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Kristine Wirth
SlingBrain.com

Aweber's New Pricing Now in Effect

If you've used Aweber in the past, you know that if you had up to 10,000 subscribers you only paid $19.95 a month.

They've now changed the pricing but before you get all up in arms about this, here's how it breaks down...

1. If you were an Aweber customer PRIOR to the new pricing going into effect, you can either choose to upgrade to the new system or keep your pricing "as is".
2. If you're a new Aweber customer, that is if you signed up today, you'd pay the new prices and get the new system.

So what is the "new system"?

Aweber has really gone the extra mile in providing their users with one of the ultimate ways to track what your visitor does.

Here are some of the benefits:

• You'll know exactly when your subscribers click on the links within your message. This is important because you'll then know when the right time is to send them messages.
• You can send a broadcast only to those subscribers who didn't open or click on your previous message.
• You can send an email to only those subscribers who did in fact click on your order page, but didn't order.
• You can see which subscribers are responding to your campaigns; which links they visit, where on your site they're going after they click through and which message they're opening.
  
• You can target subscribers by sending emails to ONLY those who have responded (or who didn't respond) by clicking or opening a specific message or link.
• Track revenue generated by your campaigns and see which subscribers and campaigns are making you money.
• They've even removed the default "clicks.aweber.com" when you're trying to track a link within your email.

All in all, it is a very intuitive and much-needed upgrade. If your list remains 500 people or less, you still only pay the $19.95 but as your list grows, so does the amount you will be charged.

For more information, visit Aweber. Or take a test drive of the system yourself.

- Kristine

Eye-Tracking Studies

Are you familiar with eye-tracking studies? A selected group of individuals are chosen to view various websites. A special program then tracks their eye-movements and what they tend to focus on the most.

Why this is important to you is because when creating your website you'll want to take into account what the "average" user looks for on your site and then design your site accordingly.

Things like:

• Banner ads - do people really pay attention to them?
• Should you write shorter or longer paragraphs?
• Do images get attention on the page?
• If so, what works better? Smaller or larger images?
• What letter of the alphabet does a typical eye-tracking study look like when someone views the page?
• Where is the best place to put your navigation?

For answers to these questions, visit:
http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/scientific-web-design-23-actionable-lessons-from-eye-tracking-studies/

For daily SEO tips, be sure you sign up to our free newsletter at:

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Why aren't YOU using this?

I'll tell you why: because you probably haven't heard much about it yet.
A few months back a good friend and colleague of mine recommended a website called Qassia.

This site allows you to add as many links as you want to an unlimited number of websites (little bulbs should be going off in your head right about now)...

Qassia is a great resource for high-quality backlinks. And no, you do not pay for these links. They've got a very unique system in place:

And I quote:
"Websites are processed instantly and ranked by the amount of credits you have amassed. To earn credits, you can add intel, i.e. tidbits of intelligence.

Why is Qassia needed?
Promoting a new site is not easy and it's getting harder every day. Site owners are forced to spend hours upon hours doing mundane and unproductive tasks such as exchanging links. Many give up, and splurge on advertising - which is why Google AdWords earns $1 billion per quarter.

How will Qassia generate traffic?
At Qassia, you will get credit for adding intel. The more credit you get, the better your sites will rank. This provides incentive for site owners to contribute to Qassia. Thus harnessing the minds of millions, Qassia will become the largest repository of intelligence on the web."

Additionally they also have a system in place where you can share in ad revenue so any traffic your pages get could be earning a little money for you too.

Currently, it's not open to the public, but, because you're reading this post, you can get your FREE (yes FREE) account there now by using my invitation link which is http://kristinewirth.qassia.com/

This is the only way you can get in, by invitation only. Already over 18,000 people are members, and already there are over 168,000 pages indexed in Google for Qassia.

I sincerely hope this helps your business.

- Kristine Wirth

TODAY! - Google is Hosting a Webmaster Chat

Very time-sensitive.

Google is doing a webmaster chat today at 2 PM PST. You DO need to register in advance for the chat which you can do here.

They'll spend time answering questions in the Q&A section of the site and there will also be a presentation by John Mueller about personalization.

It is highly suggested that ALL webmasters, site owners and SEO'ers sign up.

- Kristine

Think Outside the Keyword Box

When doing keyword research, many people tend to focus on the "obvious" words and phrases within their niche. However, this can be more detrimental than helpful to your search engine listings.

Let's take an example. If your market is "landscaping" then one of the keywords you'd likely think is a main search term would be...landscaping. Right?

However, if you do a simple Google search for that term you'll see that there are over 50 MILLION websites competing for that term. Not exactly an easy keyword to break into the top ten search engine listings with.

But consider for a moment certain terms that those looking for landscaping help might use. Most often, searchers are looking for very specific topics regarding their landscaping needs. They don't just want to know about "landscaping" in general, they are most likely in search of a solution to their problem.

Read that sentence again. They don't just want to know about "landscaping" in general, they are most likely in search of a solution to their problem.

We need to find out what those needs are so that we can drive that traffic to our site.

The best way to do this is to find out what kinds of problems people are searching on regarding their landscaping needs. To do this we first head over to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and enter in the term "landscaping" without the quotes.

You'll see that the top term "landscaping" which is the same term you searched on, gets the top spots for search - over 2,000 searches in the last 90 days.

What you need to focus on however, are the other terms that fall below that main keyword.

We see there is:

• 408 searches - free landscaping ideas - [388,000]
  
• 303 searches - front yard landscaping - [782,000]
  
• 248 searches - front yard landscaping ideas - [233,000]
  
• 135 searches - backyard landscaping ideas - [1,740,000]
  
• 102 searches - rock landscaping - [ 571,000]
  
• 83 searches - landscaping small yards - [878,000]
  
• 79 searches - desert landscaping - [352,000]
  
• 69 searches - steep hill landscaping - [327,000]
  
• 66 searches - edible landscaping - [301,000]
  

As you can see, these terms might not get as many searches as the general term "landscaping", but they're more focused and more targeted traffic.

The number in brackets like this [ ] just behind the word are the number of competing web pages for that term.

Not only are these terms that are highly focused, your competition is far less for these terms. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd rather compete against a few hundred thousand websites than millions upon millions.

Take some time within your niche and search on your term. See what words and phrases people are searching on, and see if you can't create one web page on your site that focuses on these needs.

Spell Checking & Grammar

So why would I be including a post on spell checking and grammar on a blog about SEO?

Because even the most well-optimized website can still have minor mistakes such as misspellings of common terms and improper grammar. And improper spelling and grammar can ruin your credibility in a flash.

Consider for a moment that you're website sits in the number one organic position at Google for the term "family photography". You've researched the term, know that the term gets fantastic traffic but you're not seeing the traffic you'd like.

One red flag might be to take a look at your logs. Of the traffic that you do get, where are they exiting from your site? Does it appear to be quite common for traffic to exit at one page in particular?

It could be that the page itself has a word or two misspelled or it's grammatically incorrect.

Consider these two phrases for a moment:

"Smith Photography has been in business for over 50 years. We've searved generations of familes and would love to be you're photographer of choice."

"Smith Photography has been in business for over 50 years. We've served generations of families and would love to be your photographer of choice."

Can you spot the differences?

In the first sentence two words, "searved" and "familes" are misspelled. Also, did you notice the improper use of "you're" in the first sentence?

Would you do business with you if you came across this website and read that first sentence? Probably not. You might wonder if they put as much care into their photography services as they do their website and if so, you'll do business elsewhere.

Spell check is a great tool and available for everyone so make use of it when you're writing the content for your website.

Grammar on the other hand can be a little bit tricky. Here are two of the most common mistakes most often made when it comes to grammar:

Not using "their", "they're" or "there" properly.

"Their" should be used when talking about two or more other people. "Their luggage was lost at the airport." "Their car broke down on the freeway."

"They're" is actually a contraction of two words; "they" and "are". "They" being someone else you are referring to and "are" as an action. For example, "Let's get moving, I'm sure they're already waiting for us."

"There" is most often used when you're referring to a place. Either something physical such as a building or something more abstract such as a corner in the room.

Not using "your" or "you're" properly.

First, the word "you're" is a contraction of two words; "you" and "are". A test to see if you've used the term properly is to simply use the sentence without the words contracted and see if it sounds all right. For example: "You're hair looks nice." If we take that contraction and instead say "You are hair looks nice." we see it doesn't work, instead you would then use "your".

Use "You're" whenever you could safely use "you are" in a sentence.

"You're going to the movies also right?"
"You're the most wonderful babysitter."

In both of these cases, we see that if we substitute "you are" for "you're" the sentence will still read well.

When you use the term "your" you are referring to something that the person you are talking with or someone who is involved in the discussion has possession of.

If we use the same example as above, we see that the sentence "Your hair looks nice." works well because the person's hair we're referring to is owned by that person.

These are just a few examples of what to look out for when you do optimize your site. Nothing hurts more than to have the best site around and have people leave because a word is misspelled or there are grammatical errors.

Don't let all of your efforts go down the drain for a simple fix.

Until next time,
Kristine