By Robert Lockard

Submit Solution has four new Squidoo lenses, all focusing on different aspects of the Internet-marketing company’s services. Web pages on Squidoo are called lenses, I suppose because they give you a view into someone’s mind, life or company.

I’ll give a brief description of all of the new lenses below. Be sure to check them out and rate each of them, if you like.

One lens focuses just on Submit Solution’s Internet-marketing blogs. As you can tell, each of these blogs has a different focus: search engine optimization, paid search, social media and Web design. You can find it here: Submit Solution – 4 Internet Marketing Blogs.

Another lens gives you more information about Submit Solution’s services, including Web design, SEO, PPC and website content. You’ll find it here: Submit Solution – The Best Internet Marketing Services.

Submit Solution’s website launch is spotlighted on another lens. It includes the news release announcing the updated website’s release in September 2009 and the company’s new features and services. You can find that news release on Submit Solution’s website under “Press.” It’s entitled, “Submit Solution Launches New Web Site with Web and Logo-Design Services.” The lens can be found here: Submit Solution Online-Marketing Website Launch.

The final new Submit Solution Squidoo lens is short and sweet. It includes some of the newest blog entries from the site’s four ecommerce blogs, as well as Submit Solution’s contact information. If you want to get a hold of a Submit Solution representative, that’s a good place to go. Check it out here: Submit Solution: The one-stop hub for internet marketing.

Don’t forget about our four other Squidoo lenses for Submit Solution, eHarbor, Inc., Magellan Commerce and Real Estate Promoter that we built back in March. I talked about them in the eHarbor Blog back when we created them. Learn more about them in my blog entry, “eHarbor, Inc. launches Squidoo pages.” We recently updated these lenses with additional information about our companies’ history and high-tech services.

You can find them at the following links:

Submit Solution - Search Engine Optimization Tools

eHarbor, Inc. - eCommerce and SEO Experts

Magellan Commerce - Website Design & SEO

Real Estate Promoter - Website Design & Marketing

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Submit Solution’s four new Squidoo lenses.” The Submit Solution logo is the copyright of Submit Solution.

By Robert Lockard

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but according to one blogger, the key to getting more website traffic from your Twitter account is to tweet less frequently. Of course, Dan Zarrella is not just any blogger – he’s a self-proclaimed social media and viral marketing scientist. That’s a pretty cool title.

In his blog entry, “Want More Clicks? Tweet Less,” Zarrella made the bold statement, “If you want your Tweet to get noticed and ReTweeted, you should slow down your posting rate.” Twitter is all about speed, though. It’s an instant message service. Why would a smart blogger suggest you slow down your tweeting?

According to this study, Twitter users who only tweet one link an hour have a much higher rate of getting that link retweeted than those who post two, three or 13 links an hour. The same is true for days. One link a day gets a better click-through rate and more retweets than multiple links a day.

What does all this mean? I’ll try to interpret. I think it means Twitter users can tell the difference between people sharing genuinely interesting news, ideas or offers and robots or marketers who are just trying to sell their products through Twitter. Twitter users like people who listen as well as share. That’s called a conversation, and it’s what customers expect more and more from ecommerce companies in our current marketplace.

What does this mean for your Internet-marketing strategies? I think it means you should be just as eager to talk about your company as you are to talk about your customers’ needs, industry trends and other things outside of your company. Twitter may not be easy to navigate when you first start out, but as you learn what you’re doing you should try not to focus too much on yourself. Sharing one link or one promotion a day can be more effective than sending a barrage of offers in a short period of time.

Think about your audience. Think about how you respond to tweets. Sometimes it seems like there are way too many to ever keep track of, just from the people you follow. Keep that in mind as you formulate your Twitter strategy. Keep the line of communication open, and try not to jam the line with too many messages.

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “Successful Twitter strategy: Tweet less.” The photo of the birds on a fence is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Sister72.

By Britnee Nguyen

You might have heard about Google Wave through your social networks, but do you know what it is? Google Wave is a new search layout that was released by Google to invite-only users. These selected users are given a couple of invites to give out to others as well. While searching the web for information about it, I came across some criticism and praise. It sounds like it’s a confusing concept, yet has a “promising future”. So here’s some pros and cons about Google Wave.

PROS

• Google Wave was developed by the same guys who developed Google Maps. So there is some intuitive genius behind the new service.

• It allows you to filter Google search results and choose just news, maps, images, etc.• You can filter search results by using real-time results or choosing the range of time you want to see results (recent, last 24 hours, week or year).

• It modernizes e-mail by adding the features of chat, wikis, document collaboration.

• Chatting is in real time, meaning that while you type your IM, it is showing the other person what you’re writing, as you’re typing it. This is to improve the speed of communication on internet.

• You can start a “wave” and connect with other people with similar interests or who are attending the same event you are and collectively put in information about it.

CONS
• Chatting is in real time. I know I just listed this as a pro, but it can also be a con. Who really wants the other person to see exactly what you’re writing as you’re typing it? When I chat, I typically write and then go back and reword things and cut and paste and add smiley faces, etc. Or sometimes I write it, but then decide to delete it before pushing the enter key. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is like this.

• It seems like a re-invention of the internet, that’s not necessarily needed. They put so much into this application, that it’s confusing to the new user.

• Anyone can add you to their list of contacts without your permission. Result: SPAM

• No “Error” messages are given, which might confuse the user even more.

Now, remember that Google Wave is only in preview mode right now, so many of these things might be improved upon before officially launching. From a personal point of view, I don’t see the benefit of Google Wave, but from a business point of view, it opens another door for businesses to make more contacts and to reach more customers. It’s another internet marketing outlet that businesses should be testing out. It’s the best idea to try it out for yourself and see what it can do for you.

By Robert Lockard

Optimizing your website’s content for search engines costs about half as much as relying solely on a paid-search campaign for getting customers to your site. So says a recent study by Frommer’s Unlimited I read about in the Travolution article, “WTM: Rich content ‘more cost-effective than PPC’.”

Of course, the main flaw I saw in this study is that it analyzes SEO and PPC results separately when many ecommerce companies use a combination of the two. SEO and PPC have different strengths and weaknesses. SEO is slower but more cost-efficient while PPC is fast, but each click costs money.

It’s essential for a website’s long-term future for it to have strong content that is designed to attract search engines’ attention and increase its ranking in their search results. But that doesn’t mean PPC is irrelevant or too expensive for companies to take advantage of in their Internet-marketing campaigns.

According to Frommer’s study, it costs about 17 cents per visitor to optimize a site’s content. On the other hand, it costs about 33 cents per visitor through PPC ads.

The company based its findings on the results of eight companies focusing on travel, hotels or airlines. They divided the total cost of an SEO package by the total number of visitors who clicked on the sites’ natural search results to get the cost per SEO visitor. They divided the total amount paid for a PPC campaign by the number of visitors who clicked on PPC ads to get that average cost.

They found that 70 percent of their site visitors clicked on an organic search result, not a paid-search ad. Thirty percent isn’t bad, though.

What are your thoughts on this paid-search vs. search engine optimization debate? Which works best for you, or do they both work well together?

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Is SEO a better deal than PPC?” The photo of the SEO, PPC Scrabble game is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of therichbrooks.

By Robert Lockard

I read an article on Entrepreneur.com a while back, entitled, “Rev up the Search Engines.” It gives a helpful rundown of solid SEO principles for small businesses, which don’t have a whole lot of money to spare but need to start generating results from ecommerce.

This article gives six tips for a small business to get the most bang for its buck, when it comes to search engine optimization. They are attributed to Steve Wiideman, a fairly renowned SEO expert. I already talked about most of these in my SEO series in the eHarbor Blog, back in February and March of 2009. But I think a refresher is healthy.

Here are some of the highlights I took from these tips:

- Search engines are getting smarter. Don’t expect Google, Bing or Yahoo to fall for the same old SEO tricks. Bloggers and other content generators used to focus on their keyword-to-content ratio, but now search engines recognize when you use the same keyword too many times in the same post. Use relevant keywords prudently. If you use keyword-stuffing tactics, don’t expect much success.

- Google should be the focus of your SEO strategy. I thought this one was interesting because, while Google is certainly the king of search engines at the moment, things can change fairly quickly in the digital age. Of course, Google is constantly changing its algorithm for search results and it’s even changing its search engine completely with new products like Google Wave, Google Caffeine and a focus on social media, images and music. But that’s the topic of a whole other blog entry.

- If an SEO consulting company guarantees No. 1 placement on Google or any other search engine, don’t believe them. Google is the only that can absolutely guarantee top placement on its results pages, and every other company has to do its best to influence Google, but none can absolutely guarantee success. Keep that in mind when you come across SEO companies’ marketing messages.

Having said that, I’ll note Submit Solution is a good SEO resource for you. Submit Solution has more than 13 years of experience working on Internet marketing, which includes search engine optimization. It’s a great resource because it has helped many companies like yours reach customers online through its efforts. Like I said, they can’t guarantee No. 1 placement for competitive search terms, but you can expect dramatic improvements in your search-engine rankings for specific keywords in the months after they start implementing their SEO strategies on your behalf.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution SEO Blog for the latest updates on major search-engine trends. This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Top SEO tactics for small businesses.” The photo of the flying bicyclist is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Tom Grundy Photo.

By Britnee Nguyen (@brit_witters)

If you are getting a new website domain name, you might be wondering if all the SEO and internet marketing work you did for your original domain will carry over. Some people change their domain name to target a better audience by using their keywords in the URL. If you choose to do this, there are ways to do it without affecting the SEO you’ve already put in place.

Keep your old URL for the purpose of getting it forwarded onto your new website. This way if you have a returning customer who doesn’t know you changed your website, when they type in the original site they will get redirected to the correct one. This will keep your customers coming to your website and keep your page rank. Always use a 301 redirect that is permanent. If you use a 302 redirect that is temporary this could do some damage to your SEO.

When using the 301 redirect, it will redirect every page on your site to the correct page on the new website so you won’t lose any web traffic. Some just redirect it to the main homepage, but it’s better to make them all direct to the most relevant page you have on your new site.

Another option you can do in this process is while you’re redesigning your new site, go ahead and move your old site to the new URL. When you have the new design ready to be put up, go ahead and change it. This might affect your rankings for a small time on Google, but it shows them that you are just moving your domain name and not some outsider who is trying to bank on your built-up credibility.

If you do these things, then you should have no problem with Google recognizing your new site as the correct version of your old one and will keep your page rank and SEO in place. Remember to keep your old domain name and use a 301 redirect and to have your company’s old design on the new one while waiting for the new one to be completed.

By Britnee Nguyen

When you have a PPC ad in Google AdWords, you’re only given 25 characters for the headline and 70 characters for the body of the text. You probably thought writing in 140 characters on Twitter was hard! But after seeing the very limited amount of space you’re given for a PPC ad, you realize you have to be extremely clear and concise to get your message across.

While being concise, you need to make sure that you include relevant keywords, explain the benefits, stand out and have a “call-to-action” message. In addition, you need to remember that you are speaking to real humans so don’t sound too wordy or stuffy.

When writing PPC ads, you need to focus on the goal. The immediate goal you’re looking for is to convey why the person should click on your ad. The next long-term goal is how to convert those clicks into sales. But for this post, we’re just talking about the goal of getting them to click. Getting someone to click with just 95 characters total to entice them can be difficult. The last sentence I just wrote was 87 characters which shows just how concise you need to be.

Headline (25 characters)

Your headline is the attention grabber.

If your headline isn’t interesting, the viewer won’t continue reading the rest of your text; therefore, won’t click your ad. It needs to simply say what you have to offer. If you are selling free birthday cards on-line and want to do a PPC ad to promote your website. If you wanted your keyword to be “birthday e-cards” then you should keep the headline simple such as: Free Birthday E-cards. It’s basically just blatantly stating what you have to offer because you don’t have room to do much else.

Body (75 characters)

When you write the body text, this is where you’ll want to explain more about what you offer. This is typically one sentence long and you’ll want it to be “call-of-action”. This means that you are telling them to do something with action words. You can do this by starting off your sentence with words such as “Send”, “Choose” and “Make”. In the example of using “birthday e-cards” as the target keyword, here are some good examples you could do using the call-to-action and keywords:

Send a personalized birthday e-card to your loved one today.
Choose from 550+ unique birthday e-cards delivered right to the inbox.
Make your friend’s day special with an interactive birthday e-card.

So just make sure you get to the point of what the person will get if they click on your ad. Remember to keep it clear and concise and don’t use too much flowery words because they’ll just skip over it. Make sure to use an action word so they will actually take action and click on your link instead of just reading it. PPC ads can be very effective when written properly. Take the time to write your PPC to make sure it targets the right keywords and creates a call to action.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Writing a paid search or PPC ad is almost an art form: it takes practice, constant effort and preparation.  This, of course, is assuming that you want your ad to be successful.  If you’re not a stickler for getting the most out of your paid search ads, then by all means, follow the guidelines stated here, in a list of how to write stinky PPC ads.  However, if you do want to use PPC ads successfully to aggressively drive traffic to your website and become an internet marketing genius, then avoid these tips at all costs!

1)  Do not do keyword research.

One of the keys to a stinky PPC ad is a lack of keyword research.  Just bid on whatever words you think are relevant to your site and hope for the best!

2)  Stay away from attention-grabbing calls-to-action.

Go ahead and describe your product or service, but do not by any means ask the reader to do anything!  Just to be sure, stay away from any words in verb form.

3)  Try not to give the reader a reason to click on your ad.

When writing your paid search ad, do not ask yourself, “Why should someone click on this ad?”  Make sure that your ad is merely informational and does not solve a problem or provide an interesting service.

4)  Avoid numbers and eye-attracting words.

If at all possible, try to spell out your numbers to make sure that nobody is attracted to your ad.  For example, instead of the extremely attractive “$.05 / month,” try “five cents per month” instead!

5)  Do not consider running your ads at certain times of day or testing your ads.

If you’ve followed all the previous steps outlined above, you shouldn’t have to worry about which of your PPC ads are successful, because none of them will be.  Just run them when you want to run them!  Do not consider holidays, time changes, or when your biggest competitors will most likely run their ads.

So… do you get the point?

Sadly, many online business owners are actually running their paid search campaigns in this manner.  However, you can be one of the lucky ones who actually knows better!  Congratulations.

By Robert Lockard

That’s right. Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

Page Load Time

This study measured how long it takes each Web browser to download Yahoo’s main page. The trouble with these results is that they might be affected by how many other people were using the site at the time the study was conducted. Bearing that in mind, it’s interesting to see how close all of the Web browsers are to each other.

Firefox was the fastest with a download time of 1.34 seconds. The slowest time was 1.61 seconds and it was shared by Explorer and Safari. The difference between those two times is so small that it hardly matters which browser you use to download a website like Yahoo.

Browser Cache Performance

The same is true for both Page Load Times and Browser Cache Performance. Browsers often save a cached version of a Web page you have already visited so it can quickly bring it up again when you return to it. The download times of a cached page ranged from 0.72 seconds to 0.89 seconds, which statisticians would say is probably not a “significant” difference. Chrome had the fastest speed, while Safari had the slowest.

Other categories in the study had a wider variety of results, but I thought these ones were the most interesting.

This is all fascinating information, but what does it all mean? Why are fast download times important? If online users have to wait several seconds for one of your Web pages to download, they might just give up after a while and decide your site isn’t worth the wait.

We want our ecommerce websites to be fast enough for people, no matter which browser they use. But we should definitely focus on the most popular ones. That’s the subject of a whole other blog entry, though.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Which Web browser is the best?” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

By Britnee Nguyen

According to a recent study, it was found that women use social media networks more than men. The study used Google Ad Planner numbers to find this interesting conclusion. The majority of social media users are women, but not all the networks are dominated by females. The one exception is Digg which has 64 percent of its users as men. LinkedIn, YouTube, deviantART and del.icio.us have about equal numbers when it comes to genders using their networks.

But in general, the social media world is dominated by women. Facebook and Twitter both account 57 percent of female users and Flickr has 55 percent. What does this information mean? Well, for one thing, if you are a business using social media and internet marketing to get more information out about your company, you’ll want to consider which outlet to use if you’re specifically targeting women or men.

This also shows that women’s stereotypical habits resonate through social media. When I think of social media, think of people who are regularly submitting their opinions and interesting things they found on the web and getting the latest gossip and news. Women tend to do the exact same things in person; they like to get the latest gossip and give their opinions and talk about interesting things they’ve found. It’s a huge generalization I’m making, but it does account to why maybe social media attracts more women than men.

Women being the more dominant force in social media should be a positive for most businesses. This is because 80 percent of women are the decision-making one in their household when it comes to buying power. The more that a business can convince women that they need their product, the more profits they’ll make. If they choose to use social media to reach women, then it is very easy to do so.

When it comes to reaching men it might be slightly more difficult, but still doable since a lot of men still use social media as well. Do your research before setting out on a social media marketing plan. Know who you are trying to target and which networks are the best to reach that target market, whether it’s women or men.