Fueled would like to give a big "Shout Out" and "Thank You" to our friends over at the Edison Inventors Association for having us speak last night.  Hosted at the Edison House and Museum in Fort Myers, FL, the Edison Edison Inventors Association is a non profit organization dedicated to reinvigorating and advancing the inventive and entrepreneurial spirit of Thomas Alva Edison.  With more than a hundred members, the Edison Inventors Association of Fort Myers is one of the most prestigious and collaborative investors associations in America.  It was our honor to have been able to speak at their monthly meeting on how to develop successful web strategies for their businesses.

Meeting Outline:

How to build a successful web strategy
A website is the best and most affordable way to market and sell you’re your product.  It is an online storefront that needs traffic to drive sales.  You can have the best looking website on the Internet, but if your site isn’t searchable by Google, Yahoo!, MSN… you’re site isn’t working for you.  A properly developed website should organically drive traffic through searches on popular search engines like Google.    Not sure if yours is?   Try this.  When you search for your website on Google with the keywords or phrases you would expect your customers to enter, does your site show up on the first page?  No?  Wondering why?  Your website isn’t optimized for search engines.  The bad news is: you are essentially invisible on the web.  The good news is: you can fix that through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Common problems with websites & their solutions

PROBLEM: I have a hard time finding my site on search engines
SOLUTION: Search Engine Optimization

SEO or Search Engine Optimization helps in the promotion of sites through the manipulation of the HTML and contextual content on each page. SEO is optimizing Web pages in order to make them more search engine-friendly to increase positions in search results. 

What to look out for in SEO: black hat SEO vs. white hat SEO
Black hat methods can drive you to the top of search engines fast, but will eventually get your site banned from the engines permanently.  White hat methods are search engine friendly methods of increasing your SERP over time.  Usually good SEO will help you significantly increase traffic and SERP over a period of 6-8 months after completion.

PROBLEM: I don’t have a lot of visitors or repeat visitors to my site.
SOLUTION: Update your content regularly through using a blog or CMS

Why have lots of frequently updated content on my site?
Search engines love content.  They like to see hundreds of pages of it.  The more content, the more indexed pages, the more likely you are to be found by those searching for you.  Blogs are the best way to add a lot of content easily and inexpensively.  The minimum post per week should be 1 at no less than 250 words.  Optimally, you should have at least 5 new posts to your website per week.  Your content should focus on your market and be instructional so it gives people a reason to come back.  How-To’s and Top 10 ways to… are the best kinds of articles to write.

PROBLEM: I never get crawled by search engines and no one backlinks to me.
SOLUTION: Online marketing and promotion

Backlinks are when another site links to you.  Search engines put value on how many backlinks you have to your website.  To jump-start backlinks, start promoting your site. 
•    Use free ping services when you add new content
•    Write content that people consider useful not sales-y
•    Post about your site on related forums
•    Use free press release services
•    Buy Google AdWord services to promote your site through search engines

How to make money on a website?
•    Affiliate shops- Recommend books from Amazon on your website and receive a 10-30% commission on each sale.  The affiliate program is free to sign up.
•    Google AdSense: AdSense allows you to display pay-per-click advertising on your website.  To see valuable revenue from AdSense you need to have at least 100 pages of relevant and topical content on your website or blog.

What to ask a web developer when having your website built.
1.    Will I be able to easily add and edit content on my site? (CMS/Blog)
2.    Will my site be SEOed?
3.    Can you develop the site using CSS so I can easily change the look and feel of my website from time to time?
4.    Do you help market my site with SEO, ping services and/or directory entries in Google and Yahoo!?
5.    Do you use Flash? (You do not want a developer that uses a lot of Flash- search engines cannot read Flash)
6.    Will my website be validated to W3C.org standards?  (this ensures that all search engines can read the HTML)

Suggested sites for members to visitors to research:
To avoid plagiarism on your website or other websites plagiarising your ocntnet, visit CopyScape
To learn more about SEO from a real guru on the subject, visit SEO Book
To learn more about ping services (a free online marketing strategy), visit pingoat
To see how many pages of your current webstie are indexed by Google, go to Google and type site:www.yoursitename.com into the search box and click enter
Other great SEO tools for determing how your site is performing on the Internet widexl and nuah

Related Posts

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September 2006 - Edison Inventor Meeting
HTML Validation: the basics

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