I recently had a new client ask me to do Internet Marketing for their new website including SEO, Google Adwords(PPC) and branding of their name.
This was a new site that they had put a lot of time (6 mths.) and of course cost to develop. Now when you first look at the site it is visually appealing and seems to be easy enough to navigate thru. and thus it should be ready to launch which they did.
Ok so you say why is he posting this article if everything is so great about the new site, after all the owners wouldn’t have given the go ahead if there were any problems right?
Many owners of new sites put a lot of pressure on the designers to get the new site up and running and do not check to make sure even the basic operation of the website is functioning the way they thought it would.
We ended up having to redo the entire site to catch all the little details that were wrong or missing. Here are just a couple of problems we found.
1. Can you imagine having a “Online Request Form” that defaults all the emails to the original designer of the request software? Yes they hadn’t received one request! Oops!
2. The template design for all pages had to be redone as they wanted to add more content on each page and because there was no floating Footer you could only work between the existing graphics.
3. When the designer realized this mistake he added all the great content as PDF files for you to “click to download” which wasn’t a great move for SEO purposes and very annoying to navigate.
I could go on about this one but I think you get the point, remember it’s your site and ultimately your responsibility to make sure everything is working.
Check that your emails are working properly.
Check that your pages link properly both internally and externally.

Spider Choice Inc.
“Web Marketing Solutions”
SEO – Internet Marketing – Pay Per Click
info@spiderchoice.com

Many online marketing consulting firms look at SEO and search engine advertising in a vacuum. They don’t consider the big picture. The idea behind all search engine marketing is increased revenue. That requires conversions, not just more traffic. And certain website design problems can kill your conversions!

Don’t Destroy Your Online Marketing Results with Bad Website Design
Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Paul Marshall

So, you’ve embarked on a search engine advertising program, maybe even SEO. Whether you’re doing this on your own or using an online marketing consulting firm, there are key points to become aware of.

If you miss these, you won’t increase conversions.

What good is a Number 1 organic search engine ranking or AdWords ad listing, if you don’t have increased sales or if you don’t generate more sales leads?

Too often, we get all focused about the Internet marketing — the ads, the offer — that we don’t think the whole process through step-by-step and consider the experience our website visitors will be having.

If we did, we’d be thinking “big picture” and we would head off some of these potential problems before they occur.

Overcoming Your Website Visitors Anxiety

When people come to our website it’s natural for them to feel anxiety. After all, look at all the cr*p on the Internet today, all the too-good-to-be-true products and services.

But when you and I offer REAL products or services, we have to overcome that concern, even if we’re treating our site visitors fairly and not making outrageous claims.

So, how can you overcome these anxieties?

1. Offer more than a 1-page website. Credible companies have multi-page websites, including Privacy Policy, Terms of Use | Service and About Us pages.

They also have more than 1 page about their products or services.

I’m surprised by the number of 1-page websites I see from companies using infomercials to advertise their products. Often, they have the purchase form right on their home page, their only page (and often their page isn’t secured for credit card ordering).

Websites that are only 1-page don’t seem credible. And having the purchase form right on the home page comes across as very pushy!

Doesn’t this type of site seem all about the company and NOT about their customers? Why would we want to buy from that type of company?

What kind of online marketing consulting firm did these companies use…or did they use any??

2. Next to any sign up or contact form buttons clearly state that you don’t sell your customers’ private information and link to your Privacy Policy page.

3. Effectively communicate what your Value Proposition is, also called your Unique Selling Proposition. If you don’t know why someone should buy your product or service versus your competitors’, now is the time to figure it out. (And by the way, based on my experience, if you don’t know this, you’re not alone, by any means.)

But our websites have to be about more than just us. They have to be about our visitors. What’s in it for THEM, to do business with us? What unique voids in the marketplace can we fill?

As a Small Business Owner, Personally Relate to Your Site Visitors and Communicate Directly with Them

People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people! So, how can you apply this to your own website?

1. For many small businesses and solo proprietorships, their website text should speak to your visitors directly in first person.

This should be written from the voice of the Owner or President. They shouldn’t use third person, institutional-sounding language, getting rid of “we” and “our”, using “I” instead, speaking first person, in an actual conversation. Don’t try to sound like you’re Microsoft!

And while your at it, be careful about overuse of words about you…whether “I”, or those words, “we”, “our” or “us”.

Check out the WeWe calculator (Google: wewe calculator). Make sure to focus on customer-focused words and NOT on words about you or your company.

2. Include your picture on your Web pages.

For a larger small business trying to make that personal connection with their website visitors, try the idea used by the nutritional supplement company Lumina. (Google: Lumina Health Contact Us)

In this execution, notice how Lumina gets you to relate to their customer service department. I still remember it was John I spoke with and that’s been over 1 year ago that I called them!

Again, people buy from other people, not from websites.

For us as small businesses, why should we sound large, pretending to be something we aren’t? And why should we run from our advantage of being small: low overhead, friendly, personal service and accountability, among other advantages.

Make Each Step in Your Marketing a Smooth Handoff from One Step to Another

Whether you’re using AdWords, SEO, or both, make sure your title and description matches the experience your website visitor will have when they come to your landing page.

Quite often when I’m Coaching my small business owner clients or performing online marketing consulting, I find the wording for their organic listing or AdWords ad says one thing and their landing page says something that doesn’t sound the same.

This causes confusion is the best case scenario. In the worst case, it causes a lack of trust. Dangerous!

We should understand our products or services. And we know what we want our visitors to do on our site.

Our potential customers may not understand either. We need to think like them, when we explain what we have to offer them and how to use our website to take advantage of what we have to offer.

And when “shifting” from one page to another, we need to hand-off from one page to another naturally and smoothly, like a car with a smooth automatic transmission.

Don’t advertise one offer in AdWords or organic search, only to have your landing page sound like it was written for another advertising offer. I see this problem a lot!

Often times, having an affordable online marketing consulting firm reviewing what you’re doing can offer easy, inexpensive fixes that can yield big improvements in your search engine advertising and SEO conversions.

Your Action Plan

Let’s review what we’ve talked about.

First, overcome visitors anxieties by offering a multi-page website which answers questions about your company and your services or products, while inspiring confidence in your company. Effectively communicate your Value Proposition.

Second, personally relate to your site visitors. Avoid using the wrong words that may put off your site visitors. Use your picture on your Web pages.

Third, hand-off from one page on your website and one step in your selling process to another smoothly and naturally. We should understand what we want our site visitors to do, but they won’t unless we make the process really clear.

Whether your using an online marketing consulting firm or doing the work yourself, if you take these steps, your search engine optimization | advertising plan will convert at a MUCH higher rate, when you take these steps.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consulting expert offering marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). You can learn more about Paul on his Internet Marketing LinkedIn profile and at Strategic Web Marketing.net.

Read more articles written by: Paul Marshall

If you have any other questions about website design, search engine optimization or Internet Marketing pls. feel free to contact the Spider Choice Team
info@spiderchoice.com

I was recently asked by someone who is just starting to think about their first website if selecting the Domain name is really important and what should they be looking for.
I only wanted to provide them with enough basics to start their thinking process at this time, and I think that the following article posted by Rand Fishkin (CEO, SEOmoz) does a great job even if it was posted in 2007.
I would like to thank Rand for giving me permission to post it on my Blog

12 Rules for Choosing the Right Domain Name
Posted by randfish on February 5th, 2007 at 12:01 am Webdev

A long time ago, I wrote a post on domain name selection that’s sorely in need of an update. Time to deliver…
For 99% of the projects we take on, a domain is already part of the equation. However, in some circumstances, we’ve been called on to provice advice for naming a domain, either for a new blog, a company launch or even just a friend’s website. Below, I’ve listed 12 tips I find indispensable when helping people select a great domain name.
1. Brainstorm 5 Top Keywords?
When you first begin your domain name search, it helps to have 5 terms or phrases in mind that best describe the domain you’re seeking. Once you have this list, you can start to pair them or add prefixes & suffixes to create good domain ideas. For example, if you’re launching a mortgage related domain, you might start with words like “mortage, finance, home equity, interest rate, house payment” then play around until you can find a good match.
2. Make the Domain Unique?
Having your website confused with a popular site already owned by someone else is a recipe for disaster. Thus, I never choose domains that are simply the plural, hyphenated or misspelled version of an already established domain. I still believe that Flickr desperately needs to buy Flicker.com – I hear kids in their 20’s tell parents in their 40’s and 50’s to see photos on Flickr and always envision that traffic going straight to the wrong domain.
3. Only Choose Dot-Com Available Domains?
If you’re not concerned with type-in traffic, branding or name recognition, you don’t need to worry about this one. However, if you’re at all serious about building a successful website over the long-term, you should be worried about all of these elements, and while directing traffic to a .net or .org (as SEOmoz does) is fine, owning and 301′ing the .com is critical. With the exception of the very tech-savvy, most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that’s out there – don’t make the mistake of locking out or losing traffic to these folks.
4. Make it Easy to Type?
If a domain name requires considerable attention to type correctly, due to spelling, length or the use of un-memorable words or sounds, you’ve lost a good portion of your branding and marketing value. I’ve even heard usability folks toute the value of having the letters include easy-to-type letters (which I interpret as avoiding “q,” “z,” “x,” “c,” and “p”).
5. Make it Easy to Remember?
Remember that word-of-mouth and SERPs dominance marketing (where your domain consistently comes up for industry-related searches) both rely on the ease with which the domain can be called to mind. You don’t want to be the company with the terrific website that no one can ever remember to tell their friends about because they can’t remember the domain name.
6. Keep the Name as Short as Possible?
Short names are easy to type and easy to remember (the previous two rules). They also allow for more characters in the URL in the SERPs and a better fit on business cards and other offline media.
7. Create and Fulfill Expectations?
When someone hears about your domain name for the first time, they should be able to instantly and accurately guess at the type of content that might be found there. That’s why I love domain names like Hotmail.com, CareerBuilder.com, AutoTrader.com and WebMD.com. Domains like Monster.com, Amazon.com and Zillow.com (whom I usually praise) required far more branding because of their un-intuitive names.
8. Avoid Copyright Infringement?
This is a mistake that isn’t made too often, but can kill a great domain and a great company when it does. To be sure you’re not infringing on anyone’s copyright with your site’s name, visit copyright.gov and search before you buy.
9. Set Yourself Apart with a Brand?
Using a unique moniker is a great way to build additional value with your domain name. A “brand” is more than just a combination of words, which is why names like mortgageforyourhome.com or shoesandboots.com aren’t as compelling as branded names like bankrate.com or lendingtree.com. SEOmoz itself is a good example – “SEO” does a good job of explaining the industry we’re in and creating expectations, while “moz” gives a web association, and an association with being free, open, and community-driven.
10. Reject Hyphens and Numbers?
Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I’d suggest not using spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other.
11. Don’t Follow the Latest Trends?
Website names that rely on odd mis-spellings (like many Web 2.0 style sites), multiple hyphens (like the SEO-optimized domains of the early 2000’s), or uninspiring short adjectives (like “top…x,” “best…x,” “hot…x”) aren’t always the best choice. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but in the world of naming conventions in general, if everyone else is doing it, that doesn’t mean it’s a surefire strategy. Just look at all the people who named their businesses “AAA… x” over the last 50 years to be first in the phone book; how many Fortune 2000’s are named “AAA company?”
12. Use an Ajax Domain Selection Tool?
Websites like AJAXWhois and Domjax make it exceptionally easy to determine availability of a domain name – just remember that you don’t have to buy through these services. You can find a name you like that’s available, then go to your registrar of choice.

If you would like more information about how selecting the right Domain Name can affect the Internet Marketing of your website feel free to contact us direct at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto, Port Dover – Canada

I have been asked this so many times I thought it might be a good idea to post this article from the  “Frequently Asked Questions” page on my website.

Is Pay Per Click a good way to get quality traffic to my website?

Yes of course it is, although the percentage of people who use search engines to find websites will click on the main organic listings, sponsored links still bring quality traffic to the websites listed. PPC listings are particularly useful for websites that have not been optimized and therefore do not show in the main organic listings and to get exposure for keywords that would not normally get you listed on the major search engines. Just remember that you do have to pay the search engine every time someone clicks on your listing and that the click thru. rate of these listings is significantly lower than that of organic listings.

For more info. about Google Adwords or other pay per click (PPC) programs feel free to contact us direct.

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover – Canada
info@spiderchoice.com

Many online marketing consulting firms look at SEO and search engine advertising in a vacuum. They don’t consider the big picture. The idea behind all search engine marketing is increased revenue. That requires conversions, not just more traffic. And certain website design problems can kill your conversions!

Don’t Destroy Your Online Marketing Results with Bad Website Design

Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Paul Marshall

So, you’ve embarked on a search engine advertising program, maybe even SEO. Whether you’re doing this on your own or using an online marketing consulting firm, there are key points to become aware of.

If you miss these, you won’t increase conversions.
What good is a Number 1 organic search engine ranking or AdWords ad listing, if you don’t have increased sales or if you don’t generate more sales leads?

Too often, we get all focused about the Internet marketing — the ads, the offer — that we don’t think the whole process through step-by-step and consider the experience our website visitors will be having.

If we did, we’d be thinking “big picture” and we would head off some of these potential problems before they occur.

Overcoming Your Website Visitors Anxiety

When people come to our website it’s natural for them to feel anxiety. After all, look at all the cr*p on the Internet today, all the too-good-to-be-true products and services.

But when you and I offer REAL products or services, we have to overcome that concern, even if we’re treating our site visitors fairly and not making outrageous claims.

So, how can you overcome these anxieties?

1. Offer more than a 1-page website. Credible companies have multi-page websites, including Privacy Policy, Terms of Use | Service and About Us pages.

They also have more than 1 page about their products or services.

I’m surprised by the number of 1-page websites I see from companies using infomercials to advertise their products. Often, they have the purchase form right on their home page, their only page (and often their page isn’t secured for credit card ordering).

Websites that are only 1-page don’t seem credible. And having the purchase form right on the home page comes across as very pushy!

Doesn’t this type of site seem all about the company and NOT about their customers? Why would we want to buy from that type of company?

What kind of online marketing consulting firm did these companies use…or did they use any??

2. Next to any sign up or contact form buttons clearly state that you don’t sell your customers’ private information and link to your Privacy Policy page.

3. Effectively communicate what your Value Proposition is, also called your Unique Selling Proposition. If you don’t know why someone should buy your product or service versus your competitors’, now is the time to figure it out. (And by the way, based on my experience, if you don’t know this, you’re not alone, by any means.)

But our websites have to be about more than just us. They have to be about our visitors. What’s in it for THEM, to do business with us? What unique voids in the marketplace can we fill?

As a Small Business Owner, Personally Relate to Your Site Visitors and Communicate Directly with Them

People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people! So, how can you apply this to your own website?

1. For many small businesses and solo proprietorships, their website text should speak to your visitors directly in first person.

This should be written from the voice of the Owner or President. They shouldn’t use third person, institutional-sounding language, getting rid of “we” and “our”, using “I” instead, speaking first person, in an actual conversation. Don’t try to sound like you’re Microsoft!

And while your at it, be careful about overuse of words about you…whether “I”, or those words, “we”, “our” or “us”.

Check out the WeWe calculator (Google: wewe calculator). Make sure to focus on customer-focused words and NOT on words about you or your company.

2. Include your picture on your Web pages.

For a larger small business trying to make that personal connection with their website visitors, try the idea used by the nutritional supplement company Lumina. (Google: Lumina Health Contact Us)

In this execution, notice how Lumina gets you to relate to their customer service department. I still remember it was John I spoke with and that’s been over 1 year ago that I called them!

Again, people buy from other people, not from websites.

For us as small businesses, why should we sound large, pretending to be something we aren’t? And why should we run from our advantage of being small: low overhead, friendly, personal service and accountability, among other advantages.

Make Each Step in Your Marketing a Smooth Handoff from One Step to Another

Whether you’re using AdWords, SEO, or both, make sure your title and description matches the experience your website visitor will have when they come to your landing page.

Quite often when I’m Coaching my small business owner clients or performing online marketing consulting, I find the wording for their organic listing or AdWords ad says one thing and their landing page says something that doesn’t sound the same.

This causes confusion is the best case scenario. In the worst case, it causes a lack of trust. Dangerous!

We should understand our products or services. And we know what we want our visitors to do on our site.

Our potential customers may not understand either. We need to think like them, when we explain what we have to offer them and how to use our website to take advantage of what we have to offer.

And when “shifting” from one page to another, we need to hand-off from one page to another naturally and smoothly, like a car with a smooth automatic transmission.

Don’t advertise one offer in AdWords or organic search, only to have your landing page sound like it was written for another advertising offer. I see this problem a lot!

Often times, having an affordable online marketing consulting firm reviewing what you’re doing can offer easy, inexpensive fixes that can yield big improvements in your search engine advertising and SEO conversions.

Your Action Plan

Let’s review what we’ve talked about.

First, overcome visitors anxieties by offering a multi-page website which answers questions about your company and your services or products, while inspiring confidence in your company. Effectively communicate your Value Proposition.

Second, personally relate to your site visitors. Avoid using the wrong words that may put off your site visitors. Use your picture on your Web pages.

Third, hand-off from one page on your website and one step in your selling process to another smoothly and naturally. We should understand what we want our site visitors to do, but they won’t unless we make the process really clear.

Whether your using an online marketing consulting firm or doing the work yourself, if you take these steps, your search engine optimization | advertising plan will convert at a MUCH higher rate, when you take these steps.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consulting expert offering marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). You can learn more about Paul on his Internet Marketing LinkedIn profile and at Strategic Web Marketing.net.

Read more articles written by: Paul Marshall

For more information about Website Design and how it can affect your Internet Marketing campaign contact us at  info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

If you are just setting up a Google Adwords campaign for the first time or you are trying to figure out how to use all the options available, then understanding the terminology associated with Pay Per Click management might be a good place to start.
You can get most of this info. by following the FAQ’s provided by Google however I thought if I just went through the basics I might save someone some time.
These are just the basic terms you will encounter for a view of the full Google Adwords Glossary Click Here.

Click

A click (sometimes called a clickthrough) occurs when a user sees your ad and clicks on the title of your ad, leading them to your website.

Clickthrough rate

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (impressions). Your ad and keyword each have their own CTRs, unique to your own campaign performance.
A keyword’s CTR is a strong indicator of its relevance to the user and the overall success of the keyword. For example, a well targeted keyword that shows a similarly targeted ad is more likely to have a higher CTR than a general keyword with non-specific ad text. The more your keywords and ads relate to each other and to your business, the more likely a user is to click on your ad after searching on your keyword phrase.
A low CTR may point to poor keyword performance, indicating a need for ad or keyword optimization. Therefore, you can use CTR to gauge which ads and keywords aren’t performing as well for you and then optimize them.
CTR is also used to determine your keyword’s Quality Score. Higher CTR and Quality Score can lead to lower costs and higher ad position.

Keyword Matching Options

You can set each search-targeted keyword to have one of four settings: broad match, phrase match, exact match, or negative match. These four keyword matching options can help you control who sees your ads.
To use a keyword matching option, just add the appropriate punctuation to your keyword (shown below). If you don’t add any of the specified punctuation, your keyword will be broad match by default.
Here’s a summary of the four options:
• Broad match: keyword (no punctuation) ?Allows your ad to show for searches on similar phrases and relevant variations
• Phrase match: “keyword” ?Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase
• Exact match: ?Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively
• Negative match: -keyword ?Ensures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term
See examples and more details for each option.
We suggest using a combination of two or more keyword matching options to run an effective ad campaign. By refining how your keywords target users, you’ll be able to spend less money on irrelevant clicks so that you increase your return on investment.

Impression

The “Impr” located on your reporting statistics refers to the number of “impressions” for your ad. The number of impressions is the number of times an ad is displayed on Google or on sites or products in the Google Network.

Average cost-per-click (Avg. CPC)

The average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Average CPC is determined by totalling the cost of all clicks and dividing it by the number of clicks.
Here’s an example: if your ad receives two clicks, one costing US$0.20 and one costing US$0.40, your average CPC for those clicks is US$0.30.
Average CPC is not the same thing as maximum CPC

Campaigns

Campaigns are used to give structure to the products or services you want to advertise. The ads in a given campaign share the same daily budget, language and location targeting, end dates, and syndication options.
Within each campaign, you can create one or more ad groups. While a campaign may represent a broad product class, the ad groups within that campaign can be more focused on the specific product you want to advertise.
For example, if you sell different types of garden tools, you could have a ‘Garden Tools’ campaign. Within this campaign, you could have one or more ad groups named after different types of garden tools. This type of account structure allows you to create keywords, placements and ads that focus on each specific product or service. ?Learn more about campaigns.

Ad group

An ad group contains one or more ads which target a set of keywords, placements, or both. You set a bid, or price, to be used when your ad is triggered by the keywords or placements in the ad group. This is called a cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bid. You may also set prices for individual keywords or placements within the ad group.

For more information about Google Adwords go to Adwords Help or contact us at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

From time to time I post Frequently Asked Questions (Faq’s) from my website in case the basics of Internet Marketing get missed by some, so here is one I still get asked often, surprisingly!
What is search engine optimization(SEO)?
SEO is the process of editing and organizing the content of a website so it scores high in the ranking algorithms of common search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing). A high scoring website will appear at or near the top of searches. The algorithms used by search engines are quite sophisticated and continuously evolving. Many web site designers are very adept at communicating the marketing messages “within” the site, but professional SEO firms ensure that the content of the site is properly structured so it ranks high with the search engines. A strong web site on it’s own, is only useful if people already know it exist. A strong ranking in the search engines drives people to your site that may not have known about your company and your products or services.

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

I have been asked this questions several times so I hope this helps!

Importing from an RSS feed
2.0.x
2.0 introduced this as an option in the Admin menu under “Import”.

First, save the RSS feed you wish to import someplace on your local machine. This would be the source and would come from the site that has the content you wish to import into your WP blog. A simple way to get the feed into a text file is to find the RSS link for that site, click it and view it in your browser, then copy/paste that to a text file. Or, of course, use your preferred tools.

Click the “Browse” button and navigate to the file containing the feed you wish to import and click “Import” to let it run.

Note: Depending on the feed and format, you may not get the entire thing loaded on the first attempt. One option is to determine how much got imported (Manage -> Posts) and remove those sections from your saved RSS file and then re-import. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Note that newlines will be converted to
. Therefore be sure there is no newlines between any

..

s.

Pre 2.x
WordPress also has a generic RSS importer, which you can find in your WordPress source at wp-admin/import-rss.php. If your current blogging system can export in a valid RSS format, you can import that into WordPress.

Importing the RSS data is done by running the import-rss.php script from the server. For security reasons you have to edit the script to point to the file where the RSS data is stored.

If you have your blog at http://example.com, you can place your file, for example oldblog.xml, in the wp-admin directory on your site.

Edit import-rss.php by changing the value of RSSFILE in the beginning of the script. After you have changed this, run the script by accessing the script with your browser, in this case you’ll go to http://example.com/wp-admin/import-rss.php.

If the script finds your file, a link marked Begin RSS Import occur, and by pressing this link the import will start.

The RSS data are now imported, and you can remove the RSS file and restore the script.

Importing from HTML
Using trial and error one can make an e.g., perl script to concatenate HTML files as RSS s, saving into a single file.xml, then import that as RSS. Note however to first remove any newlines between

..

s, as mentioned above.

The format allowed is quite simple in fact. Just make each HTML file into an as below and concatenate them together:

Wed, 30 Jan 2009 12:00:00 +0000 Kites
Taiwan
Fun times

What great times we had…

And then Bob…

…
Just be sure the line is a single long line with no newlines embedded.

If your HTML is well-formed, you can try using the Import HTML plugin.

Google Blog Converters
In case the above methods don’t work, you can try Google Blog Converters.

This tool can convert Blogger export into WordPress format. It also supports conversion from Movable Type & LiveJournal to Blogger format. You can take the Blogger format then convert it again into WordPress format.

For more information or if you have any comments about how to import or export of RSS feeds please feel free to contact us at www.spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

PageRank (PR) is a numerical value Google assigns to a site as a measure of “authority.” A marketing coach will emphasize that building PR is one of the most affordable SEO methods. Understanding PR and using it to craft a link-building campaign is a first step toward higher search engine results.

Marketing Coaching: Understanding the Basics of Page Rank

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Marshall

You’ve just built your website and you want to show up on the search engines. You start reading about SEO and one of the first things that jumps out at you is something called “Google PageRank.” You know about the big dog of the search engines, but what is PageRank and why is it important in what you’re trying to do?

Any good marketing coach can explain that easily. If your site is placing high in free (organic) search results, you’re getting free advertising. Notice the word “free.” That’s always a good thing. Building a strong PageRank (PR) by getting good quality links coming in to your site takes time, but it isn’t going to eat a hole in your pocketbook.

You want to work on raising your site’s PR to get “authority” with the search engines. A site with “authority” gets better visibility in search results. Really understanding the algorithm behind your site’s PR will likely have you reaching for a bottle of aspirin. In the beginning, just concentrate on understanding the basics and how they relate to your efforts to promote your site.

How Is PR Defined?

Google says PR is all about the “uniquely democratic nature of the web” and “using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” Basically, a link from one page to another is a vote for that page. However, not all votes in this democracy are equal. Some votes come from higher-quality pages and are weighed more heavily. (Other factors in determining PR include the relevance of search phrases on a page and actual traffic to the page.)

How Is PageRank Expressed?

PR values are expressed on a scale of 0 to 10. Sites from 0 to 2 are probably pretty new to the Web and have few incoming links. Sites that have made it to PR3 to PR5 are fairly well established; PR6 and above are really popular and have a lot of high-quality links. There are very few sites that make it to the PR7 to PR10 range.

The ones that are ranked that high are usually owned by big corporations or major media outlets like the Wall Street Journal (PR8). Improving your site’s PR by getting relevant, high-quality, incoming links is one of the most affordable SEO methods at your disposal. Rather than trying to get to a specific number, just concentrate on improving your number.

Is My Site’s Index The Only Page With PR?

No, each page in your site will be assigned a PR, something that is emphasized in marketing coaching as a valuable tool. You can use relevant interlinking to distribute PR throughout all your pages.

Huh? Well, just hang on to that thought for a minute. For right now, just understand the concept that some pages in your site may earn a higher PR than others, and that you can use that to your advantage.

PageRank Passes From One Page To Another

Here’s how it works. A page with a high PR passes some of its value to a low PR page over a link. You can use this to promote your site in a couple of ways. When your site’s pages are interlinked in a relevant way, PR gets distributed more evenly throughout the site. Also, you can “court” relevant sites that belong to other people through your link-building campaign. This is really how your site starts to gain “authority.”

Start By Building Your Index Page’s PR

Generally, marketing coaches will tell you to begin by working on your home page’s PR. This can be time-consuming, and not just because you’ll be building relationships with other site owners. You have to do your time in what’s popularly called the Google “sandbox.” This just means that new sites like yours probably won’t get any PR at all for the first few months you’re on the Web.

How Do I Check My PR?

There are a number of free, online tools for checking PR including PRChecker and SearchStatus. At PRChecker you type in a page’s URL to see its PR. SearchStatus is a FireFox extension that show a site’s PR at the bottom of your browser. (It also shows your site’s Alexa rating, another method to measure online “importance.”) You an also install the Google Toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer and enable the PageRank function.

Is Building My PR All I Need To Do?

A marketing coach will tell you that having a strong PR is only one part of your SEO campaign. For instance, say you’re looking around for a site to link to yours. You find one with a high PR, but it’s a site that sells links. Move on. Their high PR number doesn’t do you any good because a link from that site to yours will have a lower quality and will pass less authority to you.

Understanding the basics of PageRank is essential in putting together a high-quality link-building campaign for your site, but don’t get fixated on the PR number and ignore other important facts. Just gain a basic understanding of what PR is and how it functions and use that to your advantage in building a reputation of authority for your site.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s a Marketing Coach offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

For more information about Search Engine Optimization and Google services visit us at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

Well I’m sure this will stir up some debate but I still have to post my feelings about Social Network Marketing as it seems that many people have abandoned conventional SEM as it is more work and costly compared to spending all day on social network sites making contacts or increasing the number of “followers” they have.

Getting quality leads from Twitter traffic is like having thousands of people drive past your Billboard on the highway and hoping someone notices what you have to sell. It takes a lot of traffic on a great corner to get much out of it. Being an SEO guy who still believes in letting Google bring me the most highly targeted traffic available I don’t like to spend much of my time on social network marketing but I don’t ignore it because it all helps.

Google Analytics stats show that visitors from Twitter spend less time on a website than conventional search engine traffic as they are not actually looking for your product or service but probably only curious, so judge your marketing time wisely!

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada