xml Sitemaps Are Quite Ugly Click image to view our Sitemap.

Is it necessary to have one? Will it affect my search engine rankings if I don’t have one? Will Google visit my website less because I don’t have one?

Let me see if I can clarify some of the questions people have when it comes to the widely known, but little understood, xml Sitemaps.

A xml Sitemap is a sitemap generated for your website that you have created for our buddy Googlebot to read and get to know your website.

There are some arguments out there as to whether or not a Sitemap is really beneficial to your website. The obvious advantage of having a Sitemap is to help Google index your site better, but does that really have any say in search engine optimization or PageRank?

Does Having A Sitemap Help My Search Engine Rankings?

It’s a crappy answer, but the answer is yes and no.

Imagine if you were the first company to own a printing press. What value could you bring to your customers? Courtesy of Wikipedia

Sean D’Souza wrote an article on Copyblogger entitled Why Urgency Succeeds Like Nothing Else In A Bad Economy.

While I agree with Sean that creating a sense of urgency is definitely a key factor in boosting sales during a slow economy, we also shouldn’t forget the power of adding company value to the list.

In marketing, you should always keep these 3 things in mind that your customer wants to know:

• So What?
• Why Now?
• Why Your Company?

Of course we should never forget the P’s of marketing and you should try your best to answer the above questions in your P’s.

The so what? factor isn’t necessarily a key to beating your competition, but rather simply shows potential customers the need of your product or service. “So What?” “Who Cares?” “Why Do I Need This?”

Vinny The Bird is popular for solving problems in the bird community. Image by Jan Tik

If you’re new to this real estate investing series I’m writing, the purpose of it is to show you as an entrepreneur that learning your trade well and opening your mind to endless possibilities can help you achieve your goals.

I have a passion for creativity in business and I love investigating intuitive ways to invest in real estate.

When investing, I typically buy and sell differently than most Realtors suggest or know about. I listen to everyone, but ultimately I’m the investor, I’m the entrepreneur, and I make the decisions.

Today I want to show you how by thinking creatively and solving your customer’s needs you can create a win-win situation and ultimately get what you want (in this example the customer will be the seller of a house I want to buy). It just takes a little creative thought.

Ever go to a blog and read an article that you find interesting and would like to follow what other commentators are saying but you don’t really care to add a comment yourself?

I do sometimes. Especially if it’s a list that I know others will add links to in a comment section.

Like mine, most WordPress blogs you go to have the Subscribe To Comments plugin so those that comment can keep up on the conversation going on in the comment section.

There’s a little tweak I did to my Subscribe To Comments plugin many bloggers may not be aware of that you can do.

By simply adding the following line of code to your comments.php file, you can allow your blog readers to follow a topic without commenting.

<?php show_manual_subscription_form(); ?>

As mentioned above, add the code to your comments.php file and just below the </form> tag near the bottom of the file’s code.

A network of bloggers helping one another.

This is a special blog post as an introduction for new visitors to this blog coming from Liz Strauss’s second official Blog-to Show which showcases blogs from all over the blogosphere (mine is #132).

The idea is bloggers can find one another through her blog and make relationships with like-minded people. Thank you, Liz.

For those of you who are new to this blog, thank you for stopping by. My name is John Hoff and I own a few businesses including this one, eVentureBiz. eVentureBiz is a Web 2.0 web hosting and development company targeted at helping those who wish to create an online presence, incorporate their business, and learn what takes to become successful online.

From the first day of conception of eVentureBiz, I knew I wanted to create a home on the web for web hosting customers and give them a different experience from the typical boring web hosting company’s site. If you’re curious what I’m talking about, I wrote an article on the topic entitled, Is Your Website Web 2.0 or Corporate?

So you got a blog and want to start earning enough money to support your Starbucks fix each week through the use of affiliate marketing and ads.

But if you’re like me, you don’t want to slap any ol’ product on your site and send your visitors to who knows where.

Yes, I’ve been working on ways to monetize this blog and I’d like to share with you some thoughts I have on this topic because to be quite honest, most of my options out there for affiliate marketing violates many rules I go by when creating a brilliant website.

Although I’ve only been blogging for about 9 months or so, I’ve had my share of time in designing websites and providing business advice to entrepreneurs. Anyone who knows anything about marketing knows you need to focus your product on something your target audience wants or will listen to, otherwise it will be ignored.

In today’s world, having a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools entrepreneurs can have for their businesses and it’s their responsibility to make sure people can find it and understand its message.

Craft a bad, unorganized website and your potential customers will no longer be potential.

My last post 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website showed us how people scan your website and where their eyes naturally are drawn to. Today I’d like to share some videos which can help us learn to design better websites and attract more clicks/sales.

Attractive Headlines

Excellent video on the importance of writing good headlines. Think about how important good headlines are for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Enquirer, etc. Headlines are important for your business in press releases and getting people to click through your blog (by the way, we here at eVentureBiz write press releases if you need one).

Headlines, by Cory from Boing Boing
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