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Web hosting provider explains becoming a niche authority - Choose a niche, keep learning about it, develop credibility and recognition as an authority, and continue building that reputation. Niche markets Almost everyone is an expert at something. Or can become one. To target a niche market, you need to become the person or company that people in your target market seek for specialized products, services, or knowledge. Large companies are less likely to serve niche markets, so there's less competition for them, especially when they don't already have a known authority. Being known as an expert in a particular niche market can help your business grow. People in your target market will want to link to your content and read what you write, and they'll talk about you and recommend you offline and online. And because of your authority status, other business opportunities may come your way. Choose your niche and increase your expertise To find a niche market that can be profitable for your business, look for a target audience with these characteristics:

• People who are looking for the products or services in that niche market but can't find them easily
• People who really want those products or services and will pay for them
• A group that's large enough to be profitable
• A group that's reachable and likely to grow

In other words, find a need that you can meet and that isn't being met fully, and then meet that need. Look at what you're already doing and knowledgeable about. What requests do you get that your business can't meet Are they requests that you could meet if you focused on them Analyze what your existing customers have in common. What needs and wants do they have that you could fulfill What knowledge do you have that people already seek you out for Consider also the benefits your products or services provide and who else could benefit from them. There may be a target market out there that you haven't discovered yet. Once you choose a niche, learn everything you can about the products, services, industry, and target market. Learn and track what other people say and write about it, including your target audience. Develop the products and skills that this market wants. Provide value for your target market One way to learn is by doing. Offer some of your services at no cost to get started, in particular to individuals or organizations that may want to link to your site to return the favor. Trade services with other businesses or individuals. Paid or not, provide outstanding service and products so that people will want to talk about you. Give away more if you can: free estimates, free samples, free newsletter signups, free information at your site. Giving away something of value can lead to increased trust and help create buzz. Write about your niche Quality written content can greatly increase your exposure in your niche, especially online. If you have information and perspectives to share but can't write well, consider hiring a writer or editor to give your words a professional appearance. Start a business blog about your niche, and add to it regularly. When people comment on your posts, respond. Comment in other blogs about related topics. When you've established your blog, look for other opportunities to have your work published, such as article directories and trade publications. Write letters to the editor when your area of expertise is covered in newspapers or magazines. Take part in relevant forum discussions with quality contributions. Write an e-book to give away or sell at your site. Start an online newsletter. What to write about:

• Information about the products and services in your niche
• New developments and other news
• What other people have written or said but avoid bashing the competition
• What you're doing
• Your experiences with and perspectives on any of the above

Optimize your website for your niche Have a professional-looking website and lots of content, and continue adding to that content. Aim for your website to be a rich resource of information. Link to related content at your site using anchor text in context as well as your site navigation. To optimize your site for search engines, see the articles in the SEO and Search Engine Optimization category at the right. Links to articles on SMO, or social media optimization, are at the end of this article. Reach out to your niche market Speak about your niche. Be a voice and a face in addition to words, and you'll be remembered more:

• Look for opportunities to speak at relevant conferences and trade shows.
• Offer seminars and webinars.
• Create podcasts and webcasts. Get them added to podcast and webcast directories.
• Offer to be a guest on radio talk shows.

Have an online presence where your target audience may be, through advertising, online profiles, and participation. Find businesses with related products or services and look for ways to work with them, such as link exchanges and advertising on each other's sites. Build your authority Your website can be a growing showcase of your recognition within your niche. Continue adding links between older and newer related content at your site; doing so will help with search engines as well as with human credibility. Link to other sites where you've been mentioned or interviewed, and list your publications and speaking engagements. A news section or media room may be useful for this. After you've become recognized as an authority, don't be afraid to describe yourself as one in bios and profiles. Don't go overboard with it, but if other people are calling you one, you can describe yourself as an authority too. Related blog articles

• Branding your Website
• Build Your Subscriber Lists
• Do You Have Charisma Then Sell It!
• Got Something To Say How About a Webinar

Permalink 02:29:59 pm, by srose Email, 894 words, 222 views English (US) Categories: Ecommerce Web hosting provider explains stay in direct contact with your membership or subscriber base content on left & ads on right title World Access to Authorities - Web Hosting Provider Explains description One of the most important and exciting things the web has done is provide world access to authorities in virtually any endeavor - web hosting provider explains. Do You Have Charisma Then Sell It! Web Hosting Provider Explains - Sell and Stay Connected with Clients With the widespread use of DSL and cable modems, the web is looking a lot more like TV and TV is starting to look more like your computer. It s only a matter of time before the two technologies merge completely. You can already see we re headed that way. The Authority One of the most important and exciting things the web has done is provide world access to authorities in virtually any endeavor - web hosting provider explains. There are stock pickers who have stellar performance records and the history to back up those numbers. People pay a lot of money for advice from these share-trading poo-bahs and to hear and see the expert, rather than read some text, adds the personality dimension the charisma. If you re relaxed in front of a microphone, podcasts won t cost you much but they could lead to the creation of a cult of personality. You start selling (branding) you to your subscribers or listeners face-to-face, lips-to-ear. The Persuader It could be a local politician operating on a change-jar budget, a national presidential candidate with $$$ millions for marketing, it could be the local carpet showroom or some garage band looking for a contract. These are people seeking to persuade others in some way to buy something, to think a certain way, vote for one candidate or another or buy some shag for the living room. The Visionary Few and far between but there are site owners who have a passion that has propelled them to some position they want to share with the world. It might be a new business with a new product that eliminates the need for electricity. That would be visionary. Or, it might be a not-for-profit on a mission to improve the world. You ll find visionaries in the NFP and commercial worlds. It s the passion that sets these people apart. So, if you re an authority, a persuader or visionary AND you have that certain something the camera likes you time to change the static look of your circa 2002 website and start spreading the word. In the risk versus reward equation, broadcasts of you from your site are a low risk, high upside bet. If you look good on camera or sound good in audio-only podcast, if you have something to say, and you have that enthusiasm, a good sense of humor or insider knowledge divined from scanning the morning tea leaves, you can build your own loyal following. Today, we can all buy the technology to have our own broadcast channels, available to the world. The fact is, you can build an archive of digital broadcasts quickly, painlessly and potentially turn this archive into a subscription site if your information is insider enough. So, what can you do on the cheap. Become a cult figure if you do it right. And, everything you need to create your own channel costs less than $100. Much less. Podcasts These audio-only broadcasts from your site are low cost (or no cost if you take a few hours to learn basic audio mixing software) and are a perfect way to start moving into less text, more you on screen, interacting with your buyers or members or subscribers. You ll need a decent mic ($20 online and go with a lapel mic), some basic notes on what you re going to cover and some sound capturing and editing software. You can use open source software (free) because podcasts don t need a lot of production. Just cut out the ums and maybe mix in a little intro/outro music and you re on the air, baby, to anyone who clicks on the podcasts link on your site. Also ideal for those who prefer to be heard rather than seen. Podcasts are radio. Webcasts Buy a web cam ($49 online), plug it into the USB port and you re ready for your first webcasts. Think it s too hard Too complicated Have you seen some of the videos on YouTube Anybody can become an worldwide sensation today thanks to video and web technology. A webcast is nothing more than a podcast with your image appearing on the viewer s screen. It s a great way to share your passion for your products, services or candidate. Again, if you have that certain something that thing that has made you a successful life coach, business coach, alternative healer, stock picker or some other gifted authority then that charisma comes through much more clearly when you can be seen and heard rather than just read. Teleconferencing An excellent way to stay in direct contact with your membership or subscriber base. A weekly or monthly teleconference call, in which your members speak directly to you, ask questions and you, in person, provide the answers. This one-on-one interaction adds to your credibility and is a great value-added bonus for buying an ebook or opting in for a newsletter subscription on a highly specialized topic. If you ve got that unidentifiable something, that je ne sais pas ce qui, add it to your marketing tools kit and sell yourself and your product or service at the same time. Web Hosting Blog The Website Source - web hosting blog - is here for webmasters to enjoy. Call or click back soon. Click an icon and bookmark this post. Permalink Permalink Leave a comment 11/06/07 Permalink 05:51:24 am, by srose Email, 1076 words, 460 views English (US) Categories: Social Sites Web hosting provider explains - social media optimization (SMO) content on left & ads on right title SEO, Social Media - SMO - Explained by Web Hosting Provider description Move over, SEO. Social media optimization - SMO - is also in the spotlight. Web hosting provider explains... How to Generate and Use Social Media Buzz Move over, SEO. Social media optimization is also in the spotlight. Web hosting provider explains... Search engine optimization used to be the main tool that webmasters used to bring traffic to most sites. Web hosting provider explains - social media optimization (SMO) is a hot topic in Internet marketing because of its increasing role in generating traffic and interest. Linked with SMO is SMM, or social media marketing. SMO plus SMM equals (ideally) social media buzz. Social media, SMM, SMO, and social media buzz explained Social media is the term for websites where people interact, bookmark, and discuss opinions, experiences, and perspectives. Forums, blogs, and wikis are social media sites, along with social networking sites such as del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and StumbleUpon. Also part of social media are sites where users can post their opinions and experiences about specific products and services, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor.com. Social media marketing (SMM) is promoting your website, services, or products via social media. It's marketing that encourages people to pass on a message about what's being marketed. Social media optimization (SMO), a sister of sorts of search engine optimization (SEO), is optimizing your site content and accessibility for social media sites. It's working to increase the likelihood that people will link to it from social media sites and talk about it. While different from its SEO sister, SMO helps with SEO because it results in increased inbound links. Social media buzz is the intended result of SMM and SMO people talking about and linking to your site, services, and products. See the links at the end of this article for more information about social media, SMM, and SMO. How social media buzz works Since it began spreading online, "word of mouth" has become more influential. People tell people about something of interest to them, and the effect multiplies as more people tell more people by writing about it and linking to it. The result is social media buzz. Instead of having to ask friends what they know about something until they find someone who does, people can now search online to find people talking about it. And when they have something to say about it, they can join in too, adding to the buzz. They can also start commentary themselves, and people from almost anywhere can join in. As we wrote about recently, a recent survey indicated that consumers give more weight to the opinions of other consumers than to any other forms of advertising. Recommendations from consumers were trusted by 78 percent of those surveyed, with 61 percent indicating that they trusted consumer opinions posted online, compared with online banner ads at 26 percent, for example. When consumers have positive things to say online about what you offer, those opinions are more valuable than most paid advertising. Conversely, if those opinions are negative, they can hurt your business. How to generate social media buzz Write for your audience.

• Research social media sites to see which ones are most likely to produce links to your type of content, and focus on those sites.
• Create content that your audience will want to link to. Study the most popular articles at those sites, and write content that will appeal to the same audience.
• Provide quotable leads or pull quotes that people will want to copy and include with links to your site.
• Think beyond keywords. Continue using them for SEO, but what type of content and writing style will appeal to your target audience Find out, and create it.
• Keep your content fresh. Revise current content to keep it from looking dated, and keep adding new content.
• Offer something unique. Fill a niche that hasn't been filled yet.

Help your audience find you.

• Start a company blog and add content to it regularly.
• Publish articles at online article directories with links back to your site.
• Look for opportunities to publish articles as a guest blogger at other blogs, with a link to your site included.
• Add social bookmarking buttons to select social media sites after articles at your site.
• Create a profile at targeted social media sites, add useful links to various sites, take part in other ways, and post links to key pages at your site.

Talk to your audience.

• Respond to comments about your site where responses would be welcome (check the site terms first).
• Join in discussions where it would be appropriate to do so.
• Quote some of the comments at social media sites in your blog, both positive and negative, and respond to them there.
• Invite comments after your blog articles and respond to those comments.

Give to your audience.

• Offer something free that would appeal to your audience: free information, free tools, free trials, free subscriptions, etc. Make it easily accessible.
• Hold a contest and promote the contest and its prizes. Make the contest and prizes relevant to your products or services. Create a contest page detailing the rules and prizes, and link to the contest page from your social media site profiles. Announce the contest via your mailing list and blog, press releases, and contest sites. Write about the winners after the contest for more publicity.

How to use social media buzz You've got lots of people talking about and visiting your site. Now what As with SEO, getting traffic is just the first part of the job. What people see after they arrive will help determine the conversion rate. The difference is that when you get traffic via social media buzz, you have an audience that expects to interact. In addition to providing quality content, give them opportunities to continue to interact:

• Include links to your blog, product review pages, and contact page.
• Update the page getting the buzz with links to new content. Give your audience fresh content to talk about.
• Include calls to action, such as a newsletter signup box or a link to a contest page.
• Invite people to take part in a survey or be part of a product or usability test group.
• Use feedback you receive to improve your services, products, or site.

• How to Market Your Brand via Social Media Websites
• Get Your Website Tagged
• Socializing Your Site to Success: Using Folksonomy to Build Traffic
• Web 2.0 for Webmasters
• Bad Web Press: Can It Be Fixed

More webmaster articles are offered in the web hosting blog. Click or visit again soon. Click an icon and bookmark this post. Permalink Permalink Leave a comment 11/04/07 Submit Your Site to Directories: Watch Site Traffic Increase Web hosting provider explains how Preparing the Perfect Landing Page: Ecommerce Websites - Web Hosting Provider Explains Sale Techniques When visitors come to your web site they don t always land on the home page. They might enter via a landing page or zone page based on the query words they entered into the search box. Now, for smart on-line retailers, this isn t a problem. If you sell tools on-line and a search engine user queries hammer, it s better that the visitor land on the hammer page then the home page and have to do a site search to find hammers. The objective of a search engine is to not only deliver links, but relevance, too. So, by directing that visitor to your hammer page the search engine is providing the most relevant link within your site. (This assumes your site is optimized and that each page has a HTML tag describing its content.) All well and good. Then, along comes the landing page. A landing page is the first thing a visitor sees when clicking on a site link. It asks the visitor to opt in for a newsletter, an e-book or access to the site. So What Good Does a Landing Page Do A well-written landing page has one objective. To gather email addresses of visitors. And why are those email addresses so important Because they re added to the site owner s database and can now be used for every email blast the site launches. As long as the visitor opts in and agrees to accept goodies from the site, it s not spamming. But for a lot of web users a landing page is annoying. The perfect landing page provides a taste a taste of things to come. The copy should be informational and pique the curiosity of the visitor enough to offer up his or her email address in exchange for more of that same quality information a bigger taste. Once the visitor has opted in (A $99 VALUE FREE JUST FOR SIGNING UP!), the email address is gold to the savvy marketer who starts sending free articles, the tip of the day, free downloads and other information. Some is good, valuable content, some not so much. Either way, it enables the site owner to keep his or her URL in front of the one-time visitor who elected to receive content by opting in. Web hosting provider explains - the first objective of a landing page is to provide enough information to whet the appetite of the visitor who then opts in, providing an email address. Second, the landing page provides solid, factual, useful information. No fluff allowed. This is a requirement for two critical reasons. A landing page that s pure hype won t do much for your opt in rate. Opt ins recognize the value of your offer because of the information contained on the landing page. Also, that landing page will be indexed by search engines. Providing good information, with just a smidge of sizzle, won t detract from how search engines view your site. Types of Landing Pages The first type of landing page gives the visitor two choices: opt in or leave. Visitors can read the landing tease, but if they want more they have to give an email address or hit the digital bricks. Which is what most visitors do when they see they ve landed on a hard-sell landing page. Most visitors will (rightly) think that, within weeks, their in-boxes will be filled with junk mail. (Remember, it s not spam if the recipient requested the information.) These site visitors envision auto-responders week after week, each one a bit more desperate than the last. They may expect that newsletter to which they subscribed, only to discover that the newsletter is nothing more than a bunch of sales hype disguised as informational content. Any decent web writer can create sales copy that sounds like news. That s why the perfect landing page delivers good content, not hype. The sell is woven into the information. Same with the newsletter, press release or email. Think content when you think of the perfect landing page. The perfect landing page also provides the visitor with a third or fourth option other than opt in or leave. Provide a learn more option. No opt in required. Just a link that takes visitors to another page where they can learn more about the site, the offer, the information, and whether it s something they want to opt for or click the back button of their browsers. Landing Page Tips

• The ideal landing page should be laid out for quick eye scan. Don t expect visitors to read through a ton of text to get to the deal.

• Use short blocks of text and single sentences.

• Talk directly to the reader, i.e., You know the aches and pains that come with age.

• Use bulleted lists to detail the benefits of opting in. Benefits differ from features. Tell the visitor how his or her life will be better, easier, happier, more productive or whatever. Describe benefits, not features.

• Use charts, graphs and illustrations to convey detailed information.

• Provide options. Lots of them. If the only choice is to opt in or leave, most visitors will leave. Use text links to draw in visitors to specific pages of your site.

• Use pictures. This is especially true if you sell products. Show your wares on the landing page. They re a great draw.

• Provide more than one opportunity to opt in. If the only place a visitor can elect to receive email from you is the landing page, some visitors won t be able to find it without reloading their browsers. So, provide an opt in box on the home page.

When used properly, a well-developed landing page can work wonders in building up your database. And, if the opt ins receive good information from you each day or week or month, you ll quickly build a loyal following visitors who become buyers. Expand your presence with the perfect landing page and get a grip on your buyers. Web Hosting Blog AdSense video units are a new way for webmasters to use video content. Web hosting provider explains, with an AdSense account, a YouTube account, and a snippet of code, webmasters can have YouTube videos play at their websites. Webmasters can choose video categories, have relevant video content automatically selected, or choose video content themselves. Into TV advertising since May 2007, Google is taking another step in this field. Google and The Nielsen Company have established a strategic partnership, the first step of which is to use Nielsen's demographic data to provide advertisers and agencies more detailed data on their ad audiences. The two companies have planned further work together but have not disclosed details. Google's Quality Score for keywords is now explained. The new Keyword Analysis page provides information about keyword quality, landing page quality, and recommendations on how to improve landing pages. Earlier this month, Google purchased Finnish company Jaiku, a mobile messaging developer. Currently, Jaiku users can create their own streams at yourname.jaiku.com, share updates about their availability and location, and post updates via the Web or by phone. In their blog announcement about the acquisition, Google has not announced specific plans about how they'll use the Jaiku technology. Yahoo news The new Yahoo Search monebaggasse