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Marketing class

Here you can learn how to promote website (marketing class) as well as use some tools to improve it: create meta tags, pop up window. You can also download free graphics and scripts.

EUnet's Greek BizDirectory

Table of contents

Everything starts with an idea
Creating a website
Buying a domain name
Promotion

Search Engines
Link exchange
FFA links
Newsgroups
Classified ads
Banners

Everything starts with an idea

The good thing about the Internet is that you can sell whatever you want (within the laws) on the Internet because there are no limitations. Doesn't this sound great or what? But wait a second, ask yourself why do you use the Internet? Do you go on-line to spend money or to have fun, get some information, read news, learn something? Guess what, your potential customers are the same way.

So the best way of selling something on the Internet is to do so while your customers are having fun, and they are learning something new. Just as a reminder, the Internet was created to exchange information, not to sell products!!!

By the way, you can make very good money without even selling anything, just by having a free website! People LOVE free stuff!!! Well, to be completely honest to make money on a free website requires selling - advertising space on your website!!! Isn't that nice-no products to ship, no customer complaints, no chargebacks, just money coming in.

But don't get me wrong, you will need to put a lot of work into bringing a lot of traffic to your website. Who will pay you money for placing a banner on your website if only you visit it? Besides the chances of your success with this type of site are not very high.Don't get discouraged now-if you believe in your site, if you put a lot of effort advertising it and you are willing to wait for any substantial income, then you can do it.

If you want to start making money immediately, then you need to consider selling products or services. Let me give you few facts to think about: most surfers are educated, have decent income and they are searching for information. Ask yourself what would you most likely want to buy on the Internet-a pair of pants or a report on how to earn extra income without having to leave your house? So if you can come up with the product or service that satisfy the ''wants'' of average surfer you almost have it made.

If you still have no ideas and don't even feel like having one, you can just join a good affiliate campaign and sell products or services for a commission. The bad news about it is you have no control of it and your affiliate agreement can be terminated any minute if they feel you didn't promote the site in ethical manner (spamming) That is why if you have your own product, your own website and a domain name, you'll be back in business in a matter of days. Once again, it is up to you to decide.

Creating a website

We think this is the most important step to create a successful business. Your site is what represents you and your business on-line, it must be attractive for your targeted market. You can spend all your time and all the money in the world promoting your site but if it doesn't create the urge to buy your product ? what's the point?

Remember, you are building a website not for your satisfaction, but for customer's. Be smart - plan your site. The first thing you should think of is not what software to use, or what designer to hire, but who is your average customer (approximate age, income, level of education, interests, etc) It may seem hard to do for your product or service, but the more specific you are the easier and less expensive it will be to promote your site. It will also take you less time to start earning substantial income from your site.

Then you need to consider thinking over the information you want to share with your customers to make them believe they really need your product/service. Do you have testimonials you can put on a site to establish trust in your offer? Do you have any evidence that you are not some armature trying to make some bucks on line? Your site has to make your potential customer trust you.

You have to know your competition. This is very important because your site and the way you offer the product/service has to make the difference. May be you can share some useful information, create FAQ, or something like that to make your site INFORMATIVE and more appealing then your competition.

That was the hard part. Now when you pretty much sure what do you want to have on your site, you can hire a professional designer or you can do it yourself. If you are new to web designing or just an average user of Photoshop, FrontPage 2000, Flash, etc and you can afford to spend some money, it is better to hire a designer.

I believe having a professional designer do the job will actually save your money and time. Why? Because you might have the knowledge of creating a website, but do you have the knowledge of creating profitable site? It will take you days, weeks, or months to realize why your site is not creating a lot of sales. For example, the background of your site distracts visitors from reading your message or your pages download very slow, because you stuffed your page with graphics, or your site is very difficult to navigate?

All these little things are very important for the success of your site, so by hiring a professional designer you most likely will convert more visitors into sales.

Buying a domain name

Choosing a domain name is vital part of your success. There are a few things you should think of before purchasing it.
It should be easy to remember; You will get higher ranking at search engines if your domain name contains keywords; com address is a must if you don't want to lose traffic (most of surfers will assume you have .com domain, so if you have .net or something else your potential customers will visit your competitor's website, not yours); Consider purchasing misspelled domain since surfers are human and do make typos; As of December 4th, 1999 up to 67 characters domain names can now be purchased versus 23 character domains. This can significantly increase the number of keywords you can include in a domain name and thereby increase your search engines rankings; You will most likely get higher rankings on Yahoo if your domain name is the same as your company name.

Once you've decided on your domain you can purchase it yourself or let your hosting company do it for you.

Promotion

Even housekeepers have their own web-page in the Internet now, but to build and place a web-page is a small part of the road to success on the Internet business fields. Building the most beautiful website in the world means nothing, traffic means everything. Don't wait for the people to come to you - go get them through search engines, links, newsgroups, banners, classified ads, FFA links, message boards, etc.

Search Engines

I believe that you should start your promotion campaign with search engines, because for many of them you'll wait two to three weeks to get your website listed.

By the way, do you know that 85% of surfers find what they are looking for through search engines? Do you know that 95% of surfers view only the first 3 pages of search results?

To tell the truth, I LOVE search engines. Why? Because they are free and give you targeted traffic, which will most likely turn into sales if you do it right.

Do's and don'ts for Search engines

Don't think that free submission to 2500 search engines will crash your website with traffic. The truth is that people mostly use 10 major search engines like Yahoo, AltaVista, Excite, etc. Every search engine has it's own mind. It means, that without tailoring your submission to each one of them, you won't get great results;
Don't think that putting meta tags stuffed with keywords on your page will get you high rankings. The truth is that it will most likely hurt your rankings rather than help;
Don't think that search engines will index you without you submitting to them directly. The truth is that a lot of webmasters work very hard to get listed on the most popular search engine Yahoo and pay a lot of money for professional submissions;
Don't think you can cheat search engines. The truth is that you can easily get banned. So be careful, because you don't want to lose such a wonderful source of free traffic;
Do consider submitting your site manually to major search engines after you very carefully read their rules;
Do consider checking your HTML code for search engine "friendliness";
Do consider comparing your pages with pages that rank high for your keyword;
Do consider hiring a professional who will do it for you.

Choosing Keywords

The first thing you should do is to come up with the list of keywords most suitable
for your business. Ask your friends, relatives, colleagues and yourself what keywords people will search for in order to find your business. Try to be as specific as possible because the more specific keywords you use, the more qualified visitors you will get.

Follow up by performing a search on the most popular search engines by using those keywords. View the HTML code of the top ranking sites for those keywords (use View source on your toolbar) to see what other keywords they are using (now many sites which rank high protect their html code so that nobody can copy their code) if possible. The easiest way to get high rankings is to find keywords that surfers use and your competition doesn't. It is a big mistake to use only general words like ''women'' if you sell women perfume. It will be easier to get higher ranking for the phrase ''perfume for women'' and to get qualified customers. You will have much higher chance to turn your visitors into sales if you follow this simple rule.

You should also pay special attention to your competitors title/description to get some ideas for your own. The title of your page has enormous influence on the placement your site gets in search engines. Make sure that your title has all important keywords and phrases, your company/website name, and it starts with prime keyword in lower case.

Your title tag should look like <TITLE>your text here</TITLE> and placed between <HEAD> </HEAD> above your meta tags.

Creating Meta tags

Now you are ready to create your own Meta tags. Please note that some search engines don't recognize them. So Meta tags are not the total solution to get high rankings, though it is an important part of it.

Your Meta keyword tag should look like::

Note that search engines will penalize you if you list your keywords twice in a row (vitamins, vitamins, vitamin) and you repeat your keyword more than 3 times. You should also put keywords in upper case and use plurals.

Creating Meta description tag is very important for your success in search engines, because it will be actually viewed by visitors. That is why you should make it as appealing as possible while using your keywords.

Try to start your description with your primary keyword and use it a few times while you go. Please note that different search engines allow specific number of words in your title, so make sure that all your primary keywords are used at the beginning of the paragraph.

Now place your Meta tags between <Head> and </Head>.

Submission to Search Engines

Don't think that having great meta tags and description can get you high rankings at all search engines. That won't happen because each search engine has its own rules (the amount of words in meta name, title, body, alt, etc; frequency of a keyword per page; and so much more). As you see, it is impossible for one page to satisfy all search engines. The solution is simple - you have to create a separate page for every keyword and search engine. This requires knowledge of requirements of every single search engine, so you might consider hiring a professional.

For more information click here.

Don't be fooled by companies offering you to submit your site to 1000s of search engines. First of all 85% of traffic from search engines comes from the top ten search engines. The second thing is that every search engine has its own rules of submission (don't think that those companies know them all). If you don't submit it right, then most likely your site will be rejected. Using such services can actually harm your rankings, so beware.

Here is the list of URL submission pages for main search engines and directories:

The Greek BizDirectory.gr: http://www.BizDirectory.gr/eng/?action=add

AltaVista: http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

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

Ineedhits: http://www.ineedhits.com

When it comes to listing your site at directories like Yahoo, LookSmart, etc you have to submit your site to specific category, which applies to your type of business. Please note that the directories list sites in alphabetical order. If your title starts with numbers or first letters of alphabet, then your site will be listed on the top of search results.

Graphics