Thread: Web Marketing for Idiots: Help!

Web marketing gurus, talk to me.

So I'm booking the photoshoot (yay!), painstakingly writing my copy, researching web designers and getting everything prepped and primed so I can finally stop procrastinating and get a damned website. This is what happens when you go 5 years without promoting yourself. You skate along, barely making a peep, and then wake up one day with a nasty bug up your ass to get out there and give 'em hell. It is truly making me insane! ..c::

Visibility and search engine rankings, of course, are of the utmost importance to me as I pontificate on marketing strategies and draft up the master plan for my website. I have to say, however, that I'm fairly clueless about how these things work. I imagine a lot of this can be left in the hands of a trusty web designer, but I'd really love to become savvy in online marketing so I can take control of the rest. I'm already experienced, from previous jobs in P.R. in blogging, MySpace, and other "guerilla marketing" methods.

Somebody please give me the down and dirty: must-have catchphrases, copywriting concerns, blogging/MySpace success stories, anything and everything that spits you out at the "top of the charts," so to speak ..l;,

Well I work as a search engine optimiser.

Make sure you do keyword analysis using either

keyworddiscovery.com or
wordtracker.com

I think wordtracker as a free trial

You can also get a rough idea of keyword popularity by setting up google adwords ad campaign. In fact this might be better to do run an adwords campaign first to get some stats to see what keywords actually makes a lead ( which might not always be the keyword that brings the most traffic )

Then you need to make sure the website is search engine friendly, and that you get quality links from other websites.

That's seo in a nutshell.

I think there is a ebook that will explain what I have told you in more detail at

Learn. Rank. Dominate. : SEO Book.com

I was given the book but haven't read it.

I do Web site copy/revisions at work. I suggest writing all copy down first and even storyboarding it (drawing it or mapping it out so you can see it visually). This is especially helpful if you are giving your copy to a designer. I don't design Web sites, but I've always given designers clear expectations on what I want.

One key thing is keeping copy down to a minimum, especially on homepage. The Bio/about section can be the longest, with the second longest section, information about your gigs. That being said, according to Julie at the Belly Dance Business academy, search engines find pages based on content, meaning the actual words, not the name of the page...So when writing copy be very specific. If people are looking for a belly dancer in Durham, NC for example...they should be able to type in Belly Dancer Durham and if you have those words on your homepage, hopefully it will come up. Which brings me to my next tip, which I think is the most important...

Add your business information to Google Maps, Yahoo! Local and Microsoft GoLive. This really helps bump up your likliehood of getting on the top of the search page. It is easy and free! This means that they will map your location/information if someone is types in the key words you give them.

Also avoid crazy, funky fonts. Especially minimize how many fonts you use on one page and avoid lots of size changes as well as format changes.

Ask other dancers/Web site to trade links with you. Have a place on your site just for links. Especially see if you can get on Shira.net's links pages because her page is often #1 when people search for belly dance.

See what your local chamber of commerce and convention/visitors bureau can offer you.

You mentioned guerilla marketing. Here are all the ones I can think of...myspace, tribe, facebook, partypop, gathering guide, gigmasters, etc. Although I have found that on tribe and myspace especially, I don't get a lot of exposure because the people that see me are friends and other belly dancers...I sort of think of it as preaching to the choir, instead of finding a new niche.

If you have a state or regional bellydance site, add information there.

This page introduces the notion of search engines and directories: Belly Dancing: Getting Your Site Into The Indexes

Some times:

If you care about your search engine ranking, avoid flash. Flash is evil if you want high placement.

If you care about your search engine ranking, put words on your site as text, not embedded into pretty jpg or gif files.

I've written a lot of Web copy as well, and agree with Andalee's suggestions. From a planning perspective, make sure you know your keywords early on in the writing process so that you aren't revising what you thought was final copy - you'll want to weave those words in.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

This page introduces the notion of search engines and directories: Belly Dancing: Getting Your Site Into The Indexes

Some times:

If you care about your search engine ranking, avoid flash. Flash is evil if you want high placement.

If you care about your search engine ranking, put words on your site as text, not embedded into pretty jpg or gif files.

Thanks Shira! I just added my page to the Open Directory Project. Great tip!

One suggestion that I believe Shira gave me when I was setting up my website is to include the names of the surrounding communities you service in the text of one or more of your pages. I have had enormous success with this, as I am high or sometimes first in the page rankings if someone searches for "Belly Dance [suburb name]".

Originally Posted by *Shira*

This page introduces the notion of search engines and directories: Belly Dancing: Getting Your Site Into The Indexes
If you care about your search engine ranking, avoid flash. Flash is evil if you want high placement.

Flash is evil anyway! (Okay, to be fair, it's only evil most of the time. And to be fair, technologies don't hurt people, designers hurt people. And I have seen a few cases of flash being used in a useful and attractive way. But only a few!)

But, paraphrasing from websitesthatsuck.com, if you need a "skip intro" button, then it's a sign that your splash page will annoy (and possible alienate) your visitors, since it has no useful content, makes them either wait or click to get to what they really want.

Flash is an instant turnoff for me. I have no idea why so many people still insist on using it. Same with websites that have annoying music that plays on a constant loop. I hate to say it, but it's very often an indicator of lack of substance .w.:

Flash does make things look slick, from an aesthetic standpoint, but what happens when a client is looking to book you for a gig and all of a sudden your fancy art crashes their browser? Yeah, that's right. They go find another dancer with a simpler, more navigable website.

My sister designs websites and actively refuses to use Flash for all of the above reasons. The moment a client asks her for moving graphics, music, or any of that crap, she sends them packing to another designer.

Great suggestions, everyone. Time to read 'em and digest all this information.

Hi there--
One of my favorite topics ..g.:

Search engine optimization is much more content oriented these days. Google spent a fortune and P*ssed off a *lot* of writers in order to scan in every book and article they could get their hands on. All that went into their new algorithm which is based on actual words in *context* rather than just keywords randomly sprinkled through out a page. So, their spiders know what words should naturally appear together because they have millions of pieces to compare to. So, use keywords, but use them naturally within the context of what you're talking about (don't insert them artificially, Google will know)

One easy and quick way to get ranked highly is to write some valuable content, an article or something, and then submit it to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Propeller and others. It's easy and it works! Nadira did this last week for World Belly Dance Day--just one blog post and some well-placed submissions. Within an hour of her post, she was in spots 3 &4 on Google for the phrase "world belly dance day" (IIRC)

Remember that google ranks "pages" not "sites"...so whatever "page" is optimized, that's what will show up when someone types in your keyword. This is fine, as long as you have a good navigation system so folks can get to your home page from the page they land on. Also, make sure your contact info is easy to find on every page.

The google maps thing that Andalee suggested is a gold mine for local traffic! Hardly anyone recommends it, because few people know about it.

From a copywriting perspective, just remember who you're writing to and think about what *they* are looking for. Write directly to the market you're trying to attract. You may want to write about professional ethics among performers, but if your audience is students and people who want to hire you...maybe that article is better placed in a dance magazine. Include content that your audience wants to read.

KISS is the golden rule!

Good luck to you! (Oh and I sent you a PM a while back, did you ever get it?)
Mira

Oh, and *don't* assume that your designer and "web people" will know anything about marketing. Their job is to make with the pretty and the navigation...it's very rare to find a web person who knows anything about good marketing.

One note - the Google Maps thing requires you to put in your address. If you operate out of your home, you might be uncomfortable doing that.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

One note - the Google Maps thing requires you to put in your address. If you operate out of your home, you might be uncomfortable doing that.

I just put my classes on Google Maps after reading this thread (very useful, thank you!). I put two entries with my class locations - both halls I hire and not a registered business address (which is my home address and, not only is it not safe to give out, it's also irrelevant as to where my classes are held!). It seemed to accept this without question.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

One note - the Google Maps thing requires you to put in your address. If you operate out of your home, you might be uncomfortable doing that.

I think you can leave out the street number. Mine says Main St. There really is a Main St and it is a block away. On Go Live and Yahoo local you have the option of making your real address private. Google is the only one that you have to fake or something..w.:

Originally Posted by andalee-oriental

Thanks Shira! I just added my page to the Open Directory Project. Great tip!

Just out of curiosity did you get some kind of confirmation email that your information had been recieved? I'm asking becuase I tried to register a page through them and it seemed to hang up on accepting the little code at the bottom that proves your a person not a computer program. I'm wondering if I hit a glitch in the website and should resubmit

I thought I got an e-mail confirmation, but I just checked and it doesn't look like I did. I am pretty sure it went through because I did get confirmation after I submitted my information.

Originally Posted by andalee-oriental

I think you can leave out the street number. Mine says Main St. There really is a Main St and it is a block away. On Go Live and Yahoo local you have the option of making your real address private. Google is the only one that you have to fake or something..w.:

I live a few streets off of a very long street that spans the town. I suppose if I put my base of operations somewhere on that street, with no number, nobody will ever find me ..g.:

Google Maps is such a great idea!

You guys are all geniuses. Thanks for the helpful input!

Great thread! I needed some of this info too! Thanks Lisa!