Podcasting: What is it?

Simply put podcasting is making an audio file with content rich marketing message. It is aimed at delivering to target audience as part of Internet marketing strategy. Podcasts can be played on iPods as well as any device or reader capable of playing an MP3 file.

Like everywhere content matters so in podcasts. How powerful and interesting is you podcasting efforts? Are you able to attract lot of targeted listeners so that they subscribe to your podcast via RSS?

As part of their search engine marketing campaign companies produce podcasts on regular basis. If your podcasts are interactive and allow people to be part of teleconferencing or get to you by phone then the response will be greater.

Podcasts can be subscribed to via RSS feeds. RSS lets users know when a new podcast is ready and attaches the file to the feed. Podcast offers endless opportunity to telecast marketing messages, music, news and stories all of which can be utilized in a marketing campaign.

Using content rich and interesting podcasts you can introduce your products and services on Net. This is useful as a branding exercise as well. Podcast help create credibility amongst the targeted audience and improve conversions online.

W3C HTML Compliance

The consortium set up in 1934, sets standard for website coding using HTML it is popularly known as W3C or World Wide Web Consortium. It is founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners Lee.

Simply put your coding in HTML (Hyper Text Mark up Language) must comply with regulations set by W3C. This is a prerequisite for a good practice in search engine optimization for ranking high on search engines. The search engines screen your coding for W3C compliance and if it is validated favorably then the site scores a point.

Whence your site ranks high on SERPs the traffic is rewarding. So you have build a website or hired a professional web designer to make website for you. But how do you check the coding for W3C compliance?

You check you coding here…

http://validator.w3.org/

If you are not a professional web designer it is unlikely that you will understand the issues enough to rectify the errors. Then best consult a web designer who understand HTML and Java Script coding since error in the latter may be shown as well.

Website optimization is as important as off page optimization please keep in mind.

External Linking

External Links

Though the purpose of a website can be many, information dissemination is a key factor. Information is essential to all type of presence on the net, since all resources are information dependent be it an e commerce site or a product review site a company profile whatever.

Hence one of the key factors which determines the traffic to a website is its utility, which again is governed by the information it provides. Even if it is a highly popular utility and it is presumed that no information be associated - since the utility is universally known and understood.

Not giving importance to information in case of popular utility or e commerce site is a point blank fallacy. Research and development are key aspect in such cases and information would become imperative when updates take place or new technology model is introduced. Hence in short, information is unavoidable factor on any website. And when competition creeps in you will be stranded.

Whence we talk about external linking then we should know that appreciable external linking is that which adds to the information and not that which merely provides leads - as in case of spamming using secondary sites.

Best way to provide additional or related information on page is to have that information contained within since in this case the outgoing link from say the index page can be voted back by the externally linked page of your website. However in many instance it may not be possible to provide information from within one’s website. In such instance external link should be provided in limited numbers.

The limit comes into picture naturally for if so much of the info is being accessed from out side then what is your web page for?

Most of the information provided by externally linked web pages should be explanatory of terms (related) or provide a definition etc.

One must keep in mind to provide external link to an authoritative website…for example “Wikipedia”. But in rare instance if information on lower ranked website is unavoidable then one should not hesitate to provide a link to it.

If you have website with relational pages containing generous information than external linking is naturally curtailed which is good. For most of the externally linked websites will not bother to link back to you.

But be assured...if your website is rich in content and provides additional related information as explained above you are definitely going be in good books of the major search engines. If you have number of web pages containing information then you can safely distribute external links to number of pages which are relevant.

Most important do not be confused between external linking as described here and reciprocal linking - factor about which I will write about later.

Monitor Your Rankings

After a long haul, hard work and dedication you have achieved a desired rankings for your website. Thanks to good web design and content as well you now benefit from online presence and get visitors and business.

But you know by now the key to your websites online success is your website's position on carefully researched keywords that fetch business. Hence you need to monitor your website constantly and use seo techniques to maintain those rankings.

There are three monsters that can give one sleepless nights:

1) Changes in algorithms

2) Your competitors.

3) Inactivity

While drastic changes in algorithms are unlikely, minor tweaking can result in some loss in rankings or even a gain. The former should not bother you if your promotion and analysis is correct. There are some ranking criteria which are bound to change in the long run so hone your seo.

To fight competitors, your white hat techniques should continue albeit at a lesser pace than before. Remember there is no end to site building as customer trends change and what was fresh and useful to your visitors once may not be so in time to come. So update constantly.. .Monitor your competitors activity both on page and off page.

Sometimes others working on your site can wreck havoc with on page optimization so check the site each and every time someone...web designer...content writer..etc makes any change. This could result in sudden drop of rankings on SERPs...This is usually an indication of problem with the website...

Monitor the effect of all the changes you make on the website small or big. This could bring about negative or favorable positioning of your website on SERPs.

Search Engine Optimization costs in terms of money and time, hence be vigilant and attentive so as not to lose online presence gained. Keep building the site so as not to be inactive and redundant on net. Remember Mr. Google is watching you.....

Seo Articles

Google Audio Search

Article Marketing

Directory Submissions

Quality Link Building

One Way Link Building

Creating trust among visitors online

Getting your site ranking high is just not enough. Earning customer trust in your small business is as important. A vast majority of customers do not trust small online businesses. Hence the website fail to lure visitors into becoming buyers or subscribers.

It is simple no trust no conversion.

Remember your website may be competing with big portals selling the same commodity or service. To fight the competition you have to earn the customers trust.

But how?

As your stature grows on the net you should build your brand image this is also known as branding exercise. The best approach is to build highly suitable web design with company logo and of late a Favicon on the site. Your content should augur faith in the minds of the people.

The site should be user friendly and convey a professional image of your services and products. Stick some testimonials with contact of those who have bought the products or subscribed to the service.

Offer security by implementing SSL for electronic payments etc. There should be an explicit privacy policy on your site. The site should have registration or certification if any from a reputable organization, government or organization to increase visitors faith in your products and services and hence in you.

Lend personal touch add your bio or profiles of your team members. Add some content written by you or your team members. This gives a human angle to the ecltronic document or your business website.

Web Analytic - Challenges

As the Internet grew by leaps and bounds several web analytic programs came into picture and more detailed info was available as log files, graphs and tables which brought web analytics to a level for a professional team work for marketing campaigns.

However the programs faced some challenges:

Page Caching by ISP...after the ISP had a copy of the page all subsequent pages were served from the ISP and the logs did not provide details of entries for requested pages.

Robots: Some bots which spider the site left their own imprints on the log files which were non-web-users entries. These entries got counted in the metrics.

Unique visitors: Identifying Unique visitors was difficult in case were dynamic IP were assigned and in cases which used proxy servers.

In spite of many challenges being overcome web analytic a new born baby has progressed to infancy.