I'm going to be starting two new sites, aimed mainly at teens. One is selling a handwritten ebook on how to get rid of acne, and the other a hand written one on how to improve your performance in school. Both are genuinely great and useful books. How would I go about promoting these? The ebooks will be sold for cheap, 7-10$ Also, any tips for getting higher rankings in google or other search engines? Just need basic advice, I'm a complete newbie to marketing.
Find sites where the teens hang out, and advertise the hell out of them. FaceBook, MySpace, CollegeHumor.com, WhateverLife.com.... Go where your potential customers are. Ask teens you know where they like to go. Speaking of whateverlife, read her story for something inspiring. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html I have a few more ideas, but I'm brain dead now. For SEO... From http://www.thelist.fm/search-engine-optimization.shtml 1. For starters...do a search on keywords that pertain to your site. Then check out the source of the sites that are on page one. Copy what they are doing. Start by copying their top code in their HTML, and then paste it in yours. Then tweak it to match your site. Example: <html> <head> <title> Unheard Of Dating Tips Sex Tips That Actually Works</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <META NAME="description" content="Double Your Dating! Double Your Sex! Keep A Conversation Going! Conversational Openers Women Love! Over 500 Unheard Of Tips!"> <META NAME="keywords" content="Dating Advice."> <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> </head> Another one: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="tip.css" /> <title>The Top 10 Tips To Seduce Her Men Gave Thumbs Up. TheList.FM</title> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Seduce her this way, guys."> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="TheList.FM's Cutting Edge, REALISTIC, Tips On How To Seduce Her That Have Worked, Time After Time. For Guys Who Hate The Typical BS Seduction Manuals."> <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> There are a couple of more variations, but you get the idea. Experts say to make sure that it is in order. Title, then the keywords, then the description.... Again, look at the other sites. Many have different variations. It doesn't matter. Some have: META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> while others don't. Pretty confusing, huh? Again, that's why you shouldn't put much stock in SEO. Did you know that many sites don't put keywords in their HTML? Instead they put it in the content on their page. Just goes to show you that sometimes it isn't necessary. Look at this page's code. Click on "view" in your toolbar, and then click on "source." You will see that I don't have a tag for keywords. Since I have enough of the appropriate keywords in the URL and in the article, I don't need to put it n the code. 2. Do NOT over use the keywords on your pages. Use just a few, and put it in the first quarter of your page. Look at some of the sites out there...they have only a couple, and they rank high. 3. Bold and italicize SOME keywords. It isn't known for a fact if it works or not, but nothing is lost by doing it. Rule of thumb: When questioning a method on whether it works or not, if it doesn't hurt a site, put it in anyway. Cover all your bases. 4. Put a keyword in your anchor of the text in the inbound link. 5. Put a keyword in your pages' URL. 6. Put a keyword in the incoming link text. For example: If you wrote an article for a site, have at the end of your article: "Click here now for more dating advice." When you hover your mouse over the link, it will show your URL, while at the same time it has a keyword. Now, this isn't full proof, but, again, cover all your bases. 7. Put keywords in text surrounding the incoming link text. Again, nut full proof. 8. Keep the landing pages short, fast loading, and change the content every now and then. I call any page in your site a "landing page," since you will have visitors landing on your pages from a search. 9. Can you write short articles for websites to carry? If so, submit it to them. The more sites that have your link, the higher your ranking. Obviously. 10. Submit to the major directories. There are hundreds of them, but only a half a dozen or so carry any real weight. But I think that it is a waste of time. Maybe five or so years back it would have made a difference, but not much now. But there is no loss in trying anyway. 11. Make a site that visitors want to link to. 12. Copy your competition. Click on "view" in your toolbar, and then click on "source." Don't bother with old sites, and content sites. Askmen.com and About.com are two such sites. Yahoo and Google loves these kinds of sites because they have been around for years, and they are loaded with fresh content every day. They can do no wrong. 13. If your site has less than, oh, say... 10 pages, forget site maps. They are worthless. They can go through your few pages at a blink of an eye. 14. Resubmit to the search engines. Be sure. It doesn't hurt. Do it only one time! 15. Find a good SEO firm that buys QUALITY backlinks that matches the same subject your site is on. If you have a site on web hosting, you don't want backlinks on automotive. 16. Make more info pages in your site. Articles, tips, "how to," directories... Have a goal of making at least two pages every week. They don't have to be long pages. It can be just a few short paragraphs. In a years time you will have over 100 keyword-enriched pages. Double it, or triple it if you have the time. And, remember, the older and more active your site is, the higher your odds goes up on being placed on page one...and staying there! Like Askmen, About, and others. 17. Contact Google and Yahoo for this kind of SEO information. They will help you. It's part of their business to help you. 18. You may have heard that you should have a style sheet. That way the search engines can easily read your page. That's BS. As long as it is not a large site, their spiders can go through those tables just fine. Again, look at all the sites that do have tables. They even beat out the overrated sites that have style sheets. 19. Do NOT use frames in your site! 20. Don't use too much java script. 21. Make sure you have text in your picture. Hover over my picture on the top of this page of the guy looking at the laptop. See the text pop up? Also, hover over the woman's eyes down below. Some search engines put more weight in sites that tell visitors who can't see the picture what is in that space. Of course this too isn't full proof, but since you are building a page, why not do it anyway? Build the page, optimize it just like the overrated SEO experts do, and then move on. 22. If you have a lot of information, like I have in this article, break it up in several pages. The more words there are on a page, the higher the odds are that they could, COULD drowned out the keywords. It is not known for sure if this works, but why take that chance? Besides, I think it makes sense. I'm not sure, but I think that is the main reason why Askmen,.com and About.com don't have a whole lot of text on one particular page. That's it! Not rocket science, right? And it is certainly not hard, long hours of work, like "experts" claim it to be! When I create another page for my site, it takes me less than five minutes to optimize it. Do the list, put everything in place, don't rack your brain over this overrated SEO, and then move on to concentrating on finding cheap advertising. Perry TheList.FM
Wow Perry that was a great long piece and I have to say that you have pretty much hit the nail on the head in most basic and not so basic areas. Looks like a lot of work doesn't it, but really after a while it just comes natural and you don't even need to think about SEO.