Imagine that it’s a decade ago. In early 2001, the Verizon Kyocera 6035 powered by the Palm OS was released to the public — the first smartphone ever to have limited web surfing capability. But that vaunted capacity quickly turned out to be…a bit less than what Verizon and Palm had hoped it would be. The Kyocera couldn’t handle pictures, it couldn’t see much of a webpage at a time, and it basically kind of sucked.

But, it’s what we had, and major companies wasted absolutely no time developing a new programming language and several protocols to deal with mobile website design. The theory was simple: KISS. Very basic websites with text, links, and little else, designed to let the mobile surfer do what they needed to without wasting a single byte of data transfer.

Since then, however, we’ve taken massive strides down the path of mobile web browsing. Today, we have 5G networks springing up across the country, mobile devices that don’t have download limits, and offer download speeds to rival most home computers’ internet connections. Furthermore, the graphical abilities of smartphones have exploded as well, with even low-end models able to download and play games that make the GameBoy Advance and the PSP1 jealous.

So what purpose does mobile website design have in a world of wireless gizmos that aren’t limited to the features that mobile website design supports? Why bother creating an entirely new site that will need it’s own support and even it’s own organic SEO if you expect it to get any traffic? The answer, quite simply, is that smartphone penetration is at less than 10%.

What that means is that, of the 300 million people in America, less than 30 million have smartphones. That means that leaving mobile website design this early in the game is basically telling those other 290 million people that you don’t need their money. That’s not the kind of message you want to be saying.

Even today, I meet people who can’t even be bothered to get one of those cheap one-purpose or even pay-per-minute cellphones. These are people who will probably one day give in and purchase a webphone, but they’re not going to shell out for a smartphone in their lifetimes. Don’t give up mobile website design just yet, or you’ll be leaving all of their money on the table.

Sometimes, SEO isn’t enough — you can have mountains of traffic, and if your website simply isn’t able to turn that traffic into buyers, you need to stop focusing on SEO and worry for a while about your conversion rate. There are several tricks websmasters use to improve conversions — from targeted Email marketing gimmicks to flash banners — but two of them work on a different, more fundamental level than all the rest. The best part is that the two can be used together.

Priming Words
Like it or not, science has proven that the human mind works in large part on a subconscious level. Researchers have been able to prove that introducing a set of words that all relate to a given topic, even out of context, cause the people hearing or reading those words to start subconsciously thinking about that topic. Here’s an example:

Jerry Florida was worried. It was a gray day out, and he was wondering how lonely his morning jog would be. He usually jogged alongside a few of his neighbors, but the threat of rain might make them “forgetful” of their morning ritual. Looking around his apartment, his eyes hit upon his old treadmill, now a place to hang his freshly-worn clothes before they were washed. Bingo! He’d get his morning jog despite the possible moisture, and catch Regis at the same time.

Believe it or not, right now on a subconscious level, you’re probably thinking about what it will be like to get old. Huh? Check out the priming words hidden in that little story:
old, Regis, worried, Florida, lonely, gray, bingo, forgetful
Scientists have shown us that after reading a story like that, people will walk more slowly, think less clearly, and even be slightly more fatalistic than they were before they read it.

Consider that the next time you start writing your website copy. How can you use the power of subconscious priming to get your audience thinking about the problem that YOUR product or service solves?

Web Presenters
A Web Presenter is simply a pop-up video of a person. They are generated dynamically on the surfer’s screen so that they follow the reader as they scroll. They offer your website the opportunity to have a “face” and a “voice” that are human, and thus hard to ignore. 90% of communication is non-verbal, and a Web Presenter brings most of that 90% back to the table. In short, a website with a Web Presenter will appeal on a fundamental level that a text-and-pictures website simply can’t.

Consider the opportunity that a Web Presenter gives you — not only can you add that extra layer of communication to your website, but you can have the Web Presenter deliver the priming words in a voice that the reader can’t easily skip over. That’s some top-tier converting power!

It’s actually fairly likely that you’ve never heard of a web presenter, but if you have, it’s actually fairly likely that you’ve only heard glowing things said about them by people who want to sell them to you. Web presenters are still fairly new in the world of online marketing; they don’t have the credibility that tools like custom blog creation or targeted Email marketing have. Like Email marketing, Web Presenters aren’t a part of your SEO strategy — they’re the second stage, a tool used to increase conversions.

The basic law of making money online is mathematical: the number of visitors you get times your conversion rate times the sale price of the product minus your costs equals your profits. Increase the visitors (with SEO), and you make more money — but increase the conversion rate (with a Web Presenter), and you make more money as well. At some point, improving your conversion rate becomes more profitable than pushing more traffic onto a low-conversion page, and that’s when tools like Web Presenters come in handy.

A Web Presenter, for the record, is a full-body or head-and-shoulders image of a person who pops up on your screen and talks to you about the content of the page. The benefits of a Web Presenter are intuitively obvious: they talk to you, they have posture and gesticulations and all of those secondary elements of communication that text lacks, and they’re hard to stop watching once they get started, so they increase stickiness as well.

But there are pitfalls to be found when hiring a Web Presenter. You should be careful to choose a Web Presenter whose image matches that of your company. Hiring a conservative-looking older gentleman for an agile young SEO company might not be the right fit, for example. You should also make sure that your Web Presenter is comfortable with your content. Having a Web Presenter that pronounces ‘SEO’ as a one-syllable word that rhymes with “Rio” will immediately throw suspicion on that company’s site, for example. Make sure that the image and the content come across clearly, however, and you should find that a Web Presenter has very positive effects on your bottom line.

Open another window and go to your home page or landing page. What do you see? Is it enough to capture your attention if you’re visiting for the first time? Put yourself in the place of a person who has never been to your site before and has no idea how to navigate to the sign-up or purchase page. Would they find it naturally or simply click off after a few minutes? If your average time on site for a new visitor is less than one minute, you are a good candidate for a web presenter.

A web presenter is an animate image in the form of a man or woman who tells you what the site is all about and directs you to where you need to go. The average script for a web presenter is longer than one minute, so most of your new visitors will stay at least long enough to listen to what you have to say. Some business owners use an image of themselves; others choose an attractive female or male avatar. The choice is yours, but we generally recommend the fictional character and a professional voice. A lot of research goes into creating these things and we have statistics to back up what works.

Is a web presenter an organic SEO tool? In some ways it is. As far as we know, time on site isn’t a variable in Google’s search algorithm, but an interesting presentation could cause a potential customer to bookmark your page, and bookmarks are in the algorithm. They are quality links that were created voluntarily by a party not looking for a return link posting. If the person who creates them is on a social network, those bookmarks become even more powerful, garnering additional links and direct traffic for the originators “friends” or “followers”. This process is called social bookmarking and it is most definitely an organic SEO tool.

Obviously, the more time someone spends on your website, the more likely they are to make a purchase, unless of course your products or services are sub-par or over-priced. The web presenter will keep them onsite; the quality and affordability of your offering will do the rest. It helps if you also have the web presenter explain to the visitor what they need to do to make a purchase. That’s how you increase your conversion rate.

Internet mostly works on search. This means that whenever someone wants to look for something, he or she would just visit a search engine and type it in the search box. Search engine uses various techniques and tools to get the most relevant results on the top, and most users click on only the top 3 results on the first page of search engine results. This is why it is very important to get listed in the top ranks if you want more people to visit your website.

Your search engine ranking determines the profitability of your website. When you make a website, you want to earn some profit from it. If more people visit your website, there are higher chances hat they will be interested in your products or services, which means more prospects for you.

All this is achieved by organic SEO. You just need to hire an expert who can handle this aspect of website design. With SEO tactics, your website will become more profitable. Of course you cannot expect to earn millions instantly, but SEO does improve your profits.

Organic SEO is not just one process, but a bunch of processes operating side by side. Some of these processes are- designing keyword rich content, high quality development of website, well organized framework and easy navigation- among others. The qualified professionals in this industry keep changing these processes to stay matched with changing strategies of search engine crawlers. Some SEO techniques that were used a few months back are not used anymore. This is because search engines keep changing their algorithms. The main concern of these professionals is that your website should be SEO friendly as well as user friendly. Their efforts are aimed to get you the maximum profits.

The basic of organic SEO is about adding keywords to meta tags, anchor text, and filenames. They make use of every little technique to make your website rank high, but they also take care that it is not over SEO, since overuse of these methods can get you banned from search engine results. If you want to make an online presence, then you can get the services from a good SEO company, which would help you rank high.

Everyone who owns a website knows the importance of search engines for drawing traffic. Getting your website rated consistently high on a search engine requires meeting several qualifications over a long term period. Although many search engine optimization services promise results through directory submissions or spun articles that are rewritten using a program, real success requires something called Organic SEO. Just like a plant, a websites reputation in the eye’s of a search engine must grow too. Cheating or using illicit methods to promote your website can cause a short term enhancement in your website’s ranking, but it risks possible blacklisting of the site and is no means for growth.
Naturally growing your websites search engine ranking requires time, commitment, and a solid internet presence. Rankings are driven by three things, how often your website is visited, the content which your website has, and links to your website from other places on the web. Your websites content is what drives visits and linking, so be sure to focus directly on quality content.
If you are considering using a search engine optimization service to enhance your r rankings then only use providers that focus on quality content and web promotion. Avoid those who offer questionably cheap services that don’t focus on long-term improvement.
Consider also actively participating in forum discussions. By creating an active presence under a forum that relates to your website you can often draw interested people who will spend more time on your website than search engine traffic. These people will often be return visitors who will actively use and promote your website.
Another way to establish your authority in a certain topic is to run an active blog. Blogs serve as a medium to bring visitors from others websites to you, and vice-verse for your website. By engaging in this mutual traffic process you are allowing other blog owners to post your links where they feel appropriate. By being a part of the blogging network you are dipping your toe into almost every blog related to your topic.

By naturally growing a website through tried and true methods you can ensure that traffic steadily increases to your website. Even if your website doesn’t draw traffic immediately its better to wait than bring in a small amount of traffic with illicit methods. Now that you know the difference between negative and positive SEO methods it is up to you to achieve the goal.

Forum posting is a tricky endeavor – if it weren’t, you probably wouldn’t be here reading an article about it. But it serves some great functions, including back linking to your site (which is great for your web site’s ranking in the search engines), showing potential visitors what you’ve produced (and hopefully turning them into your dedicated readers and customers), and the best of all… Forum posting allows others to comment on what they like and don’t like about your site.

Obviously, putting a link back to your site (or back linking, as it’s called in the “Interweb Biz”) is a great way to increase the number of links that search engine spiders can crawl on – which is not only good for getting you indexed and attaining higher page rankings. Obviously, the more links you have to your site, the more likelihood you’ll have people actually visiting your site.

On the Internet, politeness is not the all but guaranteed basic nicety it is in the real world. In fact, people can be downright harsh, since you don’t know who they are, where they live, or whether you can beat them up if they hurt your feelings. If you go on a forum and ask, “How’s my site?” be prepared for the occasional person to spend a couple of paragraphs disrespecting everything from your font size, to your color scheme… and if you’re really lucky, they might actually stop ranting and raving long enough to actually read a little of your site.

But since most impressions are formed within seconds, do not expect a genuine content assessment during a thrashing session – and if you get it, be sure to thank the person for ripping your pride to shreds and telling it like it is.

In the case of people who actually care about quality content, they’ll respect you if you can take your lumps and move forward (including actually applying some of their suggestions). And in the case of trolls (people who go around saying harsh things to others, just to get a rise out of the attacked parties and feel smugly superior), thanking them for their attempt to anger you is a high tech way to “kill ‘em with kindness.”

So don’t be shy in those forums. Get your forum posting going, and see how many ways it can help your site grow better.

Pay per click can be an excellent idea for drawing traffic to your site – especially when you have a decent budget, and you know where your target audience likes to surf already. By using careful PPC management, you can grow substantially faster than through mere SEO operations alone.

A lot of content sites allow you to simply arrange to pay a fixed price per click, instead of the more complicated bidding system that search engines often employ. This allows you to set up your banner on someone else’s site (where there are hopefully tons of people who want to see your content) – then when someone clicks your link, you pay a set price to the owner of the other site.

Of course, PPC management is tricky, and getting the best deal for your money involves several important bits of knowledge, which we’ll discuss below.

1. You have absolutely got to know your target audience. While unscrupulous web developers and petty competitors have committed link fraud to the point where there are often software controls in place to prevent such exploitation… there is no software that will cause your link to be clicked if you place it on an inappropriate site. If you write about sail boats, your link most likely won’t get you much traffic on a site about 16^th century French castles.

2. You also need to know, not only who your target visitors are, but what they respond to. People with an ironic bent might enjoy a simple line like “Click this freakin’ link!” Others, on the other hand, might enjoy a short value proposition such as, “Click here for some great deals on organic cheese!” You should also keep in mind that often a picture doubles the impact of what you’re saying (and sometimes it magnifies your impact beyond what can easily be expressed in language). In the case of erotica, for instance, talking about what the lovely ladies do to one another is great – but if your link features the lovely ladies doing something interesting with one another… the impact expands to a level approaching bursting. No puns intended, of course.

Perhaps a picture is worth a thousand clicks?

3. Keep in mind that a click is not an opt-in, and it is not a sale. One of the saddest parts of PPC management is that you must constantly allow for mere visitors, who won’t add much value to your site – maybe they’ll join your list, and maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll take up your offerings, and mayhap they won’t.

PPC management is an art form – but it can be mastered, with dedicated practice.

These days, more than a quarter of all the people who own a cell phone have used it to go online at some point. That’s a very useful statistic if you’ve only been thinking about people who go online using computers, as mobile website design is growing more gigantic (and potentially profitable) every day. So if your website design isn’t WAP friendly (and if you don’t know what WAP is, you really need to brush up), you could be missing out on millions of potential customers.

These days, everybody’s on the go – even a laptop can still be too big and clunky to hump around. But in the modern world, a lot of people would never dare to be out in public without their cell phone. So designing for these phones isn’t just optional anymore – it’s something you need to start into, if you want to keep your existing audience – and grow your audience by letting existing readers show your amazing content to their friends (who can then immediately look you up, and bookmark you for future visiting).

Since mobile friendly web content is so important, let’s review some important facets of making your web site mobile phone friendly:

*Your web site needs to be coded in either XHTML or XML. If you’re not familiar with these types of coding, you’d better get familiar with ‘em, as it’s a software thing that isn’t going away.

*Character encoding should be UTF-8, again for complex software reasons. Just remember that UTF-8 is important (and either learn it, or find someone who knows it), and you should be fine with making the switch to WAP.

*Obviously, mobile phones have substantially smaller screen sizes than their more probably desk bound cohorts. The largest screen sizes on the market are around 640 x 480 pixels (which hasn’t been industry standard on desktops since the early 90s), while the average is more along the lines of 120 square pixels. Needless to say, huge fonts and massive graphics are a real turn-off when seeing all of one requires a lot of scrolling.

*Don’t expect people to enter lots of text. Instead, give them lists of options, or get creative with buttons of some sort.

*Don’t create huge pages. It’s a bad idea to go over 20 kilobytes, as that typically includes either images, or LOTS of text (which most phone surfers aren’t going to read through, anyway)

Alright everybody, repeat after me and replace the big underscore with your name: “Hi, I’m _________, and I’m broke.” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I hear that cardboard boxes are an economical and well-insulated living space that reduces needlessly-used landfill space. Alright, you’re probably not that broke, if you’re motivated enough to go online and seek out the 411 on how to build a successful web site. But if I were a betting person, I’d be willing to put this month’s take-home that you’re not as rich as you want to be.

And that’s why you want something besides Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.   There’s nothing wrong with PPC, but if you’re like a lot of early-career Internet marketers, your budget just might not allow something that complex. Not to mention that it’s entirely possible you haven’t been able to find your niche yet – and never forget, you NEED a niche. Even massive global corporations don’t pretend they can do everything. And you’re not a massive global corporation, are you?  Maybe you should try a more affordable SEO strategy.

So you want to optimize your site so that search engines can find it, and so potential customers can find your wonderful information (and opt into your e-mailing list), but you don’t want to hire one of those scammy slickster types, who’ll just install a program that’ll “trick” search engines into indexing you well. Good, maybe you’re a legitimate businessperson – there just aren’t enough of those online these days. Or maybe you’re just too broke to take the “easy way out.”

There’s a very inexpensive process you must go through, in order to “naturally” optimize a site:

1. Figure out whom you’re speaking to.

If you’re targeting the parents of small children, discussions of indie bands and the local rave scene might fall on deaf ears. However, discussions of special museum exhibits, and lessons on how to deal with unacceptable behavior in a firm but non-harmful fashion, could garner you a great deal of respect (and a list of people who’ll open your e-mails most every time!).

2. Figure out what you intend to say.

If all you do is a constant marketing pitch, you’ll probably get one or two chances… and if you send these weekly, within a month you’ll have a list consisting of Spam folders and family members too polite to opt out. A far better approach is to actually PROVIDE VALUE, through great information. And if you do that 9 times out of 10 (with a little plug at the bottom, “if you’d like to learn more…”), your marketing message will be received as “more of a good thing,” instead of “another sales pitch.”

3. Make sure your site is congruent with your message and audience.

As many wise people have said, knowing is not enough – you must apply this knowledge, or it sits uselessly in your mind. Does your site connect with the emotions of your target audience? Are you saying something they’ll actually listen to? Are you sure? Pay attention to your SEO efforts, and tweak them when necessary — you’ll reach your goals.