I Advice - Internet and Businesses Online

Are Blogs Effective SEM? For Who?
Are blogs effective Search Marketing options? For who?Most companies can — and we believe should— make blogs an integral part of their search-engine marketing, or SEM, strategy. Those that do will gain a competitive advantage in search-engine visibility they may never have to relinquish.It is no secret blogs are search-engine friendly. They generate an enormous amount of fresh content - some adding multiple posts every day. Blogs are loaded with internal and contextual outbound links. Archived blog pages often contain inbound links. Not to mention, every blog post has a title, one of the first things a search-engine spider looks for. Using keyword phrases in titles creates myriad opportunities to attract search matches.Some companie

that keyword will help you target 4 countries in one go,

- you could use keywords in demand in each country, as long as they complement each other and are highly relevant for your site. For example, using the widget idea, if you found that "colored widgets" are in demand in the US, "white widgets" are in demand in the UK, "black widgets" in Canada, and "coloured widgets" in Australia. Then, you would just target all these keywords with your site which would not be hard to do as all these keywords can easily be targeted together.

Given the right circumstances, you could even use both strategies at the same time.

As I mentioned in my first article, the Overture keyword tool enables you to research the demand for keywords in some 19 countries around the world. To see the countries that Overture supports, go to www.overture.com and have a look at the top right corner of the page. By clicking on any one of the countries listed, you will have access to the Overture keyword tool for the country you selected, and this will enable you to research the keyword demand in that country

Simple Technology is the Key to Online Wealth
Making money online requires four components; (1) a product or service to sell, (2) setting up and operating the online technologies required (hosting, webservers, high-speed Internet access, websites, etc.), (3) driving traffic and prospects to your sites and (4) converting that traffic into customers and money.There are millions of products you can sell to make money. They fall into two general categories; ONE, physical products (tangible things like golf clubs, tools or automobiles) and TWO, informational products (ebooks, newsletters, reports, information services, music, videos, etc.).A physical product requires manufacturing, warehousing and shipping; all steps that require facilities, equipment and ma

In my previous article, I raised the issue that proper keyword research must take into account countries. The reason for that was that the demand for keywords can vary between countries. I gave examples of that fact using the Overture keyword tool.

To support my argument (that we need to be aware of countries when doing keyword research), I gave 2 reasons:

1. it will help us determine which countr(y/ies) to target, and

2. it will help us know what countr(y/ies) our visitors are most likely to come from.

I would like, in this article, to expand on these 2 reasons. I would also like to add further reasons why any keyword research must be country based.

1. When doing keyword research, we need to understand the limitations of our research. This is necessary in order to remove any assumptions we make about our findings. For example, if you find that the demand for a keyword is very high in the US, you cannot assume that the demand for that same keyword will also be vey high in other countries. You will only know for sure how much demand there is worldwide by doing country specific keyword research. Such research can be done using a tool such as the Overture keyword tool,

2. It will tell you where your visitors are most likely to come from. This in turn will tell you what features you need to add to your web site. For example, if you are targeting a keyword that is in demand in the US only, then obviously most of your visitors will come from the US. This then means that you need to design your web site primarily for US visitors. You will hence need to:

- use US spelling such as "color" and not "colour",

- if you sell products, then list your prices in US$,

- if you live in the US, then add a fax number so your visitors can place orders by fax,

- if you live in the US, you could organise a US free call number for your visitors to ring you should they need to,

- if you live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. You could also include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- if you don't live in the US, then you will need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in US$,

- if you don't live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. And you could include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . .

If on the other hand, you are wanting to target several non-English speaking countries, then:

- you may need to add a translation service to your site so that your visitors can read your site in their language,

- you may need to add a currency exchange service so that your visitors can convert your prices into their currency,

- you may need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in their own currency,

- you may need to add other ways for your visitors to pay you apart from credit cards. You could offer international cheques/checks, money orders, direct bank transfers, . . . I once had a customer who wanted to pay me in Euros from Italy and needed my address to do so. The easier you make it for people to place an order, the greater the chances someone will place an order!

- if you ship your orders, then you could add the shipping costs to each of the countries you are targeting. And include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . . May be you can think of other things you will need to add to your site to accommodate your international visitors.

3. It will help you target the right keywords for the country you want to target. For example, if you want to target Canada, then you will need to use keywords that are in high demand in Canada only. There is absolutely no point doing keyword research in the UK if you are wanting to target Canada as the keyword demand between the 2 countries may vary greatly.

4. It will help you develop a keyword strategy so that you can target several countries at the same time. This can be achieved in several ways depending on the keywords' demand and supply.

- you could use keywords that are in common demand in the several countries. For example, if you sell "widgets" with your site and you find that there is a healthy demand for "black widgets" in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Then you could target that keyword with your site as that keyword will help you target 4 countries in one go,

Given the right circumstances, you could even use both strategies at the same time.

A Simple but Effective Strategy
There are many strategy models. Treacy and Wiersema provide a very valuable “value strategy” giving companies a set of three option (combination) to balance. It is, put very simply; about products, clients and streamlining operations.Yet even more simple is to observe the tennis player, or maybe better the chess player. One simple strategy is not to make mistakes. Let the other side take them first. Is this a defensive strategy or just common sense? If the opponent is starting an offensive attack and is gaining some initial games, you have put yourself in a disadvantage.Don’t make too many mistakes! This message will probably be received differently when you have a European or American background. It is said – but do not ask me about a refer

ountry specific keyword research. Such research can be done using a tool such as the Overture keyword tool,