Content management¹ systems for websites like Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla provide simple forms for website content providers to fill out. When the content is ready to be published, the content provider hits a button and, poof, new content for the website. CMSs allow people to focus on content, the real heart of a website, and not be impeded by coding and technological barriers.

Every now and then a marketing effort hits the jackpot and the lines form and the cash register rings. Someone writes a blog that goes viral and brings in oceans of traffic. Your PR firm gets you placement in a hot pub. Oprah recommends your book.

Mark Twain said, "There are three kind of liars: liars, damn liars and statistics."

Promoting a website requires lots of tools to tell us what's going on.

Fortunately, most of these tools are free. Anyone just starting should not spend a dime on analytical software. Maybe with time your site will require a more sophisitcated approach, but you won't have to spend money on software to find out.

Here is a fabulous list of free keyword and link analysis tools.

Do you like traffic to your website? Start a blog.

Hubspot looked at about 1500 websites and determined that those with blogs had 55 percent more traffic and 97 percent more inbund links and 434 percent more indexed pages¹.

John Quarto-von Tivador seizes upon successful agriculture culture as a metaphor for good website promotion (are you from Calif. John?).

He says that it's the toughest kind of farming, like lettuce growing and not at all a cherry picking operation. Successful sites, like successful lettuce fields require constant tending.

Too many people still look upon websites like print publications. Once they are "launched," they're done. In fact, the launch is just the beginning. Success lies in many hours of careful tending.

There is always a bunch of stuff to do when you optimize a site. You've got to make a list.

When I optimize a site for local search, I begin with this local seo list.

What is so powerful about email marketing¹? Opt in. That's right. Opt in. Opt in email makes for laser like precision narrowcasting. Your prospects opt in to your email because they are interested in what you have to offer. Therefore you are marketing to prospects and not to broadcasting¹ to everyone in Florida.

Instead of testing keyword combinations until your fingers are bleeding, why not ask your visitors what keywords they are using to find what they want?

"How?" you say. "I don't know my visitors. How can I ask them anything?"

Well, you don't even have to ask them. Just check and see what they are searching for when they get to your site. Use your analytics software to see what keywords they enter into your site search¹ box. What better way to find out what your visitors want?