The Goal of SEO Is Not to Drive Traffic

What is the goal of your SEO campaign?When you take a look at your SEO campaign, how do you measure success? Is it by traffic to your site? Is it a victory to simply have a ranking at the top of page one? Many people use these criteria as goals, but unless your website makes money from ads by generating pageviews they only bring a false sense of security. If you own a business, you need conversions. This could be a purchase through your website, a lead through contact form submission, or an email address given by a visitor for future contacts. Of course, you can’t do these without bringing traffic to your website, but the important thing to remember is that you need the right kind of traffic. One hundred interested visitors are far better than two thousand visitors who aren’t interested in what you have to offer.How do you drive the right kind of traffic to your site? Here are four essential components if you’re going to drive leads, not simply rank high and generate traffic.Choose the Right Keywords. It is amazing how often this step is rushed through or entirely neglected. If you don’t pick the terms that someone interested in your business would use to search for you, you may generate traffic, but attract the wrong people. Or, you may pick keywords that generate no traffic at all. For example, if you have a local business without the ability to sell nationally but rank for a nationally used product, you will generate a lot of disinterested traffic. It would be better to focus on the traffic that would be likely to purchase than to be too broad and risk getting less of the interested traffic.
Take Time to Craft Your Meta Description. Even though the description is no longer used as an element in search engine rankings, it is still a critical (and probably most overlooked) factor for click through rate (CTR). The meta description is the 160 character text that appears under the link on a Google search result. This is the one chance that you get to tell the user why they should click on your listing. It is a critical component in showing the user whether or not you are a relevant site to their search. Make sure it describes your site well, gives the user a reason to click, and properly utilizes keywords. Even though the keywords used in the description will not help determine ranking, they will be made bold in the search result page. This makes your page appear more relevant to the exact search and helps increase CTR.
Use Your Titles Properly. Titles are one of the most significant individual ranking factors on your web page. They are also the text that is used for the link on the search engine results page. This means that a title has two very important functions – help your site rankand entice users to click to your site. Use one to two keywords in your title to help them rank, and include text to help communicate useful content to the user. Trying to jam in as many keywords as possible may help your page rank but it has the side effect of making your tag look sloppy and less appealing to the user.
Utilize Landing Pages Well. Do your best to try to drive users to pages where they are likely to have the highest engagement. Create landing pages for different keywords you would like to rank for. Don’t overlap keyword targeting across multiple pages on the site. Instead create unique pages for keywords that you are targeting. Then, develop the page to give a user the best experience possible based on the keyword they were searching for. Make the content relevant. Show what you have to offer based on what they’re looking for. If someone gets to that page you have a very good idea what they were looking for in the search engine, so use that to your advantage. You have at least a “somewhat interested” visitor. Make them a “very interested” visitor.Remember, the goal of SEO is not to drive traffic, it is to drive the right kind of traffic. Make sure you’re setting up your campaign to generate leads!

How to Make Money Online – Lifestyle Or Professional Blogger

A blog is a powerful tool simply because its contents are quickly indexed by the major search engines. There are 2 main type of bloggers, let’s have a look at how these blogs are monetized!1) Lifestyle BloggingAre you hip, fun, outgoing, entertaining, cool? Then a lifestyle blog may just be for you! The idea of a Lifestyle blog is to come across as friendly, FUNNY and upbeat.Lifestyle blogging gives you a cool “celebrity” status, especially if your content is interesting, has nice photos, quirky, humorous.If your viewership is high enough, advertising space or product/venue reviews can be used to monetize your blog. Perhaps the best way is to blog a post where you try a certain product, or visit a nightclub as part of your lifestyle then write your experience about it (and be paid to do so by the company). Just as they advertise products in movies, an Aston Martin or BMW in James Bond, if you’re a lifestyle blogger you can do the same, where you creatively showcase the product by weaving it in as part of what you did today.Couple of examples of Lifestyle blogs you can check out are:- Xia Xue (xiaxue.blogspot.com)
- Angela Leow Gray (angela.blursotong.com)So if you’re young, write well and good with the digital camera, you might like to create a lifestyle blog. An Alfresco Dining Restaurant or NightLife Club may just approach you to visit their venue and pay you $5K to $10K just to have fun at their event and blog about it.2) Professional Niche BloggingA professional blog gives specific tips and ideas to a particular niche that solve a certain problem. The dynamics of a professional blog is different from a lifestyle blog and so is the monetisation.A professional blogger writes from the reader’s point of view and perspective. In other words, he does not write about himself. He writes about how he can offer value and benefit to another person, and often to solve a certain problem.For example, say you’re a Golf Coach, then you would want to share ideas about the golf swing, create videos on YouTube on “how to stop slices”, “how to hit the driver” well. That is the “marketing” aspect. There is always an end objective in mind, where you will offer a golf coaching program or video or CD, a product that monetizes your marketing.Preferably there is some sort of online payment where they can pay for your product and a sale.3) Professional Blogger Or LifeStyle Blogger?Its much easier to make money blogging professionally because you don’t need a very large audience or ton of traffic to earn a huge income from this blog. People that visit these blogs are ready to spend money to gain from a product or program. I’ve seen certain niche markets where customers pay up to $50,000 for a service that solves a certain need or problem.Meaning that when someone has something in their life that needs fixing, they will pay a lot of money to do so, and that is why a professional blogger doesn’t need a big, general audience when all they need is a small, targeted audience with a big problem.A lifestyle blogger on the other hand entertains a wide audience and folks that visit these blogs usually aren’t in the mindset to buy something. They’re mostly there to be entertained!Think of it as a huge audience going for a movie compared to a small niche audience with arthritis. The specialist solving the arthritis ailment for a small group of patients can expect to do very well (income wise) even though his customer base is much smaller.As a lifestyle blogger, most of the income will come from sponsors and advertisers pertaining to your particular lifestyle. The more traffic and eyeballs you can get to your site, the more money you stand to make. The blog needs to be creative, updated, to keep people coming back. And that’s more of a labour of passion. Most lifestyle blogs start of more as a hobby rather then a 6 figure marketing/advertising/product endorsement platform.I would have to say from a monetization angle that its easier to blog professionally because you can quickly & easily connect with a unique audience and be well rewarded (financially) for helping solve their problems.But that’s just me, feel free to experiment with blogging and decide which works best for you!

Obtaining in Home HVAC-Financing

It may seem tough to obtain financing for the things you need in today’s economy. However, if you want to finance a new heating and cooling system in Atlanta, it is very easy to obtain financing and get the system and service you desire. Getting a new air system can be a costly process and may not be in your immediate budget. To make this process more affordable and easier on the customers, companies are partnering with major lenders to make financing available for their services.You may be wondering how to obtain this type of financing if you are in desperate need of a new heating and air system. The answer is to pre-qualify for a loan. This can be done with or without planning. You may choose to apply for a loan through a finance company without contacting a heating and air condition service. Another option would be to research available companies in the Atlanta area and apply for pre-approval through the financing company they work with.To see how much financing is available without doing any research, choose a financing company with a good rate and fill out an online application. The Pre-Approval process could take minutes to days depending on the chosen finance company. When the process is finished, you will know the credit decision and the amount of money available for financing. If for some reason, you do not qualify, you may want to get a credit report to see what is preventing you from receiving financing and talk to the finance company about what you can do to resolve the problem.If you want a more accurate and quick approval, it might be better to know who you will be dealing with and who their financing partner is. Begin by researching companies available in the Atlanta area and determine which ones provide financing. Once you have a list, pick the one that best suits your needs as far as convenience, quality of work, and experience. Ask the company themselves how to get pre-approved for financing and they should be able tell you where to apply and get pre-approved. Once you have been pre-approved, it will be easier to get an estimate of the work to be done based on the amount of financing available. By going with the financing partner of the heating and air conditioner service, you will get faster results and the most accurate loan information because there are no middle men.The steps required to obtain approval are the same no matter how you go about it. Getting pre-approved for financing is normally a simple process, takes little time, and can be done securely online. It only takes a few minutes to fill out the application and get the pre-approval results. By getting pre-approved and obtaining financing you guarantee yourself quality service by a HVAC contractor and certified work and maintenance. This will put your mind at ease and make the process easier and the end result more enjoyable for you and your family.

Ways to Improve Your Photography Skills

Join a Photography Club:One of the best ways to improve your skills for any specific hobby is to surround yourself with fellow enthusiasts. By joining a photography club in the QLD, Australia area you will be able to connect with fellow photographers and exchange tips and ideas that will improve your photo taking abilities. Communicating your ideas with fellow photographers is a great way to gain insight into the world of photography, and in turn improve the quality of photos that you take. Performing a simple internet search will result in numerous different photography clubs you can join in the QLD, Australia area.Practice your Photography Trade by Taking Pictures of Famous Landmarks:Famous landmarks provide fantastic photo opportunities for any level of photographer. No matter what your photography style is just about everyone will enjoy your pictures if they are of famous, recognizable landmarks. If you are looking to turn your photography hobby into a profession, photos of famous landmarks are a great place to start. These particular types of photographs can make great posters or postcards which you could then sell for a profit. The QLD area of Australia offers a wide variety of notable landmarks, so you have no shortage of photo opportunities to improve your skills.Take a Photography Class at a Local Arts Institution:There are many great schools in the QLD, Australia area that have photography programs. If you are serious about pursuing gold coast photography as a profession then you will certainly want to take some classes at one of these schools. Even if you just want to pursue photography as a hobby taking some photography classes will result in substantially higher quality photographs. From these classes you will learn proper techniques from qualified instructors that will surely increase the value of your photos. You will also learn several different styles of photography that will allow you to have a diverse variety of photos in your portfolio.One of the best ways to enjoy the hobby of photography is to actively improve your photography skills. By joining a photography club, taking pictures that a large audience will appreciate looking at, and enrolling in photography classes you can vastly improve your photo taking skills.