_________________________________________________________________

Wednesday March 20, 2002              Issue: #001 ISSN 1539-056X
(c) Copyright2002 - flashmarketing.com             Editor: Flash
_________________________________________________________________

                The FlashMarketing Newsletter(tm)
                   ~Simple Steps to Success~
                  Marketing Online Since 1997
_________________________________________________________________

Hello,

This publication is *never* sent unsolicited. If you are reading
this, it is because you've subscribed or someone has forwarded it
to you. Please do *not* reply to unsubscribe.

To subscribe: subscribe@flashmarketing.com

To be removed: unsubscribe@flashmarketing.com

Please *FORWARD* the whole newsletter to your associates.
_________________________________________________________________

  Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital....
  The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the
  basket.

  Andrew Carnegie

_________________________________________________________________

                          Contents
_________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction

2. Feature Article - Choosing the correct keywords for a site

3. Software Review - Three Fresh Utilities

4. Doctor's Advice - Keeping Your Email Neat

5. Zero Tolerance - Revenge is sweet

6. Back to School - Netwriting Master Course

7. Useful Links

_____________________________

1- Introduction
_____________________________

Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. This is the first
issue. If you find it useful, please forward it to anyone it may
help.

If you have things you would like to see in future issues or have
any comments let me know. fm-news@flashmarketing.com

Your choice of keywords determines your odds of succeeding in your
search engine marketing plan. Here's a powerful article that is
appropriate for the pro and novice alike.

-The Editor
The FlashMarketing Newsletter

[ Back to Contents ]
_____________________________

2- Feature Article
_____________________________

Choosing the correct keywords for a site
By Sumantra Roy

In this article, we focus on the correct way of finding out the
keywords for which you should optimize your site for the search
engines. This article will give you the formula for the Keyword
Effectiveness Index (KEI) - a mathematical formula that I have
developed to help you determine which keywords you should be
optimizing your site for.

Step 1: Open your text editor or word processor and write down
all the words and phrases that you might have searched for if
you were looking for a company that offers products and services
similar to yours. For example, suppose your company organizes
packaged tours to Australia. Here's a list of phrases that I
might have searched for if I were planning to make a trip to
Australia:

tourism in Australia
travel to Australia
traveling in Australia
travel agencies in Australia
traveling agencies in Australia
Australian travel agencies

Of course, the keywords that came to your mind may have been
different. But that's not important - the important thing is to
get an initial list of keywords.

You may be wondering why I have not used single word keywords.
Here's why:

Firstly, single word keywords tend to be hyper-competitive. A
search for "tourism" or "traveling" in any search engine will
probably generate hundreds of thousands of pages. While it is
possible that you may get your page in the top 10 for such a
single word keyword, it is quite unlikely.

Secondly, because of the sheer number of pages that single word
searches can throw up, most search engine users have realized
that they can get more relevant pages if they search for phrases
rather than individual words. Statistical research has shown that
most people are now searching for 2 or 3 word phrases rather than
for single words.

Thirdly, single word keywords won't get you targeted traffic. When
people search for "tourism," they are not necessarily looking for
tourist destinations in Australia - they may be interested in any
other country of the world. Even if you got your site into the
top 10 for tourism, you gain nothing from such visitors. However,
when someone searches for "tourism in Australia", he/she is your
potential customer, and hence, it makes sense for you to try and
get a top ranking for your site for that keyword. Hence, whenever
you are trying to generate keywords, try to be location specific.
Try to think of keywords which apply to the geographic area that
your product or service is designed to serve.

Step 2: Open any spreadsheet program that is installed in your
hard drive. I assume you are using Microsoft Excel. If you are
using some other spreadsheet program, just change the spreadsheet
related procedures outlined here to fit your program.

Create 4 columns - one for the keyword, one for the popularity of
the keyword, one for the number of sites that appear in AltaVista
for that keyword and the last for something I call the Keyword
Effectiveness Index (don't worry - I'll explain what KEI means
later on). In order to ensure that you can follow what I am
saying, I recommend that you add the following column headers to
the first four columns of the first row of your spreadsheet:

Keyword
Popularity
No. of Competitors
KEI

In case you don't want to take the trouble of creating your own
spreadsheet, download the keywords.zip file Here
The file contains a sample spreadsheet in Excel 97 format.

Step 3: A great way to obtain a list of keywords related to the
ones you have developed in the first step is to use WordTracker's
keyword generation service by going Here

Click on the "Trial" option at the top of the site. In the page
that appears, type in your name and email address and click on
the "Start the trial" button. In the next page, click on
"Click here to start the trial". In the next page, type in the
first keyword that you developed in Step 1, i.e. "tourism in
Australia", in the text box. Click on the "Proceed" button.

Step 4: In the next page, WordTracker will display a list of
keywords related to the keyword that you had typed in. (Just
scroll down the left pane to see the keywords). Now, click on the
first keyword in the left pane that is applicable for your site.
In the right pane, WordTracker will show a list of keywords which
contain the keyword you had clicked on in the left pane. Then in
the table that you have created in your spreadsheet, copy each of
the keywords in the right pane and paste them in the first column
of the table. Also, copy the number of times those keywords have
been used (i.e. the figure present in the Count column in
WordTracker) and paste them in the second column. In order to
ensure that you can follow me, make sure that you type the first
keyword in the second row of your spreadsheet. Of course, you
should only bother adding a keyword to your spreadsheet if it is
applicable for your site.

Once you have added all the keywords in the right pane that are
applicable for your site, click on the next keyword in the left
pane that is applicable for your site. Once again, WordTracker
will display a list of keywords in the right pane which contain
the keyword you had clicked on in the left pane. Again, copy the
keywords in the right pane which are applicable for your site and
paste them in the first column of your spreadsheet. Also, copy
the figures present in the Count column and paste them in the
second column beside the corresponding keywords. Repeat this
process for each of the keywords in the left pane.

Step 5: Once you have finished with all the keywords in the left
pane, press your browser's "Back" button a number of times until
WordTracker again displays the text box that asks you to type in
a keyword. Type in the second keyword in your original list (i.e.
"travel to Australia"), click on the "Proceed" button and
repeat Step 4. Do this for each of the keywords that you
developed in Step 1.

Step 6: Go to AltaVista. Search for the first keyword that is
present in your spreadsheet using exact match search (i.e. you
should wrap the keyword in quotes, i.e. you should type a
quotation mark before typing the keyword and a quotation mark
after typing it). AltaVista will return the number of sites which
are relevant to that keyword. Add this number to the third column
of the spreadsheet in the same row in which the keyword is
present. Repeat this process for each of the keywords present in
your spreadsheet. Once you have done that, your first column will
contain the keywords, your second column will show the popularity
of the keywords and your third column will contain the number of
sites you are competing against to get a high ranking for those
keywords.

Now it's time to calculate the KEI!

Step 7: The Keyword Effectiveness Index is the square of the
popularity of a keyword multiplied by 1000 and divided by the
number of sites that appear in AltaVista for that keyword. It is
designed to measure which keywords are worth optimizing your site
for. The higher the KEI, the better the keyword. How the formula
for the KEI is arrived at is beyond the scope of this article. If
you want to know, send a blank email: Click Here

If you had used the spreadsheet file that I created for you
(see Step 2), you won't need to enter the formula for calculating
the KEI yourself. The KEI would be automatically calculated for
you the moment you enter the values in columns 2 and 3. You can
go straight to Step 8.

In case you didn't download the file, here's how you can calculate
the KEI.

I am assuming that you have created the spreadsheet columns in the
way I recommended in Step 3 and that you are using Microsoft
Excel. If you using some other spreadsheet program, you will need
to adjust the formula to the requirements of your spreadsheet
program. Click on cell D2. Type in the following exactly as it is
shown:

=IF(C2<>0,B2^2/C2*1000,0)

Then click on the Copy button to copy the formula, select all the
cells in column 4 which have keywords associated with them and
press the Paste button to paste the formula. The KEI for each
keyword will be displayed.

Step 8: Use your spreadsheet program's Sort feature to sort the
rows in descending order of the KEI. In Excel 97, you would click
on the Data menu, click on the Sort menu item, choose KEI from
the drop-down combo box named "Sort by", click on the
"Descending" option next to it, and then click on OK.

And guess what - that's it! You now know the keywords which you
should optimize your site for. You can now start optimizing your
site one by one for each keyword, starting with the keyword with
the highest KEI. Exactly how many of the keywords you choose to
optimize your site for largely depends on the amount of time that
you can spare from your normal business activities. But whatever
the number of keywords that you target, it obviously makes sense
to go for the most effective keywords first.

Tying up the loose ends:

The number of related keywords that WordTracker displays in the
trial version is limited. In order to get all the keywords, which
are related to the keywords you had developed in Step 1, you
would need to subscribe to WordTracker's paid service.

Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected
search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. To have
Sumantra's company place your site at the top of the search
engines, go to:http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1851
For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the
search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going to
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1851&newsletter.htm

[ Back to Contents ]

_____________________________

3- Software Review
_____________________________

Three Fresh and Free Software Utilities from FreshDevices

Fresh Download - Pause and resume broken downloads, multiple
connections download manager. This thing flies.

Fresh Diagnose - Analyze and benchmark your computer. My first
impression is, it's nicer that "Norton System Information." The
benchmark section compares your system components with other
systems.

Fresh UI - Configure and optimize Windows. A cool toy if you like
to tinker with your computer setup.

You can download all three programs from: Here

It's a lot of software for free. You see a few ads in the
registration process but there's no banner in the software. These
aren't trial version. You get a registration key to unlock the
full version free.

[EDITOR'S NOTE] - I ran Ad-aware after installing the programs and
everything was clean. If you aren't familiar with Ad-aware, it's
a free spyware removal utility. It's also a killer app! Click Here

[ Back to Contents ]

_____________________________

4- Doctor's Advice
_____________________________

Keeping Your Email Neat
by Kevin Nunley

Do you ever get newsletters and email messages that have the lines
Broken into a jumble?  How about odd characters, HTML code, or
headlines half the size of the page?

Here are three simple guidelines that almost insure your email
message arrives looking great.  This can be critical to getting
customers to pay attention to your marketing message rather than
getting hung up on the look of your email.

Keep lines to about 64 characters (these lines are about that
long). Put a hard carriage return at the end of each line (hit
"enter" on a PC or "return" on your Mac).  Many email programs
don't
recognize where your lines wrapped and will simply break them up
wherever the programs pleases.

Don't include HTML effects unless you know your customer has
an email reader that can handle them.  Often what looks great on
your computer comes up as coded tags on other email programs.
Sometime programs switch the color of your background or
misinterpret the size of your headlines.

Be careful with less common fonts in email.  Some fonts on a Mac
throw PC's a curve, turning quotation marks into 1's or changing
letters into question marks.

Make more sales with professional web copy and sales letters.
DrNunley's office of top writers create sizzling copy fast and
at low cost.  See our special package prices for writing multiple
pages at http://www.flashmarketing.com/copy/

[ Back to Contents ]

_____________________________

5- Zero Tolerance
_____________________________

Do you get tired of getting spam at email addresses harvested
from your website? Here is way to get back at the spammers.
Just look at the bottom left corner of my homepage at:
http://flashmarketing.com and click on the link:
"We Have Zero Tolerance for Spam"

[ Back to Contents ]

_____________________________

6- Back to School
_____________________________

Discover the secrets of converting visitors into buyers. Free 5 day
Netwriting Master Course by email. Send blank email to:
 twmsflash1@sitesell.net Become an effective e-persuader.

[ Back to Contents ]

_____________________________

7- Useful Links
_____________________________

WebPosition Gold - Site Optimization Software
 http://webposition-gold.com

TrafficSeeker - Mega-Submitter
http://trafficseeker-platinum.com

MYSS! - The Internet Selling Manual
http://flashmarketing.com/myss.htm

Dr. Nunley - Never Underestimate the Power of Words
http://flashmarketing/copy/

ScamFree Zone - "Internet Success Blueprint"
http://scamfreezone.com/t.cgi/183947

[ Back to Contents ]
_________________________________________________________________

If you decide you no longer want to receive this publication,
just send a blank email message to:
 unsubscribe@flashmarketing.com

If you received this from an associate and you would like to
subscribe just send a blank email message to:
 subscribe@flashmarketing.com

You are hereby granted permission to publish this newsletter in
its entirety. This includes forwarding it to your associates. If
you just want to publish an article, you must also publish the
resource information at the end of the article.

Improve the Internet - Help a Newbie

Market a little *every day* ... it adds up!

Thanks for reading!
_________________________________________________________________
(c) Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
FlashMarketing (tm)