Las Vegas PubCon 2009. Hanging out at PubCon has been a blast, I’m here with my protection (the Social Networking Ninjas) and we are checking out the exhibitors on the convention floor today. I plan to give a more in-depth review of PubCon when I have more time but a few of the folks that caught my attention are: LotusJump, PR Web, and Seo Samba, very cool stuff!

On the down side I lost my parlay bet on the Colorado Avalanche game last night and I also failed miserably at the roulette wheel. Hopefully tonight will paint a different picture.

On second thought I don’t think I will add to this review. PubCon was a bit of a disappointment. Whatever you do DON’T pay for the exhibit hall, it’s a monumental waste of money. No offense PubCon but that should have been free. On the bright side I ended up winning back almost all of my money on the roulette wheel and Mario Batailli’s restaurant was AWESOME!!!!

Choosing the right domain name is vital

Choosing the right domain name for your website can be one of the most important things you can do to get good, free, organic traffic. If you are not a huge corporation with millions of dollars to spend on branding your website you will need to pick a domain name that is search engine friendly and adds to your overall SEO strategy. And that my friends is the focus of this article, i.e., picking the right domain name that doesn’t require massive marketing dollars for branding.

When you are ready to start your domain name search you can use the built-in tools that GoDaddy provides or you can use fun tools such as Domjax which makes searching for a domain name kinda fun.

The five most important things to consider when picking a domain name:

#5. Keep the domain name 5 words or less

Big companies who use traditional marketing will want to keep their domain names to no more than one or two words, but us little guys who are shooting for SEO traffic can pick domain names that are much longer. There is nothing wrong with a domain name that has 3, 4, or even 5 words in it. Remember, we aren’t going to be creating TV ads or print ads so we don’t really care (within reason) how long our domain name is. Longer domain names are of course much more likely to be available.

#4. Don’t use a trademarked brand names in your domain name

If you include ipod, iphone, zune, ebay, toyota, or any other brand name in your domain you will most likely be asked by a lawyer to cease and desist, and all the work you would have put into your site will be a complete waste of time. No matter how good the domain name sounds, and no matter how compelled you are to buy chevypartsforsalecheap.com DON’T DO IT!!! Trust me on this one. Find other names that get across the same idea that don’t infringe on copyrights.

#3. Don’t listen to those that say avoid hyphens

Many SEO experts will tell you to avoid hyphens in your domain name such as electric-socks.com, and if we were branding our website through traditional means such as television commercials or print advertising I would agree with those experts. But our goal as the “little guy” is to get organic traffic via the search engines and therefore hyphens are not such a bad thing. I have created several websites that do great in the search engines and they have hyphens in their domain name. That being said, if I have the option to pick an unhyphenated domain name I would pick that over the hyphenated name. Said in short… unhyphenated domain names are the best but hyphenated domain names are not a “deal killer”.

#2. Pick a “dot com” domain name

Avoid the .info’s, .tv’s, .us’s, .me’s, and all the other wacky types of domain names. Yes it’s true you might be able to grab that perfect .bz domain name but typically these types of domain names do not perform very good from an SEO perspective. The only possible exception is .net which isn’t a deal killer but I would still stick with the .com’s if at all possible.

#1. Use your targeted keyword phrase in your domain name

This of course is the most important factor of them all to consider. If you are shooting for the keyword phrase “electric socks” make sure that the words “electric socks” are in your domain name. If electricsocks.com is available buy it! If not, buy electric-socks.com or electricsocksforsale.com. Plural domain names are a good choice because you cover two keyword phrases with one shot, for instance electricsocks.com covers the search electric sock as well as the search phrase electric socks, whereas the domain electricsock.com might not be as effective for both searches. If your domain name does not contain your targeted keyword phrase it will be much more difficult to get a page one listing in Google.

Other helpful things to consider when picking a domain name

I recommend buying your domain name for at least 5 years. My research indicates that Google rewards domain names that will be around for awhile. From Google’s perspective they probably figure that domain names that are only purchased for a year might be less valuable because the owner is just “testing the waters”. The longer your domain name has been registered to you the better it will do in search results, so it only stands to reason that if you buy it for a longer term contract from the “get go” the search engines may reward you with better results sooner.

Be very careful when buying existing domain names from other people. You have NO IDEA what that domain name has been through prior to you acquiring it. I have had colleagues get kicked out of affiliate programs or been blackballed by search engines because of the shenanigans that the former domain name owner was involved in. If you don’t know for certain that the domain name is squeaky clean avoid it! Even though mature domain names perform better it’s much safer to buy a new domain name.

Picking the right domain name for your website is the cornerstone to your overall SEO strategy. Don’t rush it, take your time, do your research, and pick a domain name that will help you acquire the organic traffic that in turn will help you make money online!

Please add your own comments below about what you think are helpful tips when buying domain names.

Create content that people are searching for.

So you have started your blog and started your social networking campaign and you are ready to start adding content to your blog, if you have a tight niche the topics you choose will obviously need to be relevant to your niche. But if your blog is more general (maybe it’s an opinion based blog) and you are considering what type of content to add, you should create and add content that people are looking for. It’s the major search engines job to discover content that fills a gap. People are searching for information, and the search engines guide them to that information. Therefore if you are creating content that people are looking for it’s likely the search engines will reward you with sending traffic your way.

So how do you find out what people are searching for? BOOKMARK THIS PAGE!

You can visit this page daily and we will keep you up to date on the most popular Google searches.

Most popular searches (give each chart a moment to calculate)

Check back here daily and do your best to stay on top of the trending topics that people are interested in. The more you provide content that is in demand, the more the search engine will reward you, the more the search engines reward you, the more traffic your website will receive, and of course the more traffic your website gets the more money you can make online!

Simple to follow, easy to read, SEO cheat sheet.

The single most important thing to get visitors to your website is the basic structure of your website. There are certain things you can do to make certain that your website is “search engine friendly”. If you ignore these basic rules you can just about guarantee that your website will fail. At InternetPoop.com we have created a super simple, easy to read, search engine optimization (SEO) cheat sheet for you. Download it, print it out, make 15 thousand copies of it and wallpaper your office.

Our free SEO cheat sheet will help you get the foundation of your website set so that all the other traffic building strategies you choose to employ will not be a waste of time. After all, what could be worse than building an entire website and marketing strategy around a website that will never show up correctly (if at all)  in the search engines?

Download our free SEO cheat sheet and get started! Oh, and don’t forget to go back to websites and pages you have created in the past and fix the mistakes you might have made before you knew better.

5 Tips for Getting Internet Traffic

Once you have created your first website (or blog) you will need to get people to visit your website otherwise you will have ZERO chance of being able to monetize your website (i.e., make money from your website) . Keep in mind there are literally billions of websites on the internet so how can you get people to visit yours? The answer to this question is not exactly simple and if you ask 10 different internet experts you might get 10 different answers. But there are some universal strategies to follow that will help you get traffic to your website. You can also get web visitors by spending money on internet banners and text ads (Google AdSense is an example) but the tips below are free options that I believe every website should start with.

5 Easy tips for getting traffic for your website…

1. Choose a niche for your website that people are searching for on the internet. If you pick a niche for your website that only interests you, then only you will will likely ever visit your website. Yet that being said, if you pick a topic that is too broad (such as: news of the day) it will be very difficult for you to compete with the millions of similar websites on the net. Pick a topic (niche) that is narrow enough for you to be able to compete yet not so narrow that there is no interest in the topic. There are a couple free tools that can help you find what people are searching for on the internet: SEOBook Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Tool.

2. Optimize your website for the niche you are shooting for. Lets assume your niche/topic is: knitting for teenagers – make sure to include this phrase in your websites title tag, meta description, meta keywords, H1 title, and within the body of your text and don’t forget to bold, underline, the phrase occasionally. Optimizing your website for your target audience is how you will let Google, Yahoo, and Bing know that your website is about knitting for teenagers! Yet as I say on every tip… don’t over do it. Your website needs to be sensible, it shouldn’t be composed of your keyword phrase typed over and over again (that get’s flagged as spam).

3. Create a social networking strategy for your website. Start a Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube account just for this specific blog/website. Start following folks and befriending people who have similar interests. Even if your site has no content yet start collecting friends, this process can take time so get started now. When you are just getting started make friendly posts and don’t try to sell them anything, just create connections that will be valuable later. Once you start adding content to your website/blog you can start to give your friends and followers links to your website (and specifically your newly posted articles). If your friends and followers like you because you haven’t abused your relationship with spam they will start spreading your links around to their network of friends, and that is viral marketing! Remember never abuse your connections by constantly sending them links to your site, the only thing that will accomplish is losing connections. Use common sense… if you don’t like getting bombarded with the sales pitch, neither will your connections. (in this case the sales pitch is driving traffic to your new blog post)

4. Get backlinks on other websites that are relevant to your website/blog. (a backlink is a link to your site from another site) Search the internet for blogs and community forums that feature similar topics to your blog. You could send the webmaster an email and ask to swap links, many times fellow webmasters are more than willing to do this because it helps them as well. Or, you can comment on their blog posts, forum, or guestbook, with a friendly supportive comment and leave your link in the comment (there is usually a spot for your link in the comment form – see our comment form below as an example). DO NOT SPAM! Avoid the urge to merely spam your link on blogs without also leaving a comment that appears to be written by a human who actually read the article in question. Webmasters are smart, they can spot “copy and paste” spamming when they see it. In fact you will eventually become good at spotting spam yourself. Webmasters also don’t like folks who drop links on their site that are not relevant to the content on their site (that’s another spamming red flag).

A note about internet forums. I have been in the internet forum business since the very beginning and I can tell you that if you drop a link to your website in your first post or two you will likely be banned right off the bat which will be a waste of your time. When posting on internet forums get into the flow of the conversation and add valuable info to the topics, then as time passes you will find un-spammy ways to add your links (possibly in your forum signature).

5. Keep your content fresh. Google, Yahoo, and Bing (the major search engines) will reward your site if the content changes on a regular basis. If your site doesn’t change month after month you will drop in the SERPs (SERP = Search Engine Results Page). A blog post will often get its best search engine placement the first couple weeks after it has been posted. Therefore, if your site isn’t being updated your site will be dropping in the results pages. Lets assume you have 15 pre-written blog posts for your website, it would be a bad idea to post them all on the first day you opened your blog. Instead, it would be better to post one post per week for 15 weeks. This strategy would tell the search engines that your blog is being regularly updated and your site is not a ghost site.

Keep in mind there are many other tips and tricks for getting traffic to come to your website but this article represents the basics i.e., the foundation of a successful website. I would love to get your comments below regarding other tips and tricks that you feel are successful for gaining internet traffic.

SEO is the art of making your website, search engine friendly.

In my ongoing effort to “start at the beginning”, before we tackle SEO tips and tricks we must first answer the question… What is SEO??? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In the most basic sense SEO is making sure that your website is friendly to search engines (search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing). Search engines are the life-blood of making money online. To make money online you need visitors coming to your website that are interested in the topic that is the focus of your website.

Question: How will your perspective customers find your website?
Answer: Search engines.

While there are other ways (besides search engines) to drive traffic to your website the best way is to have your website be displayed when somebody searches for it via a search engine. Yet search engines can be picky. Search engines such as Google use robots to go out and index (i.e., review, and catalog) and determine how highly these website should be ranked or listed when a web user searches for something relevant on the internet.

If your website is not properly optimized for search engines your website will be ranked so low (or not even at all) that you will get very little traffic and therefore have a difficult time making money online. Getting into the specifics of SEO at this point is beyond the purpose of this article but I will tell you that your <title> tag, meta description tag <meta name=“description”>, and having a <h1> descriptive title within the body of your web page are some of the most important SEO optimizations you can make. As time goes on we will investigate all the “ins and outs” of SEO techniques but in the meantime review your web pages, are they saved with file names that properly describe what is on that page? Does your domain name feature your main topic? Do you have descriptive meta tags and h1 titles? Optimizing these minor things you can get dramatic increases in traffic after just a week or two.

There is literally a mountain of information on the internet regarding SEO, therefore if you don’t want to wait until we start getting into SEO details simply do a search for SEO on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, and you can get started optimizing your website right away.