so I get visitors, and once they arrive on my site, what will work best to have those visitors actually buy my product or service?”

Yes, like Iron Man, you can become powerful and in a causative position over the results your website gets. You have to concentrate on optimization. There isn’t such a thing as a complete balance in design and optimization. Not in this competitive world.

Simplicity in design is really the best way to go… in fact “overdoing” this simplicity. You can keep to black for your fonts and lines and use white for background. That simple. At the end of the day, it’s the content that will keep your site interesting to visitors.

When you do use images, use alt tags, title attributes, and targeted file names to optimize them for the Search Engines. But you must still realize that the old saying holds true, “Content is King!” You have to ensure that the copy on your pages contains keywords in the correct density… relevant copy too, I might add. ;-) This is where you should focus most of your attention.

If your Internet business is invisible to search engines, it’s like having a big store on a main street in town but leaving the doors locked and the windows covered. If an excellent message is lacking, people may find your site, but they will come and then go. It’s too easy for visitors to go shop somewhere else. They click the back button and they’re gone!

Online marketing is vital, and SEO is a large part of that. Without relevant, exciting and informative content, you will just sit in the dark, unvisited and unloved. Your shop will remain closed, virtually and every other way.

Paying thousands to have your site designed doesn’t automatically guarantee that you’ll be the newest and best on the Web, getting thousands of visitors weekly… or daily.

The two subjects of design and SEO don’t have to be in conflict. The visual appearance can be pleasing with simple design. It will load quickly and be easier to navigate without all the additional photos, logos, and other distracting graphics. Besides, rather than having your visitors stare at the design, make them read the actual content.

Bottom line, the content is what will keep visitors coming back, and ultimately doing business with you!

—Marcus Hochstadt

16 CommentsPermalink Tags: design, SEO

Why Some Should Change The Permalink Structure

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO

From time to time, I find WordPress powered blogs that use a certain default setting.

Nothing wrong with defaults in general, but the one I’m talking about today is one of the key essentials for getting high rankings at the Search Engines, and it makes folks remember and recognize certain pages more easily.

Therefore, I find it essential for your Internet Business.

What am I talking about anyway?

Permalinks (or “Permanent Links”)

When people visit your WordPress blog they will see a list of the most current posts. But what happens if a user wants to come back to read a specific post in a few days or months time? It could be that it has disappeared off the home page and is now archived somewhere. This is where permalinks come in.

Permalinks are quite simply permanent links to your post, and per default these look like…

http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123

The “p=123″ means something to WordPress, however it means very little to anyone else, or Search Engines for that matter. These are the two main reasons why you might want to change your permalink structure in your WordPress application.

SEO is a hot topic nowadays. Just in case you have been living with cotton wool in your ears for the past few years then it stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This basically means making your site more attractive to Search Engines.

When Search Engines are crawling the Internet they may pay attention to certain sites and index them. “p=123″ means absolutely nothing (other than that it’s the 123th post,) unless of course someone searches for “p=123″ which is very unlikely! What would be better is to change this link to something meaningful.

Changing the format of these links will also make it possible for humans to remember certain links. Including the post name in the permalink will make it much easier for people to remember the content of the post.

Also, when someone sees a post of your blog, s/he decides whether or not to click-through to that particular blog post. Having a “p=123″ may not accomplish this.

Changing The Permalink Structure In WordPress

To change the permalink structure in your WordPress application, click on OPTIONS -> PERMALINKS. Under “Common Options” check the radio button beside “Custom, specify below” and enter the following…

%postname%

This will result in a structure such as http://www.yourblog.com/name-of-post

Why only %postname% and nothing more, like the date or the category?

The reason why I use %postname% only is word-of-mouth, which is a crucial part of any Internet business. Similarly to choosing a good domain name, the longer the URL the harder to remember and the more difficult it will be to have a clickable link in e-mails, comments, chatting, etc (may be chopped off.)

—Marcus Hochstadt

P.S. For more information, visit the WordPress tutorial on changing the permalink structure.

27 CommentsPermalink Tags: permalinks

How To Choose A Good Domain Name

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO, Traffic Generation

Ever wondered how to choose the right domain name for your Internet business?

Choosing a good domain name can make us gripe especially in terms of SEO. What I mean is when you want to have your Site Concept keyword in it as well. Depending on your site’s theme, the domain name may become very long, making it difficult to remember properly.

Let’s say you target the audience of tennis, therefore your Site Concept keyword (i.e., the keyword you focus on on your site) may be tennis. tennis.com is already taken, so you end up searching for a good alternative. And to decide upon that alternative may take a little while.

Here are the rules I follow when searching for profitable domain names in my Internet business endeavors…

• If possible, include your Site Concept keyword. It shall give you a 20% ranking nudge in terms of SEO.
• Keep the domain name as short as possible. Every character counts (more often than not!)
• OK, I agree it depends on your Site Concept keyword, because when that is “bed and breakfast” you already have three words—15 characters—plus any additional characters that make the name fairly long already. Still, keep it as short as possible or word of mouth may not work so well.
• Use a memorable, perhaps even remarkable name. Is it easy to remember? Or do people ask you several times to repeat the name?
• Is it easy to spell? The more difficult it is to spell the more names you’ll need to register (in order to “get them all”.) Speaking of which…
• How many equivalents does it “contain”? For a good live example… You do know the most popular video sharing site, don’t you? Yes, youtube.com. Now, did you ever happen to enter utube.com instead? I assume lots of people do. Go to alexa.com and take a look at utube.com’s 3-year history graph. (Link goes to alexa; once there click on the “3y” link in the history graph.) Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? So make sure you register the “misspelled versions,” too.
• Does your name stand out from the name crowd? Does it have some sort of uniqueness? Google was fairly unknown five years ago. Nowadays?
• Does the name make people click through to the site? Is it “attractive”? Are they curious to know what’s behind it?
• Is it “you”? Does the domain name describe you in some way?
• Does the name convey a clear message? Does it give them an idea of what to expect once they clicked?
• If you use 2 or more words, register both the hyphenated and the non-hyphenated version (using the non-hyphenated version for the content site.)
• The best TLDs regarded by surfers are .com, .org, or .net.

Here’s an Exercise…

With three (or more) possible names in hand, ask 20 people for their opinions in terms of memorability, uniqueness, and meaningfulness.

The results may surprise you. ;-)

(It took me 2-3 months before I decided upon MyGermanCity.com. I had a bunch of shorter names, but MyGermanCity.com surpassed them all big time.)

Using Two Domain Names?

Some folks say one could register a longer name for the Search Engines and a short “non-keyword” name for use on business cards and in e-mail.

Hmm, just imagine this…

You hand out the shorter name that has no content but simply brings visitors to the longer SE friendly name with all the content. Though, these folks may only be aware of the shorter name, so they start linking to that one. What happens?

SEs assign PageRank (PR) values to that shorter name. Although it has no content, yet still, folks link to it. (SEs seems to love honest human activities like this.)

With this in mind, I would use only one domain name in both cases so I don’t miss out on any “link love gifts.”

Bottom Line?

Keep it short. Make it memorable. Make people want to click through.

The most important of all though is to do proper market and keyword research BEFORE you register a domain name for your Internet business!

—Marcus Hochstadt

17 CommentsPermalink Tags: domain name, keyword, SEO

Top 4 On Google In 43 Days

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, SEO, Traffic Generation

My blog is #4 on Google for its main keyword internet business after only 43 days.

Yes, you read that right.

If you ever researched keywords and/or markets and niches, you probably know that internet business is a highly competitive niche market. Yes, it’s not a niche, it’s a market. Some folks wouldn’t even consider entering that industry. They think they would never make it against the “big guys.”

I’m about to beat ‘em. :-)

As a disclaimer, when you go to Google you’ll likely see different results. The screenshot above (click on it to see the large version) was made on the Brazilian version google.com.br. On the U.S. American portal google.com, my blog is on #847.

Still, as you can see I compete against 179,000,000 (!) other Web sites, and I’m on #4. Cool… (It has a reason my Alexa Ranking in Brazil, as of today, is at 15,675…)

I’m going to share my tips and strategies that I think are responsible for this with you soon, so stay tuned.

Just wanted to give you a quick heads up. :-)

—Marcus Hochstadt

12 CommentsPermalink Tags: alexa ranking, google, high rankings

Getting Your Pages Indexed In A Matter Of Hours

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO, Tutorials

I regularly see folks putting up Web sites but don’t know how to get the pages indexed by the Search Engines. Some think the SEs will somehow magically find all of them somewhere someday.

I haven’t come across that magic yet.

Still, there are several methods available for getting your pages indexed in a matter of hours. Today, I’m going to talk about one of them…

Sitemap files

Although they might have heard of them somehow somewhere, there are still lots of Webmasters out there that don not implement an XML Sitemap file to their sites. It’s a pity because Search Engines LOVE them.

I’m not talking about a Sitemap for your human visitors; I’m talking about one created particularly for the SEs, in a predefined format. For more details see www.sitemaps.org.

Google initially created this concept, then worked with Yahoo!, Ask and Microsoft to make it a standard protocol that all four Search Engines can use.

Now, when you run your Internet business with content rich Web sites, there are tools available online which create a Sitemap file for you. Just go to Google and enter “sitemaps generator” or something similar and you’ll find plenty.

If you own a blog there is a WordPress Google Sitemaps plugin available that I personally use and recommend. It updates your Sitemap file automatically whenever you update an old or publish a new post or page. Very neat.

Once you’ve set everything up you are ready to submit your Sitemap file(s) to the four big SEs. Since this is a very helpful step for your Internet business, I took the time and compiled the below how-to guide for you. These are the exact same steps I follow myself in order to get my sites and pages indexed in a matter of hours.

Alright, here we go…

Google

1. Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools and/or go straight to Google Sitemaps Login.
2. Submit you Site URL by adding your domain name(s) to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard.
3. Optional: If you want to take advantage of Google’s comprehensive statistics and crawl reports, go ahead and “Verify your site.” (A yellow “Next Step” box shall appear near the top at this moment.)
4. Next, click on the “Sitemaps” link in the NavBar on left hand side, then on “Add Sitemap.”
5. In the drop-down that appears, choose “Add General Web Sitemap.”
6. Enter the Sitemap’s URL into the box that says “My Sitemap URL is:” (though without the domain name and the http:// prefix since it’s already there.)
7. If you have more than one Web site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Dashboard” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.

Yahoo!

1. Go to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your home page (first field, where it says “Submit a Website”)
2. When you’re done, go back to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your Sitemap file (second field, where it says “Submit Site Feed”)
3. Click on the green “Authenticate” button in the upper right to certify ownership. Whether you added a META tag or uploaded a file, remember to keep either version active for as long as you manage the site. Who knows… If you remove it, Yahoo! might simply go ahead and dismiss your site from their index. Not a good thing, is it.. ;-)
4. If you have more than one site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Site Explorer Home” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.
5. Optional: Check back after a day or two to see the status of the authentification; hence whether there are any issues.

Live

1. Go to the Live Search Webmaster Central. If you don’t have an MSN or Live account yet, create one and then sign in.
2. Click on the “Add a Site” button.
3. Enter the full URL of the site you’re about to manage, and below that enter the full URL of the respective Sitemap file.
4. Choose which method you’re going to use for ownership verification. (More details are going to appear once you clicked on the “Submit” button.)
5. Enter your contact info. (Don’t know if this is obligatory, but I entered it anyway; maybe kind of verification v.2 ;-)
6. Now you get to see details for the verification method you chose a step before. Once you’ve uploaded the XML file or put the META tag to your site’s home page, click “OK”. Again, keep the file or the META tag active for as long as you own or manage that site.
7. Want to add more sites? Click on the “Add a Site” button. If you don’t see that button, click on the “See all your websites” link on right hand side and it shall appear.

Ask

Unfortunately, Ask does not provide a “Webmaster Central” kind of thing (yet) so you cannot control whether they captured your Sitemap file(s) or to have other neat little tools. They provide a foolproof 10-second method though. Here we go…

1) Copy and paste the following URL into a plain text editor (ex., NotePad, TextEdit)…

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//

2) See that http%3A// at its end? Put the Sitemap file’s URL after it but without the http://

So the final URL should look like this…

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

(I used “sitemap.xml” as the example file name. Though, I recommend you use another file name, one that can not be easily guessed; ex., 3KLfu54.xml.)

3) Now paste that line into your browser’s address bar and hit enter. Ask will then confirm the success of your Sitemap submission. If not, check the correctness of the URL again. (Ex., are there any spaces before, between, or at the end; any line breaks, etc.)

–

Phew; that’s it!

You’ve now successfully submitted your Sitemap file(s) to the four big Search Engines Boys! This shall help pumping up your Internet business substantially. Again, these four cover 95% of all searches performed online.

NOTE: Submitting your Sitemap file to the SEs does not warrant high rankings, nor does it guarantee to get all pages indexed in “5 minutes.” Still, it does help getting indexed much faster and a lot more pages though. ;-)

Let me know how it goes?

—Marcus Hochstadt

11 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, sitemap file

To How Many Search Engines Should I Submit My Site?

Published by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO

This is a question that comes up often… “To how many Search Engines should I submit my site?”

There are millions of searches being performed each and every day. Getting sites indexed in order to receive free traffic from the SEs is one crucial step towards becoming free in your Internet business endeavors.

So what’s the answer? To how many?

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Live (MSN)
• Ask

These are the “Search Engine Boys” if you so will. Yes, only four. Not a silly 30,000, 3,000 or 300, only 4 (four). These four cover 95% of all searches performed online. All others are either aggregators (i.e., use one of the above SE’s technology) or are just too insignificant in importance.

As an old saying goes, better focus on the 20% that cover 80% of the market. (Here it’s rather focusing on the 5% that cover 95%.)

That means, whenever you get an offer such as “we’ll submit your site to 300+ Search Engines” — it might sound great but forget it! You do more harm than good to your site’s health.

“But where exactly do I submit my site(s) to?” you ask? I knew you would. ;-)

OK, here we go…

Google

http://www.google.com/addurl/

Yahoo!

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Live/MSN

http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Ask

None.

Oops! Why “none”? They say they will discover your site through links from other sites to yours.

Now, it may take up to several months until they indexed your site. Yup, that much. I do have a much faster method though.

Do you want to know how to get your site(s) indexed in as little as 48 hours (or less)?

Stay tuned. I’m going to post that tutorial soon. :-)

—Marcus Hochstadt

7 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, submit site