Find your NICHE on the internet!

I read a lesson today on NICHE marketing basically on the internet!  Lets take my industry – Engraving.  Lets just say the chance of me getting to the top 10 on the internet JUST because of Trophies isn’t very likely!  I mean engravers or trophy house are plentiful aren’t they?  I can’t say that I’m someone in the middle of quality, because I don’t think I am!  We do a good job, but how many times are people willing to go do page 30 of the internet to find me?  People on the internet AREN’T very patience!  I know I’m not either at times!  LOL!  Its the same thing when you hear about people that sell baskets, children’s clothing, jewelry for example! 

I decided I was going to take this free SEO course that I found online.  SEO Training by GNC Web Creations is the name of it, and its all yahoo group based.  It has lessons that you do to learn.  I may not be able to apply EVERYTHING to my free website, but it will give me a good idea of what I need when purchase of webspace comes into the picture!

As you can guess the lesson today was about finding your NICHE!  One of the teacher’s examples was she does web design, and made a point of letting every one know just HOW MANY web designers there are!  She targets (for one thing) motorcyles websites!

She mentions that every page within your website is a door to people.  My example may not be as DYNAMIC, but I will give a try!  One page on my site may be dedicated to SOCCER TROPHIES, and another page BASEBALL TROPHIES.  If I have one page with all themes one page chances are good no one is going to stick around searching pass the cheerleader trophy, science club trophy, football trophy to get their SOCCER trophy!  She hasn’t said it yet, but I would assume you are to optimatize each page per theme!  It doesn’t matter if your customer comes to your site on page 2000 if that is where their product is!

Does this mean you leave out all those OTHER products that you sell?  Nope!  Just focus on the ‘special’ or ‘niche’ trophy in my case!  It may not even be TROPHIES for me.  I will have to see!

She had a good article on her site!

A Million Dollars   Check it out!

Baseball Flame Spinning Resin Figure Trophy Award or Gift

Baseball Flame Spinning Colored Sports Resins Award. This trophy or gift will be well received by your recipient! They come in specially designed boxes!

With this charming design you have the weight of resin material, and comes with a ball that spins. Something new besides the traditional awards we may have received in the past. Get noticed by giving something different, and exciting!

They are approx 8″ tall, and accept 7/8″x 3 1/2″ plate approx.
Part Number JDS302
We will send your engraved plates separately!

marketing strategies, website popularity, blogging, blog, traffic, search engines, keywords, keyword, home based business, website promotion, online store, articles noted, popularity, niche, niches, niche marketing

Interactive help with learning html

   This is a site I went to to learn basic html, and some advanced lessons as well.  You don’t have to have any special html editor software or anything.  See the screen shot below!

Above is a screenshot.  Above that he helps you with a html principal, and then asks you to use the screen to type in the html to see if you got it right.  I really got alot out of it, and wanted to share!

Diamond Resin Plate Trophy Award for Cheerleader, Cheerleading

Diamond Resin Plate Trophy Award for Cheerleading Cheerleader

These trophies include hanger and bolt for standing. They are Individually boxed and we will send you an engraved plate for it.

Comes in two Sizes!!

Size is appox 4.5″ x 6″
Plate area is approx. .75 x 2.25″
Part Number DPS63

Larger Size is 6″ x 8.5″
Plate area is approx. 1″ x 2.75″
Part Number DPS13
home based business, blogging, blog, html, html knowledge, html tutorial, small business

GooglePages are FUN! You have one yet?

Here is the “about” page for Google Pages

Google page basically allows you to make a couple of webpages for yourself.  You do have some access to the html, so you can dress them up a bit!  One requirement is to get the gmail (basically google’s email program) in order to do this.  I personally didn’t think it was all that big of deal!  You can still use your own email and passcode to sign into your google account.  My sign in name is the one I choose for gmail so don’t let it take you back when you see it after you sign in!  It wont’ show your email name that you opened your google account with anymore.

The more items you use OFF this program the more webspace you can use!  For example, I still use photobucket for my images.  My account as of now still has tons of space left!  The help section seems to be pretty active, and if you do a search for what you are looking for chances are you will find it!

I was reading the help section, and I came upon a poster that had his own googlepage with tips!  I went there and did some fast reading.  I learned that you can use templates from other places, and NOT use the ones avaiable!  That is all fine and great except you have to break the template UP and place in the separate sections of their TEMPLATE!  I found that out the hard way!  When you start playing around with it you see the button to edit the html, and so of course I did!  I erased all the html that was there, and then copied my template html that I worked on instead.  What I didn’t realize is that I placed my entire template within the header portion of the page, and it looked AWFUL!  You have to break up your template into the separate sections. 

The preview section isn’t all that helpful!  I found you must view it live in order to get a good feel for what it will look like live!  YES you can play around with it without it being LIVE on the internet, and if you decide to take it down off the internet it gives you that option also!

My page is still a work in progress!  Here is is!

Engraver For You

Now you can’t add meta tags or keywords into your html from what I have read.  You must make sure your page is keyword rich, and do this naturally!  Then make sure you get some of those one way links to drive up the page rank of your site!

Helpful tip page from another google page member

What I would LIKE to do is use this page for an entrance into my ecrater store!  I placed a note on my google page noting that if they click the ‘baseball’ button for example it will take them to the baseball trophy section of my store!  I will be adding additional sports trophies, and pages with time.   Remember to use your anchor text along with other items!

Car Magnet Full Color Design up to 72 Square inches

The Full Color Car Magnet images above are samples with approximate sizes. You may request the design or layout of any of these samples or describe what you would like and we will lay it out for you. Team sport magnets will be customized to your school colors (and mascots or logo if available).

Click on images above for larger view. 4″ x 18″ or 6″ x 12″ or 8″ x 9″ are popular sizes! Basically up to 72 square inches in a rectangle shape

googlepage, blogging, blog, keywords, keyword, search engines, search engines, small business, home based business, marketing strategies, html items, html, website popularity, ranking, keyword, web traffic, traffic, meta description, website promotion, google page creator, anchor text, meta tags, images, online store, meta

Change in Googlebase Shipping Attribute

I had been adding things to my datafeed, and reading the googlebase section for new information.  I guess I didn’t read it enough, because all of a sudden I got errors in my feed.  It was my shipping section.  I never had issues before, but now all of a sudden – WHAM!  I just couldn’t figure it out!  The wording on the error stated basically they are no longer supporting it, and that makes NO SENSE!

I went to the help section, and read other messages from people having the same issue.  One poster got a message back from googlebase that stated to add the shipping charge within the price of the product.  I’m sorry but that is insane if you want to look competitive, or what about if you have TONS products already live?  I wrote them myself and got some generic answer about “Check the help section”.  I wrote back a second time and FIRMLY asked them if they got rid of this attribute!  I finally got my answer!

Thank you for your email. Currently, we are unable to support the  shipping attribute. Please know that this was a recent change and we are very  sorry for any inconvenience it has caused you. Our engineers are working on a
resolution for the future, however, at this time, the shipping attribute will not function as normal. To resolve the errors in your file, please remove the attribute, and then upload your file again.Google Base is a beta product, which means that it is constantly changing and developing. As a work around, please include your shipping  information under the description attribute.Again, I am very sorry for the trouble. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.Sincerely,
Elaine
The Google Team

At first I was upset!  Then I thought about the datafeeds, and figured WELL it my listings take people directly to my site!  They will see the shipping there anyway!  What about the individual items you have live?  It sounds like you have to change ALL of your listings to accomodate this now.

My other posts regarding googlebase:

Payment Options for Googlebase

How Often to upload to Googlebase

Googlebase Bulk Upload Experience

Googlebase Attributes

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy Award or Gift is about 6″ (6 Inches) tall, and comes with a star on its base! Colorful and detailed and will be a hit with your next award or trophy event.

The Male Basketball Trophy is Part Number RBH-520 and we will send you an engraved plate. The trophy is individually packed, and will be shipped directly to you!

With this fun design will be appreciated for years to come! Grab something new besides the traditional awards you may have received in the past.
data feed, datafeed, blogging, blog, froogle, search engines, small business, home based business, marketing strategies, googlebase, google base, attributes, online store, shipping, tags

How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely

Below is an article I found that I felt was VERY useful! 

How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely
By Gregory White

1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com/. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once.

2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com/

3. Here’s a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com/ Pingoat will ping over fifty blog ping services all at once. So you don’t have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over fifty blog ping servers (growing) with just one click.

4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com/

5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there: http://www.blogexplosion.com/

6. Submit your blog to all of the directores listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html

7. Sign up for a “My Yahoo” at http://my.yahoo.com/ and attach your blog to your own “My Yahoo” account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you’re doing right and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9.

8. Use this code: “http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url= http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My Yahoo” account.

9. Sign up for a “My MSN” at http://www.my.msn.com/, and attach your blog to your own “My MSN” account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8.

10. Use this code: “http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My MSN” account.

11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc, will promote your blog.

12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites.

13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 Search engines here:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm

SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here:

Home page

14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://goarticles.com/
http://www.knowledge-finder.com/
http://www.informit.com/articles/

15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relavent to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won’t help you, they’ll hurt you.

16. Once you get around 5 to 10 posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels.

17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can’t write that much, go to step # 14.

Greg White, Internet Marketer, Author, Consultant and Project Manager has been running successful web projects since 2001. His sites and blogs cover Blog Marketing Tactics, Internet Marketing Tactics and a variety of ‘Niche’ topics, in addition to starting and marketing profitable web project. http://www.blogmarketingtactics.blogspot.com/ http://internetmarketingtactics.blogspot.com/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gregory_White

Soccer ball Lighted Resin with High Gloss Wooden Base

Soccer ball Lighted Sports Lamp. This trophy or gift will be well received by your recipient! They come in specially designed boxes!With this charming design that includes “AA” battery. It has an on/off switch on the bottom of the wooden base. The base is a high gloss finish. Use it as a trophy or a gift for that someone special!They are overall 4.5″ in height, and the engraved plate is 1″ x 3 3/8″ in size.
Part Number LTR102
We will send your engraved plates separately!

search engines, small business, blogging, blog, home based business, RSS, Ping, Pinging, Marketing Strategies, linkback, web traffic, website popularity, ranking, online store, website promotion, articles noted, traffic, popularity,

The Destructive Secret

Another website I recommended in the past has a sermon called, “The Destructive Secret” and the secret is Domestic Violence or Abuse.  Pastor Lutzer of the Moody Bible church gave this sermon a year or so ago.  I guess you could say he ‘gets it’.  There are alot of churches out there that clearly don’t, and hands the victim additional burdens to carry instead of fellowship and truth that is much needed.

 Emotional Abuse and Your Faith Presents, “The Destructive Secret” audio sermon, and its about 45 minutes long.  I was very impressed!

 The sermon was uploaded and purchase to Archive if your would like to see the other options to, “The Destructive Secret”.

Jesus Heals Abuse  is a board online for abuse victims of faith, and gender isn’t an issue there.

Female Volleyball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Female Volleyball Bobblehead Trophy Award or Gift is about 6″ (6 Inches) tall, and comes with a star on its base! Colorful and detailed and will be a hit with your next award or trophy event.The Volleyball female Trophy is Part Number RBH-546 and we will send you an engraved plate. The trophy is individually packed, and will be shipped directly to you!With this fun design will be appreciated for years to come! Grab something new besides the traditional awards you may have received in the past.Prices are low enough for Resale – Engraved plate included!

Domestic Violence, Domestic Abuse, Faith, Suffering, Sermon, Moody Bible Church

Logo’s and their importance!

Seth’s blog has an article about Logo’s that I felt was very worth the read!

People get so caught up in the logo process at times, and they forget at first that logo isn’t going to do much for them!  I’m not saying you shouldn’t do a good job in making one!  Of course that is important, but don’t waste a lot of money and NOT follow up with your customer service etc to make it WORTH something!

The logo will be worth something once you branded the company well enough!  They used the example of a well-known company that has a picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it!  You can imagine how well that logo would be recognized (and worth the price they paid for it) if their computers were not worth turning ON in the first place!

We had a local chamber here that was rather large!  They made the decision one year to change their image around, and go for a new look.  NOW that isn’t a bad idea all the time!  The problem with the organization was it didn’t need a new LOOK it needed to restructure certain areas of their organization to attract some untapped markets!  They were more geared towards BIG BUSINESS, and they were missing the boat on the small businesses in the area.  Their goal was to attract them with their new look.  They paid $6000 I think it was for this NEW look, but it didn’t attract what they were aiming for!  Why?  Their logo had nothing to do with WHAT they could do for the small businesses in that area!  Their attitude and services that they could provide for those small businesses just wasn’t there!  I’m sure at first they got their memberships, but the true test is renewal which they failed at.  Each year they are constantly on the run to make the up difference, and couldn’t figure out WHY retention is so hard!  Was their $6000 investment worth it?  The logo may have been if they took the time to work on things.

Logo’s don’t bring in loyal customers – service and good product does!

Bone Shaped Namebadge Nametag Engraved

This Bone shaped namebadge nametag is engraved with your information, and has a pin backing. We also individually package each one – See pictures! The bone shaped badge or tag is approx. 1.25 (h) x 3.50 (l)

**Please note LOGO is not included! If you would like your logo there is an extra charge. Contact us via email with your design for quote!

The plastic pictured is not the only color available, and please inquire if you would like other options!

This badge would be great for Orthopaedic Or Pet Related industries!

If you would like to have a magnet or (+2.00) or bulldog tip (+.50) we substitute that for you instead. Pinback is included in the price.

Please see the pictures for the visuals of the back of the badge, additional ways of placing your TEXT on this special shape!

This item can be resold, and our company would be happy to drop ship for you!

Have another special shape you would like? Drop us a note, and we will see how we can make that reality for you!!

Order more than 5 badges, and we will offer you free U.S.P.S. First Class Mail shipping!

blogging, blog, small business, logo, home based business, articles noted, marketing strategies, online store, images,

Placing your own images on Squidoo

There is an option to upload on squidoo, but you have more control over your images when you use a little html.

 

Is the code for today!  I can’t seem to be able to figure HOW to post code on wordpress so you may have to type this out manually! 

Anyway, the first thing you need is a place to host your pictures for you to use on squidoo!  I personally have been using www.photobucket.com  for years!  Once you place your images on your photobucket account (or whom every you use to host your images) we can go on to the next step!

these are your options with photobucket, and for this example we are going to use the top choice or URL link!  Replace the website information that is given in the code I showed on top with this code that you grabbed from your photobucket account.  Right now you are READY!  You have now written for your html coded picture ready to use on squidoo!

The code above allows you to hyperlink your picture directly to the site it refers to!

If you click on the above picture it will take you directly to my squidoo page for the hat shaped name badges!  The above code will allow you to do the same things with your items!   As you may have figured out already, the top set of quotes is for the website you want them to go to, and the second set of quotes is the photobucket URL link for your picture!  Pretty cool huh?

I’m going to show another picture with directions this time, because I can’t figure out HOW to do this in wordpress!  Just I just grabbed a screen shot with directions!  This is how you wrap text around your picture in squidoo!

marketing strategies, blogging, html, search engines, images, home based business, online store, small business, squidoo, html items, html, linkback

Squidoo and the email link!

If you wish to include a link so your vistors in squidoo can email you that is very simple!  YES we are talking basic HTML again!  The last example was pretty simple, and this one will be also!

 

 Again try to use some anchor text instead of EMAIL ME!
Take out your notepad program again, and don’t use the word processor!  In the first section between the quotes (“”) you have some text that states mailto:  leave that part alone, and delete the rest of it!  Place your own email address in that blank!

 Again between the >< place the text you wish to see highlighted in your module over at squidoo!

My Email Contact is what it will look like!  AND YOUR DONE!

Basic html on squidoo is a really neat idea to personalize your modules, and make them something people will want to return to!

html, small business, blogging, squidoo, search engines, keywords, keyword, home based business, marketing strategies, anchor text, online store

Squidoo and the hyperlink!

I have been extremely busy lately, but I finally had the time to do two Squidoo lens for the store online!  Within 5 minutes of posting the first one I had 7 visits and a rating of 5.

Now it would seem to me that the more relevant tags you use (and if you think about its really KEYWORDS) the more success you might have for traffic!  Its really strange to start so low, and watch the numbers grow day by day!  Don’t forget to use the keyword tools I placed on the sidebar to make sure you use something that the search engines like!
What is NICE about squidoo is that you are able to use html.  Now don’t get excited because basic html really isn’t all that hard to learn!  When you find little pieces of code save them in the notepad program and not your word processor. 

You can use HTML in the modules that they supply.  From what I have figured out – all of them!  The first module has the html editor in there, and that did confused me because the rest of them didn’t!  For visual purposes make sure you click ‘wrap text’ for that module that offers the html editor.  I added the code directly into the other modules.  Here are some basic html codes for you.

We are going to start by making a hyperlink. That means you click on some words and it ZOOMS you to that website!  Below is the code:

 

When making a hyperlink to a website don’t forget to use that ANCHOR text!  Don’t use ‘click here’ for my site!  Remember your tagline for your website, blog, store etc and use that!  For this example I will use the title of my lens.    Above is a snippet of code to paste into your note pad program!  Then I will explain it!

 Now you see the website in the first part between the quotes (“ “)?  That is your first section!  The easiest way at first is to actually GO to the website you want to hyperlink, and look to the address bar!  Highlight that address (the whole thing) with your mouse and copy it.  You can do that a couple of ways.

1. Right click and hit copy
2. Look to the very TOP of the screen and click Edit and click the copy command
3. Click your control button or CTRL button and then hit the C button. 

Next go into that code above and delete the domain dot com part (the whole thing), and just leave the quotes.  With then paste your website address in there!

1. Right click and hit paste
2. Edit again and then click paste
3. Control (CTRL) and V

Now wasn’t that easy?  YEP and you are halfway there!
The second part isn’t that hard either!  In between the >< where is says my website – delete that and USE your anchor text!  Below is a hyperlink right to the page I mentioned before!  I will get you another basic lesson tomorrow!

Below is an example that I used with the squidoo link to my page that I am talking about the badge in the description below!

 Name Tag or Name Badge Full Color and Tooth Shaped Dentist    

home based business, blogging, keywords, keyword, search engines, small business, headline, marketing strategies, anchor text, squidoo, html, tags, online store