BWMagic’s Marketing Tools

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News!

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Contents:

Usually when someone contacts me online, one of the most
frequent questions I get is this: “How do I find a good
web host?” or “Which web host do you use?”

This is one of those essential things you will need in
order to earn that online income. You will need a web site
and you will need a web host – somewhere to place that web
site.

Sure there are countless marketers who work without a web
site but most have at least one main site which acts as their
online calling card. Where people can find you on the web,
of course you can always use the social networks like Facebook,
MySpace, Twitter… but that’s like operating your office
out of Starbucks!

Instead a well designed site is just more professional and
business like. It also means you’re serious about your online
business.

Picking a good web host is not easy. I have had numerous
different web host over the years. Most of them have been
very good and served their purpose. But I have had some bad
experiences too – what long term webmaster or marketer hasn’t?
Something always goes wrong eventually, especially if you have
a lot of sites and many different web hosts.

Some times having a web host can be quite scary. Several years
ago, the web host that I had my main site on was first sold and
then went bankrupt. One day your site is running fine and the
next day the web host is completely gone. Shut down. Your site
and all your files completely gone. Vanished. Your host can’t be
reached. Total blackout!

Fortunately, I had my site backed up on several systems and
since that experience I always back my sites up on several
computers and I go even further by copying them onto DVDs
should those computers crash. If you have a site, I always
suggest you back up your site files and make it redundant.
The very worst can happen to anyone.

Overall quality and good 24/7 support should be your first
objective in choosing a good web host. You want a site that’s
fast, easy to use and has good support that you can reach
at all times, should something go wrong.

You need to check exactly what features your web host is
offering and for what price:

- How much storage space?

- Daily traffic limit or transfer?

- Email system? How many accounts…

- What type of server Linux or Windows?

- Check to see how many other sites will be sharing your
IP address?

- Are sites/files backed up? How often?

- Support hours?

- And of course the Price?

But don’t always try to get the cheapest price hosting
- keep in mind, you always get what you pay for. A cheap
web host won’t save you money if it’s a poor service and
your site is always going down. So don’t always pick the
cheapest web host.

Match up your hosting service with the type of site you will
be running – a simple HTML site will have or make simple demands
on your hosting service. So a shared hosting service may be quite
adequate to meet your hosting needs.

However, if you have a site that’s extremely interactive with
forums, discussion groups, get large bursts of traffic or you’re
running a lot of server-side scripts and programs – then you may
need a more robust hosting service to meet your needs.

In many cases, you might need a dedicated server to handle just
your site. Many web hosts offer this service and it’s worth
looking into if you have a site with extreme amounts of traffic
or if you’re running forums, affiliate programs, email services…
from your site.

Most of my own sites are very simple and I have them on many
different web hosts. Mainly because of my own experiences,
I just don’t want to have all my sites on one host… the old
“don’t put all your eggs in one basket” reasoning.

At the moment I am quite pleased with all my web hosts… many
of my sites are on GoDaddy.com and I find them OK for simple
sites like mine. I also find it convenient because they are also
a domain registry so I can easily use them to buy my domains.

Another web host I use is Bluehost which is very good, can’t
remember the last time my site was down. They are very popular
and my only concern is that they may become too popular and their
services will be spread too thin. However, I have never had a
problem with them and you can always reach their support.

I also have a site with Ken Evoy’s SBI (Site Build It) but I
created that one mainly to get access to the enormous resources
connected with SBI. It is slightly more expensive than some of
the ones listed above, but SBI is an overall online marketing
system that in my opinion can’t be equaled on the web. Well,
perhaps the Warriors group could give them a run for their money
but it’s the community of like-minded webmasters with SBI which
makes it special. They are always ready and willing to help you out.
Doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced pro or a complete newcomer.

Site Build It Hosting

There are countless webhosts you can choose from when picking
a web host. But do your homework, check around to the different
forums and see how everyone is rating the web hosts they are using.
First-hand experiences are the best judge of whether or not
a web host is good and reliable. Make sure the person giving
the review is not an affiliate and just trying to sell you
something.

Although this can be a somewhat tricky issue because sometimes
many of the best web hosts also have good affiliate programs
- SBI comes readily to mind. This is also one of my better
affiliate programs mainly because I have gone out of my way
to promote SBI since it is one of the best web host, especially
for beginning webmasters/marketers. In addition, SBI is a very
comprehensive marketing system as well as a hosting service.

Several years ago, I took a very close first-hand look
at the hosting service provided by SBI. You can find my
opinions/views on SBI here:

Site Build It Review

Although moving a site from one web host to another can be
a real pain, especially if you have a large site, but if you’re
not totally satisfied with a web host and are having serious
problems – simply change your hosting. Just make sure you’re
not going from bad to worst.

Still, finding a good quality web host will be a major chore,
no matter how you look at it.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, nothing beats checking with
your friends and follow webmasters you trust. Ask them which hosts
they’re using and if they’re satisfied with it. Nothing beats
first-hand experiences when it comes to choosing a web host.
Just make sure you’re comparing oranges to oranges – that is:
make sure you have similar site requirements as your webmaster
friends. If you both have similar type sites, then finding a good
quality web host can be as easy as having a friendly chat over a cup
of coffee.

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News!

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Contents:

o My Biggest SEO Mistake And How You Can Avoid It
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Over the years I have pretty much figured out enough about
Google search in order to get my major keywords listed on
the first page in their results. Sometimes in the top spot
but mostly in the top 5 listings.

Now we are not talking about very competitive keywords that
get 1000’s of searches each day. Usually keyword phrases that
get from 10 to 100 daily searches – believe me, all this quality
traffic adds up very quickly.

For the most part, Google has been very stable, that is: my
keywords have remained on the first page for years. Of course,
I am constantly creating new links with article marketing,
unique content on my sites, ebooks, videos, software downloads…
all providing link bait so that webmasters naturally link
to my content because they believe their visitors will benefit
by visiting my sites.

However, recently all is not well in Google Land, for some
puzzling reason or reasons – two of my most popular keywords
have been bouncing like they’re attached to a bungee cord.
Popping in and out of Google’s first page results. One week
they’re on the first page, next week they’re down to around
#50.

At first, this didn’t worry me… Google was probably doing
another one of their endless updates to their Algorithm (whole
set of rules and math stuff they use to rank pages/keywords)
and things usually settle back to normal in a few days or so.

Not this time, those competitive keywords have been erratic
for months – and this after being very stable for over 3 or 4
years. This has totally unsettled me to say the least.

What do you do when Google doesn’t do what you want them to do!

I have been trying to figure out what’s going on with these
bouncing keywords? I have some possible reasons why these keywords
are bouncing but with Google it is extremely hard to pin-point
what exactly is happening… guess if we knew all of Google’s
secrets we would all be sitting pretty high in the rankings.

Anyway, I have placed my whole investigation and findings in
an article that may or may not be of help to you. Again, until
I firmly pin-point my mistake and discover exactly what’s happening,
this keyword ranking issue in Google is still open.

I even went so far as to contact Matt Cutts in his blog about
it but of course I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. And this was
rather foolish of me, but I thought Google’s recent openness with
webmasters would give me some information of what’s going on
in my case. It also shows my sense of frustration with those
bouncing keywords and I will try anything to solve the problem.

Anyway, here’s the keyword situation in more detail and what
I (believe) to be causing this erratic bouncing of my keywords
in Google.

……………………
Feature Article
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My Biggest SEO Mistake And How You Can Avoid It
Copyright © 2009 Titus Hoskins

Imagine this: for years you have kept the number one
spot in Google for a very lucrative and profitable
keyword phrase. This keyword alone adds hundreds of
dollars of daily income to your bottom line. Then
suddenly your number one keyword starts bouncing like
it’s attached to a yo-yo with a fifty foot cord.

One day your keyword is at #1 in Google, next day it
drops to the #50 spot. Ouch!

You’re scrambling to find out the reason for this
disastrous fall from Google’s graces. After you have
exhausted all your cuss words, your limited but very
fine-tuned SEO brain goes into overdrive and starts
dissecting the problem.

Read More Here: SEO Mistake

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News!

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Contents:

o How To Improve Your Site With Google Analytics

o Top 10 Graphic Design Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

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How To Improve Your Site With Google Analytics

All this week, I have been working on my sites,
trying to improve them by using Google Analytics.
I am mainly concentrating on improving my conversion
rates or the number of sales I get compared to the number
of visitors.

I am getting those sales numbers up by focusing on
improving two factors which affect my conversion rates.
These two are: bounce rate and the time spent on my site.

Google Analytics is a free program from Google and
every webmaster should be using it but I am constantly
surprised by how many webmasters and marketers I encounter
daily who are not using it.

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Now Google Analytics is a free program from Google and it
is truly invaluable because of all the important data
it gives you about your webpages and content. It tells
you how many visitors you’re getting, where they are
coming from, where they go to on your site and how
long they stay. All vital information for any webmaster
or marketer trying to improve the overall performance
of your content or sites.

If you’re not using Google Analytics you’re missing
out on one of the best free programs on the web. And
it’s very simple to use – simply join up and then place
a small snippet of code on all your webpages and Google
collects all your vital site stats for you. And you can
even customize your own tasks and segments to check the
effectiveness of all your marketing goals.

Why is Google Analytics so important?

First of all, I am using Google Analytics to lower
my bounce rate – if you have a high bounce rate this
means once visitors see your page they immediately hit the
back button. This is not good news. Actually it’s
horrible news. Your potential visitors and customers
are voting with their back button and leaving your
site without a second glance. No visitors, no revenues.

I have been using Analytics for years and it has helped
me immensely. Lately, I have been concerned with the
high bounce rate of some of my pages – people were not
even viewing some of my important pages. Ouch!

So I redesigned some of the page layout and placed in
more professional looking graphics and the bounce rates
are going down. I know this because I am checking my site’s
stats within the Analytics program daily.

Beside just getting people to stay on my site, there’s another
reason why lowering your bounce rate could be important.
Many SEO experts believe Google is using your content’s
bounce rate as one of their 200+ ranking factors tehy use
to rank pages or content. Makes sense, what better
measurement of a site’s worth than people voting with their
back button.

Let’s say you’re searching Google, you click thru to the
listed page and a second later you have hit the back button
and looking for the next listing in Google’s SERPs. You
obviously didn’t find what you’re looking for and that
listing can’t be very valuable to the searcher and Google
is no doubt tracking this fact. And wouldn’t it be in Google’s
main interest to lower your site’s link in their results.
Providing relevant quality results is Google’s “bread and butter”
and the cornerstone of all that search engine revenue.

How important a factor your bounce rate plays can only be
known by Google but it’s something you should definitely
try to improve. Besides, the lower your bounce rate but the
more quality traffic you will get.

Another issue and probably an even more important ranking
factor is the time people spend on your pages or content.
Google Analytics will also give you this data so you can
try and test different content to improve your times. Again
the more time someone spends on your site, the better it
will perform.

Yet another factor is the pageviews per visitor – the more
pages your visitors frequents the more popular your
site will be. You want your visitors to stay and view more of
your content and not just stay on the homepage or the landing
page.

Working with Google Analytics you can improve all these factors
by test running different graphics, different layouts and of
course, different content to see what works best.

Several things I have discovered from closely monitoring my
pages within Google Analytics:

- Traffic source is very important. Visitors coming from
reading my articles stay longer on my sites and have much
better conversion rates. This is very understandable since I
“pre-sell” in my articles and readers are familiar with
the quality of my content.

- When fine-tuning your webpages, make subtle changes or
one change at a time. If it works keep it, if it doesn’t work
change it back to your old design. I found it less nerve-racking
to make small changes and then gradually improve my pages, one
step at a time.

- Some keywords are better than others for delivering good results.
Keywords which are perfectly matched to your content obviously do
much better. For example, someone searching for cheap laptops
who lands on a page listing cheap laptops and discount coupons
will havelow bounce rates and high retention rates.

- Professional graphics and professional web design do make
a large difference in how your pages perform. I believe savvy
web users have now grown a sixth sense when browsing the web
and can instantly tell if a page is professional looking and
worth their time. Using templates and cookie cutter sites might
be cheaper but they are not always the best route to go even if
you’re on a tight budget. My suggestion – at least invest in a
good professional logo and come up with a catchy phrase that sums
up your site so that people will remember it.

- Here’s the deal clincher! Google Analytics will give you the
keyword or keyword phrases that converts into a sale or sales.
You need to make a list of all the MOST profitable keywords and
concentrate the MAJORITY of your marketing on these keywords.
Don’t forget to market your site as a whole, but use Google
Analytics to pin-point the keywords you should be paying the
most attention to in your marketing. I do articles, blog posts,
press releases – to create links and link bait for these all
important profitable keywords. By getting higher rankings I get
more traffic and by lowering my bounce rate I get more of that
traffic to my webpages and keep them there longer… all resulting
in more sales.

Google Analytics is a very useful and beneficial program to
improve the overall performance of your webpages or content.
Used properly, it can also be an invaluable marketing tool to
increase your bottom line. It doesn’t get any better than this!

http://www.google.com/analytics/

….

If you want more help on how websites should be designed – I
found this very detailed free PDF report by Marlons Sanders to
be very helpful.

Top 10 Graphic Design Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Click to view or download:

Top 10 Graphic Mistakes

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

Internet Marketing Newsletter – Special Report

Can Microsoft’s Bing Beat Google In The Search Engine Wars?

This week, like many online marketers who keep a close eye
on countless profitable keywords, I spent most of my time
giving Bing (the new search engine from Microsoft) a really
good run-through. I was mainly testing it to see how good the
results were compared to those given by Google, who is still
the top dog when it comes to the extremely lucrative online
search market.

My first overall impression of Bing has been surprisingly
positive. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so good, mainly
because it was coming from Microsoft and my opinion of them
lately has been permanently downgraded by my own trials and
tribulations with Vista on my brand new “IBUYPOWER” gaming PC.
What were they thinking… it had me scrambling for my old Windows XP
which I truly love using… lets just hope Bill and the boys get the next
Windows OS right!

In this light, I was very curious to see how Microsoft would
do with this new search engine or site? Would they give us
something useful or totally mess it up?

While one would like to remain objective in analyzing any new
search engine, our own viewpoints do creep into our judgments,
many a time without us even realizing it. So with this in mind,
please read the following information and critique of Bing in
this light. Also, since the majority of my present online income
comes directly or indirectly from Google, most of my own personal
opinions are slanted in favor of Google. I really like Google
and I have been using it personally for years. I can honestly
say I could not get through my marketing day without Google.
And this is not so much Google search, it’s Google Alerts,
Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Google AdSense, Google Docs,
Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle… and the list goes on.

But the question at hand – Can Microsoft’s Bing Really, Truly,
Honestly give Google Search a run for those all important search
engine dollars?

First, you really have to check out the Bing site or interface
and see it for yourself. Like Google’s, it’s very simple with only
search as the main function, as it should be. Your search can be
on the Web, Images, News, Maps, and more… does this sound
familiar to you? Does it remind you of another search engine?

There are also links at the top of the Bing homepage pointing
to Sympatico/MSN, Windows Live and Make Bing Your Homepage. There
is also a very scenic background picture which they seem to be
changing/rotating each day. This might seem like a minor point,
but in my opinion it’s a nicely added touch that will help visitors
remember Bing in their mind’s eye. Catching your potential user’s
attention should never be frowned upon when you’re discussing the web.

As a former artist I am always impressed when I see a nice
layout and design incorporated into a website. Bing gets top
marks for a simple, yet great design. It just has a little more
impact than Google’s now iconic homage to white space. But will
search users of Bing really be looking for scenic pictures or will
they be looking for good solid results to solve their questions
and problems. In most cases, they will be looking for the latter.
However, the background images on Bing could help distinguish it from
Google because the search results themselves are extremely similar
in many cases. Don’t know if this is good news or bad news for Google?

I was firmly struck with how same the results are in both search
engines. Since I am a ful-time online marketer, I monitor countless
keywords on a regular basis (hey, they’re my bread and butter), so
I have to keep a close watch on them. Thankfully, most of my first
page Google keywords are also being displayed on the first page in
Bing, so I can easily remain neutral in any upcoming search wars
should they occur, those Swiss guys have the right idea.

While the results and the way they are displayed, are very similar
in both engines, in my opinion, Bing has the better layout with
a much more pleasing arrangement of their listings. There’s a nice
preview button for each listing and it gives you related searches
and your search history on the left hand side of the page. More
importantly, the search results are substantive, for example,
if you search for Obama, in addition to the search results you
will get related Obama listings for Issues, Facts, Biography,
Childhood, Speeches and News. Also in this case, you have around
20 main listings running down the results page as opposed to Google
which usually gives 10 main organic listings. Although this is
changing as Google places in more News, Products, Videos
and Brand Name links into their rather crowded listings.

One slight difference, Google has the “Did you mean” feature
which helps correct your spelling and help you find the right
word you’re searching for. It would be curious to see how many
people/students/searchers use Google not for search but as a
gloried spell-checker! Regardless, this is still a major reason
for many people to keep using Google. Not to be outdone, Bing has
a similar function and will guess at the right word or spelling.

At the moment if you compare web traffic as measured by Alexa.com,
you will see that Google is in the number one spot. It gets the most
traffic of any site on the web but all of this is not search traffic,
only around 65% goes to search if you also count image search – gmail
counts for around 25% of the traffic.

In second place we have Yahoo.com but most people use that site
for email, around 43% and much less use it for search. MSN comes
in at number 6 and again visitors are using it for other things than
for search. You can note that Bing traffic is listed under
“runonce.msn.com” and accounts for roughly 20% of the traffic.

Curiously, I see from own log stats that Bing is regarded as a
site rather than a search engine. Most of my sites uses AWStats
and Bing is listed under sites rather than in the search engine
section. I am already seeing some traffic from Bing, be interesting
to monitor this traffic and see if it increases over time…
could be a good indication Bing is catching on with search users.

Can Bing truly compete with Google?

Well, judge for yourself, take the Obama test! Do a test search
of Obama in both Bing and Google. Compare the results – which
one do you like? Which one gives a better overall picture/summary
of Obama? Be honest, be true… which results would you like to
see in your searches? Does Bing give Google some real competition?
The answer to that question lies on both those pages… any search
engine who will beat Google must give quality results, as good as
or better than Google. Same holds true for Bing or any of the new
search engines which have appeared recently on the web.

Frankly, at the moment, I don’t see any search engine (old or new)
giving Google any real serious competition. Mainly because Google
hasn’t just remained a search engine, wisely, it has expanded its
functions and services over a whole list of web activities, way beyond
search. Combined, all these services (mostly free) have propelled the Google
Brand Name into the most serious player on the web. Even if someone
gives Google a run for all those search dollars… Google can easily
win the traffic war on so many other fronts.

Only time will tell if Bing can eat into Google’s 70% or more share of
the very lucrative U.S. search market. But if they keep it simple and
start offering the same or better results than Google, Bing (aka Microsoft)
could give Google a few hiccups, we could actually see some major battles
for the search users’ hearts and minds, especially among the hard-core
searchers. Bing does have an appeal and one can’t forget that Microsoft
does have more than a few pennies to throw at this venture.

In the end, because of Google’s dominance and well-deserved reputation
for giving quality results, not to mention a Brand Name that has probably
already leaped into our genetic code, only marketing and lots of it, will
give Bing an outside chance of beating Google. And if you’re laughing at
that statement, you probably have an attic full of GM stocks gathering dust.

Please Share:

Titus Hoskins
www.bizwaremagic.com