Editorial: Are your visitors being "eaten" by a giant black hole?
By Derek Gehl

Whenever I surf on the Web, I always come across dozens of sites that are missing a VITAL ingredient to online success.

I wish I had to time to contact the owners of all these websites personally and tell them what a fatal mistake they're making!

Because the absence of this vital ingredient is like a giant, sucking black hole into which the vast majority of their visitors are vanishing, never to be heard from again.

... What is this key element they're missing?

An opt-in form!

An opt-in form is simply a small script-based form on your site that allows you to collect people's names and email addresses and add them to a database, so you can send them relationship-building emails in the future.

If you don't have an opt-in form to collect your visitors' contact information on your site, I can guarantee that you're only making a small fraction of the sales you could be making!

That's because the vast majority of online shoppers DON'T make a purchase on their first visit to a web site. Most people need a minimum of 7-8 points of contact with a business before they feel comfortable enough to buy from them.

So if you don't reach out to them and give them a compelling reason why they should give you their contact information-- so you can stay in touch with them and overcome their buyer resistance -- you'll never realize your full income potential.

Here are some more reasons why it's essential that you start building an opt-in list as soon as you possibly can...

• Your "opt-in" email list is made up of people who want to hear from you.
  
  They've visited your site, or they've come into your shop, and they've decided that they like what they see enough to give you their email address. They are actually inviting you to sell to them!
  
  
• You are giving your customers and subscribers something they've ASKED you for.
  
  When someone gives you their email address, they understand that you'll be using it to send them information they actually want to receive — meaning your opt-in list will be highly responsive to any email promotions you run in the future.
  
  
• You are developing valuable lifetime relationships with your customers and subscribers.
  
  Email allows you to contact the people on your list over and over again, so you can build genuine relationships with them. There's simply NO WAY you could do this offline without spending a fortune on printing and postage!
  
  
• Every time you send a mailing, the response is 100% measurable.
  
  Unlike other forms of marketing and advertising, email allows you to evaluate the success of your campaigns within just a few hours. This will save you thousands in wasted advertising dollars!
  
  
• Opt-in email marketing is effective... instantaneous... and FREE!
  
  This is my favorite thing about email marketing: You can contact your customers and subscribers whenever you want, with whatever offer you want, and it never costs you a single dime!

So those are the "whys"... now here are the "hows":

The key to growing your opt-in list is to convince your visitors to give you their contact information by offering an enticing free gift that's so valuable they can't say "no" to it.

What kind of free gift am I talking about?

Here are some ideas that have proven to be incredibly successful for us and our clients:

• An eBook on a topic that's of interest to your visitors
  
  
• A free report full of valuable information
  
  
• A free subscription to an online newsletter that covers topics your visitors want to know more about
  
  
• A free "how-to" course, delivered as a series of emails
  
  
• Entry into a contest for a fabulous prize!
  
  (Just make sure that prize isn't the product you sell... after all, who's going to BUY a product when they have a chance to win it for free?)

It doesn't matter if you're currently set up to deliver email promotions or not... You should get an opt-in form on your site and start building your opt-in list NOW.

Then, once your email marketing efforts are set up and ready to go, you'll have a large list of people you can start mailing to!

If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of email marketing, and how it can boost the profits of ANY business (online OR off) -- I suggest you check out my best-selling course, Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business on the Internet.

It will tell you exactly what you need to do start running highly lucrative email campaigns that will boost your profits by at least 50% -- or more!

To learn more, visit: www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html

To your opt-in success,

Derek Gehl

"Spider bait": Your website's keyword hot spots
By Nicole Ephgrave

Recently, a reader named Ayub asked us the following question:

"How can you put in keywords and place them strategically when you already have your sales page developed and your website up and running? Does this mean we will have to change the wording of the sales pitch again to get the right keyword density etc?"

Yes, Ayub -- I'm afraid that's exactly what it means.

If your site isn't optimized for your top-performing keywords, then it's attracting only a fraction of the qualified visitors it should be getting. That's why you need to put in the time necessary to rewrite your salescopy and optimize your site for your keywords.

It'll take you some time to accomplish this... but I promise you, the payoff will be HUGE.

By placing your top-performing keywords in strategic places on your website, you tell the search engine "spiders" that those keywords describe exactly what your site is all about. And that's what convinces the search engines to include your site in the search results for those keywords.

So... where should you put your keywords on your site?

Here are the strategic "hot spots" that are considered most important by the search engine "spiders":

Keyword hotspot #1: Your domain name

The search engines REALLY like URLs that are saturated with keywords! Sites whose domain names include keywords will likely rank higher in the search engine results for those keywords than sites that don't.

Brainstorm a list of URLs containing some of your hottest keywords.

Next, check if the domain name is available by entering it into www.DomainTools.com.

Did you find a keyword-rich domain that's available? If so, you should definitely consider snapping it up! (Even if you already have another URL, you can set this new domain up to automatically forward visitors to your existing URL.)

You want to get that domain working for YOU -- instead of your competitors!

Keyword hotspot #2: A well-written title tag

Your title tag is a simple piece of HTML code that's located in the "head," or top, of your Web page.

Within the source of your web page, it looks something like this:

In your title tag, include a descriptive, accurate bit of text that describes your business clearly, letting potential visitors know EXACTLY what they can expect to find on your site.

For example, if "discount yoga mats" is your main keyword phrase, then in your title tags you could write something like:

As you can see, your main keyword phrase "Discount yoga mats" is in there twice, and the word "yoga" is used a number of times.

Keyword hotspot #3: Your headline tags

A headline tag (or tag) is like a brightly colored post-it note within your HTML source code that alerts search engine spiders to your headline and subheads — places that contain important information, according to the search engines.

HTML tags look like this:

< h1 >, < h2 >, < h3 >

As you can see, they always contain a number, since the search engine spiders view them in order of importance — an < h1 > tag is more important to note than an tag, for example.

Framed around a headline, an tag looks like this within your source code:

< h1 >Looking for a great selection of discount yoga supplies for all yoga levels and all types of yoga?< /h1 >
You should use an < h1 > only once around your main headline, and < h2 > tags around your subhead, like so:

< h1 >Looking for a great selection of discount yoga supplies for all yoga levels and all types of yoga?< /h1 >

< h2 >We've got the best quality yoga mats, yoga videos, and yoga gear at the deepest discounts!
< /h2 >

(Notice how we included more "yoga" keywords in the subhead? This is another keyword hotspot opportunity you shouldn't pass up!)

Keyword hotspot #4: Your image tags

The only thing search engine spiders can "digest" as they crawl your web page is text. Spiders can't index images so they skip right over them. But by placing keywords within the source code of your images, you can transform them into spider bait!

Here's an example of what a regular image looks like in your source code:

< img src="myimage.jpg" height="120" width="476" >

As you can see, this piece of HTML code identifies the location of the image — "myimage.jpg" — to ensure it gets loaded to your web page.

But by adding an tag, which is simply a place to insert text within this image HTML code, you can add more of your keywords to your web page, like this:

< img src="myimage.jpg" alt="Blowing Bubbles Bubble Gum Factory - homemade bubble gum - bubble gum kits" height="120" width="476" >

So instead of finding boring old source code attached to your image, the search engine spiders will find more keywords to index!

Keyword hotspot #5: Your description "meta tags"

A description meta tag describes the purpose of your web page and ideally sits just below the title tag in the source code of your web site.

Description meta tags look like this:

< meta name="description" content="Blowing Bubbles Bubble Gum Factory: your one-stop homemade bubble gum kit source offering entertainment for the whole family!" >

The text you include in your description tag usually appears as the blurb that's included in your listing in the search results. This blurb gives searchers an idea of what your site is about before they click through to it.

However, not all search engines use your description meta tag to summarize your site — some will generate a random description from your web page content!

Even still, it's worthwhile to include the tag in your source code for the ones that do feature it in the listing.

Keyword hotspot #6: Your keyword "meta tags"

A keyword meta tag usually sits right under your description meta tag. At one time the keyword meta tag was essential for letting the search engine spiders know the keywords a web page was optimized for.

Keyword meta tags look like this:

< meta name="keyword" content="homemade bubble gum kits, make your own bubble gum, making bubble gum" >

Here are a few guidelines for writing spider-friendly keyword meta tags:

• List the 2-3 keywords you're optimizing that particular page for in order of importance, with your main keywords appearing first.
  
  
• Separate keywords with a space comma or space, but avoid words like "and," "or," and "but" which take up room and are ignored by the spiders anyway.
  
  
• Don't overdo it on your keywords. If search engines think you are "keyword spamming," you run the risk of being penalized.

And last, but certainly NOT least...

Keyword hotspot #7: Your salescopy

In the search engine's eyes, your web page content is a VERY important element of your web site.

... This because search engine spiders "crawl" through your site looking for text that tells them how to categorize your material.

The spiders also check how relevant your site is to certain search terms, so you'll want to be sure to pepper your top-performing keywords strategically throughout your salescopy.

The optimal spots to put keywords on your web pages are:

• At least once in your first paragraph of content (two or three times, if possible)
  
  
• At least once in your last paragraph of content (again, two or three times would be better)
  
  
• A few more mentions in the body of your content if you can get away with it

In addition to your main keywords, you should also use slight variations and synonyms of them.

For example, if your keyword phrase is "legitimate home business opportunity," be sure to include similar phrases, such as "legitimate home business opportunities," "legitimate business opportunity," and "work-at-home business opportunity." Not only will your content read better, the search engines will love it!

... Finally, I just want to point out that you should only try to optimize each page of your website for 2-3 keywords MAXIMUM. (That includes your main keyword and one or two secondary keywords.) You simply won't be able to do an effective job if you try to optimize your site for too many different keywords at once.

(However, you CAN optimize each page of your site for 2-3 different keywords -- and I highly recommend you do exactly that! But that's a topic for a different newsletter...)

So, Ayub -- and everyone else whose website isn't properly optimized for the search engines -- I hope that answers your questions about whether you should revamp your copy to include your main keywords.

Once again, the answer is a big, fat YES!

It will take some time and effort on your part... but the resulting flood of qualified traffic you'll get from the free search engines will be well worth it!

[Ed. note: Nicole Ephgrave is our in-house SEO "wizard." You can meet up with her in our exclusive "members-only" Search Marketing Lab.]