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34 Web Design Tips

2008-10-31T08:31:00.005-04:00

At Webwildcatting.com we believe great web site design starts with search engine optimization, then is followed by good web site design. Why this is important: First, most small website owners want their site to be found. SEO improves the ability to make money fast from increasing traffic. Then comes good web site design. Here's some great reference books on the topic.

Site design is essentially the first impression that someone gets when they land on your site. You may have all your usability and SEO elements in place, but if the design is lacking then your visitor's impression of you will be lacking as well. A visually appealing site can not only bolster trust and credibility, but it can make you stand out among other less-appealing sites in your industry.

Here's 34 tips on best practices for good web design, if you want the list in a nice easy to use document for $9.95 click here, you'll be glad you did:

1. Instant site identification: As soon as landing on any page the visitor must be able to tell what website they are on.

2. Crisp, clean image quality: Don't use old or blurry images. Keep them neat, clean and sharp.

3. Clean, clutter-less design: Avoid trying to do too much at once. Keep navigation and content areas clear of unnecessary clutter.

4. Consistent colors and type: Use the same colors and font styles from page to page.

5. White space usage: Don't pack too much in, allow some breathing room so important areas stick out.

6. Minimal distractions: Be careful of images, animation and even links that pull the visitor into unwanted directions.

7. Targets intended audience: Make certain that your design targets your audience with appropriate colors, layout and wording.

8. Meets industry best practices: Design to be the best site in your industry. If there are industry-specific guidelines to be followed, be sure to do that.

9. Easy to navigate: Make it is easy for your visitor to find the links they need to take them to their desired pages.

10. Descriptive links: All links should accurately describe the destination page.

11. Good on-page organization: Put page information together in a logical way and keep information where it is expected to be found.

12. Easy to find phone number: Phone number should be easy to find regardless of page the visitor is on. The header is a great place for the phone number.

13. Don't link screen captures: It's not a good idea to link screen captures to other pages. Use text links or buttons.

14. Skip option for flash: If you use flash animations, have an option to skip it or turn it off all together.

15. Consistent page formatting: Use a consistent layout from page to page so the site feels like one cohesive unit.

16. No/minimal on-page styling: Use external CSS for all on-page styling. Only keep on the page what is specific for that page only.

17. Avoid text in images: Don't place quality keyword rich text in images.

18. Font size is adequate: Don't use excessively small fonts. Larger fonts increase readability of content.

19. Font type is friendly: Use fonts meant for the web, rather than fonts designed for print.

20. Paragraphs not too wide: Don't allow paragraphs to get too wide. Use absolute widths if necessary.

21. Visual cues to important elements: Be sure important links and action items stand out visually from the rest of the content.

22. Good overall contrast: Make sure text can be read (black on white) and colors don't bleed into each other.

23. Low usage of animated graphics: Avoid animated graphics unless absolutely essential to the user experience.

24. Uses obvious action objects: Calls to actions, links and subscribe buttons should be obvious at a glance.

25. Avoid requiring plugins: Don't use plugins that visitors have to download before getting the full site experience.

26. Minimize the use of graphics: Don't make your site graphic heavy to the point where the visitor is overwhelmed with visual eye-candy.

27. Understandable graphic file names: Name your images and other files in a way that makes sense if read.
No: /images/BDJ2330.jpg
Yes: /images/boys-rainslicker-jacket.jpg

28. No horizontal scrolling: Make sure the design is not so wide that horizontal scrolling is required.

29. Non-busy background: Keep site background unobtrusive to the main content areas of the site.

30. Recognizable look and feel: Your site design should be distinctive to you alone. Avoid templates that are mass reproduced.

31. Proper image / text padding: Give enough room between images and text so they don't bump up against each other.

32. Uses trust symbols: Better Business Bureau, site security and other trust symbols should be in obvious (and applicable) locations.

33. Works on variety of resolutions: Test site to be sure it works on a variety of different screen resolutions.

34. Works on variety of screen widths: Test site to be sure it functions correctly on different width screens and browser windows.

Over Optimization can create a huge drop in rankings, and oh by the way business too.

2008-09-28T08:59:00.005-04:00

Here's a great article showing how you can actually 'over' optimize your site which can have a negative impact on your rankings.
href="http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=SiteExplorer&fid=109799">

The idea here is not to give up hope, it is to be constantly reading, and following trends in the industry. If you feel that's not your game, or bag, come see us, we'll help you out with your seo needs.

What are Meta Tags?

2008-09-20T07:21:00.004-04:00

What are meta tags?

At webwildcatting.com we get this question a lot from our clients. Here is a simple answer to this question. We have a great 25 step tool to help any website owner organically improve website search engine optimization. Take a look at it here.

Meta tags are little bits of HTML code that provide information about a page but are not viewable by the user in a browser. Most search engines examine a page's meta tags, which usually include a page title, description, and keywords, to index the page and help determine its ranking in relevant search results. Although not the only way to elevate your site's search engine rankings, judiciously adding meta tags to your pages can help.

Title:
Title tags appear at the top of the web browser screen when that page is viewed, and in a visitor's bookmarks menu, if he decides to bookmark your site. More important, search engines use titles to index web sites, and often display them in search engine results.

Description:
Your description summarizes your page's content. Some search engines use this description to help categorize your page, and a few even display it in search results! Make sure you write short good copy here, or hire us to help you.

Keywords:
Though the keywords tag isn't as important as it once was, effective keywords can still influence your search engine rankings. Your visitors won't see your keyword meta tags (which will be hidden in your site code), but search engines may use them to help index your site.

Your page's title, description, and keyword tags generally appear at the top of a web page's HTML code (you can find a page's meta tags by selecting Source or Page Source from your browser's View menu). Here's an example:

** Of note, we replaced < and > with ( and ) for display purposes.

(head)
(title)your business name and page title(title)
(meta name="description" content="a description of your site")
(meta name="keywords" content="relevant keywords about your site")
(/head)

If you found this useful, you'll be able to quick and effectively use our 25 point Search Engine Optimization tool. You will begin to see results in 90 days. Using this process our site is rated Number 1 in Yahoo, Google, and MSN. It takes a little time, and some tweaking, but it works.

Come back soon for more insight from Webwildcatting.

SEO : A Checklist of what not to do!

2008-09-06T06:44:00.006-04:00

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a moving target. There's a 1000 people out there telling you what you SHOULD do in order to improve your rankings, and traffic. Whose advice you follow is confusing, and at times mind numbing. But after searching over 50 sites, here is a very good list of the basic things you should NOT be doing, when you optimize your site for search engines. For those of you who entrust your web site to others, you can pass this checklist on to your webmaster as a directive of things you don't want happening with your site. If you want a good list of safe SEO practices purchase the checklist at Webwildcatting.com

This list below will keep you in good graces with our Search Engine friends:

* Stick to known search engine guidelines
* Target only quality search terms predetermined and approved with the client
* Do not use hidden text or hyperlinks on optimized pages
* Do not duplicate page content on or off the site in order to game the search engine results
* Do not use page redirecting or cloaking as a means to provide the visitor a different page than the search engine sees
* Do not engage in any page-jacking or content theft techniques
* Do not create new pages using machine generated techniques
* Make sure all pages are produced and edited by a real person
* Do not resort to any link spamming techniques designed to artificially inflate link popularity
* Use only high quality on-subject links from industry related websites
* Be constantly improving the visibility and usability of your website
* Stay on top of current effective optimization and marketing practices
* Do not use tactics that are known to be useless and/or harmful to a website's marketing efforts
* Do not employ unnatural language or keyword stuffing techniques that in any way devalue the user experience
* Do not let your external webmaster maintain ownership of any aspect of the on or off-page elements created or updated as part of the marketing campaign, including content, domain names, etc.

Website traffic metrics that improve website traffic

2008-07-29T10:37:00.004-04:00

Focusing on clicks and conversions can obscure the real indicators of a website's success. For a more complete picture, try these neglected metrics.

Experienced marketers use these metrics when developing their web strategies. Two major themes emerged: analyzing visitor behavior before and after a click; putting conversions into context to determine ROI. Measuring the success of a search marketing campaign starts with a fundamental metric: the click. Clicks alone don’t tell you the real story.

Where is the traffic coming from? How much did it cost to generate? What did those visitors do once they arrived at your site?

Similarly, measuring conversion rate – the percentage of search-generated visitors who make a purchase or answer a call to action, such as registering for a white paper – doesn’t give you enough insight to optimize your campaign performance. Conversions and clicks to ads or URLs must be analyzed in context. That’s why experienced marketers use these metrics to help refine search marketing campaigns and boost website traffic.

These underused metrics below include an explanation on how to calculate each metric, and have suggestions for putting the data to use. Need help? Contact us at Webwildcatting.com for sites that sell!

The Metrics

-> Metric #1. Ad spend ratio

Description: Ad spend ratio calculates how much of each dollar in revenue you spent on the PPC ad that generated it. Calculating ad spend ratio daily or weekly for each keyword can show which costs more per click than it returns in profit.

“I compare how much we spend on a word to how many sales came in on it, we can quickly see if we’re spending more than we’re getting in,” says Gary Gabel, owner of Lake Country Direct, an all natural and organic meats purveyor in up state New York who specializes in home delivery direct from family farms.

How to calculate ad spend ratio:

- Use your PPC campaign management engine to run a report that shows you the amount of money you spent on each keyword.

- Calculate the revenue generated by those keywords. (Google Adwords can do this. Yahoo! and MSN systems can not, requiring markers to use another sales-tracking system, such as a pixel tracking program, to record sales from those engines.)

- Divide the cost figure by revenue figure for each keyword. The result is the percentage of revenue you spent on each keyword – or ad spend ratio.

- Compare the ad spend ratio for each keyword to your profit margin on the goods or services sold to determine if it was a profitable keyword. The lower your ad spend ratio, the better.

While every company’s cost of goods will vary, we suggest these percentages as a rule of thumb:
o 10% ad spend ratio for hard goods that must be shipped
o 50-60% ad spend ratio for intellectual property or online services that don’t have manufacturing and shipping costs

Use ad spend ratio to:

#1. Manage your keyword bidding strategies by looking for high and low extremes in your results. If you find certain keywords with an extremely low ratio, examine your ad position for those terms. If you are below the top three ads, you have a chance to increase your bid and gain a better position without harming your profitability.

Conversely, if you find keywords with high ratios, you can either suspend bidding on that word or try lowering your bid to see if you can maintain traffic while lowering your ad spend ratio.

#2. Double-check decisions made on CPC metrics.

Recently, we had a client who shut down bids on particular keywords because the cost-per-conversion for those terms was higher than average. However, by calculating ad spend ratio, we detected those keywords generated much higher total revenue and, therefore, were worth paying a higher CPC.

-> Metric #2. Bounce rate

Description: Bounce rate measures the number of visitors who either leave your site immediately after arrival (within a few seconds) or don’t navigate to any pages beyond the one they arrive on. High bounce rates usually indicate there’s a problem with the relevance of the information on that page, or other factors like navigation options or layout of the page are unclear.

We work with our clients all the time who are driving new visitors to their website, but what are they doing when they get here? As a web marketer, that’s really what that's what we want our clients to be really interested in. If they are buying and you're spending good money on Adwords, you are throwing money down a rat hole.

How to calculate bounce rate:

- Most Web analytics tools offer bounce rate as an option in their metrics list.

- Run a site-wide bounce rate report to generate a baseline for comparison, or use a firm like to do it for you.

- Run focused bounce-rate reports based on specific criteria, such as for PPC landing pages, most popular pages on your site, or by different traffic sources.

- More advanced owners can use filtering techniques to avoid skewed results from frequent visitors who may only visit one page at a time, such as employees or clients. You can either:
o Block visitors according to IP address to strip out results from internal visits, partners or clients
o Filter results by new visitors vs. repeat visitors

Use bounce rate to:

#1. Determine whether ads are pointing to the right page.

A high bounce rate could indicate that the content of the landing page isn’t matching what the visitor expected to see based on the search term used.

We use bounce rate analysis to refine ad strategies for our clients at Webwildcatting.com all the time. For example, the team had been sending very specific search terms, such as “Website business plan template,” to our site’s general template category page. After seeing high bounce rates, we began pointing those clicks to the sub-category of website business plan template, generating a significantly lower bounce rates, and orders from all over the world started spouting up!

#2. Highlight landing pages that need optimization.

A high percentage of search visitors who leave your landing page immediately signal that the page is not engaging them in a meaningful way.

Begin landing page optimization tests. Look for improvements to layout, call-to-action, copy, and other features that will influence visitors to stay longer and click through.

#3. Improve content, layout or navigation of internal pages.

An internal site page with a higher-than-average bounce rate generally includes factors that prevent visitors from moving forward from there. Problems could include:
o Copy that’s not relevant to the search term that delivered the traffic
o Confusing or too few navigation options
o Page layout or design
o Metatags that don’t match the page’s content (this is huge, because you could be paying for these!)

-> Metric #3. Click path analysis

Description: Click path analysis monitors a search visitor’s browsing pattern that led to their arrival on your site, and then the sequence of pages visited as they navigate within it. Patterns in browsing behavior can reveal how your customers are searching for your product or services online – and what other websites they’re visiting in the process.

How to calculate Click path analysis:

- Some Web analytics and PPC bid management systems provide external click path analysis. It shows the sequence of sites a visitor navigated through before arriving at your website.

Look for trends in searching behavior, commonly visited external sites, and unusual referring sites, which may contain clues about new keywords or demographic profiles to target.

- Use your internal Web analytics system to monitor where visitors click and what pages they visit once before they convert or exit. You can also try our 25 point organic SEO checklist which will make sure you are doing the fundamentals correctly. This is a good sanity checker even for the most experienced website owner.

Use click path analysis to:

#1. Gain insight into what influences a search visitor to convert is something we pay close attention to for our SEO clients here at Webwildcatting.com. We constantly confirm through click path analysis that visitors looking for our clients offerings, or our own, often search a range of different terms. They may visit our website, or our clients multiple times while also searching third-party information before ultimately converting.

These reports reconfirm that these are the sites they search. They not only Google us, but they Google us again and often use different search terms. Since we or our clients keep showing up, we develop the trust necessary to earn their investment in our clients, or our own products and services.

This analysis uncovers third-party sites to target for listings and helps determine which keywords are influential in a preliminary search and which lead to a more direct conversion.

#2. Look for navigation improvements that can get to a conversion page in fewer clicks.

Identifying trends in the information visitors seek before converting can help you add content to key pages, or move them to a conversion more quickly by developing new linking strategies for the typical browsing path.

-> Metric #4. Lifetime value of a search visitor/customer

Description: Lifetime value is a sum of the total revenue generated by a search-referred customer, including immediate sales, delayed purchases or estimated future purchases/contract renewals. Looking beyond direct revenue to calculate lifetime value can create a more complete picture of search ROI.

How to calculate lifetime value:

- Create estimates based on your past business experience using formulas, such as multiplying the average value of a sale by the estimated number of times a customer buys. B-to-B service companies or subscription marketers may estimate the average value of a contract and multiply it by the average length of the relationship.

You can use those estimates to plan search campaign budgeting or set guidelines for acceptable cost-per-click expenditures.

- Track delayed sales or analyze the different LTV of search visitors by source, such as referring search engine or keyword used. Tag those visitors with a cookie when they first reach your site and retain data on future visits and conversions. Less advanced website owners will want an SEO Specialist to do this for them.

B-to-B marketers can use labels in their CRM systems to indicate that a new prospect first entered their database via search. Then track those prospects’ progress through the marketing and sales cycle to attribute subsequent revenue to a search-originated lead.

Use lifetime value to:

#1. Expand search marketing strategies to include new product categories.

Many marketers, particularly in B-to-B firms, avoid using search campaigns for high-priced items that don’t convert immediately. Knowing the lifetime value of a search-generated referral allows you to justify search expenditures as a way to bring prospects into a conversion funnel.

The team at Webwildcatting.com created an organic search campaign for a client selling manuscript assessment services for kids who write that take a long time to convert. Because of the fact there are no services like this there was very little competition for those keywords. The team was able to create a campaign that used organic search terms to generate increased contact form participation which ultimately increased sales!

By coding those contact form requests according to the search-generated request, we were able to attribute sales generated several months later back to the search campaign.

#2. Refine keyword strategy.

LTV analysis can uncover certain keywords or ad groups that may not deliver an immediate conversion. But they may have high long-term sales potential and justify inclusion in a campaign.

#3. Determine the point at which keywords become unprofitable.

Many of our small clients face low budgets or increased costs from rising competition for popular keywords. At some point, we must decide when to abandon a keyword because of poor ROI.

Lifetime value helps decide where that line should be drawn.

-> Metric #5. Profit per keyword

Description: Profit per keyword ties clicks and conversions for each word to back-end financial data, such as revenue generated by those clicks, to calculate the return on your search investment. It can be used in conjunction with lifetime value estimates.

How to calculate profit per keyword:

- For each keyword in your campaign, multiply total clicks by cost per click to calculate the total expenditure.

- Subtract total expenditure from the revenue generated from search clicks.

- Divide total number of sales or conversions into the total to calculate cost per acquisition.

Use profit per keyword to:

#1. Find your most profitable keywords.

We use keyword profitability metrics to decide where to spend our search marketing budget for ourselves and our clients. If we notice a keyword delivering customers at a relatively low cost per acquisition, we’ll move more money into those terms to acquire more customers at that cost.

Conversely, we’ll move away from terms with strong conversion rates if calculations show that we’re spending too much to bring those visitors to our client's landing page, or our own.

If you look at conversion data, it can be very misleading. Cost per click and other metrics are somewhat meaningless if you don’t tie them back to what you’re selling from those clicks and the total value of those sales.

10 SEO Keyword Tips

2008-06-30T14:37:00.006-04:00

Good keyword lists are the basis for successful search-marketing efforts. Webwildcatters and Website owners must continually work to find relevant search terms and understand the volume of traffic they provide -- as well as the number of competitors using the same phrases -- to shape their SEO and pay-per-click strategies.

There's a bunch of online tools to analyze new keywords, round out existing lists with related terms, and gain insight into competitive factors. Each SEO tool can influence the effectiveness of certain phrases in a PPC or SEO campaigns. Each one approaches the task differently through a range of features, analytical capabilities, data sources and cost.

Webwildcatting took information from several search marketers and search agency specialists to assemble this guide 10 popular online keyword tools and tactics. We also added it to our 25 Point SEO Checklist as a bonus. This post breaks down what to do and what each tool’s research functionality, analytical capabilities and pricing. We even took a stab at what each tool is best suited.

Number 1: There are a few things you need to consider when incorporating keyword-research tools into your list-building and bidding strategy:

A. Tools can’t replace your own work on researching keywords
B. Tool Data isn’t 100% accurate, there's a time delay, each tool has its own strengths
C. Search advertising cost estimates are just that 'estimates'
D. The 'truth' lies in the middle of 3 different points of view; Use multiple tools for best results if you can afford them;
E. Always test the keywords in your own campaigns

Number 2. Compete.com Search Analytics
http://searchanalytics.compete.com/
Database size: 19 million terms, 3 million sites.
Update frequency: Daily
Research tools:
- Site-referral tool that shows most popular terms driving traffic to a given site or an industry category.
- Keyword-destination tool that shows which sites receive the most traffic from a specific search term.
- Site comparison to show which of two sites has the traffic and engagement advantage for specific keywords.
Analytics:
• Top referring keywords for specific sites
• Site’s share of total referrals for keyword
• Keyword engagement (average amount of time people spent on the site after searching on the keyword)
• Keyword effectiveness (combination of total number of people and time spent on site)
• Site ranking for key terms
• Average monthly search referrals
Price: Free registration, but viewing complete reports cost one or two site credits. Credit packages range from $20 - $500.
Best use: Competitive research.

Number 3. Google AdWords Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Database size: Unavailable.
Update frequency: Unavailable.
Research tools:
- Keyword generator that displays list of relevant and related keywords to word or phrase entered.
- Keyword list generation based on website content for URL added.
- Keyword cost estimates for PPC campaigns.
Analytics:
• Advertiser competition for keywords
• Previous month search volume
• Average search volume
• Search volume trends
• Month in which highest search volume occurs
• Estimated ad position
• Average CPC
• Estimated traffic volume for list
• Sort by match type (broad, phrase, exact, negative)
Price: Free
Best use: New keyword generation; keyword list augmentation; pricing guidance for AdWords campaigns; integrating keyword lists into AdWords campaigns.

Number 4. Keyword Discovery
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/index.html
Database size: 36 billion searches from 200 search engines worldwide.
Update frequency: Monthly.
Research tools:
- Top phrases that include search term.
- Related terms.
- Common misspellings.
- Top searches for particular industry.
- Domain researcher that identifies available domain names that contain keywords and phrases.
Analytics:
• Search volume
• Occurrence of term on sites
• Keyword Effectiveness Index
• Predicted daily volume
• Keyword density on your site or competitors’ sites
• Seasonal trends from previous 12 months
Price: Standard subscription, $69.95 monthly/$599.40 annually. Enterprise subscription, $495 monthly/$4455 annually.
Best use: Keyword list building; keyword list augmentation; global search campaign planning; competitive research.

Number 5. KeywordSpy
http://www.keywordspy.com
Database size: 1 billion keywords.
Update frequency: Every two weeks.
Research tools:
- Keyword search shows top sites ranked on a given term for paid search and organic results.
- Domain search shows top keywords bid on by that domain, along with ad variations and landing page URLs being used.
- Keyword and domain search by specific market (United States, UK, Canada, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa).
Analytics:
• Total keywords by site listed
• Ad position for keywords
• Approximate price per click on keyword
• Average clicks per day on a keyword
• Estimated ROI for keywords
• Number of competitors bidding on keywords
• Geographic breakdown of competition and keyword usage
• Historical trends for keyword usage
• Position of a given domain in organic search results
• Number of competitors using a keyword in SEO
Price: Free level limited to 20 search results per query; complete results for $89.95 monthly.
Best use: Competitive research; international campaign planning; directional data for keyword advertising selection.

Number 6. Microsoft adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007
http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/adcenter_addin
Database size: Unavailable.
Update frequency: Unavailable.
Research tools:
- Keyword suggestion shows terms related to a submitted keyword list.
- Keyword extraction shows popular terms contained in a submitted URL.
Analytics:
• Relevancy scores for suggested keywords
• Relevant terms contained in past search queries
• Campaign association (terms that have been bid on in adCenter)
• Top frequent keywords
• Top “spiky” keywords demonstrating recent and sudden popularity
• Suggested keyword categories
• Monthly or daily traffic forecasts
• Geographic search data
• Demographic search data (gender and age group)
• Monetization Key Performance Indicators (clicks, impressions, position, CTR, match type)
• Monetization metrics within industry verticals
Price: Free download for users with Excel 2007 and an AdCenter account.
Best use: Keyword list development and pricing guidance for MSN campaigns. Data can be extrapolated to estimate search traffic on Google and Yahoo.
Price: Free for adCenter account holders (must have Excel 2007). Still in beta.

Number 7. SEO Digger
http://seodigger.com/
Database size: 60 Million English keywords in Google; 44 million English keywords in MSN, 11 million Russian keywords in Google.
Update frequency: Approximately every two weeks.
Research tools:
- Domain search shows all the key phrases for which a given site achieves a top-20 Google ranking.
Analytics:
• Site position on search engine results page
• Keyword popularity from Wordtracker
• Keyword popularity from Overture
• Keyword popularity from Google
Price: Free. Unregistered users limited to 5 queries per hour, and can only see results for the specific link entered. Registered users can check entire domains (including internal pages), and can conduct 1,000 queries per hour, and 10 complete domain searches per hour.
Best use: Analysis of own site’s high-ranking terms; competitive research; ideas for search phrase semantics.

Number 8. SpyFu
http://www.spyfu.com
Database size: 13 million domains, 2.5 million keywords.
Update frequency: Monthly.
Research tools:
- Keyword search shows which sites and advertisers rank highly for a given term.
- Domain search shows statistics on a site’s advertising budget, top organic positions, top ad placement, and top competitors.
- Pre-assembled lists illustrate searching and advertising trends, including Top 500 Advertisers, Top 500 Organically Ranked Domains, Top 500 Most Clicked Terms, Top 1000 Most Expensive Keywords.
-SpyFu UK, which offers domain and keyword data for the UK market.
Analytics:
• Keyword cost per click
• Keyword clicks per day
• Keyword cost per day
• Number of advertisers bidding on a keyword
• Total keyword search results
• Historical trends in keyword average cost per click and clicks per day
• Top ads for a keyword
• Top search results for a keyword
• Domain advertising budget
• Domain total clicks per day
• Domain average cost per click
• Domain average clicks per day
• Domain average ad position
• Domain average number of ad competitors
• Domain average ad percentile
Price: Free registration for basic research functions. Subscription packages for full additional features -- expanded lists of domain top organic positions and ad placements -- range from $6.75 for a three-day trial; $38.50 monthly (auto renewal); $45 monthly (manual renewal); $296 annually (auto-renewal); $308 annually (manual renewal).
Best use: Competitive research, directional data for keyword advertising selection.

Number 9. Wordtracker
http://www.Wordtracker.com
Database: 330 million search terms.
Update Frequency: Daily.
Research tools:
- Keyword Universe displays popular related terms to a keyword or phrase, and how those terms are used in longer search phrases.
- Keyword Researcher allows you to import a list of up to 500 existing terms to find how those terms are used in exact searches, which terms are most popular, and how they can be re-ordered for additional coverage.
Analytics:
• Count (number of times the term appears in searches)
• Prediction of number of times the search term will appear in next 24 hours
• Keyword Effectiveness Index
• Estimated competition for keywords
Price: Free tool generates list of up to 100 related keywords. Full functionality with subscription for $59 monthly, $329 annually.
Best use: Keyword list building; keyword list augmentation.

Number 10. Wordze
http://www.wordze.com
Database size: 552 million keywords, 68 million unique search terms.
Update frequency: Monthly.
Research tools:
- Related keyword search for terms entered.
- Analysis of competing sites for a specific term.
- Download lists of top weekly or monthly search phrases.
Analytics:
• Total number of keywords found
• Estimated search volume
• Keyword Effectiveness Index
• Historical keyword data
• Keyword difficulty (Top domains for each keyword, with average links per month, total links, length at that position and other features to analyze how long it would take to rank in top 10 for a given term)
• Searcher demographics for keywords
Price: $7.95 one-day trial, $35 monthly.
Best use: Keyword list building; keyword list augmentation; SEO keyword strategies.

How to improve your Business, and your Web Business

2008-06-08T13:06:00.006-04:00

Do what you love, and love what you do!

Get your dialing finger ready.... you're gonna need it.

Put <<$25,000.00 a month>> on a post-it. Tape it to your computer monitor.

Don't go wild staring it, just let it process. Start to break it down into 'units' and then figure out how many 'units' you need to close each month to make that number. Once you have the number of units, then you contemplate the number of people you need to convince that what you have to offer is worth their time. When you have that number, you'll be ready to use that dialing finger....

www.dems-for-a-re-do.com

For instance, as a Democrat, I hated the choices of Hillary Clinton and Barrak Obama! Neither candidate has the necessary 'gravitas' in my opinion to be the leader of the free world. Neither one 'cuts' it on the world stage. Neither has shown they have the back bone to stand tall against the bullies of the world and protect the little guy around the world. That is what I feel the next President, and the United States is all about. We are all about providing every 'little person' on the planet the 'freedom' of 'opportunity' to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Hillary and Obama can't do it at home, so they sure as hell aren't going to be able to do it abroad. That's why I want a re-do! I developed a site to let others who agree, say so.

I took the initiative to open up an account at CafePress.com, and create my own line of stuff. I even created a sexy thong for those women who have felt cheated, and demand a 'RE-DO'!

Women can let those close to them know how they feel. If Hillary can demand it, so can women all over the world. Ladies, and fellow Democrats demand a RE-DO.

Stop by and learn from the master. Or hire me, to help you advance your business. You can find me at www.webwildcatting.com

Using your own book to link to.

2008-05-07T16:13:00.006-04:00

I have a passion for all things on the web, and keeping kids safe at school. For a year I tooled around with a former cop and helped him shape his very 'law enforcement' oriented message to one, the rest of us could get behind. Your child's school lockdown policy is grossly inadequate should it ever become challenged by a violent intruder, who becomes an active shooter. Schools only teach your student to sit on the floor and become a passive easy target of opportunity for one of these cowards to prey upon. Simple changes and courses in awareness can make a school 'safe' nearly overnight. Virtually all the technology in place in a school is useless, should shooting begin. Schools don't have a plan about how to use technology to aggressively to stop a shooter at their own game. Learn how, by reading my book!

What I learned is found in: Stay Alive in a School Shooting: Common Sense that isn't Common Knowledge; Lessons from Columbine to Virginia Tech that Schools don't teach, and haven't learned....

Writing and publishing is a great way to grow your business. Buy a copy of my book, its a good read, and it just might save your child's life!

The missing link

2008-05-05T17:01:00.004-04:00

Recently I told a friend of mine to create a blog and start writing because I thought she had funny stuff to say, and lots of people would appreciate her off kilter wit.

She did a piece called: Tampons for Retirement, which in my humble opinion is damn brilliant. You should be able to read it by going to http://www.rachelraysplace.blogspot.com. What I think is really funny is she may have angered the gods of the Google. You see, Rachel Ray is some friendly looking gal who cooks stuff in 30 minutes and makes like $100 million a year doing it. The copyright monsters aka IP attorneys must have thought there's some infringement going on. In reality, my friend Rachel, who's nickname and nombe de plume is Rachelray, and has been since the dawn of time, is now the victim of mistaken identity. Ms. Ray, the talk show person didn't hire a smarty pants like me I guess to come up with a catchy name for her blog, so part of her empire is left in the open. My friend didn't either, its just what we know her by, Rachelray, or just Ray.

When my pal with the pen name, Rachelray, posted her famous Tampons for Retirement, I guess the gods were offended some how. Who is this low life pal of mine? She is a funny gal, who writes funny things and would like to get published one day for doing so. I don't think she has any ambitions of disparaging Ms. Ray the tv personality. Can you 'own' the internet? I hope not. Ms. Ray seems like a nice person, and down to earth. I hope she can find the humor in the fact there's some one else out there with a similar name, who isn't trying to make money off her name.

She's just trying to lobby the government in lieu of a pay raise, by having Uncle Sam provide tampons to equalize the pay disparity between men and women. Pretty darn funny if you ask me. I hope Ms. Ray, the tv personality thinks it's funny too.

Since this blog is about developing a presence on the web, this is a great example about even the most innocent venture can be derailed. I hope the gods at Google, can see their way to giving my friend her site back.

How to use Links to drive Traffic

2008-04-11T12:09:00.005-04:00

One of the best ways to create traffic is to provide links.

Here's an example of a free tool, to help get that Job done:

Just go create your own free account, get your code and start linking!

Web 2.0 Templates: Is the success of your website worth $30.00 to you?

2008-03-18T19:53:00.005-04:00

Recently, I've had several people approach me about getting their site up and running fast. They all want to know, how they can do it without being techy, or spending endless hours learning how to write code. But they are missing the most important piece. The website business plan.

Here's what I tell them, do what I do:

Find free stuff on the web to get you going. Take this template for instance. Click here and you'll end up with a great free website business plan budget template in MS Excel at no cost to you!

Free tools like this help you understand the real costs of developing your site.

This same site also offers a great full blown website business plan complete with 3 year financials spreadsheet, for less than $30.00.

Deals like this get you started with a well documented plan you can share with investors. In less than a day, you can have a great plan ready to go, and be on your way.

Forget trying to build your own. Get a low cost plan, fill it in, and get going. Remember the SBA will tell you, businesses which pay regular attention to their business plan have a 80% or better chance of getting through their first critical two years in business.

How to Start a Website

2008-03-03T09:51:00.008-05:00

Webwildcatters!

Weclome. Today is the day to kick it off for beginning your next career as a website owner. As a product marketing, and business development guru, let me suggest a few things to you. Getting started is easy to do. See my links below for good quality fast starts to getting your site going.

Build a website in minutes. Free trial!'with Homestead.com to get you going, or come visit me at for a free website budget template to get you started.

The reason I say this, is with the internet, time is of the essence. It is important to get your idea going as quickly as possible, because it takes time to get noticed, and drive customers to your site. Once you have them there, you'll find the right messages to convert them.

Don't be afraid to co-opt with the competition. The goal of your site is to earn money. The old days of battling with your competitor are over when you use sponser based advertising in your site, even when it comes from your competitor, or near competitor. There are many reasons an internet prospect won't click through to a purchase, but why lose an opportunity to a competitor completely, when you can get paid to send that prospect to your competition.

Great services like Have a website? Learn how to make money with LinkShare.'>Linkshare are available to help you generate cash. Several hundred dollars a month are available to you just for generating traffic. This allows you to pay for your site cost, which is the point right?

Your knowledge about your products, services, or cause is what is the most important. Simple tools are available to get you going quickly, and efficiently.
Don't spend tons of money making your site 'beautiful', spend your limited amount of money and time into making your site 'search friendly'.
The best looking site is the one that generates one $20.00 every minute of the day for you and your bank account. Don't get caught up in 'pretty', tune your site to SELL!
Plan your site, the way you would plan your buisness. Here's a low cost template to help you define your site, and your budget. Fora complete integrated plan that costs less than $30.00 click here!
Last but not least, don't be afraid to hire an expert. They can quickly tell you what you're missing, where the holes are in your plan, or your site, and what you can do to make the cash register ring!

Check back often and support our patrons!

Webwildcatting: You heard it first here!

2008-02-29T07:51:00.002-05:00

Webwildcatting is the act of drilling for riches in the web. Face it, you're going to drill some 'dry' holes. This blog will be full of encouragement and information about topics of interest to website owners, web designers and webmasters.

This blog is mainly about using website templates to create online business enterprises, but I will also write about search engine optimization, webmaster resources, web hosting, making money online ( adsense ).

One of the main points I'll develop is how 'regular' folks use the web to develop and promote their business, expertise, or view of the world. You don't have to drop tens of thousands on developers to get what you want. You just have to become familiar with how things work.

While this can take a little bit of time, it can save you thousands of dollars.

Think about it, at no time in history, has it been easier for a single individual, with a little bit of smarts, to effectively be 'equal' to larger, much better funded rivals. Whoever controls the 'screen' gets first shot at the consumer. If you can control the 'beacon' that interested parties home in on, then you can get access to the consumer who is interested in what you are selling.