Don't Forget Research Time

Don't Forget Research Time Robert Nixon You should remember the internet was made as a research tool. The whole concept is for someone to 'get on the internet' to find something. Whether that 'something' is your website or not, they will spend some time investigating, checking various results until they have determined their 'quest' is over. I recently checked my site stats given me by my hosting company and found many hits and page views were coming from search engines. Each engine is listed, along with the search term used and the page of my domain that was returned in the search. Most of these had been directed to a newsletter page. I had not submitted my newsletter pages separately, nor have I ever submitted my 'newsletter list' page to the engines, but there it was !! I do, however, write articles and submit them to various places that look for articles. You may have what they are looking to find on your website but they may never see is because you have not spent the time to submit your information as an article. Even testimonials count. Here are some rules you may want to follow: 1. Write about something you know about. You don't have to be an expert, all you have to say is " in my opinion", or " I have observed". 2. Don't try and disguise an advertisement as your article, you can do that in another way at the end in the 'About the author' tag. Besides, this is the ONLY place you can do so that will be allowed by the editors. 3. Allow others to use your articles as 'content' for their newsletters, etc. As long as the 'About the author' remains intact. 4. Save your newsletter summary page as a separate page in your domain. http://www.cpucash.net/newsletterlist.htm 5. If it is categorized by month save each month as a separate page in your domain. http://www.cpucash.net/january2005.html 6. Save your articles on their a separate page in your domain. http://www.cpucash.net/RobertArticles.html What the results will show is the title of the page returned by the engine and a few words, normally the first 25 or so, that follow, with a 'hyperlink' for the researcher to 'click' on to see your page done for you pointing to the title page given as the result. How do you benefit? First: You had to do nothing for someone to be directed to your site as far as promoting. All you had to do is follow the steps above ( 4,5,6 ), and follow your normal procedure of insuring you have 'tags' correctly inserted when you created the page. About the tags. Some question the 'revisit-after' tag as being useful, I always put it in, just in case. Remember they go between the tags BEFORE the tag. Second: If the searcher likes what you have written, then they WILL click on the link you have chosen in your 'About the author' area to find out more. People will and do spend HOURS at a time researching, or as the current 'catch phrase' says, ' Surfing the Internet'. What do you in addition that may help? You will have to spend some time doing some research on your own. Find places that are looking for articles. They know that many of those reading the articles will also look at their ads that are on the sides, top and bottom to the page ( in other words, all around YOUR article ) as they read your article. Remember the Newsletters you subscribe to? Well, ALL of us publishers are always looking for articles, start with contacting those, or checking for a link for submitting articles. The bottom line is to get people to purchase your product or service, if the 'hard sale' or direct approach is not producing for you as you would like, then you have to also consider your 'indirect sales' approach. The hard sell is like when you go to a convention where ALL of your competitors are also. The indirect sale is where you hand someone your business card at lunch or a social gathering. At this level, people remember you first, then look at what you do second, BUT will always associate YOU with what you do !! In conclusion: Is research time worth the effort? This is for you to determine and it depends upon who is doing it. You want to be on the result end, with others looking for you, NOT you looking for them. Robert Nixon