Thanks to all who participated in the first #msmktgchat – Women’s Internet Marketing Twitter Chat!  We heard some great tips about how to significantly increase your site’s traffic from all the women who shared.

For those of you who weren’t able to make it, or even those of you who were but didn’t take notes, I’ve written up the practical takeaways, in the order they were given.  There were other questions, answers and ideas that happened around them at the chat, but I’ve pared it down to the minimum. If you want to add any tips, please do so in the comments below!

1. Blogging and Google PPC (pay-per-click) ads. Starting a PPC if doesn’t exist brings new traffic.  - from @ilenerosenblum

2. How-to blog posts (anything where you’re explaining how to do something that many people want to know how to do – especially if they’re annoyed when they can’t do it). They get me organic Google traffic, plus I’ll search for participatory sites where the topic of the article was asked about, by searching the topic in Google and seeing if any are blogs or forums or Q&A sites that are talking about that topic. I add a comment/answer/post saying how the following link is a detailed explanation of how to [topic].

Bonus tip: after searching, click the “More” link in the Google sidebar where different categories of results are listed and click “Discussions” or “Blogs” to narrow it down. – from @debizseo

3. Taking the time to build a network on Twitter of people who will click on your links and share them too (up to 350 Twitter visitors to a single post!). Good way to find people in your niche who are likely to share: use Twitter search. – from @hadassah_levy

4. Get a Facebook maven to guest post on your site and then let them send their entire network to read their post. This works AWESOME! – from @myparnasa

5. Setting up pages in wordpress with keywords. Holidays always get traffic. – from @mominisrael

Stay tuned for the date of the next #msmktgchat. It will be at some point “after the chagim” (that’s Israel-speak for “after the Jewish holiday season”). Once we restart, we’ll be chatting every other Monday.  For details (and potentially a new, shorter hashtag), make sure to follow chat hosts @myparnasa and @debizseo, if you don’t already.

Looking forward to seeing you! (Well, “looking forward to seeing your avatar” might be more accurate.  ;)

Share your own site traffic increasing tips with all of us in the comments below!

How to Significantly Increase Your Site Traffic – #msmktgchat Sept 19 is a post from: Debi'Z Organic SEO, experts in Organic SEO Services and SEO Coaching.

The keywords you target are going to be the emissaries to bring people to your site. The entire SEO process of optimizing your site so that it shows up in the Google rankings for your keywords happens after you decide which keywords you want to target. But what if you picked keywords that no one is looking for? Even if you succeed in ranking for them, they won’t bring visitors. What if – a more insidious form of failure – you pick keywords that people are looking for but not the people who would actually be interested in what you have to offer? Visitors will come… but they won’t do what you are hoping for on your site.

So how do you succeed at picking the right keywords? The first obstacle to success – no one looking – is pretty easy to overcome.  Go to Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool and enter your potential keywords. Click “Search” and see what number of monthly searches your keywords have. Use the “Exact Match” setting instead of the “Broad Match.” (Change at the bottom of the left sidebar.) Is that enough for you? Remember, even if you make it to the top, you’re not going to get all those searches clicking on your site. The numbers are not one hundred percent accurate, but good enough to be used as an estimate. (This tool is available even to non-Adwords account holders, although to get full functionality you may need to sign up for an Adwords account.  It’s worth it for the use of the tool, and you never have to pay anything, although you may get emails from Google every so often at the beginning saying, “We see you still haven’t started running any ads – can we help you with something?”  Ignore them.  Nothing will happen.)

The second obstacle to success is a little harder.  How do you pick the keyword that your target audience is looking for? The people who will make your dreams come true on your site?

One common pitfall is choosing the words that you would look for if you were searching for your product, service or content. Your visitors are not you. They are most likely less knowledgeable than you about what you have to offer – sometimes more knowledgeable than you, or at least “differently knowledgeable.” You may promote your “digital audio players” and promote them quite well, but all your potential customers are searching for “MP3s”.  You might be promoting your “negotiation course” when the people who would be interested in taking the course are searching for “communication skills.”

So how do you pick the right keywords?

Talk to people. Not just any people – your potential clients. Find the people who would actually be candidates to be visitors who buy, or read, or whatever it is you want them to do on your site, and ask them, point-blank:

“What would you type into Google if you were looking for this product, service or content?”

The answers may surprise you.  Keep asking.  Listen.  ”The customer is always right” certainly applies when it comes to what the customer will be searching for.  If you want to get it right too, promote the keywords that your potential customers tell you they would use.  You will dramatically increase the chances that they will find you, and you will dramatically increase the chances that they will become your actual clients and consumers.

*Bonus Tip: If you want to be able to make your product or service as appealing to your potential customers as possible, do the same thing – ask them.  ”Why would you want a product or service like this? How would it help you in life? What problem is it going to solve for you?”  Take their answers and put it into your marketing copy, your meta-descriptions and your ad copy. Let them tell you why they would want what you have – and then you turn around and tell them (well, not necessarily the same people, but the hundreds and thousands out there who think and feel like they do).

*Extra Bonus Tip: If you want a step-by-step guide to doing keyword research from the beginning to the end, check out our free Keyword Research Guide.  Enjoy!

Can you think of more marketing areas where you could better develop your strategy from asking potential customers?  Share them with us in the comments below!

For more practical SEO guided tips, get new blog posts delivered directly to your email or in the RSS reader of your choice.

How Do I Find the Best Keywords for My Site? is a post from: Debi'Z Organic SEO, experts in Organic SEO Services and SEO Coaching.

Statistics show that approximately 26% of all surfers click on the 1st organic search result, dropping to 4.7% for the 2nd organic result, 0.39% on the 9th result, and 1.2% on the 10th result. In addition, only about 2-5% of surfers have a look at page 2 of the search results.

What this means is that you really do need to be on page 1 in order to succeed on the internet. Anything less, and you’ve failed.

It’s quite easy to be #1 for your company name, or for a phrase like “SEO is a science, based on tried-and-true techniques” (we are #1 and #2 for that), but in a competitive market, there will always be key phrases that you want to rank in the top 10, but which are dominated by old, large or well-optimized websites. The question is whether you have a chance to beat them?

And if so, what will it take?

Now THAT is the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question!  No, don’t panic – I hope it won’t take $64,000 for you to get there.

But wouldn’t you rather know if it will before you start?

Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you really DO need $64,000 to get to page 1.

What will happen if you “only” invest $63,000?

And once you’re at the top, what happens if you stop?

If these questions pique your interest, if you would like to hear more, come listen to yours truly, together with Internet Marketing Specialist, Emanuel Hochstadt of TENS Web Marketing this Thursday, the 24th of June, From 17:00 to 20:00, in Rehavia, Jerusalem. Price – 150 NIS plus vat.

You can register at:

Emanuel:  emanuel@tenswebmarketing.com, or 02-5664676.

Debi: debi@debi-z.com, http://www.debi-z.com/contact-debiz-seo-consulting/ or 054-6751237.

MAXIMUM 10 attendees – first come, first served !!

We are planning  to run more sessions, so if you can’t make this one, please do let  us know, and we’ll keep you updated with details about future sessions.

Looking forward to see you there.

How to ensure success and avoid failure in Internet Marketing – Brand New Workshop is a post from: Debi'Z Organic SEO, experts in Organic SEO Services and SEO Coaching.