Make Money Online “How to”

The short answer to the question of when you need to hire
an Internet Marketing SEO Consultant to help you achieve
success in the virtual marketplace is anytime you are
running a business that you want to see succeed. This may
not be feasible when you are in startup mode, but as soon
as you have the financial resources you should consider
getting some expert help in this area.

Many business owners get used to wearing many hats and
doing everything themselves, at least in the beginning. The
fact is that you can’t possibly do everything yourself;
there aren’t enough hours in the day. At some point, you
will need to bring in other people so you can focus on
building the business, as opposed to doing everyday things
that are necessary, but that don’t generate any income.

What a Consultant Can Do for You

Less than one-quarter of all businesses hire a consultant
to help them with their online presence. Those that do tend
to have higher search engine rankings, which is key to
driving traffic to a web site and increased sales. A
ranking in the Top 10 would be ideal, since most Internet
users don’t go through more than the first couple of pages
of search results to find the information they want.

If you don’t know how to use keywords, meta tags, and other
strategies to achieve a search engine ranking, hiring
someone with the expertise you need makes perfect sense.
You may already be working with an accountant, a lawyer,
and a business banker, so why don’t you bring in an
Internet Marketing expert, too This is another
professional who can help you achieve success.

How to Find the Right Consultant for Your Business

The Internet Marketing consultant you work with is going to
be acting as a guide and you may need to contact a few of
them before you find someone you are interested in working
with. In short, you want someone who shares your vision for
your business and who you click with. If there isn’t a
certain amount of chemistry, trust, and mutual respect, you
are not going to be able to work effectively as a team.

You will also want to find out about the person’s level of
experience. Find someone who has worked with companies that
are similar to yours in size and focus. A person who has
worked for large corporations only may not be the best fit
for a startup.

Ask for references and contact each one to find out more
about what working with that consultant is like. You will
also want to see if you can find other previous customers
who are not being given as references to see if they have a
different recollection of their experience working with
that person.

As always before working with someone new, take the time to
check them out with the Better Business Bureau online to
see if there are complaints and if they were resolved
satisfactorily.

Helping You Succeed,
Harry

Getting organic (free) traffic to your website is one of
the keys to having a successful Internet business. But how
are you going to let Internet users know that you are open
for business if they don’t know what your web address (URL)
is?

There are many strategies you can use to drive traffic to
your website, but the most basic one is to get your site
indexed by search engines. You can wait until your site is
visited by search engine bots, the web crawlers that go out
through the Internet to gather information on a regular
basis. Your site should be crawled in this manner
eventually, but it will take time; you may not want to wait
weeks before your site is indexed.

To give your site a boost, you do have the option of
submitting it to search engines yourself. You will want to
make sure that it appears on the three most popular ones,
since they account for the majority of traffic online.

The "Big Three"

The three search engines that account for the most web
traffic are:

• • Google
• • Yahoo
• • MSN

In addition, there are many other search engines, and it is
possible to get a high ranking on one of them even if you
don’t have a Top 10 ranking on one of the Big Three. This
may help you improve your site ranking on one of the more
well-known search engines, as well.

Submitting Your Site to Search Engines

You can submit your site to a number of search engines
yourself, but this option will be quite time-consuming.
Here’s how it works: Visit the search engine web site you
are interested in and look for the "Submit Your Site" page.
You will probably see an online form that will ask you for
the URL of your site and a brief description of its
contents. Be sure to include appropriate keywords in your
description. It may take a few weeks before your site
appears in the listings, so make a note on your calendar to
check to make sure it has been included at a later time.

If you don’t want to use time that would be better spent
building your business on this task, you have a couple of
options:

1. Use a free submission service
2. Hire a consultant to do it for you

Free Submission Service

A free submission service will submit your site information
to many different search engines, including the Big Three.
In return for the service, you will be asked for your
contact information. Be prepared to receive a number of
special offers from the submission service after it has
performed this task for you, though.

Hire a Consultant

You can also hire a company to submit your URL to search
engines on your behalf. They can advise you about ways to
get a better ranking, which is key to driving traffic to
your site. If you have the financial resources to pay the
fee, this method may be the most effective way to get your
site indexed sooner.

To Your Success,
Harry

I was doing some research for a few of my upcoming articles,
and I came across a site that I found fascinating.  Here are a
few of the statistics that caught me by surprise:

What country has the largest number of users on the Internet?

My first thoughts were the US or possibly India, but the
correct answer is China with an estimated 253 million users.
The United States was number two with just a little over 220
million.  But here’s what really surprised me, Japan which
was number three had a sharp drop in the total number of
users at only 94 million.

What country has the highest percentage of population online?

Again, here is where I was surprised. My first guesses were
Australia, United Kingdom, or Japan.  But again I was wrong,
as it turns out, Canada has the largest penetration of
Internet users per capita, at over 84%.  Australia comes in
second at 79.4% and Japan comes in number three at just the
little under 74%.

The site gives a complete breakdown of the top 20 countries
with the highest number of Internet users.  There are also a
few other surprises in there that you might find interesting
such as, what country has the highest percentage of user
growth from 2000 to 2008?  The answer I am sure will surprise
you.  It also has some other graphs that puts the Internet
popularity and usage into perspective.  I am sure you will
enjoy checking it out. The site is called "Internet World stats"
at http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

If you find some that surprises you, do me a favor and leave
a comment on this blog so others can hear what you have to say.

Enjoy,
Harry