Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Do You Squidoo?

by

Update: Squidoo has been absorbed into Hubpages.

Squidoo.com is a new Web site that is made by users. It gives you the opportunity to share your passions, show off your expertise and even make a little cash. 

Squidoo.com is a new Web site that is made by users. It gives you the opportunity to share your passions, show off your expertise and even make a little cash. (Squidoo allows you to earn revenue through affiliate programs with Amazon.com and many other online merchants.) It is fun roaming around the site and seeing the pages others have put up, and making your own pages (they call them “lenses”) is easy.

I set up several lenses, but the most complete is my lens on mystery shopping: http://www.squidoo.com/mysteryshopping/ In a very short time, it made it to the top 100 lenses.

Is Having a Web Site Worth It?

by

Last night I gave a talk on online marketing at the Houston Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. After talking about setting up a Web site, and various ways to promote yourself and your site online, someone asked the $64,000 question: “So, is it worth it? After all of that, do you make sales online?”

The answer is absolutely, “Yes!” Not only do I make sales online, my sales continue to increase. And lots of other opportunities come to me, too. I am asked to do more client consultations all the time, and my media exposure has increased dramatically. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a writer with a major magazine who found me online and wants to include me in an article he is writing. Yesterday I was featured on a television news program in Tyler, Texas because they found me online.

There are two things to remember: You can do your promotion a little at a time. You do not have to get 1,000 links to your site the first week. (In fact, getting that many links at once might work against you.) Start slowly and keep up steady progress.

And, success begets success. The more prominent you are online, the more customers and media attention you will get. The more customers you get, the more referrals you will get. And the more media you get, the more online traffic, customers and other media you will get.

When Web Surfers Seek Will They Find You?

by

Once you have a web site, you want people to find it. Design your site with the search engines in mind, make it easy for them to index your site, and you will be rewarded with more visitors.

Don’t assume that your web designer is qualified to optimize your site. Many designers use Flash intros, Java Script navigation and text embedded in graphics. These may look cool, but they will make it difficult or impossible for search engines to read what is on your site.

Don’t pay $49 to get your site submitted to 4,000 search engines. Most search results are delivered by just a few search engines and directories: Google, Yahoo, Teoma and the new MSN search.

To find out if your site is in the search engines, go to a search site and search for your domain name, such as “www.mywebsite.com”. If it doesn’t show up, you can submit your site (look for a link to add a URL). However, the fastest way to get indexed is to get a link from a site already known to the search engines. Ask a friend or colleague to link to you from their site.

In ‘Search Engine Optimization for Dummies,’ (Wiley Publishing, Inc.) Peter Kent offers several quick tips to immediately make your site more search-engine-friendly.

Get rid of frames. Search engines will typically only see the frame and not the main content of the pages.

Maximize Meta tags. Meta tags are not displayed when a user views the site, but are read by the search engines. If you want to see the Meta tags on your site or any other, in your browser click on “View,” then “Source” or “Page Source.” The important tags are “TITLE” and “DESCRIPTION.” These tags will be used by the search engine to determine what the page is about, and some will display them in search results. Make sure both “TITLE” and “DESCRIPTION” reflect the content of each page and that they include important keywords. The “TITLE” tag should be just below the “HEAD” tag, with the “DESCRIPTION” tag just below it.

Use keywords throughout the page, making sure the most important keywords are near the top of the page. Many search engines give extra importance to keywords in headings, so use H tags. Search engines may also look at keywords in bold and italics, or in bulleted lists, as being especially important on the page.

Links to other pages within your site should be text (not images), and should include keywords, not simply, “Click here.” For example, “Click here for our catalog of discount office supplies.”

Keywords should be used multiple times on a page, but a particular word shouldn’t make up more than five to ten percent of all the words on a page.

Have a good navigation system with text links. A site map is useful to visitors and the search engines.

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process, but with just a few simple steps you can make your web site more visible. 

Let Amazon.com Help Make You Famous (Even If You Don’t Have a Book)

by

Here are some ideas about how you can use free features on Amazon to make yourself famous even–if you haven’t written a book.

Friends and Favorites

From the main page, click on the (Your) Amazon.com tab near the top of the page. Then, click on the tab that says Your Profile. You will find the following features there. For examples, take a look at my About You Page at http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A24B990VP9QC6C/ref=cm_psrch_profile/104-8951639-5736732

Your About You Page

Set up an account with a public ID that promotes you, your Web site, your book or your company. For example, my ID is “Cathy Stucker, IdeaLady.com.” Dan Poynter’s is “Dan Poynter, Author of The Self-Publishing Manual.” (This seems to be the only place where Amazon won’t edit out a URL.) Your ID can be changed, so if you already have one and want to improve it, just log on and make the change.

Once you have your ID, you can enter information about yourself, and even a picture. This can be read by anyone who visits your About You area. As you create Listmania lists, So You’d Like To . . . guides, and write reviews, you will draw people to your About You area. Make it good!

Writing Reviews

Create an expert reputation by writing reviews of books, DVDs, products and just about anything Amazon sells. Focus on products of interest to your target market to get the best effect. You are not supposed to put URLs in your reviews; however, you can mention your book and include other promotional info in the context of the review.

Listmania

Compile a list of related books (related in any way you choose) and create a Listmania list. Include your book if you have one (in the number three position or lower) and other titles that would appeal to the same audience. Make sure you include several best sellers. Including those books will get your list onto many of those book’s pages, and will expose you and your book to more people. As with reviews, even if you don’t have a book, you can put some promotional language here. As an example, see Randy Gilbert’s About You Page and read his Listmania lists at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-glance/-/A1AU3EZI91N8ND/103-9536198-5967036

So You’d Like To . . . Guides

Similar to Listmania, but a bit more work to put together. Include three or more products (including your book in the number three position or lower) in a narrative about how to do something. Include some best selling titles in your genre to get your guide on those books’ pages.

Learn About the Search Engines

by

Search engines work in mysterious ways . . .If you have a Web site, you probably pay attention to your rankings for the keywords important to your business. My site was doing well, and I was in the top 10 to 20 results for several highly-competitive keywords. Then–BOOM!–I dropped out of sight.

After some research, I determined that Google was in the midst of an update (appropriately nicknamed “Bourbon,” as it was enough to drive me to drink). I crossed my fingers and hoped that once the update was complete, my rankings would return to what had become normal.

What was especially worrisome was that my rankings in other search engines were affected, too. (You may know that many search engines share data; however, my problem extended to even those that don’t share data with Google.)

Last week, I was suddenly right back where I belonged. Not only in Google, but in most of the major search engines.

Although I pay attention to my search engine rankings, I also spend time developing other sources of traffic to my Web site. During my recent “exile,” I was especially glad I have done so.

Pay attention to optimizing your Web site for the search engines, but also make sure you have customers coming to you from many sources. Even if one channel dries up, you will still have a steady stream of customers coming your way.

******************************

*Learn About the Search Engines*

There are several helpful resources in search engine marketing and optimization. One of my favorite resources is at http://www.SEOSMarts.com/

One of the easiest ways I have found to stay on top of what is happening with the top search engines is The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars. You can get more information and download it at: http://www.SEOSmarts.com/