SEO Tip - Prevent New Site/URL to Hurt your Page Rank

Many internet marketers have the same doubt at some point. Should they revamp their website? They want to improve their sites with new technology, new look and feel. However, would the new improved site, the new URLs/ new domain hurt the good page rank the current website is enjoying?

It could if you don’t do what is necessary to correct the possible damage. However, it is an easy fix. All you have to do is, from the old URLs, make redirection towards the new URLs to specify that the page has permanently changed its address (301 redirect or called permanent redirection). Then the search engine will stop indexing the old URLs and update its index by assigning the new URL to the page.

If you don’t do the 301 redirect, your new site will be lost in the search engine index, people will have no way to get to your new site. The 301 redirection is very important as we don't want the search engine to index the old non working page and at the same time we won't lose the position (page rank) and index the old page has gained throughout the year.

SEO Tip - Maintain & Improve your Google Page Rank by Updating Your Site Content

You have put together a great site and achieved a high rank in Google. However, don’t ever think you can then relax and still can keep your high page rank in Google. The job of search engine optimization (SEO) never ends. Your page rank will drop if your site do not have fresh content or do not have regular updates. I do not know Google’s page rank algorithm. However, when I see a drop in my page rank, I can gain some page rank back by adding new content in my website.

Of course, the best thing is to create a new content page. If not, at least slight changes in the existing pages. You will see the positive effect on page rank a few days after new content is added. (at least from my experience)

Don’t think you can stop working as soon as you have built a good site, it is a long and continuous effort to keep your site in good ranking. If you do not have new content, your page rank will continue to drop. However, when you think about it, Google’s algorithm enables it to return the best and most update results for any particular search.

Effective Email Marketing - Tips to succeed in E-mail Marketing Campaigns

Few tricks in Email Marketing can help to boost your E-mail Marketing campaigns. Pay attention to the following 4 elements (in no particular order) in your E-Blast can increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) and effectiveness of your Email Marketing campaigns.

1) From Address (Email Sender Address)
2) E-mail Subject Line
3) Content
4) Day and time of delivery

1) From Address (E-mail Sender Address)

- If you see an email from an unknown or spam like sender (weird characters), of course you are not going to open it but just to trash it. However, if it is from an well known organization, an organization known to the recipient or a real person name, recipients are more likely to open the E-mail.

2) Email Subject Line

- The Email Subject Line has to be relevant to the recipient and answer the needs (e.g. attractive offer for a consumer or "Tips to rank high in Google" for an internet marketer) or fix an issue for the recipient (e.g. Help you lose 10 lbs in 10 days). It should clearly describe the topic of the email. Sometimes, mention an authoritative body in the Subject Line will help the Click Through Rate. For example, recipient in US pharmaceutical sector will be alert to read something with subject line “FDA approves…”; a mailing solution company in UK will alert mail solution user by addressing it to “Important news for Royal Mail users”.

3) Content

- Content has to be short and to the point. It has to be easy to read as people usually only scan through their email to spot if there is anything that interested them. Do not disclose all the important information but just enough to attract people to click the link and go to your website to read more.

Moreover, content has to be relevant to the recipient. For example, you won’t send information about dogs to cat owners.

Last but not least, use some relevant graphics to make the content more interesting. When I said relevant graphics, don’t put picture about dogs when you are talking about cats. Since you don’t have a lot of space to put a lot of pictures, only put the one which are eye catching, relevant and interesting, the ones that can grab attention and raise recipient's interest in the articles.

4) Day and time of delivery – Best day and time to send your Email Marketing Campaigns

Best Day to send:

Tuesday to Thursday mornings are usually the best days to send your email campaigns. You will usually get the optimum response from an email campaign sent on Wednesday. Monday and Friday would usually get the worst response rate. Imagine on Mondays, everyone has a whole bunch of email sitting in their inbox waiting for them to check. People will usually skip yours, which are the non work related ones. Same for Fridays, people just want to finish the urgent work need to be done that day and wait for the weekend to come. They won’t bother checking your marketing email if it is sent on Fridays. When accumulating with the email sent on Saturday and Sunday, your Friday email will be at the bottom of the unopen pile and will most likely to be skipped when you are back to work on Monday. Don’t send your email campaign during a business holiday or weekend. Business people are not there to read them and accumulated Ad mail will only be deleted.

Best time to send:

If you have an international list, segment it by time zone will help you increase your response rate by being able to deliver your email campaign at the best time.

Generally 10:00-10:30 a.m. and 1:00-1:30 p.m. are the best time to send. At 10, people have usually checked all email or cleaned up all “spam” accumulated during the previous night. They have already warmed up a bit for the day (they might want a small break at that time). At 1, they just finished lunch and they are more relaxed before getting back into their work.

If the above is not enough for you, there is also a very systematic formula available online. Click here to go to the Email Labs website for more details.

Time of the year:

For seasonal goods, this is very important. You won’t promote the wrong thing at the wrong time. Moreover, don’t send a campaign right before and right after a holiday. Or your email will most likely be skipped.