Marketing on the Web

I am amazed at webmasters who are so caught up in SEO that they can't see the forest for the trees.

Weblogs - all those wonderful reports and tools are great marketing tools.

Being on the first page of returns for any search engine is important for generating traffic.

I know several webmasters and so-called SEO experts who are thrilled to death to be #1 in Google's returned list using keywords that are not searched for by the public. If you are selling green widgets, optimize your site for the keywords: "green widgets", or "widgets". Why would you strive to be #1 with a keyword like "snazzlefrass"? No one looking for widgets - green or red - is ever going to go to Google and say "I think I'll type in "snazzlefrass" and see if I find any widgets today."

The buzzword on the 'net is that it is better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond. If this means 'target your audience' or 'narrow your focus' - well, sure - that's common sense. Unfortunately, I am seeing more and more sites that are optimized to be a fish in a pond with no water...

The best way to tell if your site is optimized properly is to check your bottom line. Are you selling more? That is what it's all about - isn't it?