Epicenter Network Blog

More than two billion people are roaming the internet at any given time. They are on social networking sites, checking email, searching the web for some kind of answer or solution, etc. And even though they haven’t all logged on to shop, they can all be considered potential customers.

When it comes to attracting someone’s attention online there are many options – banners, emails, text ads, paid search, pop-ups and so on. However, without proper placement and utilization, your efforts can be fruitless; just as placing a banner for baby food coupons on a car parts website isn’t going to make you rich.

A good place to start is by finding out where people are going online. Compete.com is a good resource for locating top visited sites and you can also search for traffic by industry and behavioral trends. This is good if you are focusing on a particular niche and want to get a feel for the competition and your users’ online trends. Similar resources include Quantcast and Alexa.

Next, check out the current online trends. You can check out what people are searching for by using Google Trends, Yahoo! Buzz, Bing’s xRank or trendy!bing. Another good place to check out trends is on Twitter where you can view the top trends of the minute, day or week.

Blogs are another good indicator of what people are interested in. Check out the blogosphere for a particular niche you are interested in and see what people are talking about. Try using Technorati.com or Google Blog Search.

Once you find where people are going online and what they are interested in, you can start incorporating new ideas or offers into your marketing campaigns. This kind of search also helps with locating a new niche or expanding upon and updating your current projects.

Selecting a good domain name for your website or online business is an important part of building up your brand and improving your online presence, along with improving your online ranking. Owning your own domain name adds credibility to your site and adds mobility so that you can take your name with you if you transfer Web hosts.

So when it comes time to create a domain name, here are some tips to keep in mind:

• The shorter, the better
Short and sweet is definitely the way to go. If your domain name is too long, it will be harder for people to remember and therefore harder for them to recommend to others.

• Always try to get the .com version
This will help you improve your odds of being found organically online. If a user types “shoes” into a search engine, they will typically locate the .com versions before moving on to the .net, .org, etc. extensions.

• Think of odd, one-word domain names
Think Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, Bing or eBay. These sites have seemingly strange domain names but they are easy to remember but they are short and stand out from the norm. Try Wordoid.com for ideas.

• Incorporate the keyword(s) you are trying to rank for
Make a list of all the keywords you are trying to rank for, then separate them into primary and secondary lists. Next, try various combinations of these keywords and see what you can come up with.

• To hyphenate, or not to hyphenate
There is some debate as to whether hyphenating a domain name is a good idea or not. This domain is hyphenated, so I guess I think it is ok at times. Some people use them when the unhyphenated domain name is already taken or to break up a string of keywords.

• Protect your name by registering multiple extensions
If you really like a selected domain name and plan on building out your site and pushing your brand, it may be a good idea to buy all the extensions of your domain name. This deters people from copying your name.

Over the last month or so I have suffered pretty bad writer’s block. I’ll sit down with my topic and draw a complete blank.

This isn’t good when it comes to blogging, as inconsistent posting usually results in less visitors and a lower page ranking. It’s also bad for business if you are an article marketer and can lower your overall quality of writing.

So how do you overcome this obstacle of brain freeze as an article marketer or blogger? Here are a few tricks to help you overcome writer’s block and be more productive.

Stop writing
This seems like an odd solution, but sometimes taking a walk or doing something unrelated is a great way to refocus yourself. Writers block is usually from over thinking and over complicating something and in turn psyching yourself out.

Read something
The best way to get into writing mode can be through reading. It’s a good habit to start out your day by reading blogs or articles related to your niche or posts on your favorite blogs. If you haven’t already bookmarked it, add affbuzz.com to your list of sites to visit, as it consolidates all the major affiliate blogs.

Write whatever comes to mind
Don’t worry about what you write; just write whatever comes to mind. Don’t use the backspace button, just let it all out. You don’t have to use anything that you write, it just helps you get warmed up.

Give yourself a timeline
I am a procrastinator. I work much better when I wait until the last minute to do something. This probably isn’t the best strategy, but it works for you, then it’s worth giving yourself a deadline on writing projects.

Write when you are tired
When you are tired you are less concerned with perfection and your mind is more at ease. Your writing will be more natural, but will probably also have some typing and spelling errors, so it’s important to edit it the next day or after a nap before you post it.

Clean your workspace
Clutter can equal distractions, so clean up your workspace. Set your messaging accounts to “away” and close any additional windows on your screen.

Trash the idea
If you already have a topic selected and just can’t get yourself to write anything, it may be because you just don’t care about it. If you aren’t interested in what you are working on, it will show in your writing and other people won’t be interested either. Instead, write about topics that appeal to you and you’ll get more value out of your writing.

The overall purpose of optimizing your website is to get your pages to rank higher in the major search engines. Creating a site that is search engine friendly usually involves targeting keywords and phrases, placing html links to pages within your site, using targeted meta tags, updating content and providing smooth site navigation.

Moving beyond technical optimization, visually optimizing your website is just as important and in the end can make a huge impact on the overall success or failure of your site.

A good place to start visual optimization is with a style sheet. Stick to one and it will help you clean up your code and remove any font tags. This will help avoid any problems with spiders and won’t make your targeted keywords stand out in your coding, just visually.

The next place to look is your homepage. A good rule of thumb is to keep important information above the fold and that the eye moves from left to right on a page. You typically don’t want to place an image smack-dab in the center and remember to leave a good proportion of whitespace to promote readability. A good tool to use when optimizing your homepage is Feng-GUI.com. This tool highlights how people view your website and which areas get the most attention.

Another thing to consider is your site’s navigation and how easy it is for a user and a spider to locate information and move between pages. You can improve navigation by including text links along the bottom of your pages to supplement a drop-down list, as a spider can’t read JavaScript. Along the lines of navigation, also be sure to include a site map so it is easier to index.

In general, here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your website:

• The eye is attracted to color blocks
• Whitespace on a page promotes readability
• The eye is attracted to human faces
• Balance and contrast are important and help guide your visitor to certain areas of a page
• Always choose simplicity over complexity
• Use complimentary colors – typically across from each other on the color wheel

Oh Twitter – the love it or hate it micro-blogging site that has taken the world by storm. Not originally designed to incorporate advertising, it was merely for the exchange of ideas and 140-character messages. However, as most things go, as the popularity of the site grew, so did the advertising opportunities.

So should you jump on board?

This depends on who you ask. According to a recent poll, 45% of advertisers reported that Twitter was still in its infancy and they expect for its use to grow exponentially over the next few years. Others say that it is simply a hot trend and like all fads, its popularity will soon die off.

With that being said, Twitter still attracts over 14 million visitors and is expected to reach over 18 million within the next year. So if you are interested in broadening your advertising portfolio, here are a few ways to utilize Twitter.

AdCause
“Saving the world…one tweet at a time”. AdCause allows for you to buy and sell ads on Twitter and provides you with the option to sign up as an advertiser or publisher. Advertisers simply buy ad space, select their target audience and then let AdCause serve the ad.

TweetROI
Similar to PPC, TweetROI creates a biddable marketplace among Twitter users where the advertiser has control over their tweets. For marketers, you provide the suggested tweet text and a link and designate your campaign settings. Then, twitter users take you up on your offer and tweet about it in their own words.

Featured Users
This Twitter application ad network helps you get more Twitter followers and further promote and brand your product. It works by purchasing impressions to have your profile displayed in the Featured Users network. The more impressions you buy, the more your profile is displayed.

Keep in mind that these methods of advertising are all fairly new, so payments are limited and you shouldn’t expect to strike it rich. Advertising on Twitter can be a bit of a crap-shoot, but may pay off as their advertising solutions become more sophisticated.

I’ve always been a fan of the phrase “content is king” and believe that good content can truly help you make it or break when it comes to running a business online.

In an article written by Epicenter’s own Dylan McDanniel, he provides a brief outline of what is needed to create high quality content that satisfies the online consumer’s need for information. Here are the six elements he touched upon in his article:

• Satisfying a niche
The more targeted your content is on one topic, the more useful it is to the reader. Furthermore, the more in-depth and detailed the content is, the more you gain the readers trust and they will be more likely to make a purchase.

• Originality
Fresh and useful content creates repeat visitors and repeat visitors can lead to repeat sales.

• Get to the point
It like the game Catch Phrase – deliver your message as clearly and quickly as possible. This is when editing comes into play. Revise your content and eliminate all unnecessary words.

• Avoid flowery language
You are writing content, not prose. Limit your adjectives and focus more on your targeted keywords.

• Update regularly
Updating and adding new content regularly will keep your web site higher in searches and keep your readers coming back for more.

To read the full article, click here.