Using Text-Link-Ads to Advertise your Business
May 8, 2007
Naturally with so many options to buy advertising these days for your business from so many different networks and independant ad brokers TLA or “Text-Link-Ads” as its commonly known is a top choice. If you are new to buying ad space then their free consultations would probably interest you the most. Many bloggers and site owners use TLA to sell ad space on their site almost as much as they use Google Adsense so the volume and variety of sites that use Text Link Ads is already in place.
When buying Ad space from TLA they ask for the following information…
- Top Target URL – this is the URL that your campaign is built around so if it is for your online store or an eBook you are selling be as specific with this link as possible.
- Keywords for URL – This is pretty straight forward in terms of what it is exactly but to be honest just put down as many keywords that relate to your business in this blank.
- Monthly Budget – If you are just starting out with a campaign then start small and experiment to find what works for you… don’t waste thousands of dollars realizing that it just is not working
- Phone Number – I think they ask for this just for personal records and the possibility to up sell you… but I doubt it
- Comments/Goals for the Program – What are you trying to achieve by advertising? Be specific because the sales rep should be able to guide you the more information that you give him or her
After this a Text-Link-Ad employee will search for some excellent picks for ad space and send you your very own custom proposal and if you are lucky he will give you a discount too. The neat thing about the quote process is that it lists things like “link popularity” and “Alexa Ranking” which is not a big thing but it’s nice to see the people at TLA thinking ahead though I wouldn’t mind seeing Google’s Page Rank included or the number of back links that a given site receives but that is just me brainstorming.
I find that even though people use TLA to monetize their sites they never talk about using it to buy ad space but if you are looking for a different way to advertise then you may want to play around with it a little bit.
Luc
CODA: Yet another reason why I need a MAC
May 6, 2007
A friend of mine, by the name of Mainee (you know who you are) recently sent me this link to CODA. For those of you who are not sure what CODA is, it’s a web editor that seems to have it all rolled into one package. So what does it have…?
- Editing CSS quick and easy – CODA has both a visual and a text mode that you can toggle between; very cool
- Previews in Safari – Again I am not currently a MAC guy but I am looking into it because a lot of the hottest web app are being built for MAC’s but sadly not PCs.
I mean I love Dreamweaver, textpad and the rest but can’t you make it cooler? Easier? Or more fun to use? - Collaboration – This is a big aspect I think CODA nailed on the head. Being able to share a project with other key players in the project is a common fact of business today… nicely done!
CODA boasts a “one window web development” philosophy and that alone makes it really cool, fresh and different. I think one of these days I’ll break down and get a MAC. 
Luc
Can virtual sales people actually increase sales?
May 4, 2007
I ran across an interesting online sales tool run by a company called SitePal. I am always impressed with the leaps and bounds that new online companies make when it comes to technology and sales and increasing interactivity. Certainly when I started using the web about 11 years ago I couldn’t imagine the number of ways in which it would be used, I just knew that I liked it. It is cool services like SitePal that keep the internet moving forward.
I remember when using sound on web pages was a bad idea and now it is coming more and more if an excepted means of getting messages across especially on entertainment and media based sites. Recording artists like fiest release their albums on mySpace. Hey what can I say I am a big Feist fan. With the social engineering going on today online it only makes sense that web design is going to become richer it terms of elements like sound, animation, programming, querying and the combination of them all.
What are some of the beautiful parts of SitePal?
- No programming needed – You don’t need to have a masters in web development to make a Site
- Having Virtual Salespeople on your site increases sales (if you want more information about this then I would say read the “Case Studies” section on SitePal)
- Ensure your business message is seen and heard – For people whose business caters to people who are blind or deaf, having a feature like this can be advantageous in targeting your audience
- People like to Play – Because the SitePal avatars are interactive this creates an opportunity to take passive visitors and increase sales that otherwise would not be seen.
SitePal offers a free demo account that you can play around with before you choose to buy and the starting monthly subscription starts at $9.95 per month which is pretty inexpensive to test out if you ask me.
Luc
On Page and Off Page Optimization
May 3, 2007
Recently, I wrote about creating an SEO plan and if you are running a website or a group of websites then you are either doing this or perhaps you haven’t even heard of it. For those of you that are new to the SEO game you may need to come up to speed on the terminology. Two such terms that are useful to understand their meanings are “On Page Optimization” and “Off Page Optimization”. If you frequent the tech forums and you are interested in doing SEO for your business site then you’ve probably heard the terms “On Page Optimization” and “Off Page Optimization” otherwise you are scratching your head right now.
On Page Optimization
“On Page Optimization” refers to factors and influences that you build into web pages like content and the structure of the site. The “Meat” of your site needs to be optimizing keyword frequency in the URL, Title, Headings, Body and Hyperlinks.
Because dynamic sites are becoming all the rage these days with PHP and ASP it makes sense that people are looking for ways to optimize linking structures to enable organic search traffic. In PHP when you deploy a WordPress site for instance it defaults to a dynamic linking structure that search engines cannot read because it is just gibberish but when you add permalink structures into a PHP site that can correct the problem quickly and easily. The ASP language also has a server feature that can be set to control this problem… you’ve just got to look for the answer.
Meta Tags are considered old school SEO but search engines like Yahoo! Do still use them so it doesn’t hurt to add them into your web pages.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) should be used to design as opposed to HTML frame web layouts if you are doing SEO because the search engines can find it tough to traverse framed HTML pages.
Off Page Optimization
“Off Page Optimization” refers to factors that have more to do with eternal factors to optimize the ways a web site is found and weighted. Naturally everyone has heard of Google’s Page Rank which has to do with the quality of back links (incoming links) coming into a site which is why people pay for advertising from established sites. There are more Off Page Strategies when it comes to site optimization but mastering one when you build your site makes more sense than doing 5 half-assed techniques.
Hopefully I cleared up any thoughts that you may have had about On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. Now that you understand the basics of On and Off Page Optimization the next step is to start putting some of them into practice through link building strategies, partnerships, keyword density and frequency just to name a few on your site.
Luc
