Today we are going to let you in on a little secret – we are going to introduce you to a product that automates the uploading of the WordPress software onto your hosting account and makes creating a blog just that little bit quicker.   This is simply a brilliant tool if you are launching multiple blogs and websites and need to save some time. At the press of a button you will be able to:

• Upload the WordPress software onto your server
• Create a SQL database on your server
• Insert all the changes required in the wpconfig file

In the past this automated upload feature has been handled by Fantastico, however this service is no longer the recommended method for script installation and upgrades. The new method, SimpleScripts, is much faster at releasing feature upgrades and important security updates. So why are we only telling you about this now?  Good question.  It is important that you understand what is going on in the background when using these types of scripts, and the best way to know what is going on is to learn the manual method first. To access this little time saver log into your Bluehost account using the data box on thehomepage at www.bluehost.com Enter your domain name and password. Scroll down the cPanel page until you find the following Software / Services panel. Click on the WordPress icon and you will be redirected to the following page.  Clicking on the Simple Scripts icon will also take you to a scripts menu where you can select the WordPress icon. Click on the Install button and away you go. For Step 1 always install the latest stable version of WordPress, in this case 2.8.5 will be fine. You also need to select the domain name that you wish to install WordPress on.  If you wanted to install WordPress into a separate folder within your domain, simple enter the file name after the forward slash.  For Example:  http://www.yourdomainname.com/blog Step 2 contains advanced options.  We would recommend to leave these alone for the moment.  Changes to any of the settings contained within will be made in the WordPress settings modules in eProfit Formula. Step 3, tick the box after you have read the GPL license and the click on Complete. The WordPress Simple Scripts installer will go ahead and complete your installation.  When it is complete, you will see the following data that you should file in a safe place – it contains you login details and your password. Click on the Login URL and you are ready to continue using eProfit Formula.  This little handy tip will allow you to jump to module 11, Setting up Email or if you are in a hurry straight to module 12 & 13 in Chapter 5. Don’t forget that Bluehost will host multiple domains on the one hosting package – this is probably one of the best value packages available anywhere on the internet. We currently have 9 hosted on our US$100 a year package. We have clients who have 5 and more.

A topic that seems to be receiving a lot of airtime in many professional organizations is the promoting of reciprocal links.

Inevitably, the message starts off something like this…. "Improve Your Google Ranking" and then goes on to offer an exchange of reciprocal links between websites.

Now there is nothing wrong with reciprocal links as part of a well thought out internet strategy, but most people just do it because they read somewhere it is how you improve your rankings.

The Google search algorithm incorporates a large number of variables of which a major one is the PageRank of each relevant web page.  So the Google calculation of PageRank is an important matter for rankings.  We won't bore you with the math here but links from higher PageRank pages will definitely help with your web pages PageRank.

But a couple of very important things are not well understood in regard to reciprocal links:

1. The placement of a backlink is very important as well. One link in a veritable sea of random links is not of much value – I am certain we have all seen the Links page with an amazingly eclectic range of links. Google values "contextual" links far more highly, particualrly if the anchor text over the hyperlink is relevant to the page that it is on.
2. Google gives a PageRank to every web page. So make sure that you get all your backlinks pointing at the page that you want to increase its ranking. This may or may not be your Home page. Often, you may want it to be a product or services or sales page. You should know this before offering any reciprocal links.
3. Backlinks from web pages with a PageRank of 0 are nigh on useless in helping your PageRank. Be careful, many times the Home page of the site backlinking to your site may have the good PageRank, but the backlink comes from another "Links" page with a PageRank of 0.
4. If you own a web page that has a decent PageRank, you only have so much "link juice" to hand around. Use it wisely and don't just use backlinks as a simple strategy – you will be giving away far more than you get most likely. The more links out to other sites, the less worth your PageRank is to those sites.
5. The Google spider certainly does follow links between sites so it can easily identify when there are reciprocal links.  Does it penalise you, not really.  Does it help, not really.

You need to have a clearly thought out link strategy that incorporates all these matters rather than a random asking of everyone to do reciprocal link with your website.

Marshall and Gary

If you are like most internet users on the planet, at some point in time you will have to  access your favourite sites and WordPress installations from multiple locations.  As your online business and internet marketing activites develop you will find yourself using more and more services and generating more and more usernames and passwords.

For example, you may have a computer at home that you do most of your internet marketing activities on; the opportunity may arise that you need to access your sites from your work computer or you are on the road with your trusty laptop. 

Trying to keep a single document updated with all your passwords when using multiple computers can be a bit of a drag and if you're anything like me, no matter how diligent I try to be – the odd one will always slip through and be forgotten.

One of the features of most internet browsers is the username and password management facility.  Now this system can work fine if once again you are using just a single computer.  What happens if you sign up for a new account on your laptop whilst working on your overseas holiday…. the browser on your home computer will be none the wiser.

Another problem is security.  Most of your passwords and login details are likely to be stored on your browser unencrypted.  This means any application will be able to locate them.  It is simply safer not to keep them on your PC in an unencrypted form.

What if there was a way of managing usernames and passwords that was easy to use, remotely accessible, safe and secure?

Well here is a nifty little FREE tool for storing and managing all your usernames and passwords that ticks all the boxes.

Click here to visit LastPass Password Management System.  It is FREE to download and only takes minutes to set up.  There is a quick installation video to get you started and other training videos for advanced features.

Check it out – You'll be glad you did.

Year after year the internet becomes a more predominant medium for marketing.

This year we saw the worldwide advertising spend on the internet surpass all other mediums and is now quickly becoming crowded and highly competitive.

Over the past 2-3 years costs for pay-per-click advertising (PPC) have more than doubled in most markets as the competition hots up for the popular keywords and phrases across all sectors.

The difference between a number 1 organic ranking and a number 10 ranking on Google can mean the difference between 60% of total search traffic for a particular keyword or phrase right down to 1%.  This variance in the volume of visitors to your website based on your ranking could mean the difference of hundreds or even thousands of leads to your business every year.

Whether your website traffic comes via PPC advertising, banner ads, links, search engines or a raft of other channels, the challenge facing all businesses marketing on the internet is to convert as much of this traffic as possible. Conversion is the single most important internet marketing metric. Expressed as a percentage, it is defined as the ability of your website or blog to make visitors to your site take a predetermined action.

Facilitating this "call to action" should be the focus of your internet marketing efforts. If we use the example of a Business Consultant, a call to action may be encouraging a visitor to fill in their name and email address into a form on your website in return for a free 2 hour consultation. If you have a 100 people visit your site and you get 10 people to fill in the form, then you have a conversion rate of 10%. Simply achieving an increase in your conversion rate can mean an increased ROI without any additional spend.

As the competition increases, the challenge is to remain competitive by at least maintaining your conversion rate or examining ways to increase it. If we look at your website/blog in isolation for a moment, you can easily work out your cost per lead based by adding all your total costs for running and maintaining the site plus any costs involved in your offer (such as your opportunity cost for a free 2 hour consultation or the premium on your giveaway), and divide this by the total number of leads.

Higher conversion rates (leaving all things constant) will result in lower cost per lead; the lower the cost per lead the greater the profit and the higher the return.

Marshall and Gary

Many business owners are too attached to their business name when it comes to choosing a domain name.

It makes sense that if someone searches for your business name (and you have web presence),  Google should offer your website up as the first organic result. If not, we would suggest some serious navel gazing as to the value of your website as currently configured.

This, unfortunately, is all too rare for many companies. It is more likely that a searcher will type in what service or product they are after. One reason to use blogs is that it can create more freedom when it comes to domain name selection.  Business owners generally accept that blogs can be used as a useful tool to create interest in a area related to their own area of expertise. So this allows them to more clearly focus in on the keywords that are being searched to craft a high visibility name.

To use Bob Smith Auto Electrician as a fictional example – Bob may be have technical expertise in racing car electrics. Using this knowledge, it may be that 500 searches are done every month in Australia on electrics in racing cars when researched. It may be that the domain name "racingcarselectrics.com.au" is available. So Bob can set up a blog under this name and start to post away to get high visibility.

Selection of a good domain name is only one very small part of getting seen, but is also a good place to start when using a blog internet marketing strategy.

Marshall and Gary

Before you jump in and start developing a keyword list for your website or blog, you’ll need to understand some of the associated keyword terminology.

We commonly refer to seed or top level keywords. This simply means the keyword or phrase that you have selected first – the obvious ones that relate directly to the description of the product or service you offer.

For example, if you were in the Golf market, you would have a seed or top level list that would include golf, golfing and golfers. These are also an example of what’s referred to as single keywords.

Short tail keywords represent the next level down. These contain two words. For example, golf course, golfing tuition and golfers guide.

Long tail keywords (or keyword phrases) are those that usually contain 3 or more connected keywords. For example golf course design, golfing tuition videos, golfers guide to putting. Long tail keywords are generally more descriptive and are more targeted to a specific market niche.

Related keywords are those that broaden the range of market sectors that you can target. For example, again using golf, related keywords may include, sport, outdoor activities, hobbies and recreation.

You may see comments on deep keywords. These are simply those that drill down deep into a particular niche market. For example golf can be drilled down into men’s golf and ladies golf, left handed men’s golf, right handed men’s golf, left handed ladies golf, right handed ladies golf, right handed men’s golf driving, right handed men’s golf putting, etc etc.

A negative keyword is also an important concept to understand. An example of this would be words like free, cheap, second hand, near new and bargain. Even though these words when combined with your seed (top level) or long tail keywords may attract a healthy search volume, you generally don’t want to have them related to your product or service.

So armed with some basic terminology it is time to develop your seed or top level keyword list. The starting point is simply to identify the broader market that you serve.

For example if you were a dental surgeon you would start with, dentist, dentistry and dental. These are good examples of single keywords.  The next level down is short tail keywords that could include, dental surgery, paediatric dentistry, dental surgeon and family dentist.  And just keep driving down.

Marshall and Gary

There is no doubt that the advent of the internet has created many new colourful words and phrases to the English language. One is "search engine".  The next is Google – which is derived from the word googolplex being the number 1 with 100 zeros after it.  But more importantly, Google is the big gorilla when it comes to people searching on the internet.

A search engine is simply a software program. It allows the user to type in a single words or a series of word that the user considers relevant to what they are seeking information on. The program then searches an index of databases to see what it has that it believes is relevant to the search query. It then displays the results to the user, who can choose a relevant result and click the hyperlink to access the site.

We all know that computers are getting faster and faster, but obviously it would be technologically impossible to search every existing website, blog, document, video, etc. Especially when it returns 57.9 million results in 0.15 seconds (this is the result in Google if you search for "search engines").

How does it do this? The answer lies in the index database. Search engines are constantly looking at everything on the internet – all the little nooks and crannies. In the way of technology, the programs that automatically go around seeking information are called "web crawlers" although we like the more descriptive "web spider" and "web robot". Exactly what they are seeking and what information it extracts when it gets there is one of the great mysteries.

The information it finds is then indexed with the index being based on titles, descriptions, words, etc. The index database then helps organize the data so relevant information can be readily found. Simple eh? Well not really.

An untold amount of time and resources are devoted to working out what the key things that are captured by web crawlers and indexed by the larger search engines. This was the start of the booming industry of "search engine optimization" or SEO as it is universally referred to.

We’ll talk more about SEO a little later.

Marshall and Gary

Google PageRank is an important concept  to understand if you are serious about being online.  Google makes the following statement about its search engine:

Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank^TM algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we’re able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

So what is the PageRank algorithm?  Fortunately, as Google notes, it is patented and we know what is in the patented algorithm. As an interesting aside, the "Page" refers to Google co-founder Larry Page and not a web page.

Google provides a definition of PageRank:

PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results. PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value.

For the mathematically minded, the original algorithm is:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))

PR = PageRank (A) = for a webpage called A

d = a damping factor (usually set at 0.85)

t1-tn = the PageRank for every webpage that links to page A

C = the number of outbound links each page t1, t2, t3 …..tn that links to page A

For the mathematically challenged , this can be boiled down to:

A page’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 x (the percentage entitlement of every page that links to page A); 

where the percentage entitlement is determined by the number of outbound links on every page.

So every page starts with a PageRank of at least 0.15 (woohoo) but then collects votes from sites that refer internet users to it. Unfortunately PageRank goes from 0 to 10, so 0.15 is a pretty slow start. The damping factor at 0.85 is to account for the fact that eventually a searcher will stop clicking on links.

It is clear that getting links from webpages with a higher PageRank than your site assists in increasing the PageRank of your site. And as Google states above "pages that …. receive a higher PageRank … are more likely to appear at the top of the search results".

A couple of interesting points to note here:

• Google does make changes to its algorithm over time;

• The patented algorithm does not explain everything (e.g. is the scaling of PageRank from 0 to 10 a straight-line or logarithmic scale);

• The more outbound links a site has, the "less" PageRank it has to give to your site;

• Links from high PageRank sites, all things being equal, will benefit your site more than lower ranked sites

So you can see why people bang on about offpage SEO. We know Google uses PageRank, we know the algorithm that drives it, and it is about links from other sites. But, and it is a big but, Google makes it quite clear that a raft of other variables go into determining the ranking on a search engine result page.

So, yes inbound links are very important, but not to the total detriment of other SEO.

Marshall and Gary

Today we explore  "On-page search engine optimization" factors which is a vital start to getting good SEO happening and higher rankings. 

On-page search engine optimization factors can best be described as the content contained on your pages that is relevant to a particular search query. The great thing about on-page SEO is that you have total control over it…. you can simply edit your page content to improve it.

We’ve included our top 7 on-page SEO factors.

#1 – Your page title tags must contain the keywords or phrases that you are trying to rank for. The title of your page doesn’t appear on the page as such, but rather at the very top left of the browser window and also in the highlighted blue link text in the search engine results. To create a title for your page you need to insert your title between the following tags <title>Your Page Title</title>. When applying this rule to small business, you should always try and make your page titles product or service specific.

#2 – Use "h" tags for the keywords or phrases that you are trying to rank for. Think of a "h" tag as a content or section heading or even a headline within your body copy. To create a "h" tag for text on your page you need to insert your headline between the following tags <h1>Your Headline</h1>. The numbers in the "h" tag simple refer to the size of the text used. Search engines read "h" tags first to understand what your page is all about. Your page will be viewed as more relevant if the search engines can see your keywords and phrases in your "h" tags. Small business owners should use these "h" tags for highlighting their different product or service categories and then individual products.

#3 – Include your keywords or phrase in the meta description tag – When displaying results, the search engines tend to highlight the searched keywords or phrases to identify relevance to that particular search. The meta description tag on each of web page ends up being the 2nd and 3rd line of your search engine listing. Any relevant keywords in this tag will also get highlighted. The meta tag description, should be a more descriptive sentence which uses the main keyword or phrase and offers more detail to encourage a click through. When creating meta descriptions for small business applications you should try and focus on a unique feature of a product or service and it’s resulting benefit. The meta tag description is expressed like this in your web page: <meta name="description" content="Keyword rich description here">

If you are following eProfit Formula you will see that using WordPress in the correct manner will ensure that you have these 3 points already covered.

#4 – Your first and last paragraph should include your keyword or phrase. Search engines tend to pay more attention to the first and last quarter of each page than the rest of the body copy. This is not to say that you don’t include your keyword within the middle half, but rather pay close attention to the opening and closing paragraph and ensure your keywords are included. Remember to always write your content with the reader in mind first and the search engines second. As a general rule, when writing copy for your small business, you should look at the opening paragraph as an introduction and broad overview of the product, followed by the features of the product, followed by the benefits received and the differentiation of your offering followed by a summary.

#5 – Aim for a keyword density of between 3-5%. Keyword density simply refers to the number of times your keyword or phrase appears for every hundred words. The last thing you want to do is "keyword stuff" or be seen as spammy. You need to ensure your keyword or phrase appears regularly enough to ensure the search engines see your page as relevant to a particular search query but not high enough to get penalised and your ranking lowered. Use this free tool to check your keyword density. http://www.keyworddensity.com/

#6 – Internal page links should contain your keyword or phrase. Search engines use the words in your link text or "anchor text" to analyse the relevancy of the page you’re linking to. A common mistake made by small business is to link back to your home page by using "Home" as the link text. This is a wasted SEO opportunity; you should be using "Your Keyword/Phrase Home" instead. For example, if you’re a run beauty therapist small business, you could use "Beauty Therapist Home". A word of advice; unless you want to rank well for it, don’t even think of linking to an internal page using "click here" – use the page title or relevant keywords.

#7: Content is King – keep it original. A search engines main priority is to return relevant search results and deliver a satisfying user experience so they won’t want to return results for multiple sites containing the same content. Duplicate content penalties for sites that seem to be displaying content identical or very similar other site content is becoming more common. Try to avoid blatant duplication of other site content. If you have to use other site content, try and rewrite or "repurpose" it as we like to call it.

Marshall and Gary

There are a stack of free tools and software to help you get the most from your online presence.  Well here is a great tool that is provided free by Microsoft (yes, Microsoft!). It is not new (been around since 2007) but we find many online internet businesses are not aware of it.

We know that you need to determine what keywords and phrases you should be target to get visibility for your online marketing via SEO, but a common question is "Is the searcher seeking information, or do they want to buy?" If it is the former, why bother trying to optimize for that particular keyword or phrase.

Well Microsoft has a free tool that is designed to try to address this issue. It is called "Online Commercial Intention" and can be found at what Microsoft call their "adlab" site at: http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx. 

We will call it "OCI" for convenience (plus that is what everyone online calls it). When you go to the Microsoft site, you will see a screen that looks like this (well part of it anyway). We have typed in "paintbrush" as the keyword we want to find out what the OCI is as an example. When you use this tool, make sure you set the button to Query rather than URL (because we are querying what the keyword is, not the site name – but use this URL function if you are thinking of different options for your website). Then hit Go.

So what it shows here is that searches for the word "paintbrush" are likely to be non-commercial in intent, and highly non-commercial (0.76 or 76% likelihood). This stands up to rational logic test  - the searcher is likely to want to find something out about paintbrushes, not to buy them. Well let’s try to make it commercial and see what we get: You will see we added the word "sale" to "paintbrush". Obviously adding "sale" clearly makes it commercial in intent – the searcher is looking for a sale so therefore they are likely buyers. The result shows an overwhelming OCI of 99%. So it passes the rational logic test here. So far so good.

The obvious question is how reliable or predictive is the Microsoft OCI. Well, that is for you to form your own opinion. We have certainly found that it keeps passing the rational logic test. The best strategy is to plug in some keywords that relate to your business and see what the result is – by and large you should have an intuitive feel as to whether it is right or wrong.

Microsoft has done testing in the outcomes from the algorithm that they use in calculating the OCI against real people views. If you want to see a summary of the study, go to the Learn More hyperlink at the bottom of the left hand side of the Microsoft adlab site. Basically, their results show around 90% correlation between the algorithm and real people. Sounds good – but it is not the only secret to online marketing success. Good luck with using OCI – it really is a useful guide to a searcher’s intention.

Marshall and Gary