Using WordPress to Create a Directory of Websites
People go to Google to search for web sites that have content on a certain topic that interests them. Once a keyword is entered and the Search button is clicked, Google returns a list of web sites that contain the keyword. It is not unusual for Google to get millions of web sites with that keyword. It is always assumed that the very first site on the list will contain the most relevant content. That way, one would click on the web sites listed on the first, second, or third pages, rarely venturing beyond the tenth page.
However, some surfers complain that many of the sites they have visited contain only ads and very little content. Most sites sell products, and any information one can get will be about the goods being sold. Many are becoming frustrated; even if the Internet contains a lot of information, sometimes it is difficult to find the information you need. One way to mitigate this growing frustration is to build a large directory of web sites that your visitors might enjoy. For example, if you are targeting visitors who want information about back aches, you can then create a web site directory full of links to similar sites.
As I have told you in the past I am Techless Terry and always looking for ideas that work great with WordPress. Recently I found a free WordPress directory theme bDirectoryPress, created by a great guy by the name of Mark Fail, who is also the creator of ShopperPress and other great WordPress themes. Mark also has premium themes but the free themes are great too! Since discovering DirectoryPress I have started building a couple of directories and have upgrraded to the premium theme for some extra features.
Anyway, if you want to check the DirectoryPress theme just CLICK HERE and if you decide the purchase the premium theme this tired old man will make a couple of dollars to put into my grandsons college fund. If you take advantage of the free DirectoryPress theme I will still be happy for you have taken my advice and are trying something new.
What are the advantages of creating this web site directory using WordPress? Will, if you have been reading this blog you already know that WordPress is great but here are a few more advantages:
1. Your visitors will save time searching for web sites they will enjoy.
If you can write descriptions to the sites in your directory, your visitors will have an overview of the sites they plan to visit. That way, they can zero in on the sites they need much faster.
2. Your visitors will bookmark your web site instead of the individual site they will visit.
The list in our Bookmarks begins to get cluttered once we add more and more sites. If surfers can have a “jumping board” where they can go to other sites, they will be saving that site. This will mean surfers going to that site again and again.
Your web site directory can be that “jumping board” to a particular niche. You will then be getting traffic from users looking for information on your niche.
3. You can monetize your directory.
You can design your web site such that ads from AdSense will blend naturally with your site. You can also include affiliate links in your directory. However, ensure that you do not overdo this, as surfers might think your directory contains only advertisements. Provide good content, such as descriptions of the listed sites, as mentioned above, and your visitors will often return to your site.
By creating a directory of web sites you do not only help your visitors save time searching for information, you also have that opportunity to earn some money from your site.
Market Research for Internet Marketing
You have been searching on how to start a blog, looking for the blog tips and tricks, learning how to promote a blog, thinking about money making blog ideas and really getting into this WordPress thing. You know you want to make money on line and want a few more tips on market research for internet marketing. Here is a little more information to get you headed towards that successful internet business.
There are many ways to make a living online. But no matter which route you choose, it all begins with market research. You have to find a group of buyers who have a common problem or need. Then all you need to do is sell them things that solve the problem or meet the need.
Market research can be divided into two parts – finding a profitable niche and finding long tail keywords within that niche. The good news is that there are many free tools available to do this. Some of the best tools are provided by Google itself. So the first thing to do is sign up for an account with Google. Once you have done that, go to Google’s search-based keyword tool at www.google.com/sktool. Type in the words ‘buy, purchase, order, get’ (without quotation marks) into the search field. The sktool will list out 800 words or terms that contain these buying keywords together with other useful data like level of competition, searches per month etc. All you have to do is choose the term that you feel is most suitable for yourself, preferably one that has at least 2,500 searches per month.
Next, click on the icon that looks like a magnifying glass next to the search term that you have chosen. This will take you to Google Insights for Search, another free tool from Google at www.google.com/insights. It will automatically search the term that you have chosen and produce the relevant data at Google insights. Scroll down to the bottom part of the page and you will see other related search terms. Take note of all the related search terms that you find.
Now you would have about 10 buying keyword terms in a particular niche. This basically indicates that there are people searching for information to solve a problem or meet a need in this niche. Next, you should investigate further into how big a market this niche is and get more keyword ideas.
Go to amazon.com, ebay.com, magazines.com and clickbank.com. Put the main keyword of the niche into the search field and see if there are products that are listed in these websites within this niche. Chances are you will find products in all these websites pertaining to your niche. Briefly review some of the products for ideas – both keyword ideas and product ideas. The next step is to find long tail keywords.
To do this, go to Google’s external keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Type in your 10 keywords and it will generate a list of related keywords. Take note of the keyword phrases with at least 3 words in them (long tail keywords) and that produce at least 2,500 searches per month.
Now go to the Google search engine at www.google.com and type in the main keyword in quotation marks. As you are typing, Google will give you related search terms. Take note of the long tail keywords. Once you hit the search button, Google will list out all the websites related to your keyword (this is called the SERP or Search Engine Results Page). Take note of the number of websites listed (it is listed at the top right hand corner of the page). You are aiming for keywords with a maximum of 1,000,000 websites. If it is significantly higher than 1 million, then the keyword is too competitive. Do the same thing with each of the keywords that you have and choose those which have less than 1 million competing websites.
For each of the keywords you type into Google, look at the bottom of the SERP and you will find more suggested related keywords. Click on them and you will find even more keywords. Drill down into the keywords as deeply as you can until you find long tail keywords with less than 1 million competing websites.
If you have done your market research well enough, you will now have identified a niche with ready buyers and the long tail keywords (about 10 will do) they use to search in the search engine for information on a product to buy. The next step would be Product Research and Creation which will be covered in the next article.
E Commerce Web Hosting a Few Things to Know
When you decide to start a blog and sell a product from your WordPress blog or website, you need to find out more about e commerce web hosting, compare prices and choose the ideal e commerce web hosting solution. You will need to offer a way for your customers to pay for your product that is safe and secure. You will want to provide with a way to pay with a credit card that protects your customer’s identity and credit card information. In addition, if you are selling multiple products from your website, you will want a way for the customer to buy more than one thing at a time. Most of these things can easily be handled through shopping cart software and your hosting company will need to be set up to accommodate this type of software.
Choose an e commerce web hosting provider that suits your needs and demands. Many hosts will provide shopping cart software for you. You also need to be sure that your hosting company provides a secure server to protect your customer’s identity and credit card information.You want to be sure that your host can handle as many or as few transactions as you have in a month and doesn’t penalize you for exceeding estimated transactions. You will also need to know about any transaction monetary amount limits that may be in place to make sure that they are sufficient to cover your monthly sales.
If you plan on building an e commerce web hosting solution, you will be trusting numerous daily transactions with your web hosts. You want to make sure that they are up to the task. You want a host that will either provide shopping cart software for you or can accommodate the software you have. You want to be sure that you have a secure server for your transactions and you need to know how many transactions you are allowed on a monthly basis. Not all hosts are created equal and some will provide you with more service for the money spent. Make sure your host is reliable as well because ‘down time’ equals lost sales.
When selecting an e commerce web hosting service, research the reputation and credibility of the provider. You don’t want to trust your customer’s transactions and your money to an unreliable host. You want to be sure that your hosting provider has a good ‘up time’ record because if your site is down you are not making any sales. You also want to be sure to have a secure server to protect all the transaction information. You will want to be sure that the provider can handle the amount of transactions that you will have come through your site as well. You don’t want to lose sales because you have exceeded any limits. The main thing is to do your ‘due diligence’ before signing up for a service.
Promote a Blog With Link Building
A writer at one of my favorite article sites InfoGoRound wrote a good article on link building, another area that I need to get better at when it comes to how to promote a blog. Many of us that have WordPress sites not only enjoy blogging, we also like to make money with our website. I am certainly not one of those internet “gurus” but just another techless blogger that is trying to do better when it comes to promoting my blogs and does not mind sharing good information such as this link building article.
One of the most important factors, of the many considered by search engines in calculating your search ranking, is how well your website or blog is linked to other sites. Almost nothing you can do to improve your ratings will have as dramatic an effect as increasing the number of these links. There are several simple and inexpensive ways to improve the number and quality of the sites linking to you. By concentrating on this one metric, you can have an amazing impact on how well your site does in a search for a particular keyword.
The simplest thing you can do to improve this link count is to start visiting other blogs and websites that have to do with the keyword you care about. By visiting these sites, you have the chance to comment on posts and leave a link back to your site. These all add up over time to help improve your link count.
You could also start your own blog, or even a group of blogs related to keywords you care about and link these back to your site as well. Be sure to add appropriate links on these blogs to your site to help build additional links to specific areas of your main site. This will encourage visits by people that read your blog and you may get additional links from them as well.
Submitting your site to website directories is another good idea for helping to boost your link count. These directories will naturally link to your site and can help direct traffic your way as well as raise your sites ranking. The thing to remember with site directories is to submit to a few each week and not to do them all at the same time. Some search engines will punish your ranking if you suddenly appear in a lot of directories at once. Also, the ranking of the directories you submit to can impact your ranking as the search engines give more credence to sites with a higher ranking and will raise your ranking accordingly.
Writing articles that your publish on your blog, or on your website is another great way to build additional links. You could submit these articles to other blogs for additional exposure as well. Each of the articles you write should have both your name, the name of your website, and a hard link back to your site. Most blogs that accept submissions will publish them with this information intact and help you build even more links back to your site.
A recent phenomenon is the availability of sites with good search engine rankings that are willing to sell you links on their site back to your site. These sites will give you an immediate and dramatic boost in your rankings for a keyword based on the link they provide back to you as a trusted site, it’s like they are vouching for you. Be cautious with this as some search engines are aware of this and will punish you if you use it too often.
Another thing a lot of good webmasters do to help raise the ranking of their sites is to visit and participate in some social networking sites on the web. These sites allow you to submit content from your site and comment on posts or articles they publish and also allow you to post your name and a link back to your site. This helps them with traffic, and helps you with another source of links and traffic.
The final approach you can take is to find other websites and blogs that center on your main keyword or topic and see if you can trade links with them. This is a fairly common practice and really helps raise the ranking of both sites involved in the trade. You might be surprised to find how accommodating a lot of the folks that run these sites can be. Most of them are more than willing to trade links with you and may even be willing to trade content as well.
Applying these techniques to your sites will certainly help their rankings with the search engines. The number and quality of the links back to your site by others is a very important factor in determining your search engine ranking. By spending a little time and effort, you can improve it dramatically.
WordPress a Fantastic Tool For Your Online Business
In 2003 WordPress was introduced to the world by two young programmers, Matt Mullenwag and Mike Little. In a few short years WordPress has became a tremendous success. WordPress was developed on Open Source code making it free for everyone from the smallest home user to major Fortune 500 businesses. This software which is an ongoing creation by a community of thousands of developers around the world has personally made it possible for techless individuals such as me to develop from a single to multiple websites. Read more
Is SEO and SEM the Same?
Terms are thrown around on the internet the way one might mix hash and so often we just become confused. If you were an expert at the internet you probably wouldn’t be visiting a non techie site like Terry Lile the Techless Blooger. Fortunately for me we all aren’t technical minded for that still leaves me a following to share my blabber with. Let me ask you, Do you really understand the difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? Read more
How to Promote a Blog Raising Search Engine Ranking
Raising search engine ranking is a very import part of searc engine optimization (SEO. This is an area I continue to learn more about every day and while certainly not a great expert in it I am willing to listen to others that are. If you want to start a blog or promote your blog by raising search engine optimization here are a few methods that other are using successfully. Read more
Starting a Blog? Consider the Role of Personas in Your Blog Design
If you are preparing to start a new WordPress or other blog or website, personas can play a key role in the decision making. I was reminded of this when reading articles at InfoGoRound an article sharing service that I am a member of. For those wanting to know how to start a blog or improve their existing blog or website you should find this article on the importance of persona very helpful. Read more
SEO Techniques for New Bloggers
If you have just set up your first WordPress blog and are not quite familiar with the processes and tools of SEO or search engine optimization here are a few tips to help you get a start on it. You can rely on different programs and individuals available online. As a beginner, you will find that everything is relatively easy to understand, provided that you have the right background and know your customer, products and services very well. Your company can benefit more through the heightened visibility and improved search rankings so just go about it at your own pace and have fun. Read more
Email List is Vital to the Growth of an Online Business
As previously discussed I am a member of InfoGoRound and this site provides me with some very good and very timely articles. For those that keep asking how do I build a blog or how do I promote my blog the following article makes a very good point about email list. I need to make a big improvement in building and utilizing an email list and found this article informative. Let me share the article and you can see what you think.
If you really want your Internet business to thrive you absolutely must succeed at email marketing, and the only way to do that is with a good email list. Maintaining a good email list can provide all kinds of benefits for an Internet business.
To start with, regardless of whether you are trying to make sales, promote an affiliate website, provide content production, or just generate ad revenue, e.g., adwords campaigns and the like, you’ve got to have customers. With a good email marketing campaign you can give your customers a sense of real appreciation. Reinforce that you did not forget about them the moment they gave you their money. Their business mattered to you, and you want more of it. In a world where business dealings are becoming increasingly impersonal, this is a sure fire way to build a rapport with your customers that will ultimately boost your bottom line.
Not only do you need to keep track of the email addresses of your existing customers, it’s essential to try to obtain the email address of any prospective customers as well. Whether it’s by keeping a log of customer service emails, or setting up some kind of membership feature, you should try to get their email address. If they are interested enough to have found your website, they are interested in whatever you may have to offer. You may not be able to get them to buy your product, subscribe to your pay service, or even click an ad, but you will be able to let them know when you have any specials, or any new content for them to look at, or any new services that they may be interested in. If they did not have any interest at all in what you had to offer, you would not have their email address in the first place.
The best part about having a good email list, and using a clever email marketing campaign, is the way it can generate revenue. If you can drive Internet traffic to your website and get a steady flow of new customers, that is great. It would be even that much better if you could obtain there name and email address to add to your list.
If you want to grow your volume, and grow your business, you are going to need to make sure that you not only get new customers, but repeat customers. The longer you work at building the customer – business relationship with an email marketing campaign, the more people you will manage to pull into your customer base. As your customer base expands, so does your business, and your profits.
If your goal is to expand your Internet business until you are living comfortably, working from home and working for yourself, you absolutely must maintain a robust email list, and conduct effective email marketing campaigns.
