Marketing Laser Work

[Joe Pelonio]

When I get a new customer I always ask where they found out about me. Many are referals but most of the rest found me on Google, so I did some research into advertising with them.

I decided just for fun more than anything else to try Google Adwords, sort
of a pay-per-click system where people searching on my keywords get my
ad rather than just the listings where my website might be on the 3rd or 4th page.

You specify a maximum expenditure, I went for $30. After about 3 weeks I've had 9 people click on my ad for a cost to me of $5.26. Of those, 3 became orders for a total of $160. Not too bad a return on the investment so far. Interestingly, of the 18 keywords I specified all of the clicks so far have been on "acrylic" and "Plexiglas".

[Jim Good]

Your $30 max is a daily limit, right!?! If so, that means you aren't coming close to your daily limit. It sounds like you've only gotten 9 clicks from your ads in 3 weeks. That sounds low. Do you know how many hits you are getting from just a natural search? You may be getting more traffic without your paid advertising! That's a great conversion rate, though!!!
I'm getting my website designed right now and I'd like to get traffic without paying for it, at first. I can't spare the change! My designer is trying to optimize the site to attract attention. I hope that's the case!
I think one thing that can be said is that your website is doing a great job once you get the traffic to it. Three sales in 9 hits is good!

[Mitchell Andrus]

Be sure to add a "robots.txt" file and a Google site map file.

Robots tells google and others where to look on your site for the "good stuff", information that's relevant. Robots lists files that should be 'off limits'. You can also exclude certain crawlers form getting nosy.

See... http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html

My robots file (created in notepad):

#
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /_private/
Disallow: /aspnet_client/
Disallow: /ASPsecured/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: /bin.dex11806/
Disallow: /bin_copy(1)/
Disallow: Catalog.aspx
Disallow: /CommonControls/
Disallow: /Controls/
Disallow: /cp/
Disallow: /db/
Disallow: /Download/
Disallow: /fpdb/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /NCSoftware/
Disallow: /services/
Disallow: /services.des11806/
Disallow: /ssl/
Disallow: /vsadmin/
Disallow: /Odd stuff - old asp/
Disallow: web.config
Disallow: global.asax

Note that these are files that have nothing to do with attracting buyers. Even the "catalog" page is off limits - I want the home page to be seen first, not the "catalog" page - it has no shopping cart. The *allowed* pages have searchable content and a bunch of .jpgs that do nothing but show up in Google searches. My "real" .jpgs are off limits in the /images/ file. The pictures I allow Google to see are named with search terms like "mission style mirror.jpg", as opposed to "DFX12blue.jpg".

Google "site map" is a file that google uses to map your site. Duh! You upload it to Google when your site changes.

Also, sign up for Google analytics. Good tools and tracking. You'll have to add a small bit of code to each page you want tracked, but it's worth the time. It took me less than 1/2 hour. Google has to invite you to participate, so inquire as soon as you can to get your name on the list, it takes a while.

Keep in mind also that most search engines put new sites on probation for 6 months, give or take. Do a google search for "mission mirrors" (without quotes) to see that my old website - mitchellandrus.com - (emptied in January) still comes up on page 1, my new, 9 month old site - missionfurnishings.com - shows up on page 5. It takes loooong time for this all to move through the sieve.

SEO, search engine optimization, is a business all unto itself. Remember - TEXT IS KING. Pepper your text with 'hit' words and combinations of hit words. Name every .jpg with care (laser engraved engraving trophy.jpg)and label each picture with a carefully worded 'alt' tag (laser engraved gifts awards plaques). Hide non-search worthy text on pages you can hide from search engines via your robot.txt file. No point in getting listed for your driving directions to the store.... "Elm Street" or whatever else shows up on your home page.

I turn my Adwords accounts on and off as I need to. 9 years or so... I can tell you that I dunno... sometimes I know they work well, sometimes it's too expensive. Usually, I stick to magazine ads. I always see results with a well placed ad in a glossy magazine.

I added "Inlays" and Inlaid" to the text on my home page and it took Google less than two weeks to give me a hit on page 2 when I searched for "Stickley Inlays".

Mitch
missionfurnishings.com

[Joe Pelonio]

Jim,

That $30 limit is MONTHLY. Figure that at about 10% of the cost of a very small yellow pages ad with better results in my experience. Around here no one even keeps a phone book anymore, they all use the internet to find what they need.

I have no way to track natural clicks, but based on customers that found me that way I'd guess it's equal to or more than what I get from Adwords.

Mitch,

Thanks for that info, I'll have to sit down and go over it and make some changes.

[Aleta Allen]

Does anyone know of someone that does this site work for your webpages? I am not sure if I can figure all this out, but I do need to get more traffic to my webpages. I am getting ready to do work to my web site next week. So, I will try to take a few of the sugggestions and add them to the redo.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Aleta,

Your hosting company will probably offer these mods for a modest fee or recommend someone. A Google search for "SEO" or web design will get you started. Watch your wallet. Some programers will charge you through the nose to do what you can do yourself with a little work with Frontpage and some research.

My shopping cart site www.missionfurnishings.com cost a grand total of $3,600.00 (+-) including third-party add-ons, but not including my time to load the content (via a database) which changes often. My host charges $49.00/month to host and store my database, run card purchases, etc.

A "show and tell" site can be made for you for a few hundred dollars. Just be sure to have it made so you can change the content (via a back-door control panel) without pestering a programer. A good website will be as simple to load stuff onto as this forum is.

It doesn't have to cost much nor be difficult to get good results.

Mitch

[Brent Vander Weil]

I had a someone give me this hint too... (I am not sure if it works, but I am trying it) you can hide alot of revevant text at the bottom of your home page in the same color as the backround... when the bot hits it "sees" the text and catalogs it but the page isn't all junked up.

Anyone know if this works?

I just started hosting with ipowerweb a few months ago and it has been really easy... I have set up my Pay-Pal cart and have been selling pretty well...

[Robert Bosworth]

Brent --

You'll want to avoid these sorts of "spam" tactics because most of the search engines are now smart enough to recognize this and penalize you for them. The best strategy is to use relevant text on your site and try and get as many backlinks as possible.

Robert Bosworth

[Mitchell Andrus]

Robert,

True. Adding "Trophies Trophies Trophies Trophies Trophies Trophies Trophies Trophies..." in any color gets you nothing with the bots - and they will keep you on probation until you clean up the site (part of the six month probation deal). Best to add normal descriptive text and let them find it.

Most of the text on my home page is written for the bots, but humans can still read it - though, most people LOOK at a page, they don't READ it. Also, most will ignore Meta "keywords" tags in the page HTML.

"Title" and "description" tags on the other hand are still grabbed and used - mostly as the heading in the search results. "Title" is also what you see as a favorites listing in your browser window and at the top of the browser window. So resist placing "welcome to mysite.com" in the "title". Keywords work best here for many reasons.

Search "SEO" on Google. All of the tips you'll ever need will be there for you.

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35291

Mitch

[Dave Jones]

Having text the same color as the background, or too small to read will not only NOT help, it will be bad for your ranking. The search engines do not like any attempt to artificially boost your rank. Doing things like that can get your site banned or at least cause you to move down in the rankings. Those things worked years ago, but not any more.

Places like Google want the person searching to find what they are looking for. And that is "relevant text". Meaning that if you simply put up lots of good text describing products and services, chances are you'll move right on up in the rankings. The search engines are actually pretty smart.

[Aleta Allen]

Mitch,

Thanks for the advice. I do have a web page, but it is not set up like I want. I have a shopping cart and a programmer set it up. I can redo the items anytime. BUT, I can't change the setup, the arrangement of the items. I would like to change that and get on the search engines.

I am planning on working on revamping the web site in the next couple of weeks, so I will check out your suggestions and see what I can do.

I appreciate the help, I really need to get the web site working and being used, so far it has only been used a few times. SO, I am working on the bugs and now I see I need to "Think" about the description words more then I had.

Thanks for the help.

Aleta

[Jeff Lehman]

I would encourage anyone who feels hestitant to get their own webpage up and running to consider purchasing one of the "Dummies" series of books. They have them for Frontpage, HTML, Dreamweaver etc.

Once you get familiar with how hosting works, and grasp what it means to "serve" or post to your site, then the rest of the work lies in the design and content.

The "art" of designing for search engines is included in the dummies books also.

[Dave Jones]

There is also a Dummies series book called "Search Engine Optimization for Dummies". Plus another one called "Growing Your Business with Google for Dummies" (not to be confused with "Google for Dummies" which is for the average browser user)

[Brent Vander Weil]

Thanks for all the tips... scrubbing my page now :-)

Been away quite a bit so i don't get as much time to read up on all the good bits here... I designed an accessory part for a Pontiac Solstice and have been doing R&D and cutting away on it for some time now.

I hope to make at least a few bucks on it... Hope everyone else is making progress too... Even w/o the mone lasering is a lot of fun...