There are some very important and essential factors that need be considered when choosing a domain name for an international business.

First of all, it is amazing how some brand consultancies make scary errors of recommending names that are intended for international business without first checking the availability of the domain names being recommended.
Again, when trying to decide on branding, do not forget to bring the domain into view –  given the fact that the two in recent time are too closely linked to be separated and especially so, when it comes to the international scenario.

Marketers tend to follow the single global identity
Single identity has a wide appeal to marketers. The evidence is clear with the popularity of dotcom built sites among global marketers. But the simple truth is that single identity may be ideal for some, but not to all. Above all, the global inference of going for a single identity, rather than going for something that catches the attention of the CEO is also there to consider.

English or Keyword – Which One Suites, A Single Name?
For a potential global player, it is sensible to avoid the first snappy English name that comes to heart, which perfectly seems to give the description of your service. Here’s an example, if you are a globally known localization consultancy, it will be a shabby idea to choose your domain name as ‘Localization.com’, especially if you have intentions of running the same domain name across the entire world. Here’s the reasoning: it is possible and easy for most of the English-speaking population to assume that you only miss-spelt the word ‘localisation’.

On the other hand, if you intend using a keyword domain name, here are essential things to do:

• Verify the meaning of such a keyword in the different languages; don’t commit some blunders that were previously committed by many when they choose a brand name which simply meant genitals in certain languages!
• You may save yourself needless heartache in the future by checking the global trademark registrations.
• Verify the registrations in a vast domain names set, it is not sufficient to check only the dot com, you may be surprised to discover that another person is using that name actively in different markets.

A good number of trademark registrars are equipped with online systems to help you verify if the registration trademarks you intend to use are already existing or not. A simple means to checking the word-meaning of your intended name in other languages is to reset the Google Keyword Tool to show ‘all languages’ and ‘all countries’. If you eventually come across huge amount of search results for a keyword you supposed to be flawless, take a closer look and you may be amazed to discover certain unanticipated and funny meanings that you would not want to associate your business with.

Abstract Names – Secure Abstracts
Generally, it is quite difficult to come across a reasonable domain name that causes no problem either in English or other languages. The option that most people prefer is an abstract name. Such abstracts may entirely have no meaning; example is concise acronym which may stand for anything. Alternatively, it could be a coined or invented name usually based on combining various Latin words into an entirely new name.

Inbound links have always been a very important when it comes to
Search Engine Optimization. Ascertaining the worth of these links
can also be very essential. This is particularly the case when any
kind of investment is being made in deriving these links.

Here’s how to identify valuable inbound links:

• The Webpage Source Should be Indexed By Google
  Before settling for a link from any webpage, verify if such web page is indexed by Google. It is easy to tell that a page not indexed by Google would not be recognized when it links to your page; so it is as good as not having any link.
• The Relevance of the Link to Your Business Model
  How relevant is the link to your business theme. As an instance, if you offer debt relief services, it will make sense to link to web pages that contain information about debt management services.
• Page Rank – PR
  Although not the ultimate, Google Page Rank 5 is definitely prioritized than a PR 1. And of course, a PR 7 or something higher offers something real juicy. The bottom line is this; it is better to have a mix of links from various page ranks to make it appear really natural.
• Detecting Paid Links
  Any link that is identified directly as paid link should be avoided. To spot such web pages, look out for terms such as ‘advertisements’, ‘sponsored’, ‘partners’ etc. Major search engines such as Google dislike paid links and would easily identify them with the words specified;
  when this happens, such links will attract no value.If you must link to a ‘paid’ web page, employ techniques such as the use of image instead of text. Then, avoid anything that may indicate the status of the site in the image’s alt attribute. This is very essential if you really want such link to count, otherwise Google will ignore the link outright.
• Inbound Links
  Does the page link to other web pages? And what is the nature of the sites that link back to it? Better still, what is the anchor text of those sites indicating?
• Outbound Links
  Ensure that the page is linking to less than or exactly ten other sites including your own. More outbound links depreciates the link value passed to each webpage.
• Link Placement
  Google in particular, and other search engines have put so much effort in the recent past years in making attempts to spot none ‘editorial’ link in terms of context. To this end, it is sensible to stay away from links placed in blog rolls, footers, and similar link placements that indicate ‘non editorial’. Links placed within the content is to be considered. Good link placement can attract great worth, as well as pass link juice.
• Avoid ‘NoFollow’ Link
  Do not look at links that feature ‘nofollow’ attribute since they have minute offer when it comes to passing link popularity or juice to your webpage.
  However, you can sometimes consider them because they can offer a natural look to your link building, to the search engines, and also bring you traffic – e.g. is Twitter.
• How Long has the Domain Been Around
  Domains that have existed for a substantial period of time tend to attract search engines. The reason is that such domain must have garnered some good links itself during these periods it has existed.
• Site’s Alexa Rank
  This can serve as a clue to the extent of popularity of a website.

If you aim at getting a high rank on Google and other renowned search engines, it is imperative that you get quality links to your website.

It is unfortunate that this task is among the most difficult ones to achieve. How well are you taking advantage of your existing links?
More often, it is quite simple and easy to enhance your existing backlinks than getting entirely new links.

• Make corrections on the links that point to your initial domain name
  If you have previously changed your domain name, it is possible that some people still link to it. Certainly, the links to your previous domain name ought to redirect to your current domain name using a 301 redirect to make sure you still retain the link. However, links via 301 redirects do not go by the full link power to your site.As a result, you need to get in touch with the webmasters that linked to your old domain name, and request that they link to your current domain. This is great way to improve the effects of the links on the ranking of your website in search engines’ result.
• Make Necessary Changes Or Corrections to Broken Pages on Your Websit
  Examine the statistics of your website and redirect every link that points to a non-existing (404) page on your site, to a real page (existing page) on your website. This will help in giving a proper direction to your visitors. Like in the first instance, you can contact the previous webmasters and request that they change the links.
• Endeavour to Enhance the Link Texts
  While in touch with webmasters to request for links to your new domain name, you can also use the opportunity to propose new link texts to be used for your links.
• Make Suggestions of Other Related Websites to the Webmasters
  This is another technique that can get your ranking on top slots. When you request for links from webmasters, it is a good idea to also suggest relevant websites to them. “Relevant”, means that the websites you are suggesting must be related to yours and more importantly should also have quality content. In a situation where a website links to your website, and that same website links to other websites that are relevant to the central topic of your site, there is always a higher possibility that search engines will see your website as being relevant to that topic.
• Examine the Links Residing on Your Website
  In order to see some of your web pages in the search results of Google, you have to link those pages from your own web pages.
  When a page is concealed in the navigation process of your site, there are little chances that the specific page will gain a satisfactory position in Google’s search result.

Without adequate care, you can end up spending too much on Google AdWords and not get anything in return. However, your conversion rate can greatly be improved by effecting a few little changes.
A lot of people incur lots of expenses on their Google AdWords because of the wrong settings they employ in their campaigns.

Achieve better conversion with Long Tail Keywords – You can find many of them

Detailed studies have revealed that long tail keywords achieve quite high conversion rates when compared with single word keywords.
Long tail keywords refer to specific keywords consisting of 4 words or more.

The result of a recent Hitwise study shows that over 18% of searches have 5 keywords or more. Google also confirms that 20% of the queries they receive on a daily basis are ones that haven’t been tried in at least 3 months (90 days), and sometimes turn out to be first time keywords.

Using wrong Long Tail Keywords will cost you money

It may be a great idea to employ broad match for every keyword you use. Including all possible keywords manually in your campaigns is something that cannot be done and so, Google recommends that you employ broad match with your keywords.

Broad match is an excellent way to take advantage of those unanticipated but relevant keywords. When you incorporate a keyword as a broad match, your ad that follows will be qualified to appear next to queries with that precise spelling, in addition, it is also capable of capturing keyword expansions which include synonyms, applicable variation of your keywords, singular/plural forms, as well as phrases that contain your keywords.

However, it may not be as easy as it sounds, if you employ a broad match for every keyword of yours, it means your ads will be displayed for many irrelevant searches, and you will spend much money without having anything to show for it. For instance, the word “union” would be employed in carrying out searches about unions equipment, marriage union, trade union etc.

Because of this, it is necessary not to include the long tail keywords that are not relevant to your website.

Conversion Rate Increases with the Use of Negative Keywords

You can use negative keywords (as it is referred) in your Google AdWords campaigns. If one of your negative keywords is contained in a long tail keyword, your AdWords ads would not be displayed.

For instance, a case where you enter “-free” as a negative keyword, you won’t have your AdWord ad displayed when someone carries out a search for free things. The use of negative keywords is excellent for excluding web visitors searching for only free items.

You can employ a negative keyword when displaying the ad for a particular target group or audience.

When any of your keywords has two or more meanings as seen in the case of “union”, given above, a great way to exclude searches that are not related is to add negative keywords.

Broad match is a good way to garner more clients; however, you need to use this option with care. When you employ broad match with your keywords, remember to use negative keywords to avoid paying for needless traffic.

Google has in a recent statement, made it public that they have commenced using website upload speed as part of the 200 signals that determines the placement of a website in Google’s search result page.

Since the speed of a page upload shows the response time of a website in replying to a web request, Google has decided to consider site speed in their search rankings. In order to ascertain the speed of a website in comparison with other websites, they will employ a wide range of sources.

Effect of the decision on your website ranking
Math Cutts from Google affirms that the new development will affect only certain websites and that less than 1% of search queries will be altered as a result of including website speed in their ranking factor. This implies that only fewer search results will be affected. This is because, the average search request returns about 10 search results on each page.

Although 1% seems insignificant, it may pose an issue if your website is among the webpages that will drop in their ranking.
Presently, this is only applicable to web visitors who are searching on Google in English.

Techniques for Keeping your Web Pages Listed on top Google Search Results

Take a tour of these simple techniques and enhance the speed of your web pages.

• Go for a fast and dependable web host that has excellent connection to the internet. You can encounter problems by settling for a “cheap” web host.
• Merge external JavaScript code files into a single file. When the server has fewer files to request, your web pages will load faster.
• In order to make the JavaScript smaller, you need to compress your JavaScript code.
• Merge external CSS files to a single file, and then compress the CSS files.
• Enable gZip compression; but this is only if it is supported by your web server. This is what a web host can help you achieve.
• The images in your website should be as fewer as possible, and ensure that the images are compressed. A good number of graphic tools will give you the option to select a compression rate when an image is being saved for the web.
• At the end of your web pages, include tracking codes as well as JavaScript snippets.

Those who search the web are usually desirous of immediate result, and as such are not willing to wait even a moment longer. When your web pages load faster, there is an increased chance of visitors getting to see your website contents.

Web page speed is not the top ranking signal used by Google. This is confirmed by a statement made towards the end of Google’s page speed announcement; “Although site speed is a latest signal factor, the relevance of the page is weightier than its speed when accomplishing ranking”.

However, it is essential that you optimize the speed of your web pages; you also need to have other features of your web pages optimized in order to be listed on Google’s first result page.

Webmasters would do their best to get listed on Google’s first result page. However, a vast majority of them do not embark on the right techniques necessary for achieving this end.

A single strategy will definitely not get you listed among the first 10 rankings on Google’s result page. You need to work on all possible elements of your website in order to increase the chances of being listed.

Explore the top 5 factors listed below that influence your website’s ranking on Google’s search results:

1. Accessibility of the Website
It is senseless to embark on optimization of your web pages when your web pages are not accessible by search engines.

• The accessibility of the search engines to your website should be made possible by your robots.
  Txt file. If this file has errors in it, then a lot of search engines will not access your site, or even list it.
• Also, the underlying HTML codes of your web pages must be free of errors, the correct response code should be returned by your web server.
  Your web page contents should be such that the search engine spiders can read them.

Prior to your web pages optimization, verify if the contents of your web pages are readable to the search engines. This can be achieved with a spider simulator.

2. Site Architecture
Google is only interested in displaying relevant sites in the search result page. Ensuring that there is relationship between the pages of your website is a good way to be ranked among the top 10 positions in Google search results. Therefore, don’t structure your website in a way that makes it look more like a collection of random web pages.

The arrangement of your web pages should indicate to Google that your site is related to a central topic. It is necessary that the pages of your website be linked. A web visitor should be able to access your site with few clicks.

The categorization of your website contents should be made easier for search engine by the way you structure your links and directory.

3. Keywords
Among the top secrets of earning a higher ranking on Google, is the right choice of keywords.
A wrong selection of keywords means total failure of your campaign.

• Different pages of your website should be optimized for different keyphrases.
  It is better to have more pages of your website optimized.
• Begin with highly targeted keyphrases that have different keywords -
  e.g. “get a cheap web designer in Chicago”
• When you have attained good ranking for your targeted keyphrases, move on to the ones that are more general -
  e.g. “web designers in Chicago”.

Generally, the conversion rate for targeted keywords is much higher when compared to general keywords.

Again, consider the nature of visitors that will be attracted with the keyphrase based on whether they want to make an actual purchase or just need some information.

4. Uniqueness of Website Content
If your website contents are a mere duplication of articles and links from other websites, then don’t even hope to earn high rankings.

Distinguish your site from the crowd by creating high quality and unique content; also ensure that the articles are centred on your general topic.
Your website should contain useful resources.

5. Other Websites that Link to Your Website
One of the top factors for ranking high in Google is the links from other websites. But ensure that such links are from relevant and quality websites.

10 Effective Strategies

A business website is capable of pulling huge traffic and is potentially capable of creating clientele from the attracted traffic; however, without appropriate Ezine subscription procedure, the odds of generating customers from internet traffic is low.

It is difficult for a website to attract customers without providing resources that would benefit a targeted audience. And even with the availability of sufficient information, those who visit a particular website do not usually buy the product or service being advertised.

People do not often patronize a product or service without being familiar with the provider of the offerings. To this effect, it is important that you give a reason for visitors to keep being interested in your business. The most effective way to achieve this is by giving a free Ezine-periodic publication, disseminated via e-mail and often in newsletter form, video, ebook and various helpful resources that may be needed by your target audience.

Top 10 Tips

• Tip 1:
  Having the right visitors is very important.

To convert online traffic to actual customers, you need the right visitors. These are visitors that need your product or service. Make sure you use the appropriate keywords and link your website to businesses that will suit the information being conveyed by your website.

You can keep track of the traffic you are generating by using Google Analytics (it’s free), this will help you carry out proper analysis of the outcome of your efforts. Know that traffic from referrals have more potential to metamorphose into actual customers.
Content creation, exchanging links with relevant businesses as well as guest blogging are powerful ways to refer traffic to your website.

• Tip 2:
  Let your visitors know what you expect from them.

Look for a way to tell your visitors what to do with the resources you made available for them or else they may not know. To this effect, your homepage information and direction should be kept simple – don’t create confusion with much information and choices. Tell your visitors to sign up free for your ezine and don’t forget to tell them if it is an ebook, newsletter etc.

• Tip 3:
  How easy is it for your web visitors to take action?

It is useless if your visitors cannot find the useful information you have for them. The best place to place your subscription section or box is the top left side of your homepage to enable easy visibility. It may also help to place the signup form on each page of your website to achieve increased visibility, regardless of what page generates traffic. Also, make your signup form of an easy and user-friendly nature – no too much of clicks.

• Tip 4:
  What will your visitors benefit from your offer?

Don’t forget to explain what the freebie for your Ezine is, and the value it will add to them. A good number of successful Ezines give some kind of enticement to sign up. Again, you need to clearly state how the resources you are offering could be accessed; is it downloadable or is to be emailed?

• Tip 5:
  Keep your visitors’ mind at ease.

Remember to state outright that the information they are providing will not be transmitted to a third party in any way. Your privacy policy should make this known and they should be able to unsubscribe if they wish.

• Tip 6:
  Let your subscribers know the next step to take.

• Tip 7:
  Tell your subscribers how to white list you.

This will prevent your mail from being sent to junk mail by email programs. Tell them to also white list your entire website.

• Tip 8:
  Ensure that your confirmation email is customized.

You can personalize your confirmation emails and employ same graphics and language used on your website. This will help remind the subscriber about who is sending them the information. Avoid using generic language.

• Tip 9:
  Ensure that you keep up to your promise without delay.

• Tip 10:
  Don’t forget to send a ‘thank you’ mail to your subscribers; make is clear, concise and information rich.

Website ranking will change after the advent of Google Caffeine. Although nothing detailed has been released about Google Caffeine, the insiders and webmasters are sure that it will bring a lot of change in the ranking of your webpage. Google Caffeine is going to change a lot of its parameters to rank the website. Though some of the old parameters are sure to stay, yet you need to do a bit extra to rank your website high on the search engines.
The changes that will be brought to Google’s next index – Google Caffeine
The expected changes that will affect the ranking of websites include:
• The speed of the website: The speed with which a website loads will play a vital role in determining its ranking on a search engine. The websites which take longer to load will be left behind by websites that open quickly. With high speed comes higher Google ranking.
• Bad links: If the website has too many broken links or links from spammers then it is bound to have a lower ranking. These two factors will be major yardsticks in the ranking process. A bad neighborhood or too many known spammer links can actually have negative impact on the search engine.
• Quality does matter: The Google Caffeine will rank a webpage according to its quality of content. The content should be highly optimized and the navigation of the website must be easy with good inbound links.
• Social bookmarking: Social bookmarks will also have a positive impact on the ranking of the websites. If the website has more social bookmarks, then it is assured to attain a higher rank on the search engines.
What you can do for a higher ranking of your website on Google Caffeine
Knowing that there might be changes in the ranking criteria for the websites when Google Caffeine is released, the following tips can undoubtedly put your website on top of the search engines.
• Spam free website: Make sure that your website doesn’t contain any spam and in case there is any spammer website that puts its link on your page, remove it at the earliest. Ensure that nothing on your website represents a spam like camouflaged text or image links etc.
• Website design: Design of your website becomes significant with the Google Caffeine. Make sure that the font color of the text matter stands out clearly from the background. The website should avoid having fully automated linking systems as it may be considered as spam and could lead the way to losing your ranking.
• Easy navigation: Your website should have easy parsing by the search engine spiders so as to make the navigation easy and clear. This will help the website in achieving a better ranking.
• Inbound links: Link building will continue to remain important even after the Google Caffeine is introduced. You must therefore focus on quality links that will improve the ranking of your website. Getting good links from social networking sites will increase the page rank of any website and hence you must focus on that.

Search terms that are most recently talked about on social networking sites are displayed by Google as real-time results on the search engine result pages. As a prelude to this newly introduced feature, Google has joined hands with Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca and Twitter.
In simple terms, Googles real time results display the latest and most sought after links of network communities, for a particular keyword search. It is placed at the bottom of the search page.
Simple procedures that get your site references into Google’s real-time results
Although Google has not yet disclosed the criteria for choosing your tweet on real-time results, the below given factors do influence this process.
1. Do not post contents that look like spam because Google scrutinizes the quality of contents posted on your blog post, tweet, etc.
2. If a twitter assumes high authority and attains huge fan following, Google appears to create profiles of real-time results for such users that are re-tweeted.
3. Quite interestingly, it has been found that Google identifies spammers by the quality of their messages as well as the followers.
Data so collected will be used by Google to evaluate an “Update Rank” for each user.
Invest quality time in Google’s real-time results
The real-time results that Google displays has a few problems. It does not appear for all search terms and quickly replaces one result with another. This characteristic feature doesn’t allow for lasting real-time results on Google. It is hence a better and wiser option to invest time and money on getting to the top of regular Google search results. The higher you rank on Google’s regular search results, the more will be your website’s targeted visitors. This helps increase your revenue.
Honest is the best policy
The real-time results does enhance Google’s portfolio, but it seems to be problematic in the long run. It is quite unlikely that high authority posters will sell links in their tweets. A stark reality is that, the veracity of a posted message cannot be ascertained by Google on time. The recent report of the death of actress Natalie Portman on Google real-time results is a glaring example of the damaging effects of displaying wrong information. When it comes to business, the damage could be multi-fold.
Make honest effort to be found in a natural way to your social media posts. Cheating the system could get you blacklisted. Add keywords that converge targeted visitors to your site. Offer interesting and fresh content on your website every week so that people talk and tweet about it. This will ensure that you get to the Top 10 results of Google’s search pages.

Most of you must have had bad experiences with Google AdWords. Your website advertisements might have brought in fewer returns and you must have doled out lots of money on AdWords. Fairly speaking, if properly used, Google Adwords transforms into a money minting tool.

Effectively using Google AdWords with the right settings for the right campaigns will undoubtedly ensure that your costs are reduced and sales are increased.

Relevance of the Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords consist of 4 or more words and are of a very specific nature. Studies have proved that the conversion rate of long tail keywords is higher than that of single word keywords.

Based on the recently conducted Hitwise study, it has been found that more than 18% of the searches contain five or more keywords.

Google has also confirmed that 20% of the queries received everyday on Google are either unique ones or are probably seen once in 90 days.

With improper Long Tail Keywords, you could end up spending more

Including all possible keywords in a campaign is not an easy task. A helpful and great option as recommended by Google would be to use a broad match for all of your keywords. A broad match keyword exploits unexpected, but relevant queries. Your advertisement thus appears not only with phrases containing your keywords and exact spelling, but also with keyword expansions that include synonyms, singular/plural forms and relevant variants of your keywords.

However, proper usage of a broad match is easier said than done. This is because of the countless unrelated searches that results due to the use of a broad match. You could end up paying more and getting meager returns. For example, if you have a product named “Cobra”, the word cobra would be used for searches related to the reptile variants of cobra, the vintage car or the body spray with similar name.

Enhance your conversion rate with Negative keywords

Negative keywords are included in Google AdWords campaigns to bypass searches containing these words. Your AdWords advertisement is not displayed if the negative keyword is present in a long tail keyword.

If for example, you include “-free” as a negative keyword in the Google AdWords campaigns, your advertisement is not displayed to those who are searching for free offers. This provides direction to your advertisements.

Negative keywords are also used to target advertisements at specific groups. An insurance broker could include “book” and “books” as negative keywords in his Google AdWords campaigns so as to avoid people who are searching for insurance based books.

It is hence quite essentially required that a well thought out broad match warrants the use of negative keywords, so as to could help attract potential customers. Negative keywords also wards off unwanted traffic and hence reduces the payments you would have h