Search Engine Marketing News June 2001

We have decided to send you our newsletter more frequently. You can expect one about every month.

In this newsletter we are going to discuss:
• Something you can do to generate traffic to your web site.
• An opportunity for our clients in the travel, hospitality, recreation industry
• How you can help yourself and us
• Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts
• Changing Web Site Hosts

Something You Can Do to Generate Traffic

Frequently our clients ask us how or what they can do to generate more traffic to their web site. We think the one thing, and maybe the best, is to get links to your site, especially links that are relevant to the theme of your site.

You should go to the web site of any local, trade, or professional organizations of which you are a member. Does that web site list, with links, the web sites of their members? If so, are you on the list with a link to your site?

As you spend time on the Internet you should be looking for any directories or specialized search engines that target the theme of your site. You should be looking for opportunities to get your site listed on these directories. Many of them are free, or only require that you link to them. Some are paid, and for those you need to do your evaluation of the economics.

Links to your site help in three ways

1. Someone may click on the link and visit your site. Obviously if the themes of your site and site linking to you are similar, the more likely that it generate traffic. 
2. Search engines track the number of sites linking to you. The theory is that the more links to you, the more important the site hence a higher ranking. 
3. Search engine spiders crawl the Internet going from site to site and indexing web sites. Links to your site help drive the spiders to your site. 

An Opportunity For Our Travel, Hospitality, Recreation Business Clients

Centraltravelguide.com is a one-stop resource that provides consumers with an online national travel and vacation guide of information. We are delighted to announce a Partner Arrangement with Webconsuls, featuring a tailored program to provide special benefits to Webconsuls' clients.

Although there are numerous "travel related" websites currently available on-line, Centraltravelguide.com sets itself apart by specializing in "a quick and easy searchable database" of information.

This content is free of the usual "banner" type of advertisements, pop-up windows, airfare offers, hotel discounts coupons and other travel related information that often interferes with a consumer's informational needs.

The site is simply 'sponsored' by travel and vacation related websites. These sponsors are conveniently located in their corresponding area of the site. For example, our client, Magic Falls Rafting (www.magicfalls.com) is a sponsor of Centraltravelguide.com's MAINE accommodations area, as well as its RAFTING section. With this system of sponsorship Magic Falls specifically targets those consumers applicable to their services.

Best of all there's no cost to Magic Falls Rafting. All Magic Falls does is host a link to Central Travel Guide on their main index page. This linkage provides visitors of Magic Falls with a national database of information just clicks away. This type of co-sponsorship markets both Magic Falls Rafting and Central Travel Guide.

Centraltravelguide.com is in the process of building its network of sponsors. Besides sponsors in the vacation and travel industry, CTG is also visited by consumers from other websites outside the travel industry. Their database information is partnered with sites like Collegenews.com, a site that has received over 3 million hits annually for the past three years.

Central Travel Guide is like an online 'inserted travel guide.' Their database of information is currently available on 12 partner sites. The site, and it's easily accessible database, was launched this past May and expects to fill up with partnerships quickly. For information on becoming a Sponsor, contact Webconsuls as soon as possible to ensure obtaining your State Sponsorship position.

How You Can Help Yourself and Us

Your web site was developed on a computer, probably by a designer, maybe one of our designers, maybe by yourself or a friend. In any case the site was transferred to what it called a Server where it is hosted on the Internet. So your designer has a copy and there is a copy on the server. When you hire Webconsuls for Web Site Marketing we download your site from the server, make critical changes for search engine placement, and put the site back on the Server. We also monitor the success of our work and may later make other changes to improve positioning.

Now let’s say you want to make a change to your site, maybe a modest change like changing a few images. If the designer works with the version on the designer’s computer and then uploads it to the Server, our important changes will be lost. It is therefore critical that you inform whoever is changing your site that they should work with the version on the Server so that they then start with the version that has our changes. You should also tell us that the site is being changed so that we make sure that our work has not been lost.

Redoing our work because someone else has destroyed it is not part of our arrangement with you. In the future we will charge for this work. Before starting we will tell you what has happened and provide an estimate at $75/hour.

Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts

Our Silver Package is designed for small sites, those about 5 pages or less, that are not in extremely competitive categories. For these sites we make our changes to up to 5 pages and submit to the major search engines and directories. Quarterly we resubmit the key pages and send a position report to the client. We have recently raised the sign up fee for Silver Accounts to $475. The quarterly fee is $75.

The Gold Package is designed for larger sites in more competitive categories. For these sites we work on up to 9 key pages. We resubmit monthly and send the position report on a monthly basis as well. The sign up fee for Gold Accounts has been raised to $500. The quarterly fee remains at $100.

Platinum accounts are large sites in very competitive categories. These sites are custom quoted. The schedule for submissions and the position report is done on a case by case basis and we generally add pages designed by us for search engine placement.

Changing Web Site Hosts

It is sometime necessary to change your web site host. This can be a simple process or it can get very involved. A new host needs to be found, Internet records must be updated, your site needs to be uploaded to the new server, any server functions that your site uses need to be tested and perhaps redone, and email accounts may need to be reconfigured.

We have recently moved the Webconsuls web site to Millennium, a hosting company located in Southern California. As part of the move we will have to redo the area that processed credit cards on-line, so that functionality is currently down at our site.

We will work with you if you want to change your web site host. However we will need to charge if there is extensive work involved. Contact us and we can discuss.

Dennis Helfand and Dick Fay, Managing Partners.