Tahoe Web Service

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Ready? Set? Go! Lets Advertise

Now this is one thing that we get all the time.. “What are the best ways to advertise my new website and how to get people to my new website”. This is a perfect question to ask us.

The other day we launched our brand new DEMO for future clients to try out. It was nice to get a phone call from a current client (Cocoa Jeans USA over at www.cocoajeansusa.com) as this really broke up the stress of demo release day, not to mention since we did that I thought why not re-do our website a bit (is short kind of like cleaning house).

In a nut shell. The best ways to advertise your website is really up to you. Every person likes to do things different. When it comes to the big word of ADVERTISE there really is not a right or a wrong way to do this. Some folks are excited about pay per click others say the new web 2.0 mumbo jumbo via social networks is the best way to go.  So with that said, it is safe to say that if the world just offered one way to advertise the entire world would be doing it.

So where do you start? This question reminds me of a movie that BIll Murray was in called “What About Bob”. If any of your recall this movie, Bob had some problems (very funny movie). His Dr. told Bob all about taking what he called “Baby Steps”, so that is a perfect way to go about things. Advertising your website and business or service shold be done in steps.

Your first step should be placing a few advertisements on some online classifieds (see list below). Reason that I say this is… One of our clients Tahoe Pine Works (www.tahoepineworks.com) has done this very same thing, starting out with just a few ads per wk. to now placing ads daily… With permission from them! I can tell you that they pick up about 40,000 hits per month. They have done this without spending one dime on ads. We know this works because of course we also do this.

Step Two: Now I have to be upfront and tell you that I really am not sure about this one, but I see a lot of people doing it and I can tell you that it makes my teeth grind. The new wave these days is to hire a company to (a company that cliams) that they can get you listed in a matter of 24 hrs in all the top search engines… for a fee (FYI: You can do this free yourself). I ran into one company that cliams that they can have you listed in a day… If you ask me this is just not possible as they places do not control what Goodle or Yahoo and for that matter MSN does, sites they list, etc. Now I am not saying to NOT DO THIS! I am just saying that you should really look into the company prior to sending in any money, You can also call us at 1-866-720-3012 if you would like us to look into this company with you.

Step 3. Of course we always have the pay per click deal… Most of you know my stand on that one.. Nothing wrong with doing something like that.. Just watch your account so you do not have sticker shock when your bill comes.

With all that being said.. Take a look at this list and try out some free places to run ads.. I think you will be suprised on just how many customers you pick up.. Best of luck and do not forget we are always around should you need any help with this.

www.adlandpro.com

www.adpost.com

www.backpage.com

www.buysell.com

www.chooseyouritem.com

www.classifiedads.com

www.craigslist.com

www.e-classifieds.com

www.epage.com

www.gumtree.com

www.inetgiant.com

www.livedeal.com

www.tahoewebservice.com

Read more »

July 14, 2008 Posted by tahoewebservice | Marketing Tips & Tricks | , , | No Comments

How To Get Listed In Google

Hello,

Today we had the great pleasure of speaking with one of our clients in detail about getting posted or I should say listed in Google. So I thought I would pass on some information that I have found useful on getting into Google and other search engines.

We all know the majority of visitors to your web site will probably come through seach engines. We also all know that there are currently 4 major search engines (if I have missed a few by saying only 4, sorry and please feel free to add the search engines that you like.) and search listings services that you should be aware of. They are Google, Yahoo, DMOZ and MSN, the main search engine being that of Google. (we shall see what Yahoodoes since the purchase, read last blog about that purchase.)

Google is ranked right now as the largest (ranking info comes from most major news sites). I would say that 70% of all searches done on the Internet are made using Google’s search listings.  I know myself I spend most of the day searching Google should I need to look up things, on the rare occasion I may venture on over to Yahoo or MSN to look a few things up.

One needs to know that it is FREEto get listed on Google, Since they account for such a large number of searches on the Internet, I feel that it is very important to make sure that you get your web site listed in Google. If you notice I said it is FREE to get listed, I always hate to hear a person paying some company thousands of dollars to list them in Google. FYI you really do not need to pay people do this for you, you can do it yourself as chances are it will be done! (no pun intended to those honest companies out there that do really help one get listed in Google.)

There are two ways to get listed in Google.

1. You can submit your site to Google directly. You can doing this yourself by heading on over to http://www.google.com/addurl/  and entering your domain name. Once on that site you have to enter your domain name in the following format http://www.anydomainname.com of course replace the anydomainname.com with your own domain name.

Do not submit your web site more than once a week to Google. They will no doubt think you are spamming them, it could also delay your site being listed or even worse it can get your web site banned which you DEFINITELY do not wan to take place.

Google says they update their web site listings every few weeks or so ( I think that would be pretty safe to say they crawl maybe once a month or so?) however I could be way off base as I have listed web sites that have shown up in a day or two. You can read more about the crawl process over at Google’s crawl information by following this link.

2. Google can and will find your web site on it’s own. The second you start to work on your web site, Google is going to crawl this web site. Google has tons upon tons of robots or as some like to say search spiders which travel from web site to web site (I would assume just like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.) When one of the spiders visits a site the spider will catalog all the information about that site. Google uses the information it may gather from spiders to help decide weather or not to list the web site in a specific category and to decide where the web site will show up within that category. For example, on page 1 (we all want page 1) of the results or on page 50 or page 150, etc. etc. etc.

Google goes from site to site via links as well. How do you get Google to visit your web site via links? simple if a link to your web site appears on another web stie taht Google spiders already listed in Google, Google will go from that site to your web site and then get all the information from your web site. This is why at times you may index your web site on Google (index like site:yourwebsite.com) you will find your web site mixed upon a lot of other things. This is something Craigs List is very well known for. You may post a add on Craigs List, index your web site, chances are you will see your site link mixed with other places that have posted on Craigs List that day.

We hope this information was of some help. Keep in mind it may take some time on when you will get listed in Google or other search engines. Rest assured your web site will get picked up sooner or later.

Len Cavanaugh

Owner

Tahoe Web Service

www.tahoewebservice.com

February 29, 2008 Posted by tahoewebservice | Marketing Tips & Tricks | , , | No Comments

20 Simple Ways To Get Massive Traffic To Your Web Site

Good Evening,

 

We had the pleasure of reading an article by Penny  Sansevieri CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.

Since we like to pass on information to our clients that we feel are terrific ways to get more traffic to the websites you are working on we thought we would pass this on for your reading enjoyment.  Now I cannot tell you much about the program or books they offer. I can tell you that after reading the article I was impressed enough to pass it on to Len Cavanaugh owner of Tahoe Web Service. Len then contacted Penny to see if we can pass this news along to all of you. In the brief conversation Len had with Penny I can tell you I received two thumbs up to post the information. With that said I would like to thank Penny for allowing me to use the information, any CEO or founder of a company that will take time out of a busy day to help others shows they hold the same standards as us. I for one am sure to look into this service Penny has to offer further. If any of you look into this prior to me! Then please let me know what you thought. Till then good luck and enjoy…..

Matt R.

Tahoe Web Service Designer

Matt@tahoewebservice.com

www.tahoewebservice.com

Embarking on an Internet marketing campaign doesn’t have to be difficult, tricky, or complicated. Here are a few simple ways (twenty in fact) that you can easily implement to get tons of traffic to your site right now!

1) Write articles: believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic. Well-written, relevant articles can net quite a bit of activity to your web site. Don’t forget to add your URL in your byline. Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length. You can send articles to sites like: Article City, GoArticles, Submit Your Articles and Ezine Articles.

2) Social bookmark *everything* - and I do mean everything - you can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem tedious, it’s worth it. You’ll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries.

3) List yourself in the best directories – you’ll have to pay for this but since most people don’t do this (since everyone’s looking for a freebie) you could really enhance your traffic by getting a listing: dir dot yahoo dot com, business dot org, botw dot org.

4) Get yourself listed at: DMOZ dot org – it’s not easy to get listed there, but worth the effort.

5) Review: if you can review hot new products or books within your market, head on over to Amazon and start positioning yourself as an expert. In order to do this effectively you’ll want to create an Amazon profile and make sure and sign each review with a reference to your URL (your web site). You can also go to Epinions and Revoo to review products as well.

6) Offer a freebie on Craig’s List: you’ll be amazed at how much traffic you get from a single Craig’s List ad. The key here is to send people to a page on your site and make sure they have to sign up for something (like your email newsletter) before they can grab their freebie. That way you’re not just getting traffic, you’re also building your list.

7) Create a “recommended by” list on your Delicious page – you can do this by logging on and creating an account and there and then tagging articles, blogs and other content you think is important to your readership. Then offer this page as a resource site. You can add a link to this page in your email signature line or on your web site.

8) And speaking of your email signature line… do you have one? If you don’t, create one. Believe it or not, people do follow these links. You’ll be amazed how many folks read email signature lines. I have one and change it several times a year, depending on what we’re doing or promoting or what books I have coming out.

9) Lend a helping hand: you can be an answer person at Yahoo Answers – you don’t have to spend hours on there, but maybe a few minutes a week. Make sure and include a link back to your site following your answers.

10) Set up a social networking site using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Squidoo. It’s free and easy to do, just don’t forget the all-important link back to your site!

11) Make sure your blog has an RSS feed so if you capture a reader you don’t lose them if they forget to bookmark your site or blog.

12) Join relevant groups at Yahoo groups. You’ll find everything from groups on growing your small business, writing books, finding your passion, even underwater basket weaving. I dare you to find one that isn’t right for what you’re promoting. When you do find the right group, join and participate as you can!

13) Podcasting is another great way to drive traffic. Start a podcast by going to Audio Acrobat. There are other programs you can use, but I love Audio Acrobat. You can record the podcast over the phone quickly and easily and then hit the “send” button on your computer once it’s recorded and the system will syndicate it to 27 podcast directories including iTunes. It’s a great way to let people know about you and your web site!

14) Start a blog and then once you do, start commenting on other people’s blogs, linking to them from your site or adding them to your blogroll.

15) Inbound links: don’t squander your time (or a perfectly good link) on smaller low-traffic sites. Instead spend your time going after high traffic, high quality sites. Good sites should have a PR (page ranking) of 4-6 depending on the market. You can find out what a site’s page ranking is by downloading the Google toolbar which comes with a PR feature built in.

16) Start an email newsletter: while it may not seem like a newsletter that you email can drive traffic to your site you’d be surprised at the effectiveness of this type of promotion. If your newsletter (like your articles) is interesting and relevant to your audience, you’ll find that it has a huge pass-through factor, meaning that it is passed from one email subscriber to another. Also, if you have an email newsletter you should never, ever go to a single event without your handy signup sheet. Yes, you can even use offline events to drive traffic to your web site.

17) And speaking of offline efforts: if you’re ever quoted in a magazine or other publication, make sure and mention your URL as it’s appropriate to the topic. Don’t be too pushy about this, but do not forget to tell folks you have a web site that may be a great resource for the topic of your interview.

1 8) If you have products to sell, why not get a store on eBay? This site gets a tremendous amount of traffic and on your sales page you’re allowed to list your URL. It’s another great way to get an inbound link and a way for people to find you.

19) Load a video on YouTube and 57 other video sites (the rest listed on my Red Hot Internet Publicity blog).

20) While this isn’t a tip per se, it’s still important. If you’re going to go through all the trouble of getting traffic to your site, make sure your site is converting this traffic into something. Get folks to sign up for something, your newsletter, the RSS feed on your blog. Whatever it is, getting their email address will help you remarket to them when the time is right. Studies show that visitors landing on a site often don’t buy the first time. That’s ok! You want to get them into your marketing funnel so you can market to them again and again – not in a way that’s obtrusive, offensive or downright annoying, but in a way that is helping them with their own mission.

An example of this might be an email newsletter. A helpful, informative newsletter is a fantastic funnel. A blog is another great way to keep people in your marketing loop without bombarding them with “please buy my stuff” email messages. Also, make sure you know what your traffic numbers are before you launch into any Internet marketing campaign. By traffic numbers I mean how many people are visiting your site. You want to know this so you can gauge a before and after view of your marketing efforts.

About The Author
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit
AMarketingExpert.com

January 28, 2008 Posted by tahoewebservice | Marketing Tips & Tricks | | No Comments

Promote Your Site

Welcome to our list of tips helping you promote your site, improve search engine ranking and attract visitors. These are all free, easy to do, and do not require a large time investment.

Optimize your site and get listed: For starters if we have designed your site for you, your website is already ready for this. If you are working on your own website or just dropping in to check out our website then we hope this helps you out some. First and this is very important you must optimize your website for the search engines and then list it with them.

Exchange Links: Getting other websites to link to your site will increase your “Site Popularity” in the search engines eyes. Doing this is one of the most significant factor that will affect your rankings. Tahoe Web Services offers a linking program that we will add to your website. Joining link exchange programs will help in attracting people to exchange links with. If you google search “Link Exchange” you are sure to come up with thousands of places to do this.

Forums & Boards: If you join a forum that is related to things that your website is about is a prime opportunity to list your site URL in your forum signature (this will be crawled by the search engines) It also allows you to refer people back to your website. We are involved in a few forums “When We Have Time” and have spoken with many people about site development and hosting services; this has helped us bring customers that at the time were very unhappy with their host or the way their website was built. We have had the chance to turn things around for them and their website. So it pays to visit online communities as you never know when a customer is posting about something that they need and you can produce. We do not recommend joining every forum on the net! Stick with forums that are related to you and your product.

Newsletters: Publishing newsletter about your product is a great way to spread the word about what you are doing. You will want to try to send out one issue per month (anything more then that will be just like spam! And well every one knows that people hate spam). When you publish your news letter you are going to want to place links to your website or products or direct them to pages on your website that they can find more information on the subject. You can find many free mailing list programs by searching google.

ADD URL’s: By doing a search on the internet using the terms “add url” will help you find pages that you can add your websites link for free. Our you can try the term “niche and your subject”. By doing this, you will be listing your website on thousands of pages. Again you will want to stick to places that are related to your website! For example if your site is about “birds” well you are not going to want to list it on a page that is about “cats”.

Network: Place a link to your website when the opportunity arises. Try adding your link in your email signature, forums, business cards, voicemail, etc. The more your link is out in the publics eye! The better off you are.

Give Away Things: Offer free information, links, samples, what ever might be applicable to your website and business. This will better guarantee that your site may be personally referred to someone else. Doing this will also help by attracting visitors to your site and provide an opportunity for them to explore more of your website.

Business Cards: Hand them out with your website URL on them. Leave them behind in stores, after you dine out leave a card on the table, hand them out when you are in a large group of people, or whenever an opportunity exists. You can either pay to have these cards printed or you can purchase a program at a reasonable price in any office supply store. Of course doing this yourself will suck your ink dry! And we all know how much ink costs these days. Many companies offer deals of getting 100 cards free with the purchase of 100 cards, etc. Google will offer many locations that you can search for business card makers and programs.

Use Your Car: Have a bumper sticker, window decal or magnetic door panels created with your site’s URL. A driving billboard if you will. 

Wear Your Website: Of course this is an age old solution, but it works!! Place your URL on hats, shirts, etc with your logo and site URL. Wear them around town. Give them to friends and family or even send them out with product! Everyone likes a free shirt, Trust me they will wear these items and bring you free advertising. We  have seen and heard of  people using cafe press. I have no clue on the quality of product they offer! but it might just be something for you to check into.

Your Home Town: Do not forget about your home town. Many people when they get on the World Wide Web! They stretch their marketing all over the place and forget about the home town they are in. Many future customers are living in your home town or maybe even right next door. Place some of your logos, URL, flyers, etc. at your local supermarkets, post office, library, neighborhood, churches, schools, your local newspaper, etc. Chances are people will be pretty interested in buying or visiting the site of a local person.

Affiliate Programs: Sign up for one of these programs such as Commission Junction (cj.com) this will allow people to place your product or a banner on their site. Of course this can get pretty costly at times! However the price could be out weighed by some major sales on your end. I would look into any program costs prior to signing up! These programs may or may not work and could suck your budgeting for marketing dry very quickly. Hey but it is worth looking into.

Len Cavanaugh

Owner

www.tahoewebservice.com

September 26, 2007 Posted by tahoewebservice | Marketing Tips & Tricks | | No Comments