Hippo Newsletter 1

Welcome!
Why "Content is King"
My Recommendations
What's New at Hippo?

Welcome to our first newsletter!

I've been talking about doing this for months and even years now.  As an internet marketing consultant and trainer, I tell EVERYONE that they need to have a regular newsletter to keep up with clients and potential clients.  It's high time I start practicing what I preach.  So here's the plan...

I'm sure this newsletter will evolve and change in the months and years ahead.  But for now, I want to basically have three primary sections in every issue... 

1. After the introduction (that's what this is), I'll have an article.  Typically, the article will endeavor to help you improve the marketing of your site.  This issue talks about adding content and why search engines view content as king.
2. Next, I'll let you know some of my best recommendations.  As you know, I am an avid reader, and love trying new software and websites.  I'm looking forward to sharing my latest discoveries with you. 
3. Lastly, I'll add some comments on what's new at Hippo.  We always seem to have something new going on here.  (That's the part my family will enjoy most.  But you all may find it interesting as well.)

So let's get started...

Why "Content is King" to Search Engines

Content is King!  Have you heard that saying yet?  Search engine experts are practically using it as a mantra.  What does it mean and why is it true?

In the context of websites and search engines, when experts say that content is king, they mean that building additional pages of text is one of the best things you can do to improve your search engine rankings and number of visitors.  Anyone that has attended any of my classes or asked me to work on their internet marketing has heard me include this in my recommendations.  In fact, I tell everyone that search engine optimization (SEO) basically comes down to three factors:  On-page factors, linking, and content.  Most people generally think of the first two when trying to rank better. 

So why is content so important?

For starters, search engines don't rank websites, they rank web pages. 

Read that sentence again and think about it for a moment.  What it means is that the more pages you make on your site, the more chances you have of any of those pages ranking better.  To start with, it's simply a law of averages.  To illustrate, if you want to win a raffle, you might buy more tickets.  The more opportunities you have, the higher probability of coming out on top.  Of course, this is over-simplifying a little.  After all, you can buy a whole lot of lottery tickets (which I don't recommend) and will still typically lose the lottery.

To increase your chances, each page of content should center around a keyword phrase or two.  Use that phrase several times within the text.  Use it in the Title tag and in a heading or two.  Now repeat that process over and over again.  Make a page of content every day if at all possible.  If not, make one per week.  This is work that will definitely pay off over time.

As a side-benefit, content can also be distributed to other sites and newsletters.  Put a nice bio about yourself and a link to your website at the bottom, and you are on your way to gaining traffic and growing links.  Another nice side-benefit is that if your content is good, others will link to you.  And we all know how important inbound linking is to search engines.

So what exactly is content?  What pages of content could you make for your site?  We'll discuss this in a future newsletter.  So be sure to signup if you haven't already.

My Recommendations

As you can see above, I strongly recommend writing content for your website.  In line with that, please review my list of recommendations on article marketing at http://www.hipposentme.com/Article_Marketing.html.

By the way, Hippo Sent Me (www.HippoSentMe.com) is our latest site that shows all our recommendations of software and websites for anyone trying to promote their site.  As you can see, the site is far from done.  I just started it last month.  Be sure to poke around a little and check out our recommendations. 

I'll try to keep you updated in this newsletter of what else we recommend.

What's new at Hippo?

November has mostly been mild here in western North Carolina.  For the first time in my life, I had some major allergy problems at the beginning of the month.  It was pretty scary to wake up in the middle of the night and barely be able to breathe.  But I seem to be breathing normal again.

November was a busy month for us.  We hired a long-time best friend of mine (Mark Peery) and he is primarily working on our Shopping Search Software.  He's doing a great job and we hope that he stays with us for some time.  He currently is working Mondays and Tuesdays.

As stated above, we are actively working on Hippo Sent Me.  I hope you like it.

We are also reworking our business for 2006.  We are switching from a full-service Internet Marketing Company to Internet Marketing Training and Consulting.  As such, we will keep some of our existing clients, but will be switching our primary focus in January.  In fact, as you can see, I am actively reworking this website because of this change.  More info on this in future newsletters. 

I hope all is well with you and that you enjoyed this first newsletter. 

Please be sure to sign up if you got to this page some other way.

Corey Creed
Hippo Internet Marketing