Blitz Ezine #267 Nov. 7, 2006

Internet Marketing Quiz, First Impressions

The Blitz-Promotions News Letter
Issue no. 267, November 7, 2006

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Blitz Comments
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Make sure to make your voice heard and vote.

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http://mycps.sitesell.com/blitzpromotions.html
Also you can get Make Your Site Sell - again free.
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Make sure you check out (almost daily) or Blog.

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We hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

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In this Issue
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- Marketing Quiz
- First Impressions

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Food for thought
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As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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An Internet Marketing Quiz; Test Your Knowledge

By Sharon Housley

Question - If I need to target a specific region, is it
helpful to have a domain from that country?

Answer - Yes. Both hosting location and domain extension
matter and can influence search engine ranking in regional
search engines. If you are attempting to target a specific
country, you could very well benefit from purchasing a
domain with that countries extension and hosting the website
on a server that is located in that country. The larger
country specific search engines, generally rank local
domains higher in the search results.

Question - What is the difference between Google's aging
delay and the so called sandbox?

Answer - Great questions. The aging delay is often labeled
and assumed to be the same as Google's famous sandbox (that
may or may not exist). The Google aging delay is not a
penalty, it is merely a filter. Google does not feel new
websites are necessarily "trustworthy" so while they
acknowledge that the new websites exist they don't generally
include them in their search index results. They continue to
monitor the new websites over time, paying particular
attention to who and how many websites are linking to the
new site. Gradually, as the site matures and gains a
reasonable amount of links over time, Google will include
the site as part of its search results. The sandbox refers
to websites that are usually removed from the search index
results. The removal is typically a penalty for what Google
views as poor behavior as it relates to search engine
optimization, spam, or web content.

Question - What does the Can-Spam Act actually mean?

Answer - CAN-SPAM is an acronym for Controlling the Assault
of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. The CAN-SPAM
Act of 2003, came into effect in the United States as law on
January 1, 2004. It establishes requirements for those who
send commercial email,and spells out penalties for
individuals and companies that choose to violate the law.
The primary purpose of the act is to restrict the
advertising or promoting of a commercial product or service
(including content or a website) by defining guidelines.

Besides spelling out the penalties, the CAN-SPAM Act
prohibits false or misleading header information. This means
that you cannot "spoof" the 'to', 'from' or routing
information, the sender must be accurately reflected.

The CAN-SPAM act also prohibits deceptive subject lines. In
other words, the subject must relate to the actual message
contents. Email recipients must be provided a method to
opt-out of any future email. The opt-out requests must be
complied within 10 days. The final large contingent that is
stipulated by the CAN-SPAM act is that commercial emails
must be identified as advertisements and must include the
senders valid postal address.

Question - What is a sticky website and how do I make my
website 'sticky'?

Answer - A sticky website refers to a website that attracts
and retains customers. The best way to create a website that
will be continually visited and returned to is by producing
and creating new content. Give your website's visitors a
reason to come back. Another component to stickiness is a
good communication channel. This might mean providing the
content via RSS, so visitors are immediately aware of any
new information available. It might also mean an opt-in
newsletter that is sent on a regularly scheduled basis.

Question - What is the Long Tail, and how do I get one?

Answer - The Long Tail pertains to a relatively simple
concept, that capturing all of the the small volume, and
will result in a collectively large volume. With regards to
the keyword long tail, the idea is that there are only a few
words or phrases that receive a large number of searchers,
but there are a huge number of obscure phrases or keywords
that receive a small number of searches each month. By
capturing top ranking for all of the less popular terms you
could in effect receive more traffic than you would if you
had top ranking for the popular terms.

Capturing the keyword long tail, is very difficult. It
requires massive amounts of unique content. Webmasters have
generally found the easiest way to generate unique copy is
through user-generated content (ie. forums, blog comments,
or user reviews).

Question - What is deep linking? And How do I deep link my
website?

Answer - Deep linking refers to links to all levels of a
particular website. A website that has an extensive network
of quality deep links, shows true value. By having incoming
links to multiple webpages at all directory levels, the
website is perceived as content rich by search engines. A
website that only receives incoming links to the "front
page" will not fair as well in search engines because the
assumption is that it is not a content rich website.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.

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Internet Tip of the Week
by Bob Osgoodby

First Impressions

First impressions are extremely important if you hope to do
business on the Web. After you refine your ads, and if you make
your pitch to a targeted group, you will start to get visitors
to your web site. Here is where many would be entrepreneurs
drop the ball.

Putting up a web site is not a difficult task, but designing a
good one is, and if you don't pay attention, it might be working
against you. Think about it, the web site is not only the first
impression of you and your business, it is crucial to your
success or failure.

People don't waste a whole lot of time when visiting a site. If
it doesn’t appear to contain they are looking for, or isn't
professional looking, they may just "click away". While looks
are important, you must spend time on developing good copy. Copy
written by affiliate programs has been seen over and over, and
while it may have been effective at one time, it is so overused
that people immediately recognize it for what it is.

In addition to good copy, which of course has no spelling,
grammatical or punctuation errors, it clearly states what you
are offering. Many web sites offer a real challenge to try to
figure out what they are trying to sell. The offer should be
the first thing they see. The information must also flow
logically, and not leave a lot of questions unanswered.

They should find complete information about your offer, it
should also have a call to action, which entices the visitor to
purchase from you. It must also have an order form, or
instructions that are easy to follow. It is a real plus to let
the prospect know a little bit about you. Your picture on the
site can go a long way to help instill confidence.

There is some confusion on the value of links. Some advocate
that a good web site should be divided into separate sections
connected by links. Others feel that a single long web page will
score higher in the search engine rankings.

There are basically two types of links. One goes to a
completely separate web page, and is considered an external
link. Another type is referred to as an internal link. These
point to different "parts" within the same web page. Both have
value, however internal links are a little friendlier. If
someone clicks on one and the next "part" logically flows from
the previous one, people will be more inclined to read on.

While it is a good idea to have your links on the side of the
page, you should avoid the use of frames, which divides the page
into two logical pieces that can be independently manipulated.
At the current time, sites constructed with frames are not
search engine friendly, although this could change.

Links should be clear as to where they will take you. It is
crucial that the titles of the links, not only make sense, but
actually take someone to that information. Each site should
have links that are unique, and it is not a good idea to have
information in the target, that is not specified in the link.

If you have someone design the site for you, remember that their
expertise is in web site design, and most likely they will know
little, if anything, about what you are doing. They can
construct the site and make it look good, but the copy and
information flow is your responsibility. You should always take
a break from the copy writing, and if at all possible, have
someone else proof your work. Also you have to be careful of
words that pass spell check, but are actually an error. Don't
confuse words like "there" and "their".

Once you have the basic framework finished, it is now time to
test it. Try to corral as many people as possible to review it.
Is it clear and an effective presentation? You should probably
avoid friends unless you are sure they will give you an honest
evaluation.

The first impression your web site makes is crucial to success.
If people have to "jump through hoops" to find out about your
offer, or if it doesn't portray a professional image, the odds
are they won't buy.

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Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine the
"Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business at his Web
Site? Great Business and Computer Tips – Monday. Wednesday. And
Friday. Instructions on how to place an ad are in the Newsletter.
Subscribe at: http://adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm

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Links you can use -
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If you want to sell locally - this course will help.
http://local-biz-masters.sitesell.com/blitzpromotions.html

One of our new clients may have something you may be interested in.

• Affordable for everyone
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Fun and Games
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For the kiddies - Wacky Web Tales
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

Create your own Anagrams -
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

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Useful links
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Ezine Archives links to all our past issues (well most of them) in one place.

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Next Issues
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Our next issue will be Dec. 5th, 2006

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Final Thoughts
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Tim and Lisa Hamblin
Tisa Enterprises
PO Box 221
Hazard KY 41702
http://www.blitzpromotions.com
http://www.crochetnmore.com
http://www.webpageplanner.com
http://www.ineedlinks.com