Internet Marketing

As the image below proves, it is possible to get new content into Google (and ranking) within an hour. This image is from Christchurch Daily Photo my photography website. Every day I post a new photo. And these new posts find their way into Google within an hour. Now that is pretty cool, especially since this site earns me revenue via Google AdSense.

So if you are looking to get your content into Google in an hour here are some tips:

1. Post new content every day – or at least schedule content to be published every day (using WordPress this is possible)
2. Run a blog
3. Use software that pings Google when a new blog post is published

You may be thinking ‘but I don’t want a blog’ – well the fact is, you don’t have to call it a blog, you can just called it ‘Latest News’ or something similar, but you will still get the benefit of getting your new content indexed super quickly.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Lately I’ve been delighted and also quite amused to discover just how quickly one of my new website articles is indexed by Google.  I’m delighted because pages are showing up in the search results within hours and I get traffic from the searches within hours as well. The amusement stems from me trying to further research a topic I’ve blogged about (for example Gen Y internet users) only to find that the next day my blog post ranks in the top 10 for the subject.  I get quite a chuckle out of it! It doesn’t help my research efforts, but I do start to get traffic from it. And traffic brings enquiries, and enquiries bring prospects and prospects bring work, and work allows me to pay my bills and go on holidays!

So, if you are looking to get into Google in a hurry start writing new content! And, the best way to deliver this content is via a blog – and the best blog system to use is WordPress (and WordPress 2.7 is simply fantastic and simple to use). Blog posts don’t have to be long – just a few quick paragraphs on a topic is all it takes, but I’ll guarantee you will get traffic to your site – and what’s best of all is that the traffic you get will be from Google and the visitor will be ‘pre-qualified’ as they are actively searching for a solution, and you have it, so you’re their perfect match.

Here’s an example from my personal photo blog – I took a photo of a cat napping amongst some pumpkins and Googled the phrase to find the page was in Google within hours.

So, it’s not that competive a phrase, but it’s still pretty cool that it’s in Google that fast. But wait, there’s more… if you think a few hours is great, Google can do even better and you could find your blog posts in Google within minutes of publishing them – for more on this, check out Matt Cutt’s blog post on Google’s ‘Minty Fresh Indexing‘ – where he reminds us of the time not so long ago that Google would only update its search index once a month with what search engine optimisers termed the ‘Google dance’. Oh how times have changed!

If you are looking for a way to get a jump on your competition then this is it, so what are you waiting for? Contact me and tell me you read this blog post and you will get 12 month’s free hosting with your new website / blog.  Now that’s a great way to start a new year!

The Generation Y Factor! If your target market online includes the infamous Generation Y (young adults and teens) then you need to get clued up on what this generation is doing online.

But first, what makes Generation Y different from boomers or Gen X? Well, here’s an interesting quote from Bea Fields on Generation Y’s nature:

“This is the most optimistic generation to ever walk the face of the planet. They absolutely believe that miracles are possible. They refuse to work a job that does not bring them a sense of joy. They care about the earth and servicing their community”. http://www.startupnation.com/articles/9011/1/marketing-GenY.htm

It’s generally accepted that Generation Y have turned off from mainstream media preferring to source a lot of their information from each other. Social networking sites serve this purpose with a lot of information and experiences shared via Facebook and MySpace. :

It has also been suggested that Gen Y is very much an experience culture, so your website may need to address this with ‘experiential marketing’ techniques (basically appealing to the senses in a way that is personally relevant). For more on experiential marketing put the phrase into Google and you’ll get a lot of valuable resources.

As Generation Y are very ‘wired’, extremely media savvy and web literate, it is highly likely that your website will need to pass a greater ‘credibility test’ to meet the needs of this target audience. This means your website needs to be highly professional and very well designed. You will also need to seriously consider embracing social networking as both a participant and an advertiser.

You may want to use your website as a ‘hub’ that links off to your presence in the blogosphere (via blogging) and your presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. This will give you the much needed online credibility that your target market demands. Most of the content from these other sites can also be pulled back into your main website via RSS feeds and embedded code snippets. In particular, the WordPress blogging system has many additional plugins to pull content from these types of sites back into your blog so content is tightly integrated.