Recessions Stink! Money is tight for just about everybody right now. When it costs you almost double what it used to cost you, just to fill up your car with gas… it is only natural to make spending cuts in other areas of your life. There are many reports of people not spending the way they were spending even a few months ago. The retail industry is hurting, and I think we are going to see this really cutting into web based sales as well. If you are a website owner that relies on selling products, do you have a plan in place to help you get through the hard times?

Here are a few tips to help you get through this recession…

1)Cut back on advertising spending- You won’t usually hear me recommend advertising cutbacks, but this can really help save you some money in the short term. Keep any saved money in your advertising budget for when the economy turns around, and there are buyers ready to spend money. Don’t use your advertising money elsewhere unless you have no other choice. I recommend holding back advertising dollars to spend when consumers are ready to buy.

2)Reduce any website maintenance charges- If you are paying a firm to make updates and maintain on your site, see if they can reduce your monthly fees for less service in return. Now is a good time to see about reducing any monthly charges that may go unused. I recommend really streamlining your books and seeing where any money is being spent for little in return.

3)Offer Special Deals- No matter how bad the economy may be, there are still buyers out there. You may need to search harder to find them, or just offer a deal they cannot resist. Try coupons, free shipping, or throw in some extra products for them. By making this customer happy you are now able to convert a sale into a long lasting customer. Also, people who get a smoking deal are more likely to tell their friends and family.

4)Plan for the future- Now is a great time to plan for the future. You probably have a little more free time now then you did back when business was booming. Take any downtime you have to create a plan for when sales pick back up again. Maybe not is the time to plan a site redesign. You will be a step ahead of your competition if you already have a “after recession” plan ready to go. Make sure your books, inventory, staff is standing by for when this recession is coming to an end. Don’t cut resources until you cant afford to pay them anymore. Just remember, things will get back to normal after this recession runs it course.

5) Try to Gain Free Publicity and Brand Recognition- Use the free resources out there to try and gain brand recognition, even if they don’t generate immediate sales. Sites such as Craigslist and Backpage are free, and can help drive brand recognition. Post on these sites regularly. Also try to get listed on as many directories as possible. Also reach out to possible business partners to share links. Slow times can be great times to help build your SEO strategy. The work you put in now will pay off big time when the recession is over and money is ready to be spent.

Try some of these tips and the recession will be over before you know it. Good Luck!

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Since I don’t often rant here much, I thought I’d throw one in today.

We submitted payment for two links last weekend on The Social Millionaire (www.thesocialmillionaire.com) and still have not gotten directions on how to submit our links. I know that each link is only $1 but hey, we were doing the guy a favor and we’re trying to help him out on his journey to $1 million.

The funds have cleared our PayPal account and it’s showing fully paid to Hankinson Enterprises. If you check our their website, does this seem like something you can trust? I’d say NO! Click here for screen shot of payment to Hankinson Enterprises and Pat Hankinson. Funds cleared on March 15, 2008 and it’s now March 21, 2008 and haven’t heard a thing.

We have also sent two emails through his contact form regarding our payment and how we can submit our links on The Social Millionaire website and once again, no response! Either the form isn’t working properly and he’s not getting the emails or Pat Hankinson is just ignoring our emails.

Initially I was rooting for this guy but now I’m calling it a quick way to make a buck and ultimately a SCAM! Please let me know if I am wrong. If you are one of the lucky ones who got a link on the site, are you even getting any traffic? I don’t see a blob of words driving much targeted traffic.

Hey Pat Hankinson, where the hell are our links? Anyway, I guess that’s it.

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We all know that Google owns the world of online search and we all know that we must do what they want in order to keep on good terms with them. One Google slap can set your website and business back a few notches so you need to do what you can in order to not get slapped with penalties.

In the past few years, there have been so many illegitimate websites and blogs that have been set up with the sole intention of making a dime online. Most of these are either made for Adsense websites or affiliate websites crammed with nothing other than banners, affiliate links and other methods of advertising to make a quick dime.

With all of these types of websites that have been popping up over the past few years, it’s starting to cram the search engines, especially Google since they are the big dog! Owners are doing whatever they can to drive people to these sites in hopes they will get someone to click on an advertisement and they will make a few bucks. Owners are primarily doing this through black hat SEO (illegal search engine optimization) and pay per click advertising on Google Adwords. This is making it so much harder for legitimate companies to compete online because they have to deal with all of the garbage websites that are cramming up the online world.

In an attempt to cure some of this online spammy mess, Google rates websites on something they call quality score. Quality score will be utilized to the maximum moving forward to try and eliminate these made for Adsense and affiliate sites. It’s no longer the day where someone can create a web page, throw up some advertisements and allow people to click away. Webmasters and site owners are now going to have to develop their websites with quality score in mind. You might be asking now, what is quality score exactly? Quality score is a metric Google uses to measure how relevant a web page or website is in regards to the keywords they are using to advertise the website in paid search such as Google Adwords. So, you can assume that you would get a low quality score if you have a web page or landing page about making money online but you are trying to drive people to your landing page with the keywords computer resources. These really don’t go hand in hand. In order to receive a higher quality score by Google, you will need to have your web page or landing page content reflect your keywords. So, if you have a web page about making money online, you ideal content for that page should be something about how to make money online by selling XYZ and you should try to drive traffic with the keywords, make money online or how to make a living online, or learn to make money online. These keyword phrases directly related to the landing page content and Google will reward you for this. Google also rewards you with a higher quality score for uniqueness. Provide unique and valuable content and they will raise your quality score.

So, you are now asking, why do I need a high quality score? You need a great quality score because a high quality score will allow you to pay less for Pay Per Click advertising while allowing you to rank higher in the results. If you are familiar with PPC advertising, you know that it’s basically a bidding system where you bid on keywords and in return people do searches on Google for these keywords you bid on and you rank depending on your bid and quality score. Web pages and landing pages with a low quality score will have to pay higher bid prices in order to show up in the results. The more relevant your landing page is to your Google Adwords keywords and ad copy, the less you will pay for each bid or click and the higher Google will rank you in the paid results. This is Google’s way of rewarding your web page or landing page for being relevant. So, in reality, you might bid less than one of your competitors and you might rank higher. Why? Because you have a better quality score than they do. It’s simple, create a quality web page or landing page and use relevant keywords and ad copy when you are driving traffic to it from Google Adwords and you will be safe. Throw up a crappy web page or landing page with keywords and ad copy that’s not relevant and you will be penalized and you will not rank so well. You also run the chance of being banned. You’re better off doing it the right way, the first time around. It will pay off in the end when you are sitting pretty in the top of the results and paying a low cost per click and your competitors are paying an arm and a leg to even rank on the same page.

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It’s no doubt that website colors are essential to a successful website. Depending on the theme of your website, you will want to choose website colors and color schemes carefully in order to attract website visitors. An ugly website is no good for anyone!

You don’t often see a major Fortune 500 corporate website with dark colors such as black, gray and red taking up the entire screen, do you? You usually see a clean color palette with whites, blues and grays that are pleasing to the eye and the target audience. On the other hand, if you are creating a rock band website, dark colors might be the perfect match. It all depends on your target audience. Businesses and individuals should choose colors and color schemes for their websites keeping in mind they will have to please the visitors eye first and foremost. If the visitor isn’t happy with the visuals of a website, they will leave and find a website that is visually appealing to them.

Here is a list of free websites and tools that will help you find and pick the right colors for your website. Take your time with this as you want to make a lasting impression with your website.

www.colorschemer.com

www.wellstyled.com

www.colourlovers.com

www.websitetips.com

www.website-colors.com

www.siteprocentral.com

www.digitdesigns.com

www.pagetutor.com

www.colorpicker.com

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Yesterday we discussed how you should plan to build your SEO strategy before you even begin to develop your website. This is essential. You shouldn’t dive in without first knowing how you will go about your SEO plan in the near future and how you will achieve what it is that your business wants to achieve, both short and long term.

With this said, we will now discuss the different pieces of search engine optimization that will help you dominate the search engines in your market.

Pick A Keyword Rich Domain Name

This sounds simple enough but people like to make this harder that it is. Ideally, you want your domain name (www.yourdomainnamehere.com) to be keyword rich and relate to the theme of your business and website. Having a keyword rich domain will give you a head start on your competition. So, let’s say that you have a website about blue widgets. It would be a good idea to somehow integrate these keywords into your domain. Which domain name do you think would have a better chance at showing up in the search engines: www.bluewidgetsaregreat.com or www.widgitery.com? If you picked the first domain, you are correct! The domain that has keywords will likey rank higher that a non-keyword rich domain simply because it contains keywords that relate to your website.

There are many tools that can help you pick a great keyword rich domain but the best way to do this is pick your primary keywords for your website. Then go to a site such as GoDaddy.com and just start searching for that perfect domain. It will tell you if it’s available. Write down your favorite 5 domains or so and then ask a few friends which ones they prefer. Don’t tell strangers which domains you like as the domain market is highly competitive and people will buy them up before you know it. So, only tell people you trust. Once you get some user feedback, buy the domain and various extensions such as .org, and .net and .mobi if you are planning on creating a mobile website as well. After you secure your domain name, the fun begins. You get to start building your website with search engine optimization in mind.

This part is considered on-page search engine optimization. Our next post in the Guide To Search Engine Domination will talk about how you should build your website with SEO in mind. This is where we dig in a bit deeper and start to execute SEO strategies on our site.

Stay tuned…

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