Online Marketing 4 Dummies

Link Building through Article Marketing

2011-09-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

-93% of consumers worldwide use search engines to
find and access websites.
Source: Forrester Research

One of the strongest ways to get top search engine ranking is through article marketing. Previous post I spoke about articleranks a free site that has helped me improve my search engine ranking especially in google.

Now I want to discuss briefly about a Brand new seo link building website that allows you to submit articles and get thousands of high quality, one-way links pointing to your website. All links will be "in-content" links on high quality, related websites of your choice. All done on auto-pilot!

Long term rankings for your keywords, crushing your competition.

More Backlinks = Higher Google Rankings = More Traffic!

Getting traffic to your websites is not fun. It's hard and it usually takes a long time. In many cases, too much time..

So without waisting anymore of you time.. Check out this Link Building Service

The New Place

2011-09-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the post from Hal Potter

Moving was really tough on the whole family but on no one more so than Buster. He’s our 10 year old chocolate lab and he had a really rough transition from one house to another and I think he’s finally settling down now even though we’ve been here for 6 months.

I really am glad I work from home at least so I can keep him company during the day so he doesn’t lose it. Buster’s been a great dog and I recently went on the internet I got through one of those Hughes Net Deals to find him some dog supplements to help calm his nerves which is apparently just what he needed.

I don’t know why moving to a new house shook him so but he had one heck of a time adjusting and even the kids were worried something was wrong with him. He’s starting to act more like himself though and I think if we keep playing with him and treating him like normal he’ll be fine soon.

Article Marketing

2011-09-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

Why spend all your time submitting to article directories, when you can use the ArticleRanks system to actually place unique versions of your article on REAL live sites.

All of your articles will be drip fed onto on topic themed sites, giving you the highest quality links and click through rates. Write your article and then use our content assistor to deliver unique versions to every single site.

-The newest and most powerful form of article marketing.
-Increase rankings within a month.
-Submit unique articles to a huge network of user submitted sites and increase your search positions with ontopic powerful backlinks.
-Earn credits to submit articles and gain links by adding sites to the system or pay a small monthly fee.
-Spin your articles manually or with our content assister.
-Rank your YouTube videos.
-Compatible with any site that has XML-RPC.

Make a Book Online

2011-08-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

One of the best ways to make money online is make a book online. Once you have a book written. Then you need to know how to sell ebooks. The problem with most people who make a book online is they know nothing about ebooks that sell.

Once you know how to write ebooks, create your ebooks, you then need to know where to sell them. Many people today make a great income on selling ebooks. As well as giving away free ebooks. Why would you give away an ebook you took so long to write. Well you will find more people who want free stuff. If you write a great ebook on your niche or topic you can add affiliate links that send the reader to a sales page.

But what are the benefits of Creating ebooks that sell to the masses? Well selling ebooks online are a low-risk, high-profit business you can start from the comfort of your own home. Selling Ebooks is a passive income, selling 24-hours a day even while you sleep or spend time with your family. You create a great ebook you become prestigious and recognzed as an "expert" in your field.

So if you want to make a book online, an ebook that sells, or you want to sell ebooks that you want to create for extra income, well in many of the cases an income that really can set you free. An income that will let you realize your dreams. It is not hard you just need to know how right? Well I am not an expert but a dear friend of mine is "Mila Sidman," and she has been helping people from all walks of life build successful online businesses for many years.

Since she cant hold seminars every day, go to many different locations and teach she decided to write an ebook on creating ebooks.

"The reality is this, if you follow the steps in this system, you will be successful. There is no doubt in my mind that you can achieve the same success I have." -Mila Sidman

I am promoting her E-book, why? simply if you want to be successful than you should learn from the guru. I can type pages after pages trying to explain how to and why. But it would be lot easier if she taught you.

Go to her website Easy ebook Creation and grab your copy now. You will not regret it.

Webhosting or Blogs?

2011-08-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

This is a great question, and really the answer is what are you wanting to do. Both options are a great way to get your word, thoughts, ideas, and products out to the public. With both options you can do some seo and get great ranking on the search engines. I have one website that pay for hosting and have the domain name I picked. Cpu overclocking software it deals with overclocking your computer. A subject I love to talk about. I am on first page of all major search engines, including Google for my keyword and working on other keywords. I paid 80 bucks start up, and I have made a few dollars with this website.

I also have about 10 other blogs I write on, each on different niches. Atleast 4 of those blogs are first page google as well. I have also made a few bucks on these with different affiliate programs. So my question is which is better, a paid webhost with domain name or using free blog formats.

With both I have made money. With both I am on first page of search engines. I made back my hosting fee with my paid after a few affiliate sales. Once I made my first affiliate sell on my blogs I was already in profit.

My thoughts on both. With paid hosting and websites, I did some seo and made first page of google. I have to be careful with what I post and add to that site, because it only takes a wrong post to drop in rankings. I have done that a few times. However if I ever wanted to get fancy with it I can. I could even add a membership section to it. With paid hosted websites you can pretty much do anything technical to it.

With blogs you cant get as fancy. How ever with blogs, If I get a post that makes it first page of search engines it stays. No matter what I post after it. So really both takes know how and you learn from mistakes. Blogs are free, the first sell you are in profit. Paid services you make money in the long run.

If you are on a tight budget but want to start making money online I would suggest a free service like this one, blogger. If you do a thorough keyword research then you can very well make the first page of search engines.

If you have a bigger plan and want to get more technical then go with a paid service. You can find cheap service like this one for 7.95 a month with unlimited hosting. However if you will still need to do key word research regardless of what your website is about if you want to rank well in search engines.

Making money blogging and advertising on blogs

2011-08-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

I have been an affiliate with a few different blog services. Services that offer ads on other people's blog. Services that allows companies to have blog owners to write post about their service, or let the company write their own post and it gets inserted on blogs. Of course their is a fee, because these services have to pay blog owners for posting or inserting post on their blogs.

It is a simple solution to get your advertisements out on the net. You may be thinking I am not going to pay for someone to post on their blog, especially if this blog does not rank well. Thats the good thing, every blog accepted has to be a high ranking blog, and recieve good qaulity traffic.

This works two ways, answering the question how to monetize your blog, how to make money blogging, how to blog. The second is how do I pay to get on a blog, how do i pay for blog advertising, how to get traffic from other peoples blog.

The first is Adgitize:
This site pays almost like google does, with clicks on banner buttons. Your ad spot on a blog, you pay when it gets clicked on.

The button looks like the one below

But catered to fit your needs...

Why adgitze?
•Advertisers Can Reach Thousands of Potential Visitors Daily
•Advertisers Pay One Low Monthly Fee
•Affiliate Network Helps You Earn On-Going Income
•Publisher Network Produces a Monthly Cash Revenue Stream
•Bloggers Like You Increase Their Daily Traffic
•Advertisers Get Cash Rebates
•Spend Your Time Blogging and Let Adgitize Send You Traffic

The second type of advertising is with blogvertise

Bloggers
•Make Money Blogging
•Sponsored Blog Conversations
•Homepage Banners & Text Ad Advertising
•Follow & NoFollow Blog Ads Available
•Pay Per Click & Pay Per Action Ads
•Easy to Use Interface
•VIP Bloggers Program now Available!

Advertisers
•Advertise on 100,000s of Blogs
•Buzz, Brand, Traffic & Promotion
•You Pick or We Pick The Blogs
•Blogger Created Ads & Guest Post Advertising
•Promote, PPC/PPA & Social Media Campaigns
•Target by Category, Geo Location and Demographic
•Premium High Traffic Blog Ad Services

Get you advertising account now, or make money with your blog.

That is just two of the best I have used so far. So if you are looking to advertise on blogs, adgitize and blogvertise are the best in the business. If you are blogger and want to monetize your blog those are just two ways to add some revenue to something you do for enjoyment. Face it more and more people are reading blogs, more and more people are making blogs that are being read by the masses.

So get your piece of the blogging pie.

Offline Ads for our Online Presence.

2011-07-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

When worrying about online advertising and marketing, often offline is forgotten about. Sure you dont reach as many people advertising your website offline but advertising is advertising right. Right, you maybe thinking you would rather be attracting thousands a day to your website, who does not want that. So why waste time offline advertising, interested traffic.

Lets say you have an outdoor vinyl banner made with your website and what it offers. You then take that banner and put it in a busy intersection. During the few hours of that busy intersection you may have hundreds of people drive or walk by. Out of those you may have 10 interested that go to your website and maybe 1 buys your product. That is an awesome roi, you put 1 outdoor vinyl banner in a busy intersection and made one sell.

So maybe you let the banner stay longer, or maybe you try another intersection, ball park, etc. The ideas are endless with outdoor vinyl banners, the next 4th of july parade, maybe have a buddy drive around with one attached to his work truck, or the next trade show event as a trade show displays. If you live on a busy street put it in your front yard, or buddies, family member etc. If you think about it vinyl banners are one of the best offline advertising for your online appearance and fairly cheap.

Few facts About Search Engines

2011-07-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Search engines are the internet's most popular type of web site
and internet users will quite often adopt a search engine as their
home page.

-93% of consumers worldwide use search engines to
find and access websites.
Source: Forrester Research
-57% of internet users search the web every day and
46% of those searches are for product information or
services.
Source: SRI
-Attracting a loyal audience to your website is best
achieved through top search engine listings.
Source: Forrester Research Media Field Study
-85% of qualified Internet traffic is driven through
search engines, however 75% of search engine users
never scroll past the first page of results.
Source: Seventh WWW User Survey - Georgia Institute of
Technology
-Users looking for products on-line are far more likely to type
the what they search for into a search engine (28%)
rather than go into an engine's "shopping" channel (5%) or click
on banner ads (4%)

Now that I have got your attetion (thanks to the Stupid Simple System by Tim Bekker)you can now see how important search engine rankings are. You can now see that being on the first page of google and other major search engines is really important.

Most gurus will argue that having a list is very important. I will not argue that fact, having a huge list is money in your pockets. But let me ask how are you going to get people on your list. Yes you need traffic to the landing page that has your opt-in form for your list. So whats the best and cheapest way to build that list. To have your website on google and other search engines first page for a keyword.

Its a simple math equation: To make money you need a list, to have a huge productive list you need traffic to the optin page, to get traffic to your optin page you need to be on the first page of search engines. (simple rigt) Yes it really is, the only thing that is not simple is the formula you need to know to get your webpage to the number one spot.

I have one website I built using a hosting company and loading a word press plugin on the first page of google. How did I do this by learning how to build websites that search engines love.

Then I took my knowledge of building a webpage, and decided to go a free route. I built a few other blogs, these blogs were free to sign up and free to use. On top of that they also have monetization built in them. (free blogs, free money) Now atleast two of those free blogs are on googles first page. The other blogs I decided to use harder niches, more competition, but that is still in the works.

I also took a website I started many years ago, when I was just a noob, this website is no where ranked in search engines. I picked one page of this website and put my new knowledge to work on it. This page that was no where near google is now on googles first page.

Now that I got your attention I could not have done this with out *drum roll*
Google Sniper 2.0..

Oh no he's talking about Google sniper again. Yes I am because I know for a fact that George Browns teachings work. Let me say that again George Browns "teaching" work. I did not say push button technology, I did not say get rich quick software, and I did not say instantly. I said his teachings, his pdf manual with side by side videos shows you how to build a website search engines love. Then like I did turn old websites around, and even build free blogs, yes free blogs. When you land on the first page of search engines..
- you get more traffic
- more sales
- more sign ups on your list
- the possibilities are endless
- high page rank
- selling ad space, or banner space
- becoming JV with other gurus..

Sounds great right well it is. The only thing I am not doing is re writing what george brown taught me and claiming it my own. Then turning around and selling for an insane price. I am promoting Google Sniper because I learned alot and the only way to repay George Brown is by telling the world of this hidden treasure.

So go ahead and get your copy of Google sniper 2.0 now.. your website will thank you and so will your new found knowledge.

Taking a break for cheap scrub uniforms

2011-07-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am not a nurse or doctor, but I will admit I do enjoy wearing scrubs. They are comfortable and cozy, and make great sleeping pajamas. However though I have noticed that the price of good qaulity scrubs like most things today are going up. So finding cheap scrub uniforms is going going and one day will be gone.

So I took my hunt online, and found a company, bluesky scrubs, that sales cheap scrub uniforms. http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/ Now I will admit these scrubs are a little more than your "dollar store" variety but the qaulity by far is greater. Now I have good qaulity scrubs that are going to last a long time, and are cheaper than any good scrubs I have found.

Matter of fact I have a few friends who are nurses and once I find out what their sizes are this will make a great gift as well. Great qaulity scrubs at a great price now you cant beat that. http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/

But whatever your reason for buying cheap medical scrubs bluesky scrubs, http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/, has the scrubs for you.

how do websites make money

2011-07-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

How do websites make money? For the majority of bloggers, and websites builders the whole purpose is to share information with the world. For some it is to vent, and for a few, people enjoy reading about their life. Then there are many that build websites that make money for them, and more people then we think make a good living just from that. How do websites make money? Thats a good question. But it is a multi-part answer.

How do websites make money? Information

In order for your website to make money, you have to share worth reading information. Anyone can build a website with nothing but ads. Those websites do nothing in my opinion but take up valuable virtual real estate. What I mean is you have to attract the readers, keep their attention, and make them come back. So the first part of "how do websites make money" is through information that readers enjoy.

How do websites make money? Monetize

The second part to "How do websites make money" is to monetize those websites. There are a few ways to monetize a website. The first way is through google adsense. The owner of the website or blog places google adsense ads on their website. When someone visits a website with google adsense there will be ads. If this ad catches the reader's eye the reader will click on the ad. The owner of the website through google adsense will get from a few cents to a few dollars. This depends on the content of the website. Many website owners do make a good living just off of google adsense. To become part of the google adsense commission program, google search google adsense and sign up there. (make sure to follow all rules and guidlines in the adsense program or your account will get banned)

The next way to make money from a website is through affiliate programs. The three affiliate programs I use are Clickbank, paydotcom, and payspree. However there are hundreds more out there. Even though this could be 5 more post I am going to give you the basics of "how do websites make money with affiliate programs." When you sign up to the programs I just listed you will be able to pick through thousands of products that are related to your website and content. You will get links, or urls that have your affiliate ID attached. When someone see a product on your website you are advertising they click on it. Once they make a purchase you recieve a percentage of the sale. Most people who have products in these companies keep the percentage high. That way the more money they pay for refferal sell the more people who will promote their product.

Clickbank
paydotcom
payspree

How do websites make money? Blog Post

This is a simple way of making a few extra bucks. Actually since I started I have made a few hundred. This is through writing blog post or using peoples articles on your blog. I do this through blogvertise Most of the payments for each blog post is 10 dollars. However I have recieved less, and I have recieved more. The more blogs and catagories you have the more gigs you will get. Most of the time the person paying for the post already has a post or article written. All you do is copy and paste as is. Once blogvertise checks your post through their system, you payment is then processed. Really that simple. There are also other programs out there just for blogs. But just with adsense, clickbank, paydotcom, payspree, and blogvertise I make a descent living.

How do websites make money? Traffic

This is the most important piece of the question "how do websites make money" and again this is another one of those 5 post answers. In order to get make money with a website you have to have traffic, or visitors. Without readers you can have your website monetized to the T but you are not going to make money. There are many "gurus" who are selling a push button software that promises to deliver traffic to your website while you sleep. The honest truth is if it worked that good, those so called gurus would not be selling the software. I dont care how good of a saint they want you to think they are. If gurus had the answer they would not make money selling all the garbage they put out each month. The only true way to build a website that makes money is to build a website to get traffic.

The only way to build a website to get traffic is to properly build your website that google loves. If google loves your website than that my friend is free traffic, and could be thousands of visitors a month, week, or the day. If you go through this blog you will read a few post I have on google sniper. I dont want to sound like a fanatic but I absolutely love google sniper and what it has done to my website knowledge. I now have a few websites sitting pretty on first page of google for my keywords. I am not going to go into to much detail about this one but if you click google sniper you will be introduced to a lazy brilliant english guy who by far outranks any "guru" today.

So how do websites make money? I hope I answered that for you, but let me recap
Quality information: readers
Monetize: money
Properly built website: free traffic

To your wealth
James

Google Places

2011-07-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

Just recieved an email from a very smart gentleman who makes a really good living online. In this email it talked about Google Places and making money off of it. Well after that I email I then noticed some adwords promoting Google Places.

So what is google Places? You ever look for a business or type of business in google and you get the google map, and in that map is the red exclamation points. In side that explamation point is a letter. On the side legend is letters with businesses. So the letter on the map is the business on the legend.

That is google places. The best part is if you own a business you can claim your google places on the map for free. Once you claim or setup your places, you then seo your google places website (set up free by google) add what missing information is needed. Then you have another spot on the web free for your business.

Google is trying hard to promote and push google places, because the percentage is low and they want more business to use and list in google places. If done correctly and set up to be SEO friendly, this little piece of the web can bring in more business that you can imagine for your general or local areas.

One more for Google Sniper

2011-06-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ok Every now and then I will post a comment on a training e-book or course for learning how to make money online. Well since introducing myself to George Brown's Google sniper I cant say enough. He teaches you step by step how to build a website under a few minutes that will dominate the Search engines.

Google Sniper 2.0

The reason you want to build a website that is search engine friendly is once your website is indexed by search engines you get free traffic. Now let me rephrase that. Once you build a website the way google sniper teaches you, you will get free traffic from all the major search engines.

Free traffic is the key. The less you spend on traffic the more you make. Now you dont have to spend every penny you make on "traffic" software, or "traffic scams" The best way to get a good ranking in Search engines is knowing how to build great websites to commodate the search engines.

And google sniper will teach you how to build a great website that dominates other websites for a particular keyword. So do your self a favor and check out what george brown is about at Google Sniper 2.0

Google Adwords

2011-06-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

What a nightmare

I recently decided to finally use my google adwords account, did my research for my webpage (not this one) keywords, started the campaigne, added my key words, and submitted. 1 hour later campaigne dissapproved. The reply was read site policies. So I did, I went over googles adwords site policy and could not figure it out.

So I wrote a letter to googles adword team, and the first letter said I was not abiding by googles adwords site policy. To re-do my website and then contact them again when my site was ready.

I sent another letter, stating that I have went over site policy and still feel my site was following their policy. 1 hour later I got another email from googles adwords team. The letter then went into detail why my webpage was not google approved. Thank you to the guy who cared enough to help me understand.

My webpage stated by google was a "bridge page". A bridge page is a website that has a link to another website that I make money off of sales. Well 80% of affiliate marketers and that is low balling, has bridge pages. The second rule is even though my landing page for google adwords had no bridge links, however subpages on my website had bridge links and that was not acceptable.

The only thing that I can think of doing is linking my original website to a new created second website that is then a bridge to my money site. The question then is if I have a link from my first webpage to my second webpage, that then links to a sales page would this be considered a bridge site that bridges to another bridge site. hmmm.. But then I would have to make even more sales because not many people are going to follow all links to finally get to the money page. So all monies I spend in adwords will need to be less than all sales made for me to profit. hmmm tricky one.

Remember those books you read as a kid. When you get to the bottom of the page it says if you want to do this go to page 4 if you want to do this go to page 10. Yes that is what it reminds me of.

I will have to check on that. I know for many adwords is their main money source. And since I am just wanting to use adwords, I am guessing I will need to read up more or find a good program. Because google is more strict on their adwords policy, and also what we read will be different from the next guys understanding.

Instant Passive Profits

2011-06-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

This page is my Instant Passive Profits review. Instant Passive Profits was in prelaunch June 17th to the 19th, and now is live June 20th. Online Scam BUSTED!!!Get the FULL STORY here for Instant Passive Profits

Is this another software engineer going rogue to create his own software to make money online? Is this another money making push button software? Is this another bad actor trying to make you think he is the real guy that created Instant Passive Profits? And tired of the gurus trying to keep the affiliate down. Well I am not going to go in much detail here. I add the affiliate link because people will watch the presentation, and people will buy. Does that mean I agree? no.

If you really want to learn to make money online I suggest checking out Google Sniper.

Read my reviews for google sniper. I honestly have learned alot from Google sniper, and continue to learn. It is not an instant push buttom, it is a real course for real people wanting to make real money.

Commission Mayhem

2011-06-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Commission Mayhem is the new product from Sim Anahi, the man behind Massive Auto Traffic! – This new product Commission Mayhem is looking good

Commission Mayhem will be "A Unique Software Using A Very Different Technology That Allows It's Users To Make A Sale In UNDER 5 MINUTES."

Why 5 minutes? Well, we saw that since there are many software products being launched nowadays, with MASSIVE refund rates, and unhappy customers, it was time to do something special and completely different with Commission Mayhem!

Commission Mayhem uses a very different technology, this software will allow affiliates to bank some easy cash, doing nothing but entering a super-difficult traffic monopoly, and best of all, on complete autopilot!

FACT: Using this piece of Commission Mayhem, we were able to make a sale in just 4:31minutes of starting it

Incoming search terms:
•commision mayhem
•commission mayhem

While you ARE waiting for Commission Mayhem to launch Check out Commission Crusher one CB's top moving products. People Love it.

Google Sniper 2.0 second review

2011-05-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone I am following up on the google sniper review I did 2 post back. I have have been using the google sniper 2.0 techniques for a month now. I am still not high ranking in Google yet. Bummer right, no I am still page 1 in yahoo for my website http://www.cpuoverclockingsoftware.com/ for the key word cpu overclocking software. Actually the last time I checked I was rank number 5 in yahoo and bing for that key word. And I am second page in those two search engines for 2 other key words.

Big deal huh, actually it is, before google sniper 2.0 I could not even come close to being 1st page in any keyword on any search engine. The thing is there are many search engines that people use other than google, yahoo, and bing on a daily basis. Many of those search engines use yahoo and bing to power there engine.

So if I am first page in Yahoo and bing I am first page on many more. My second thought on google sniper 2.0, Many say George Brown is lazy, George Brown admits he is lazy, but lazy or not he knows his stuff. If you are thinking or debating on buying Google sniper 2.0, give it a try, if you are not satisfied he gives your money back.

Google Sniper 2.0

CPU Overclocking Software

2011-04-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

Why is this important to your online marketing? Well having a computer that runs at exceptional speeds keeps your online business flowing smoothly. So instead of going out and spending a fortune on upgrades or a new computer why not Overclock? A cheap way of getting the most out of your computer, whether overclocking manually or running a cpu overclocking software.

Visit my Cpu overclocking Software page to learn how.

Google Sniper 2.0 Review

2011-04-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

First let me start by saying I took a risk at buying Google Sniper 2.0 I have never heard of George Brown before in my life. Not to mention Google Sniper that got changed to Google Sniper 2.0 after George revamped and added more. I think the main reason was to be FTC compliant. The reason I took the risk is I was searching the web like you are trying to find a way to make money online. I knew that there are many so called gurus out their that claim you will be making fortunes over night if you buy their products. This was not the case with George Brown's Google Sniper 2.0

Well after searching for Google sniper reviews, scams, and something I came across a you tube video posted by Jeff Lenney. I have watched some of his videos before and got some ideas. But this video was for Google Sniper 2.0 and he went into a quick review and told watchers what the teaching of Google Sniper 2.0 did for him. He even told us what keyword he used. So the skeptic I am I did a keyword search for his keyword and sure enough I found his webpage. At the very bottom of his webpage was a link to him jeff lenney.

So after that I decided to buy Google Sniper 2.0 and let me say I was not dissappointed one bit, or have I yet been dissappointed.

What does google sniper 2.0 teach:
Well let me start by saying all my years online. I learned more from George Browns Google Sniper 2.0 then all the other so called gurus that sold me their product.

Google Sniper 2.0 teaches you how to find keywords.

Keywords
But not just any keyword but One keyword phrase. What keyword phrase is the best to use when you look at webpages that use that keyword phrase. Google Snipers 2.0 goes into more detail about the key word phrase and the competition. This will determine how hard it will be to rank for that keyword phrase.

Website
Once you find your keyword, Google Sniper 2.0 explains how to set up your website for the keyword. George tells you what is the best webhost to use, you dont have to use it. Then after you get a host he shows you how to load word press on it. (I was never a fan of word press but I am now) Then google sniper 2.0 shows you what widgets to use to optimize your new webpage for SEO and search engine ranking.

How to make money with Google Sniper 2.0
George Brown shows you how to pick what affiliate links to use in Click Bank, (but this is not the only one) He shows you what to look for when picking these products. Saturation, trends, how many affiliates are selling and how many are buying.

What is Google Sniper 2.0
A very long detailed pdf download, I love to read when something is informative, and Google Sniper 2.0 manual is very.

A series of videos that shows you how to find keywords, set up your website, install widgets, and more videos that explain on page seo and off page seo. Each video is pointed to something in the manual. So if the manual is confusing the videos help to clarify.

And extras, plus since I have been a member of google sniper 2.0 I ahve recieved and update video, seminar video, and other stuff to help with my online money making ventures.

What Google sniper 2.0 is not
It is not fluff, it is not a bunch of lies, it is not a bunch you have to buy this and this and this or you will not succeed.

Google Snipe 2.0 is not a get rich quick push button program that does not work..

My Honest review
Google sniper 2.0 was worth every scent. If you go to Yahoo and search for CPU overclocking software you will find my website http://www.cpuoverclockingsoftware.com/ ,first page, that I built using google sniper 2.0. If you search Bing I am there too. I am not first page of google yet. But I am working on it.

So Check it out Google Sniper 2.0, you will not be dissappointed

Website linking, must do's

2008-12-26T20:00:00.001-08:00

If you google the search terms you will get pages of services that offer link exchanges. So finding help is not hard. When you find a service and sign up it is easy to get websites to link to yours. So what is the must do?

Simple easy and will not take long to explain.

The must do is linking with a website that is relevant to yours. If you have a website that is about making money online, and you link to a website about fitness that is not relevant. You will have your link on a website and you may get traffic from that link, but it is not relevant. So this is a no go with search engines. In order for a Traffic Ranking website to rank you higher you will need to have your link on a relevant website, one that is about making money online.

A real good way of getting qaulty one way links on another relevant website is article writing. You write an article about making money online and you write an about the author footer and put in your websites link. When using other peoples articles the person using the article has to use the about the article footer with the article. So now they have an article about making money online, with your info and website url on their website or blog.

The key to getting qaulity ranking website linking is getting relevant websites to put your link on their website. That simple..

Email Marketing

2008-12-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

"The Money is in the List" That is the sound that echoes all over the internet. It is so true though. Many of the internet gurus and internet millionaires have a list they promote to. With a well built list and a successful targeted email marketing campaign it is not hard to make thousands of dollars a month.

If you have a list are you Tracking your Sends, the Opens, and Clicks through your list. If you are not how do you know that your list is prosperous. How do you know your list is not dead and inactive. There is no point in having an email marketing campaign but not making money off of it.

All internet marketers know that building a list is not easy. A good list that makes you money can take some time. On top of the time it can get pretty pricey. So if you are spending hours a day and spending your hard earned money on building your list. Then you need to track your sends, your clicks, and even what emails are getting opened. Dont waste your time and money with out a successful email marketing tool. What email marketing solution does the experts reccommend? One that does all the work for you, iContact.

iContact has an easy to use interface and over 300 professionally-designed email templates. The application allows you to track the opens and clickthroughs on your emails, add a sign-up form to your web site, segment your list, and manage your subscribers.

It does not get any easier then that. Take your list to the next level and get the most out of your list, iContact.

Do You Want Quality Traffic?

2008-12-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

Yes Quality not Quantity.

What good is it if you get "100,000 visitors" if not one of them buys from you? What good is 1,000,000 visitors if not one reads your articles or clicks your adsense?

So you want to buy 100,000 visitors for $69. The sales pitch promised real visitors, real clicks, and targeted traffic. If you want quantity instead of quality go ahead and pay for the "targeted real visitors."

The problem with such companies selling you 100,000 visitors for $69 is you do not know where the traffic is coming from. Also the companies are not specific about the traffic as well.

Here is a question asked to a service that provides such claims and the answer:

Q. Where do these visitors come from, and why will they view my web page?

A. We use over 20 different sources to provide this traffic to your website. This traffic is sent to you using re-directed traffic from dormant domains, pop unders, pop overs, exit traffic, manual surf traffic, mainstream traffic etc. By using many sources and ways to send visitors to our customers websites, we are able to drive this traffic at lightening speeds, unlike the majority of other traffic suppliers who take between 30 and 120 days.

The problem with that is they say 20 different sources. Can you be more precise? First redirected traffic from dormant domains is not a qaulity traffic, and not always targeted. Manual surf traffic, people waiting for a timer so they can click to the next site. You can read more about traffic exchanges. Pop unders, pop overs, and exit traffic, (also known as pop ups) click and your website is gone. Oh not to mention annoying and usually blocked by internet browsers.

The visitors or traffic you are getting is not traffic. Yes sure you may get 100,000 people to your site, but are they really targeted. The next question are they really reading your articles, are even interested in your website. "Out on a Limb" not by a long shot.

Then there is the theory of many internet gurus about this, whom I trust. There are companies that load your url in software that fakes the clicks. Then this software adds a fake isp or harvested isp to that click. Thus leading you to believe you had a real visitor.

The problem with the internet and all the software and technology is who can you trust. If there was a real company out there that offered what they really said, there would be more rich internet users walking around.

If you want real quality traffic beat the seo game and get your site listed in the search engines. You can also pay per click with well known search engines and get real targeted visitors, people who asked for your product or service. Many of the search engines offer this service at a cheap price, such as Google, yahoo, Msn, bidvertise, etc etc.

So work for your traffic if you take the easy way out you are only going to go broke.

A Good Day for a Video

2008-12-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Comodo, Todays Trusted Internet

2008-12-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

Today’s technology on the internet can be safe, but with out the right protection then it can be dangerous. If you are doing business online, money transaction, multiple emails a day, surfing the internet then you need all the help you can get to protect your business, whether a corporate office, small business, or working at home. As technology changes so does the threats.

What you need to do business online is a trusted internet. You need a technology that changes and stays ahead of the rest, and when the prowlers and crooks think they have you beat they get stomped. No longer should you worry about your privacy, worried about bank transactions, or worried if someone is planting tracking cookies, or viruses.
When you think protection you should think Comodo.

"We contend daily with the challenge of figuring out who and what to trust online," said CEO and Chief Security Architect of Comodo CA, Melih Abdulhayoglu. "The Internet has yet to achieve its full potential because we cannot tell the fraudsters from our friends. In 2008, Comodo has worked hard to combat this problem."

Comodo offers free products for downloads that help fight malware, viruses, and protects your email. Comodo offers secured credit and purchasing software. Do not just think you are safe when using the internet, know that you are safe. If you doubt your security online then pay Comodo a visit. If you think your computer is safe and free of threats use Comodo’s free online scan to see how safe your computer is. It is not just thinking your computer is safe it is actually knowing your computer is safe. You have worked hard to build your business and your assets. Why let someone take that from you?

Comodo offers free online services and downloads and they offer top of the line products and services. So no matter your budget Comodo has the right tool for you and your business. Why take it to chance? Go ahead, Go Comodo, get protected today.

The truth about Traffic Exchanges: My study...

2008-12-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

I can not say the truth about traffic exchange scams. Traffic exchanges are not scams you do get traffic to your website or affiliate url. Wait before you go googling traffic exchanges please read on. What I can say is The Truth about Traffic Exchanges, my study and my results.

First what is a Traffic Exchange?

A traffic exchange is a type of website which provides a service for webmasters in exchange for traffic. It is similar to the autosurf concept with the exception that traffic exchanges usually use a manual rotation. (wikipedia)

What is the concept of traffic exchanges?

A traffic exchange website receives website submissions from webmasters that join traffic exchange networks. The person who submitted the website then has to browse other member sites on the exchange program to earn credits, which enable their sites to be viewed by other members through the surf system. This increases the number of visitors to all the sites involved.

My Study and My results:

I joined a few traffic exchange networks. Ok I joined about 20 or more. Each one I signed up for and entered all my information and what websites or urls I wanted people to see. Then I recieved a surf link...

Surfing (in traffic exchanges) when surfing, a website appears on your browser, in the top or bottom of the browser there is a timer. You have to stay on the website until the timer counts backwards to zero. When it reaches zero you click on a verification, usually pictures or numbers, then you get a credit for viewing that page. Once you click a new website appears, then when the timer counts down to zero you click a verification symbol and you get a credit. The process goes on as long as you allow it.

Most traffic exchages have a hit or surf ratio, meaning how many sites you look at equals how many times your site is shown. Most of traffic exchanges have a 2:1 ration, some have a 3:1 ratio. Meaning- you look at 2 sites you earn 1 site view, or if you look at 3 sites you earn 1 site view. If you pay a monthly fee or a one time fee you can get a lower ratio, 1:1 I have even seen 1:2. If you look at 1 site you get 2 site views.

Now that you know the basis of how surf sites or traffic exchanges work let me tell you the truth. As I stated my study and results.

First off I never made one sale with my products and I tested many. I never got one signup to my affiliate programs and I tested many. I did a traffic test and I did get the amount of traffic that I was suppose to get. This was done by a professional hit tracker. How many of those hits to my website were click through hits? zero. That means once someone landed on my website they just stayed on it. They never clicked links with in my website.

So what the fellow traffic exchanger did was watch the timer for the traffic exchange program. When the timer went to zero he or she clicked to verify and went to the next website. So yes I got traffic but all I got was qauntity not qaulity.

There are programs that suggest you download Mozilla. This allows you to have many tabs open in your web browser. This allows the proffessional traffic exchanger or traffic surfer to surf many programs at a time. I was able to load all my traffic exchange program at one time. Then as I clicked each program going through the tabs, I was able to start over again by the time I was at the end of each tab. This allowed me to surf over 30 programs, get my credits, and not once look at the website on my browser. If there was audio on a website, thank goodness I had a speaker volume control, I selected mute.

So the only person or people benefitting with traffic exchange or traffic surfing programs are the ones who own it. They benefit by getting upgrades, people paying for better surf ratios. They get the lazy surfers who pay 5 bucks for 500 surf credits or 10 bucks for a thousand, or what ever they are charging. Then they also have your name and email address (the list) and by law unless you opt out, they can send you emails adveritsing there other affiliate programs. This making them money when some one buys a product.

So my results with traffic exchanges or traffic surfing programs:

-No sign ups for affiliate programs
-No sales of affiliate products
-Surfing for hours and not looking at one website (watching a timer)
-getting emails from owners advertising their affilitae products
-carpal tunnel from all the clicking
-an over used mouse button
-and now every time I am talking to someone or looking at something I am looking for the timer so I can click next... :)

Snapbomb for Bloggers

2008-12-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

You enjoy blogging, and you blog every day, sometimes two or more times a day. Now you are an expert in your blogging niche. You have added google adsense and a few affiliate links and make a few dollars here and there. That is great, you are getting paid for what you enjoy doing. So why not get paid more for actually writing a post?

You just started blogging and you write everyday. You are now thinking about adding google adsense to your blog, and maybe some affiliate links. That way you can make money off of traffic coming to your blog. So why not make money on actually writing a post?

The latest buzz on the street is Snapbomb. Snapbomb is a clever way to advertise on blogs. This is called blog advertsing or blog marketing. When you join Snapbomb, for free and never pay anything ever, you are given the opportunity to make money doing what you are already doing. You write reviews, in your own words, about products and services then you post them on your blog. You are marketing or advertising a product you feel comfortable with on your blog and you get paid for doing it. This is called freelancing. What do you get paid for writing a blog advertisement? It depends on the value of your blog. What is the value of your blog? I cant tell you that only snapbomb can So log into Snapbomb today and find out the value of your blog.

So if you want to ad revenue to your blog by marketing or advertising products and services then join snap bomb. If you want to get paid for doing what you are already doing then join snapbomb.

Review, write, post, submit, get paid.. Snapbomb

The power of Blog Marketing - why Advertisers should use Snapbomb

2008-11-30T05:36:00.000-08:00

"Blogging" has been around way before the internet was thought about. It was however in the form of personal diaries, cork boards, and monthly mailings. Then when the internet came along, away with the cork boards. Companies sent out news letters through email to each of their employees. Then organizations cut back on their monthly mailings by collecting email addresses and sending out group emails. Then something happened, spam. So now is gone the days of email marketing, because of spam many companies have lost thousands and thousands of potential income. This is because of peoples abuse and sending unsolicited emails. Thus leading to spam blocking software, and the new spam laws.

The diary has evolved electronically, people with something to say now blog it. Blogs were first invented so people can get stuff off there chest but allow other people to read it. They rant and rave about anything they want and put it in a blog.

Now blogs have taken on another use. The companies that sent out emails or newsletters now blog it. This allowing the company to post once and get out there message. Organizations do the same, they post once about a special event, charity, or anything they feel there community should know.

Blogging has now become a source for personal diaries, company messages, special organizations events, and product reveiws. Now blogs get the attention that they deserve. Search engines basically fight over blogs. If you blog the chances are you got indexed by search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Msn, and the list can go on.

What if you could get some of those bloggers to write a blog or "review" about you or your product. Your chances of being indexed are even more, more readers, more people seeing your product. What does that mean to you, more possible sales. More blogs equals more people seeing your product equals more sales. You get the math. The problem is getting all these bloggers to write about your product. You would have to email each blogger and ask them if they would even think about it. This would take forever to reach thousands of bloggers. Then that would not be a guarantee you would get a review and a post.

Well now it is possible, Snap Bomb. Snapbomb, A service that allows bloggers to write reviews on products. Then they post it on there relevent blogs. Snapbomb is an easy way to give your content increased visibility and gain valuable backlinks to your site. Snapbomb equals more bloggers writing reviews on your products or services equals more potential customers equals more sales.

Snapbomb allows you to contact bloggers to write a review about your service. Then the bloggers post their reveiw on your product on their blog. A ingenius way of advertising your product. This cuts out the middle man, ie Google, yahoo. You dont pay for adwords or invalid clicks. You pay for well written reviews that are going to be indexed by google and yahoo anyway. Plus you are going to reach more people, and more blogs.

Start your Snapbomb account today and get your product seen.

Banner Exchanges, Hot or Not?

2008-11-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well that would be up to you. The banner exchange idea has been around a while. Does it work? yes it does. How does it work? You sign up for an account, put in your details, website, and banner url. Then you are given a code to place on your website. When you get visitors to your website you recieve credits, when someone clicks on the banner on your site you get credits. The credits you recieve are how many times your banner will be placed on other websites. The more credits you earn the more your banner is shown.

My top banner exchanges are:

Hit Exchange

Banners Go MLM

1 800 Banners

Splat Banners

Show Your Site

And this new one for blogs

Entre Card - go to signup options at top.

Well I hope this helps. All the above mentioned sends me traffic, and qaulity traffic. Some of the ones mentioned above can earn you an income as well..

Laws Of Attraction and Home Based Business

2008-11-22T12:22:00.000-08:00

The phrase Law of Attraction, although used widely by esoteric writers, has a variety of definitions. Turn of the century references conceptualized the law of attraction as relating to physical structure and to how matter develops. A more modern consensus among New Thought thinkers is that the Law of Attraction says people's thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dictate the reality of their lives, whether or not they're aware of it. Essentially "if you really want something and truly believe it's possible, you'll get it", but putting a lot of attention and thought onto something you don't want means you'll probably get that too. (Wikipedia)

The simplest definition of this law is "like attracts like."
Other definitions….
-You get what you think about, whether wanted or unwanted. The Law of Attraction is neutral.
-All forms of matter and energy are attracted to that which is of a like vibration.
-You are a living magnet.
-You get what you put your energy and focus on, whether wanted or unwanted.
-Energy attracts like energy
-Everything draws to itself that which is like it.
-"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

The laws of attraction can be used in any business; whether it is a home based business or your typical street business. No matter what you do the law of attraction can be used.

My mom use to say. If you sleep with dogs you are going to get fleas. So what does that mean in business? If you want success hang around successful people. Do you think Bill Gates best friend is a homeless guy who thinks life stinks? I bet not. If you are not happy find happy friends, don’t spend your time hanging around unhappy people. Misery loves company and that is so true. You probably will not make friends with Bill Gates, but look for like minded people.

If you want to run a successful home based business, find successful people with home based businesses. I as an individual or say a human being likes nothing more then people asking how. So ask how, when, why, what for, build their egos, and in return you learn.

So in short; the laws of attraction can be a successful tool in life, especially in a home based business.

Adding Meta Tags To Your Website

2008-11-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

A key element to writing clean, search engine optimized code is the inclusion of meta tags. These tags give information to the search engines that help the engine parse your page. While it is true that these tags are given less weight by the major search engines than they once were given, it is still a good idea to put a little bit of thought behind them. In this article we will focus on the Description, Keywords, Author, and Robots tags.

The Description meta tag is displayed by search engines such as Yahoo when your website appears in the search results. This tag lets you make a first impact on possible visitors to your site, so you want the description to accurately reflect what your site is about. Google uses its own algorithm to come up with content to display for search results. This algorithm takes content from your page. Nevertheless, it is still believed that Google does take the Description tag into consideration when determining where to rank your website.

To include a Description tag, insert the following code right before the
< / head > tag:
< name="description" content="Describe your site in this area">

Moving on... the Keywords meta tag. At one point the keywords you used on your web pages determined exactly what your pages would rank for. However, since search bots have gotten smarter, keywords don't play as big of a role. It is important that keywords you choose and the content on your page are related to each other. You will want to mix up your keywords with both common words that you would like to rank high for and uncommon words/phrases that there is less competition for. The following is the Keywords tag taken directly from the Spider Web Technologies homepage. Notice that some of the keywords are a single, common word, and others are uncommon three-word phases.

< name="keywords" content="web, spider web technologies, web design, web development, website design, website development, web site design, web site development, web page design, web page development, delaware, wilmington, graphic design, search engine, seo">

Next up is the Author meta tag. This tag is largely optional, and doesn't need much explaining. If you want the search engine to know who wrote the page, you should include this tag, which look like this...

< name="author" content="John Smith - YourSite.com">

Last but not least is the Robots meta tag. This one is important if you do not have a robots.txt file in your directory. It tells the search engine crawler whether or not it should index the current page (whether or not it should be displayed in search results) and whether or not it should follow links on that page. The attributes are link, nolink, follow, and nofollow. Most often you will want
< name ="robots" content ="link,follow">,

but sometimes you may wish to substitute link for nolink and follow for nofollow.

Note to reader, in order to accurately show the meta tag examples I had to add a space in the tags. example: <(space) meta="author" content="john smith- yoursite"(space)/(spcae)>
So if you copy the exmple remove spaces before implementing them on your website.

Meta Tags - How to Go About Using Meta Tags For Your Website

2008-11-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

It would be foolish to leave off Meta keyword tags or Meta description tags of your web page even while these are not the chief elements that search engines apply when higher-ranking your web site. The Meta description tag adds a concise, also equally brief summary of the articles of your web page although the Meta keyword tag adds a compact listing of the active words on your web page that are of a great deal grandness. Some of these kinds of Meta tags assist in making it comfortable to utilize the internet.

It has got rather primary for webmasters to misuse the practice of Meta tags called for to acquire greater search engine rankings. This is regrettable and has led search engines to modify the emphasis knuckled under their algorithmic program when grading sites. It is hence crucial for you to recognize how to compose right Meta tags that you acquire the one and the same finest and sanctioned search engine rankings.

While composing Meta description tags it is all important for you not to apply more than 170 characters and the article that you apply must follow that one on your web page. At that place are assorted references accessible to direct you in composing suitable Meta description tags letting in LookSmart, and Open Directory. You actually should bear your description bind nearly to W3C standards and the description should be nearly associated to the articles on your web page.

As well see while composing Meta keyword tags to let in those words that will be attending on the web page because its aim is to cater summary of the crucial keywords present during your Website page or text file. It is as well executable to use Meta tag sources to simplify also as construct valuable Meta tags for your site and therefore acquires higher search engine rankings. Still bear in mind that these Meta Tag sources will never surpass a master search engine optimization advisor.

Alakh Arpan is a successful search engine optimizer, internet marketer and successful online entrepreneur. Please visit his website at http://www.seocopywritingservices.net and find out how he can help you boost your Search Engine Optimization campaign.

Taking a break heres something cool....

2008-07-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Social Networking

2008-05-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

What is the new buzz these days? Good question.. It is Social networking. It is places to go and make new friends. It is basically online neighborhoods where you find people with similar interest, hobbies, sports, occupations, abilities, and or skills etc etc.. You make a profile, and you describe yourself as best as you can. This attracts people with similar profiles, or you can search for people with similar interest.

You can write a blog of what you have done, accomplished, failed at, and or bought and sold etc etc, or just ramble. You meet new people and send emails back and forth. You join social clubs and introduce yourself. Most of the clubs have questions from other members with concerns or problems. You can answer those questions, and give advice on their topics. Your profile can be your online journal for the world to see.

You can add friends or contacts with similar interest. You can also add fiends and contacts of people you do not have anything in common with. Social networks are really a large online friend finder, with thousands of people to contact, read about, or share thoughts and ideas.

So what does this do for your online business. It exposes to the world what you are doing and or selling. The potential is high with social networks. It is like any ad copy. You write a good profile, make yourself interesting to people, give good advice, sound like an expert in your field, and then bring them to the table and make a sale.

This is not a new idea, and there are many social network companies online.
Which ones do I suggest?...

- Direct matches you can network and socialize with like minded people, advertise any product or business for free, and be matched with other people seeking the same benefits. You'll also receive a free training course -it's great!

- Yuwie network with people, and get paid. You do what you normally do with social networking and get paid. You invite people to join Yuwie and you get paid.

Social networking and networking sites like Direct matches and Yuwie can be worked to your advantage. You can get new sales, or signups to your affiliate programs. You can make new friends and business partners. Then to add gas to that flame you can get paid by some social networking sites.

Multiple Streams of Income

2008-05-22T16:06:00.001-07:00

In my online adventures I have made money. The problem with some of the businesses is one stream of income. They have one product or one service. The best income makers are the ones that offer more then one product or more then one income stream.

Multiple Income Streams

The pros of more then one income stream is pay checks coming from different directions, different sources. As in Spiderweb Marketing They offer 12 income streams. They offer 22 and growing videos that teach you step by step. They practically take your hand and walk you through the process. So whats the down side, forgetting every thing you thought you knew about making money online.

Not every multiple income stream service offers so many videos, so much training, or takes you by the hand like SpiderWeb Marketing I found by far the best ever.

Affiliate Marketing with more then one product or service.

I am also involved with an affiliate company that offers more then one product or service. The2ndtier offers 10 and growing products and services that people want and will buy. The pro is you advertise one and get a check, then you avertise another and get a check. The monies from these sales go to one place. That gives you more money to reach your payout minimum. You can create a doorway website for each product. AND you can reach a wider audience and create more sales. So the2ndtier is by far the best affiliate program around.. My opinion.....

For SEO Beginners: Twelve Definitions You Need To Know

2007-07-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

SEO is a trade that exists solely on the internet, and even then it is comprised almost entirely of the hot air of so-called "expert opinion." Plenty of it blowing around these days as search maintains position as one of the most important marketplaces in the modern business world. Many DIY webmasters will end up searching for blog entries, articles, informational web sites, etc to help get them up to speed. The problem is that in most cases certain key terms are flung around like household names while the people doing the flinging are way out of touch with the average web browser. What some of us don't realize is that not everyone knows even the basics of SEO.

This líst of twelve SEO-related definitions in alphabetical order (with notes) serves as a great companion for your initial SEO reading. Read alone it will get you up to speed on some key terminology that you'll need to know to intelligently engage the ever-changing world of SEO.

Your Key to Top Rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN!

• Algorithms. A search algorithm is, in short, the incredibly complex mathematical formula that a search engine uses to "rank" web sites for keywords. Based on a huge number of variables and calculations, algorithms are among the most closely-guarded secrets on the internet. Why? Imagine if they were leaked - suddenly the less-than-honest would have a very specific guideline to follow in climbing to the top of search results in a less-than-organic way, ruining the quality of Google's search results and their entire competitive advantage with it.

• Bot or Bots. See also "crawlers"

• Crawlers. Googlebot, for example, is a search engine crawler. Googlebot periodically traverses the web in record time, indexing content, links - everything contained in page source code - and storing it in Google's search index. Then, when a user visits Google and enters a search phrase, the index, filtered by the algorithm, is what the user gets. Please note: there is some delay in this process since the results you're getting are from the index and not the live web.

• Directories. When webmasters realized just how much power inbound links have in determining search rankings they quickly set out to do two things: 1) get inbound links and 2) set up web sites where other webmasters could achieve inbound links (meaning big traffíc revenues for the site). Hence the directory farms you'll find today. Link building has been a priority on the líst of any SEO-savvy webmaster for years, and as a result "quick fix" directories that allow streamlined listing submissions get a ton of traffíc. However, Google and the other major search engines are on to this tactic, and the word among SEO "experts" is that the benefits of listing your site at directories are diminished if not gone.

• Frames. Frames are a way of laying out a website with multiple documents in one browser window. Essentially, there is one main document which contains the frameset tag - this document specifies the dimensions/placement of the frames and also the documents that will "populate" those frames. From an SEO standpoint the use of frames for your layout is not recommended. Since frames do not use links in the same way, and since links may point to one frame from another, they may cause serious problems for crawlers. Additionally, there are almost no uses for frames that can't either be 1) duplicated with other methods or 2) thrown away without much fuss. If your site was built with frames and you're thinking you don't want to rebuild - it might be tough luck if you're interested in optimizing for search. Consider it a learning experience - build yourself a CSS-based layout.

Attract Them With Search - Keep Them With Email!

• Gateway Pages. Also "doorway pages." Although there isn't a real consensus about what these pages are, their function is always cited as their definition. In other words, these pages are created to "rank well in search engines" by playing to the algorithms. Often viewed as "spammy," "gray hat" or even "black hat." However, any page written with search in mind, and geared towards search, can be construed to be a "gateway page." The difference between a page well-optimized for search and a "gateway page?" No clear lines there, but quality of content is probably the determining factor.

• HTML. Okay, most of you probably know this one, but there are probably some of you who don't. HTML stands for Hyper-Text Mark-up Language, and it is the core building block that has made the web the greatest modern tool for business, social, informational, political and any other causes. Search engines look exclusively at a web page's HTML code to determine its relevance. Therefore, it's a good idea to pay attention to HTML and familiarize yourself with proper tagging techniques if you're hoping to get a good handle on SEO.

• Link Popularity. Inbound links are probably the most important optimization point for web pages. Number, quality, trust - these are all factors that affect the value of an inbound link. Going back to the HTML root of search, link popularity (in terms of quantity) measures how many pages point to your site using anchor text ( link text ).

• Link Building. In short, the process of gaining links at other web sites pointing in to pages on your own.

• Link Baiting. The process of generating high-quality content on your pages that users will appreciate and link to voluntarily.

• Meta Tags. Meta tags are found at the top of a page's source code. They are used to specify certain things that might not be found in the page content. They also allow webmasters to put up certain "flags" that search engine crawlers can react to. There are many Meta tags available for use, and many of them can help with SEO to a great extent and for a variety of purposes. However, Meta tags are no longer used in the way they originally were - as a place to stuff keywords to drive your site up in rankings. Some webmasters out there are still doing this, but they are decidedly behind the times and unaware of the impending, or already cast-down, penalties.

Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!

• Robots. See also "crawlers."

• Search Engines. If you don't know what a search engine is congratulations on finally making it out from under that rock. Search engines are essentially programs that scan an existing index of the web based on a query of search terms, or keywords, that a user enters. However, the word more commonly refers to companies as a whole - Google, for example, controls a search engine, while Googlebot is the crawler that gathers content for its index, but most users and webmasters think of a search engine as the whole package.

• Search Engine Marketing. Most often this refers to Pay-Per-Click marketing in which an advertiser bids on chosen keywords and writes several ads to be displayed should their bid achieve placement. These ads are displayed in the "sponsored" section of search engine result pages (SERPS). However, in some circles this term is used to refer to any action taken to gain rankings both paid and organic.

• Search Engine Optimization. This one is open to interpretation. It is quite often used to encapsulate a huge amount of different tactics. On-site optimization, off-site optimization (link building, etc) and many other techniques all feasibly fall under the SEO blanket. However, there is an obvious difference between optimizing a page's code to be clean and search friendly and writing link bait that will be popular and get linked to.

• Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The pages resulting from a search engine query run by a user. Webmasters review these pages to determine where their pages are ranking for certain search terms.

• Sp@mming. Basically, any unnatural effort to bring a page higher in search results. What constitutes sp@m is open to some interpretation, but the only interpretation you need to worry about is that of the major search engines. If Google, for example, considers a technique "spammy" you'd be wise to cease at once.

• Spiders. See also "crawlers."

• Submission. For SEO this has traditionally meant submitting a web site to search engines so they'll know about and crawl it. SEO firms offered submission services as a big selling point to bring in clients. However, for a long time now submitting your site to search engines hasn't done jack. They're all much smarter now - just focus on gaining quality inbound links and your site will be indexed in no time.

This is just a sample of the core vocabulary associated with SEO. Is this all you need to know? Absolutely not. But in my experience these are the words and phrases that newcomers have the most trouble with. If these definitions help one person have a better understanding of SEO, then I will be satisfied.

About The Author
Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.

8 Tips To Create A Landing Page

2007-05-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

By Ayat Shukairy (c) 2007

Introduction

You need copy for your landing page but you're not sure where to start. First let's clarify what we mean by a landing page. A landing page can be a page that visitors come to after clicking on a promotional banner or link. Ultimately, the landing page must convince the visitor that they should stay on your site. You may also have a goal that you want accomplished, such as:

* Signing up for a newsletter or filling out a förm
* Buying a product
* Reading informational pieces

What's going to keep them there? The structure, the language, and the visual appeal all play a part of it. Chëck out these tips to create a great landing page, or reinvent the one you already have.

The Structure

People arrive at your site looking for answers. They scan to see if they're in the right place and assess whether it's going to be a quick and easy visit or a long grinding one. Your landing page is the welcome wagon inviting them in and feeding them the information they need. The structure of the page will either pull them in and encourage them to fulfill your goal, or distract and cause them to cut out of there before getting the whole picture.

The structure of the landing page in general should be matching that of the banner, äd or link they clicked on to get them there. So for example, if your PPC Ad is targeting SEO articles, your landing page should discuss exactly that. If a Victoria Secret's äd for lingerie shows up and you clíck on it, you will be transferred to a landing page with the exact image and structure of the äd.

The Visuals

* Copy placement – Strategic use of copy and graphics will catch the visitor's attention. Don't muck up the page with large, distracting graphics. Use plenty of whitespace and place your message in the central portion of the page rather than placing information down the sides, where the focus can be lost quickly. Keep the copy short. The visitor expects a precise message, so don't choke it up with tons of mindless prose.

* Beauty is in the eye – Use a consistent color palette. If you have advertising or banners that link visitors to your website, make sure the concept and color scheme match across the board. It's also a great visual indicator for the visitor because they can easily identify that they're still in the right place.

* Simplify – Remove any distracting elements like advertising banners, links, or additional blocks of information from the page and get down to the specific message.

The Goal

Before you design the landing page, decide what the goal of the page will be. If you're looking for newsletter subscribers, the goal will be to have the visitor enter their information and become a member of your mailing líst.

Be a Sleuth

Do your research. Keep your visitors in mind when building your landing page and tailor it to suit their needs. By narrowing your options and focusing on your visitor, you'll stay on target.

Keep Your Focus

Keep the focus on you. You've dangled a large poster board over their head and pulled them in. Now that you've got them, don't give your visitors a reason to wander.

Use a Call to Action

A call to action, such as 'subscribe now' or 'get this offër' reminds the visitor why they are on your website. Place them toward the top of your page. For users that want to clíck, it allows them to find it easily. For those who are still deciding, it's a great reminder.

Many sites place the consultation or contact förm directly on the landing page, which may not be such a bad idea. Again, you need glaring calls to action. Don't add several useless links on the page that will take the visitor back to your main site; rather include the links that will get them to actually purchase your product/service.

Write Like a Pro

No, you don't have to hire one to look like one. What's the best way to come off like a professional? Create landing pages with no grammatical or spelling errors. I recently hit a website offering 'discount holideys.' As I clicked out of there, I pictured the four-star flea-bag motel by the swampland I might have booked if I stayed.

Reassure

People get leery when they're asked for their personal data. If you're asking for personal information, make sure you have a credible privacy policy to back you up.

About The Author
Ayat is the Director of the writing department at INVESP. She manages a team of writers that provide business writing services such as Grant writing, webcopy writing and optimized SEO article writing.

Rethinking Website Content: Content That Entertains

2007-03-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

In case you've missed it, the Web has changed; it seems like just yesterday it was good enough to take all your brochures and advertising collaterals and convert them to digital format, add a little search engine optimization, throw-in a little PHP programming and bingo, you've got a website. And if you wanted to show how cutting edge your company was, maybe you'd add a little dash of Flash animation, or some royalty frëe music. Well here's a bulletin from the frontlines, that isn't going to cut-it in the new multimedia Web-business environment.

Almost daily I receive emails from people asking me to review their websites and tell them why they can't convert visitors to customers even when they are attracting significant numbers of visitors on a regular basis to their sites.

The answer is both simple and complex: simple, because these websites fail to communicate the company's message in a meaningful manner to their visitors, which means no dialog is opened, and without a dialog, no business can be done; and complex, because the implementation of the solution requires a new way of thinking about communicating with your audience using sophisticated presentation techniques that put a higher premium on creativity than they do on facts, figures and old-school direct marketing tactics.

If you are looking for a mantra to begin any new website initiative or to correct an existing website disaster: Think Audience Not Customers.

New Words For A New Web-Business Environment

In the past while I've run across three newly coined words or phrases (Communitainment, Branded Entertainment, and Snack-o-tainment) that attempt to capture the fundamental change that has taken place among Web-user expectations.

All of the new terms have two things in common: one, they require the marketer to think of website visitors as an audience and not as customers; and two, they all require the marketer to use entertainment techniques as the basis for delivering content.

Communication + Entertainment + Community

The Piper Jaffray Internet Media and Marketing research team recently released a report entitled 'The User Revolution' in which Safa Rashtchy coined the concept of 'Communitainment,' a blending of the words communication and entertainment. Rashtchy uses the term to denote the "melding of communication, community, and entertainment," as a new formula for implementing the delivery of marketing content.

The report points out that "Video ads will be the driver of the next major growth in brand advertising" with the Web being "the leading medium at work and the second leading medium at home behind television."

For any business that thought they could conduct business as usual, this should be a wake-up call. The Web has changed: the market is no longer content to be informed, they must be seduced, and you are not going to seduce them with key-word density and biz-speak.

Contrary to popular belief you can deliver a marketing message faster, more powerfully, and with better recall using creative video presentations than you can with a page of text. Now no one is saying you shouldn't have text on your site, but your copy better be damn interesting and well written if you expect anyone to actually read it.

Meaning + Sharing + Experience

The idea of 'Communitainment' provides a conceptual framework for creating Web-video presentations that work: your business communication must convey meaning through a focused presentation that uses all the various techniques available to the savvy Web-producer; your audience must see enough value in the presentation that they are willing to contact others in their colleague-community and share it; and lastly, the delivery of the message must create a memorable entertaining experience associated with the product or service provided.

Branded Entertainment

Leta Baker writes in her 'Adobe Magazine' article 'Creative Persuasion: The Rise of Branded Entertainment' about her concept of using entertaining online video presentations as a means of effectively creating brand awareness.

What Baker is talking about is video that doesn't hit you over the head with a hard-sell salës pitch or bore you to death with meaningless platitudes, but rather presents entertaining short programs that companies can attach their brand to so viewers gain a memorable positive impression of your company. This is a long-term strategy that takes into account the reality that not every genuine prospect that comes to your website is ready to buy your product at that moment but might, when and if they remember who you are, when they are ready to buy.

There are many ways to implement this 'branded entertainment' concept and they all don't have to be completely devoid of salesmanship. The Apple iPod commercials are an example of what I would call 'branded entertainment,' even if Leta Baker would object. Unlike most commercials that people race to avoid, the iPod commercials are actually anticipated: people want to know what Apple is going to come up with next, and the result: iPod has the lion's share of the MP3 player market.

The Apple Macintosh commercials are another form of 'branded entertainment' that involves a salës pitch. Here we have an ongoing campaign with well-developed characters that the audience has gotten to know over the length of the campaign. The audience looks forward to what these characters are going to do next. This does not mean that every PC owner is going to run out and buy a Mac, but over time Apple is getting people to recognize their product as an alternative.

Because the commercials are entertaining, people are listening and waiting for the next installment of the campaign. Audiences are getting the message and that is all any good marketing campaign can achieve.

And here is the big hurdle for many small businesses: good marketing requires patience and should be aimed at opening a dialog, not just making a quick sale.

Most website salës pitches are like bad 'pick-up' lines: crude and ineffective; an audience needs to be wooed with tender loving care before you can expect to see any results. If you're not willing to invest the time and creativity in opening a dialog with your audience, you can forget about using the Internet as a marketing tool.

Snack-o-tainment: Fast Food Entertainment

The term 'Snack-o-tainment' was used by Nancy Miller in her 'Wired' magazine article 'Manifesto for a New Age" in which she equates consumption of new media to societies addiction to fast food. If the audience is addicted to entertaining media, we as marketers must feed that addiction.

It wasn't that long ago that the biggest objection to online video was it took too long to load; now we see it compared to fast food. The fact is video can deliver a meaningful message in the quickest possible way because it conveys content using the full arsenal of communication tools.

We can look to television for a blueprint of how to deliver these bite-sized morsels of corporately nutritious, entertaining, marketing manna.

The thirty-second commercial is an example of just how much memorable content can be crammed into a short period of time if a little entertaining creativity is added to the mix. And unlike television, there is no costly premium associated with time on the Internet, so content can be as long or short as the message requires.

A campaign based on this formula can come complete with plot-lines, character development, and signature music all designed to deliver your marketing message in an entertaining way that will not only get stuck in your audience's memory, but will be anticipated by that same audience. The famous 'Taster's Choice' soap opera style campaign of years ago was one of the best examples of combining entertainment with a commercial message.

Even the lowly jingle can be resurrected to provide some 'sit-up and take notice' to an otherwise mundane presentation. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know the recipe for MacDonald's Big Mac, based on their fabulously successful commercials, even though they haven't been aired in years. In fact MacDonald's current roster of commercials are so forgettable that you wonder why they haven't brought the old standby back to life.

Another bit of delicious marketing entertainment was the series of Chili's Restaurant commercials featuring various singers interpreting their 'Baby Back Ribs' jingle, which provided far more entertainment in thirty seconds than a full CD of Britney Spears. More importantly that infectious 'baby back ribs' song has become deeply rooted in the public's subconscious, and when the inevitable question comes up, 'where are we going to eat?' that jingle starts playing in our heads. If you want to be successful, learn from what works.

Can You Afford To Wait

If your business is expanding as fast as it can with an ever-growing líst of customers and continuously increasing profits, then perhaps you can afford to ignore the changes taking place, and the expectations of your audience. But if things could be better, and if you yearn to improve your Web-marketing, then you have to adjust to new ways of delivering content.

You can't let out-dated thinking get in your way. There is a difference between twenty year's experience, and one year's experience repeated twenty times. There is no point in continuing to repeat old methods that no longer work.

You know things have changed so get ready to deliver your content in a way that will allow your company to become the next great Web success story.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, www.136words.com and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

2nd Tier Affiliate Program

2007-02-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

You’ve been waiting for a long time and finally its here- an affiliate program that will blow all the others out of the water!

The already popular TheSecondTier affiliate training center has undergone a complete information and visual makeover. As an affiliate you’ll get more tools and they’ll be more powerful than ever. This translates directly into cha-ching!

Here are just a few things that make this affiliate program the most effective affiliate program out there:

• Huge commissions on both first AND second tier sales!!!
• Product tools for all types of affiliates.
• Full training center with access hours of video and audio training.
• Live affiliate manager blog where you can get your affiliate questions answered.
• Weekly live training calls (every monday morning!!!)

Russell Brunson's unique philosophy that affiliates should be provided not only with powerful tools but the knowledge to use them has pushed TheSecondTier to the top of competing programs. Russell has taken affiliate training to a whole new level.

He understands that he can have hundreds of affiliates that don’t know what they are doing and get decent sales OR he can give them the knowledge and tools they need to create explosive amounts of money AND share with them a very generous portion of the profits from each sale they generate!

Here are just a few of the things that you'll learn inside of TheSecondTier:

• How to choose the right product for you to promote - One of the biggest mistakes that almost all affiliates make when they first start out, is that they try to promote too many things at once. This video will show you exactly how to choose the right one or two products that will make you the most money.

• How to set up an "Affiliate Squeeze" page - Less then 2% of all affiliates use this powerful technique, but after you implement it into your affiliate promotions, you will see your commissions grow exponentially.

• How to drive targeted traffic to your "Affiliate Squeeze" pages for FREE - Once you learn this simple (and free) concept on how to drive traffic to your "Affiliate Squeeze" pages, you will be able to start literally writing your own paychecks.

• How to build an huge targeted opt-in mailing list - You will learn how easy it is to build an opt-in list, and use that to exponentially increase your affiliate commissions EVERY week!

• How to strategically place "Affiliate Land Mines" and watch your profits EXPLODE! - Follow this one simple strategy and you will start getting checks in the mail every month!

• How to dominate your Pay Per Click ad campaigns - It's very powerful if you learn how to do it right. This video will walk you through the process to get high converting PPC ads!

• How to use teleseminars to close ten times the clients in 1/2 the time - One of the secrets to selling a lot of products as an affiliate quickly is doing teleseminars. I was nervous when I did my first few, but now I can't stop because every time I do one, my affiliate checks from that day are anywhere from $2,000 - $15,000 (and it's a lot easier then you'd think).

• How to broker JV deals and make a fortune on your 2nd tier - Many of our affiliates earn thousands of dollars each month from the efforts of others. These videos will show you exactly how they find super affiliates to add to their second tier.

• How to protect your commissions from thieves while increasing your conversions - One of the number one concerns that affiliates have are people stealing their commissions. You will learn the techniques that will protect your links and also guarantee that even the worst thieves will gladly give you their commissions instead of keeping it for themselves.

• and a whole lot more....

Russell does not discriminate against less experienced affiliates. In fact, he’s already taken countless numbers of people from knowing 0 to being listed among his top affiliates. It is so effective that some people actually pay to sell products for him!

The products Russell puts out are of top quality and always in demand. In fact, people call his office months before products are ready just begging to know when they can get their hands on them. Combine this with all the promotional and training tools Russell provides and you’re already half way to making serious affiliate commissions.

The other half will be done when you take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Resource Box:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

TheSecondTier is a free affiliate training center for those interested in learning how to make money online as an affiliate marketer. You can get your free account today by registering at:

http://mikewithsfi.thesecondtier.com/thesecondtier

Social Bookmarking and Increasing Web Traffic

2007-02-20T16:02:00.000-08:00

By Lance Winslow

One of the newest ways to increase traffic on your website and get your business ranked higher in the search engines is thru social book marking. In fact social book marking is all the rage. Moreover it is a natural tendency of to think in this way and it is helping smaller website entrepreneurs and Bloggers get their messages out to society.

Social Bookmarking and Increasing Web Traffic was recently the number one topic on the ezines of the top online website marketing consultants and already there are over 300 eBooks out on the subject and available online to help you develop your own Social Bookmarking Strategy to increasing your Web Traffic.

Social Bookmarking is an evolution of the social networking revolutions occuring on the Internet with the next up and coming generation of Internet users and surfers. Although just recently social bookmarking has become popular it actually started in 1996 when the Internet was just really getting going.

If your website has more people bookmarking it, your rankings will go up and it will drive more traffic to you, thus it makes sense to work with others doing the same thing to advance both you and them. Search: Social Bookmarking and learn all you can and then develop a strategy to insure your website is viewed and bookmarked by the most number of people.

Social bookmarking works, do not let yourself be left behind, this train is leaving the station. Toot, toot, All Aboard! I certainly hope this article is of interest and that is has propelled thought. The goal is simple; to help you in your quest to be the best in 2007. I thank you for reading my many articles on diverse subjects, which interest you.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

Search Engine Optimization - It's All in the Writing

2007-02-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I now propose to go right out on a limb and say that design has very little to do with search engine optimization. This is a sweeping generalization, I admit, and one to which my designer friends will take ínstant umbrage. But it is true to all intents and purposes. Design can certainly assist in achieving good optimization. By that I mean it will assist if it doesn't hinder the process with acres of code that the robots need to wade through in order to find the potatoes and gravy. Or if the navigation throughout the site is logical and easy to achieve. Or if the pages are designed to load quickly.

Other than that, optimization is all in the writing.

Now, I am a copywriter with around 40 years' experience in the advertising business; and there can be few people in the world who know less about design than I do. But my entire working life seems to have been spent arguing with designers about the length of copy in relation to the size of the pic in any given piece of work. And I confess that I mostly lost, thereafter seeing my words relegated to four lines of 8-point Myopic beneath an illustration the size of a house.

In website terms, however, the tables have been nicely turned. Here's why.

To optimize a website, you first need to take a good, long look at the HTML meta tags of Title, Description and Keywords. Do you see what I see? Yes, they are words. And all of these words require researching and embellishing. Likewise, take a peek under that all-singing, all-dancing Home page banner – and what do you see? More words. These words, unlike those used in the meta tags above, are written for both search engine and potential human customer alike.

Search engines love words. Great, isn't it?

Given all of this, it is pretty clear that all you need in order to properly optimize a website is a lexicon of well thought out words – keywords and keyphrases - sprinkled like generous confetti throughout the meta tags and the body copy. Well, almost.

In the first place, those words must be relevant. They must state clearly what it is you are selling and where you are selling it. The general marketing principle is:

(a) product description,
(b) product benefits,
(c) region of operation.

What you don't need are turgid explanations about the size of your company and who the product is designed for. Your potential customers will mostly be bright enough to know whether or not they are in the market for what you are offering. So to say, for instance, that your 'range of gardening gloves is ideal for gardeners' is a touch obvious, not to mention redundant and a waste of valuable space. In all promotional writing, brevity and clarity are the two most important attributes. But I digress.

So how do you go about collating these key words and phrases? First, you could invest in software that generates your meta tags and keywords for you. Fair enough; there are some good programmes around, and I would be the first to applaud any device that makes life a touch easier. On the other hand, you could take the more intellectually satisfying route and do it yourself.

"Oh, no," you cry, reaching for the gin bottle. "I don't do writing!" To which I answer: "You don't have to. Someone has already done it for you." I should tell you, straight away, that I am not an advocate of plagiarism. However, it is not theft to take a good, long look at somebody else's literary ideas and adapt them to your own ends. I will cite John Donne's penchant for re-working William Shakespeare as a good example of this. And what is good enough for Mr Donne, is certainly good enough for me. So, to formulate your keywords and phrases, why not research what your competitors are doing, then adopt and adapt? By competitors, I mean serious competitors, the people who are listed at No. 1 on Google, Yahoo and MSN in your sphere of activity. Delve into their meta-tags, analyze their body copy, figure out what it is that convinces the search engines to place them at No. 1.

If you feel that such a ploy is a little devious, you can console yourself with the thought that the writers of the No.1 material probably pinched it from someone else in the first place. So that's all right then.

And now for the denouement to this piece, which is the most important bit of all.

We have established with some certainty, I think, that a website stands or falls in the listings stakes by the quality of its words. Of course, that quality is determined by the search engines, not your old professor of English. So the judgement is in algorithm terms rather than literary terms. That's fine; we are simply trying to accommodate the engines, not win a Nobel Prize.

Further, in my not so humble opinion, every Home page should carry a stick of keyphrase-rich body copy. And this stick of copy should be placed where it can be seen, read and acted upon by the search engines. As close to the top of the page as possible.

Sadly, so many Home pages don't have this attribute. The page designs leap from whiz-bang banner to product list or string of pics with no intervening tit-bits of information – in the shape of copy - designed to feed the search engine robots. There is little for the robots to get their shiny little teeth into.

Let me prove the point. On several occasions recently, I have been asked to optimize websites on which the Home pages were bereft of any meaningful copy. Within an hour or two, the copy was written and the sites posted to the engines. Within a couple of days, the sites in question were featuring nicely on the first couple of pages of the major engines. Previously, they were barely indexed.

There's nothing magical about any of this. Because, guess what, search engine optimization is all in the writing.

If this has been helpful, maybe you'll let me know.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About The Author
Pat Quinn is an award-winning UK copywriter who also operates a search engine optimization service. Because it's all in the writing! Visit: http://www.search-engine-mechanics.co.uk.

Find Your Niche - the Internet Marketer's Goldmine

2007-01-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

f you haven't heard the word 'niche' being batted around by Internet Marketers then you haven't been listening. Finding a niche has become the antidote to competing in overly saturated online markets.

What is a niche?

According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary a niche is described as "a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted... a specialized market".

Have you noticed that despite the closing of many businesses in these harsh economic times, the local hobby train store is still around? That the 'hole-in-the-wall' eatery is thriving? Or that trends such as scrapbooking can start with a bang and still close within a year when four similar businesses start up in the same area?

The online business world reflects the same trends as experienced in the offline world - often with faster turnover and startup rates. Those who promote a product or site that targets a small, select audience can tap into a market that is otherwise not being served. Despite the limitations of the client base, the targeted nature of the business creates a devoted and active market - the aim of any business.

HOW DO I FIND A NICHE?

Finding a niche requires diligent research. Whether you have access to software that harvests and sorts information or you take a manual approach you must first start with ideas.

With a pen and paper (or computer, if that's more comfortable) brainstorm a list of businesses, products and industries. Create a list of keywords and phrases you think would be used by individuals looking for these items online.

Use a software program such as Wordtracker or a free resource such as the Overture Keyword Selector Tool to find keywords for your niche that have a high amount of traffic.

Although a program like Wordtracker makes it easy to find details such as how many sites compete for that market, you can also do your own research.

Concentrate your attention on question phrases such as "how do I..." or "where can I...". These questions will clue you into potential markets that need servicing.

Next, look in Google Answers. Type one of your keywords into the search area. What questions are being asked and how much are people willing to pay for answers? If you find a group of keywords with a high number of questions then enter these words in your browser's search engine.

What sites come up? Do they provide answers or solutions to the problem? How are they making money? Can you see an opportunity to service these individuals?

Finding a niche can open the door to a profitable online business. Research the market and be certain that your product or service is valuable to this group. Find forums or groups that target this audience and pay close attention to their concerns.

If you can help these people you WILL make money. The best of both worlds!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

Tips On Getting Your Web Site Spidered Quickly

2007-01-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

The world of internet marketing is a highly competitive place. As a beginning internet marketer there are some basic things you should know about how search engines spider and index your web site. Unless the search engines find your web site and index it, there is no way the general public will know that it is there.

After you have created your web site and chosen the products or services you want to provide, you will be ready to get your site listed with the search engines. When developing your marketing strategy, it is important to include a plan to get your web site spidered quickly. In order to get your site indexed you must let the search engine spiders know you are there in the first place.

You may have wondered if there are ways to lure the spiders to your web site other than manual submission. The good news is that many SEOs recommend the following methods rather than submitting your pages directly.

The best way to get your site spidered quickly is to link your web site to another site that is already indexed, that is related to your site, and that is spidered frequently. Having your site mentioned in news releases, blogs, and so on can get your site your web site spidered very quickly, sometimes within days.

You can also use the more traditional methods including posting in forums and providing articles for the various article directories. If you choose this route, be careful not to spam.

Follow the posted rules, give helpful answers, and do not go overboard on your "sig file". Private forums are not always indexed, so make certain that the forums where you post display recent posts and are listed in search results.

No matter which method you choose to get your web site spidered, you will need a good site map. A site map lists and links to all pages on your site.

If your site consists of over approximately one hundred pages, consider using a multi-page site map. Make certain that every site map page links to all other site map pages. You should have a link to your site map on your home page and preferably on each of your pages. You should make sure your web site pages are simple and free of useless clutter.

Getting your web site spidered quickly is the most important thing you can do to achieve success as an internet marketer. Using the methods suggested above can be very helpful in getting your web site indexed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

5 Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

2007-01-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

by Noah Ulrich

The lifeblood of any website/ecommerce business is traffic, and every webmaster knows the best type of traffic is natural, organic search engine traffic. There are two very important reasons for this: (1) it is extremely targeted, and (2) It is FREE! The hard part is getting top ranking for your sites keywords... or is it? The purpose of this article is to provide a few simple, effective, and most important, search engine friendly strategies to help boost your websites' ranking and ultimately your traffic.

1. We will start with the Meta Tags. I know you have already heard of, and are probably currently using meta tags on your site. This is great. I just want to make sure you are using them effectively. We will only go over 2 tags: the "title" tag, and the "description" tag. We will not go over the "keywords" tag, as the major search engines have placed less and less weight on this one, and some would argue this tag has no weight at all. I still use this tag however, as I feel there is some merit and no drawbacks to using this tag.

I have found it effective to use similar text in the "title" and "description" tags, and to place your keywords prominently in these tags (near the beginning and more than once). I have seen sites with "sitename.com", "New Page 1", or "Welcome to my site" in the "title" tag, which really does not help in their quest for higher rankings for their particular keyword. Also, try not to use words such as "and", "or", or "the" in these tags.

*Important note about your keywords. Search engines evaluate keyword prominence, keyword weight, and keyword density when determining a site's ranking. All three are calculated individually for the page, the title tag, the description tag, as well as other areas on a page. Keyword prominence means how close the keyword is to the beginning of your page. Keyword weight refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase can be found on the page. Keyword density is the ratio of the keyword to the other words on the page. You do not want the keyword weight or density to be too high, as this can appear to the search engine as "keyword stuffing" and most search engines penalize sites that stuff their keywords.

2. Place your navigational links (and JavaScript) at the right or at the bottom, but not on the left, of the page. When the search engines "read" your site, they read from the top left to the bottom right. Search engines place an emphasis on the first 100 words or text on the site. You do not want these words to be navigational links or Javascript. Ideally, you want to have your "heading" tags with your keywords in the beginning of your page. This being said, placing your links/JavaScript on the right or bottom of your page ensures the search engine spiders get to the text first, giving more weight to what's important on your page.

3. Place alt tags on all of your images. Search engine spiders cannot "read" pictures or images. The only way a spider knows what an image is about is by reading the alt tag. This is also another chance to place more of your keywords in your HTML, improving your page's keyword weight/density. Alt tags are easy to make and they can make a big difference in your sites keyword ranking. A simple alt tag looks like this: alt="put your keyword phrase here." Search engines separately calculate keyword prominence, density, and weight in alt tags as well, so optimize your tags.

4. Place your keywords at the bottom of your page. Just as search engines place more weight on the first words of your page, they also do the same to the last words. The general thinking is this, if your site is about a certain subject, then the main points, or keywords, should, appear at the beginning, be spread throughout the page, and be prominent at the conclusion. But if you have all of your navigational links and JavaScript at the bottom, your relevant page text could end well before the HTML does. An easy way to have your keywords at the bottom of your page is to include them in the copyright information. For example, if you have a dog food website, you could have something like this at the very bottom of the page:

copyright 2005 yoursite.com
World's best dog food

Search engines are not (as of this writing), penalizing sites using this technique, and it wouldn't really make much sense for them to do so.

5. The Anchor Text of your links. Anchor text is the actual linking text on a site. It is what the user clicks on to navigate to that particular site or page. If a search engine finds many links to your site using the term "dog food", then the search engine concludes your site is about "dog food". This is overlooked quite often, but it seems to have a very large impact on your search engine rankings for a particular keyword. Your anchor text needs to be the keyword or phrase you are trying to target. Try to avoid anchor text such as "Click Here" or "www.yoursite.com"

Also, if you're running a reciprocal link campaign, be sure to use variations of your text. If an engine notices every link to your site is identical, it could place less weight on these links or potentially penalize your site. This is because search engines generally give more weight to "naturally occurring" links, and less to "reciprocal link exchange campaigns". Using different, but relevant anchor text can dramatically affect your targeted keyword rankings, by making your links appear more natural.

Effective SEO may seem difficult at first, but as you have read above, little tricks that require little or no programming knowledge, can make a huge impact on your website's keyword ranking.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About This Author
Noah Ulrich is a successful internet marketer, and webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com His site maintains top rankings in all major search engines. He has owned and maintained an online presence since 2001. His site provides top quality resale rights, guaranteed signups, and web traffic to businesses all over the world.
SEO Articles:
http://www.ezinegalaxy.com/seo/index.html

5 Simple and Easy Ways to Advertise Online

2007-01-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

By Cody Moya

Some people say that advertising is everything!

Regardless if you have a product, a service, a hobby website or just want to share pictures of your wedding, you have to advertise somehow to get the traffic to your site or blog.

But not all traffic is equal. There are services that can help you drive tons and tons of traffic to your site and it won't do you any good at all because it's not targeted traffic.

Take for example all of the many different 'surf for traffic' or 'traffic clicking' programs that are out there. If you have a website that is about your hobby, say model airplanes, then what good is this traffic really going to do you? Who's using these services?

Webmasters and marketers that want traffic on their own site.
So they most likely won't spend any more time on your page than is required by the little timer these services use and then they are gone again. Even if your site is about these traffic services (this is about the only time you will see very much benefit from using such a tool) you will still have to spend a ton of time just surfing and clicking around to get a real benefit from these programs.

Once marketers realized this they switched gears. They started promoting all the different programs to a lot of other marketers to get them in their downlines, so they could get some traffic as a bonus. This became their new focus. The problem is that everyone else did exactly the same thing, so not a lot of people were surfing the internet anymore.

Bottom-line is this. You need targeted traffic. So here are some tips on how you can generate exactly the traffic you need and bring the visitors you want to your website without having to chase after them.

1. Content

What is your website about? Do you just have a page with a lot of links and not much else?

If this is the case, think about adding some content to your website that will be of value to any potential visitors. You could write articles or find articles at one of the many directories that you can reprint on your site.

2. Talk about your experiences in your subject matter.

You don't have to put up some kind of resume (although that can work too), but rather try writing about what you are doing, as it relates to your topic of choice. Let's look at the model airplanes again briefly, you could talk or write about the latest plane type you built, how the last time flying your plane went, what challenges you run into or perhaps even post some pictures of your plane or of you flying it.

3. Forums and bulletin boards.

You could add a forum or bulletin board to your website where your visitors can interact with each other. There are a lot of free services available out there that you can use to either remotely host a forum for you, or even software you can install on your website's server. To find some of these, just head over to your favorite search engine and you will definitely find plenty to choose from.

And while you are visiting the search engine, why not run a search for any bulletin boards and forums that are already out there for your chosen topic? You could visit those and interact with the visitors there and since many allow you to post a signature or a profile, you could add a little line about your own site with a link (just check the rules of the forum first so you don't violate any of them).

4. Start a blog.

Blogs are very popular and search engines love them because they provide constantly new and fresh content. Your blog would be a great place to talk about what you are up to that day.
So if you spent some time today buying new parts for your plane you could write about where you found them, how much they cost you, why you chose those parts, anything really goes.

The really great part about this is that you can point links from your blog back to your website, so when the search engine stops by to grab and index your latest content, it will also stop by your website and you will start seeing very targeted traffic heading your way.

5. Write articles.

Writing articles isn't hard and can be a great source of fresh, new traffic to your website. There are a lot of ezines on any topic out there and there are also a lot of directories where you can share your article.

Basically, what you do is write an article and then add a small resource box that links back to your website (just like a signature) and then let other ezine publishers know that you are allowing them to print your article in their ezine. And many publishers go to the article directories to find new content for their newsletter and even their websites.

And since there are websites and ezine newsletters on any imaginable topic out there, you can't lose. Write an article every couple of days and post it in the directories (even one a week or every two weeks will start getting you traffic). Very soon you will find new traffic coming from search engines, newsletters and websites.

Best of all, these 5 simple tips will bring targeted traffic, meaning the visitors are coming to you because they are interested in what you wrote.

So there you have it, 5 easy and simple ways to advertise and drive traffic to your website at absolutely no cost.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

Internet Marketing For Sales Leads

2006-12-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

NO matter what business you are trying to build online, you will need sales leads if you are ever going to make sales, and sales leads are what you are trying to generate if you are marketing on the internet. In order to survive, any web site needs a steady flow of qualified leads.

The aim of any lead generation campaign is to build your mailing list. Internet marketers often say "the money is in the list", which is totally true. A list of responsive buying customers that trust you is worth its weight in gold!

While spam filtering has lessened the impact of email marketing, it’s still a viable means to getting your sales messages out there. In theory, email is marketing is free, although of course its costs you in terms of your time. The theory behind email marketing is that by using a "hook" such as a free product or some other incentive, you can "funnel" interested parties onto specific products and services.

When you consider generating leads via an email campaign there are basically three avenues you can explore: email signatures, joint ventures and safe lists. One word of warning though, and that is avoid spam at all cost, one spam complaint can seriously damage your online business. You should familiarize yourself with the laws concerning spam, and at the very least ensure you include a un-subscription link in ALL your marketing emails. Due to spam, it is advisable that you avoid buying leads, no matter how reputable the company, buying leads can easily lead to a spam complaint, you have been warned!

In its simplest form, email marketing is a matter of putting a signature in all your emails that contains a link to your main product.

If you are looking to vastly increase your list quickly then a joint venture (JV) may well be the key you need. In its simplest form, in a JV you supply the product and a fellow marketer supplies the leads and you share the profits. Hopefully, you will then get the emails of your fellow marketer’s customers, so you can then mail them with further offers.

When considering a joint venture there are many considerations you have to think about, but the main one, before you consider contacting anyone about mailing to their list, is "what's in it for THEM", not "what's in it for me". NEVER write to a fellow marketer unless you can offer them something of value in return for their help, and that is not necessarily just a share of the profits, be inventive!

Finally you have safe lists. A safe list is a list of people that have agreed to receive marketing emails in return for being able to send their own marketing email. The value of this form of marketing has never been that good. After all you are trying to sell to people who are only interested in selling to you!

You can use pay per click advertising such as overture or Goggle adwords to advertise your site and draw in interested leads.

One other highly effective way of generating interested leads is posting in forums that are related to your area of business. Include a link to your site in your signature and people interested in your sphere of business will often click it if your forum post was interesting.

Three other popular sales lead generation techniques are submitting articles to ezine publishers and article directories, press releases and testimonials for products in your target market.

No matter what lead generation technique you employ you will need a way to capture your leads email address when they arrive at your site.

The traditional method has been to use a pop up or pop under which contains some incentive to get someone to sign up. With the invention of pop up stoppers their effectiveness has dwindled and therefore unstoppable pop ups (also know as hover ads or slide in ads) have evolved. This new generation of pop ups are built into your webpage and as such cannot be stopped. Simply do a search on Goggle for "unstoppable pop up" and you are sure to find a software solution to produce these types of pop ups for you.

The other alternative is to use what is called a "name squeeze page".

In essence a name squeeze page is a web page whose sole purpose is to capture an email address.

They generally contain a small amount of information about the product or service you are selling as a "teaser" for the reader and will contain a sign up form, with a message like "to find out more simply fill in the form to be immediately directed to further details on this amazing product".

A name squeeze page not only helps build your list, this information can also be used with certain software to help personalize your site for your visitor, a technique that has been shown to increase sales. Again, simply do a search for name squeeze page generators.

No matter how you generate sales leads there is one thing always to bear in mind, and that is to be effective your leads must be in your targeted market. If, for example, you are selling internet marketing products, then it's no use advertising on a site that is all about scuba diving!

When you start to build your online business, ensure you include a well thought out sales lead generation strategy from the beginning. Do not make it an afterthought; this should be in place from the very beginning if you want your business to be a success.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

Catapult Your Marketing Success

2006-12-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

With Joint Ventures

There are many ways to make money on the internet. All methods however, come with a price-tag. For starters, you will probably need to purchase basic business software and relevant learning materials. Planning and developing your ideas will definitely require dedication and perseverance all along the way.

One of the best methods for getting started is to partner with other marketers so that you can reach larger target audiences.

These joint ventures or "JV's" can take-on many different forms. Some are as simple as promoting each other's newsletters, while others may be more complex partnerships with cross-promoting of complimentary products. Some JV's even involve starting entirely new projects from scratch.

Joint Ventures are a powerful tool for expanding business in many areas. So, what is stopping 'you' from using this technique to expand your business?

For many new marketers, starting a JV can be a frightening task, especially when it comes to contacting other marketers.
Too often, many marketers appear to be "spamming," when they are really just seeking other JV partners. Here are some tips that may help you along the way:

1. Get to know your potential JV partners.

If you start emailing everyone on your list of potential partners, chances are you will be considered a common spammer. You won't get the partners you want, or even worse, may destroy your reputation in the process.

Instead, subscribe to your potential partner's newsletter and check out their websites and blog. Get to know them a little bit before approaching them with a proposal.

2. Go slowly when approaching potential partners.

Let's face it, everyone likes a little flattery. When contacting your potential JV partner, treat them like your "first date." Be courteous and complimentary. Tell them the things you like about their business.

Join their newsletter and tell them you think it is awesome, and why. You will be surprised at how much attention you receive by using a little well placed flattery as you proceed to develop your relationships with potential JV partners.

3. Your financial estimates should always be realistic.

Don't promise what you can't deliver. Be honest with your potential partners. Explain your proposal and benefits in realistic terms, but don't hype. Be honest, open and sincere.

Getting a Joint Venture off the ground doesn't have to be scary if you start by following the three simple steps given above.

Get going and get growing today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

7 Steps to Creating Your Own Podcast

2006-11-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Gunter

Listening to podcasts isn't something I enjoy or take time for, quite frankly. I'm a visual learner and prefer to read something rather than listen to it, as I find reading a much quicker way to gather the info that I need. However, with the proliferation of audio listening devices, like the whole iPod family and other mp3 players, I have to acknowledge that I'm in the minority, I believe. The world is listening to a wide variety of audio files, much more so than ever before in history, and I need to get on the bandwagon or be lost in the dust.

What is a podcast, anyway? A podcast is an audio file that you create in .mp3 format that is uploaded with an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) file to your server for your target market to download on any number of programs created to receive or subscribe to your audio file so that they can listen to it at their leisure on their computer or a personal mp3 device.

Why should you create a podcast? I think it serves as a marketing tool for the solo service professional, who might want to do one of the following:

--create an Internet radio show or talk show in which you create content-rich broadcasts for your target market

--conduct a teleclass series in which you interview experts who have solutions to problems faced by your target market

--promote a printed book, ebook, or CD/DVD series by releasing promotional snippets to a wider audience

--provide short and valuable expert tips to your target market (my Get More Clients Online podcast consists of the weekly article I write for my newsletter)

Many podcasts are about an hour in length, especially when they consist of recordings of radio shows or teleclasses. However, I think that the listening threshold for most people is about 10 minutes. So, that means that your podcast needs to be 10 minutes or less in length. If it's longer, you really have to grab their attention in the first 10 minutes to keep them listening for the full amount of time.

Good content and a good speaking voice are key to maintaining interest. Don't make your podcast one long advertisement for your services or products -- share some useful information with your target market to help them solve their problems. And, you need to have a good speaking voice. Nothing is worse than listening to someone read a speech with a monotone delivery. So, for maximum impact when you record your podcast (especially if you're just recording yourself), get up and walk around, smile, gesture, or do whatever you normally do when you deliver a speech. Modulate your voice, much in the same way that you would when you have a 1:1 conversation with someone -- put feeling and emotion into your words. I pretend like I'm talking to my best friend, and that helps me with a lively delivery.

What are the steps to creating a podcast?

1. Listen to a few podcasts to get a feel for what others are doing. To listen, you'll need a podcatcher (podcast reader), which permits you to subscribe to podcasts in the same way you subscribe to blogs. I favor iTunes as my podcatcher of choice, which is a free online download. You'll also need to find podcasts, and the quickest way to do that is via podcast directories, which include the iTunes store. Podcast Alley, one of the most popular podcasting sites, has a large podcast directory, and Yahoo Podcasts has a podcast search. To find others, simply search online for "podcast directory."

2. Plan your podcast. Who is your target market? What do they want to listen to? How will your podcast be unique from others in your industry? What's your format (interview others, host a teleclass, or record yourself)? How long will your podcast be? How frequently will you deliver your podcasts?

3. Record your podcast. Many people choose to record their podcast with a free piece of software called Audacity. It has an easy learning curve and advanced features for more experienced podcasters. Mac users might want to check out Garage Band. For best recording sound, don't use the microphone that came with your computer or that is built into your laptop. You'll want to get a more professional one, such as the ones offered at Plantronics or Radio Shack.

4. Save and upload your podcast to your server. Once you've created your podcast in an mp3 file, now you have to save it and upload it to a server via an FTP program (like CuteFTP) so that it's readily available. You can upload it to your website, or use one of the many podcasting hosting services available. The problem with uploading it to your website is that audio files are space hogs, and you can quickly exhaust all the storage capacity of your hosting account, not to mention your monthly bandwidth capacity if your podcast is popular and is downloaded frequently. That's why I use a fee-based audio service hosting company, Audio Acrobat, which offers me generous storage and bandwidth capacity for a semi-annual fee. Another popular podcast hosting company is Hipcast.com.

5. Create your podcast feed. You can create your podcast feed from scratch, but I recommend you use a feed service to do so. If you use a podcasting hosting service, this feature is included in your service package. For everyone else, the quickest way to create your podcast feed is through Feedburner.com. This is the same service that creates RSS feeds for blogs. The advantage of creating your podcast feed from this site is that you can create a browser-friendly feed, track your circulation, and enhance your feed with its SmartCast technology.

6. Publish and promote your podcast. If you use a podcasting hosting service, the service will publish your podcast and notify various podcast directories about the availability of your new podcast. Or, you can enter the info directly into the major podcast directories. You'll also want to promote the podcast on your website, blog, and in your email newsletter. One of the easiest ways to do this is to add feed subscription buttons (called chiclets) to your sites. You'll have to cut and paste the HTML code into your templates to create the chiclets. You can get directions on how to publish subscription buttons from the various podcasters you want to feature. Lastly, you'll want to create "album art" for your podcast, or a graphic representation that many podcatchers upload with the mp3 file. Album art may be from 170x170 to 300x300 pixels square at 72 dpi. Any graphic designer can help you create this graphics file.

7. Make money from your podcast. Advertising on podcasts is still fairly new, but some companies like Fruitcast.com or PodcasterAds.com are places to start. Another option is to place Google Adsense listings on all of your sites listing your podcast, or seek sponsors for your podcasts, just like you would for a radio show.

Don't let the audio world pass you by! Podcasting is a very inexpensive way of helping you get the word out about what you do and what you offer to the world.

About This Author
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to get more clients online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com . Read about running an online biz at her blog,
http://www.getmoreclientsonlineblog.com or subscribe to her Get More Clients Online Podcast at http://dgunter.audioacrobat.com
/rss/get_more_clients_online_podcast.xml

Niche Marketing - How to Contact Your Audience

2006-11-19T18:55:00.000-08:00

Is your website targeting a niche market?

Whether you are following the advice of top Internet Marketers or if you just happened to have a business that caters to a very specific target audience, you must be able to find them, and they must be able to find YOU.

One of the joys of niche marketing is the luxury of tapping into a favorite hobby, occupation or expertise and building a business around it.

If you are expanding an existing off-line business by setting up a webpage you may find your most valuable contacts right in your store. Make some brochures or cards that announce your online presence, or ask customers if they'd like to sign up for your online newsletter.

Now you can contact your customers about new products, industry news or specials with no postage costs or time consuming envelope stuffing.

Invite your subscribers to recommend the site to friends who are interested in the topic. Even better, have a place on your website to 'tell a friend'. Your visitor will enter their own email address and name as the sender of the message to avoid spam complaints. Warning - do not start emailing the invitee unless they sign up personally for your newsletter.

Niche sites will really benefit from a newsletter. Create a small free gift, such as a special report or how-to manual that they will receive with their subscription. By providing valuable information related to your topic you will gain the trust of subscribers. By contacting them at least several times a year - up to once a week if possible - they will always be reminded of your website when looking for information or products in your niche.

Create a website that has informative content. Incorporate the keywords (words or phrases visitors type into their search engines) into the content to improve your place in the search engines.

Write articles that will set you up as an 'industry expert'. If you don't feel capable of writing them yourself you can hire a ghostwriter. End the article with your name, a comment about your business and a link to your website. Submit your article to relevant websites or ask if website owners would like to use your contribution. Be sure they agree to keep your name and website link intact.

You may find discussion groups that cater to your market. Involve yourself in their conversations and attach a signature with your website address if the policies permit. Do not advertise on these groups, however you may be able to offer your free item when the situation allows.

Try to determine where your market is. Are they parents? Retirees? Home owners? Pet lovers? If you are selling art supplies you may find hobby sites will cater to your audience. If you sell information for do-it-yourself projects you should show up in home decorating as well as financial sites ('Save Money on Home Building Projects!' for example).

Always look for new opportunities and offer your best, the rest will follow!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

The Death of Internet Marketing...

2006-11-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

I just got an email about Mike Filsaime's Free Report
called - "The Death of Internet Marketing"

I will admit, like you may be feeling now, that I thought it was some
hyped up offer to get me to join for free and get some offer...

...Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong.

The bottom line is, this report really opened my eyes to what really
is the death of Internet marketing. The good news is, the report also
shows you what you need to know to succeed in the near future.

The times are changing and I it would be a shame for anyone to not
read this report and fail like many will.

I read it, and I wanted to share it with you ASAP.

I recommend you take a break from what ever it is you are doing if
you can and get access to this report now.

Consider your future success by going here now...

The Death of Internet Marketing

Thanks,

james

PS - Mike says it will only be available for a few weeks at most so do
not delay...

The Death ofInternet Marketing

How to Use Images,Graphics and Thumbnails to Promote Your Site

2006-11-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006

Images, graphics and thumbnails play an important role in the overall look and feel of your website. They can greatly improve the usefulness of your site; making it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. More importantly, the visual images on your site can be optimized to improve your search engine rankings.
Despite their importance, many webmasters ignore images or graphics when it comes to optimizing their web pages. Don't make the same mistake.

There are some simple rules to follow when using SEO with your onsite graphics. Here are a few tips:

First, you must know exactly what an 'Alt Image Tag' is in order to optimize for the search engines. You must also realize search engine robots can't see your images, they can only read text - the text in your Alt Image Tags. So you have to construct your Alt Image Tags with this factor in mind and feed these robots with your popular keywords. Search engine robots usually spider popular sites every day or so.

What is an Alt Image Tag?

Every image, graphic or thumbnail on your site will have html code similar to this:

src http://mail.yahoo.com/config/login?/"http://www.YourDom.com/imgs/logo.jpg Alt=Your
Keyword= Image width hght
Your Alt Image Tag will be:

alt=Your Keyword Image

Always include an Alt Image Tag description for all your images, graphics and thumbnails. This includes all headers, background images and even thumbnails of other sites, if you use them. Keep your descriptions of the images short and related to the image itself. It would be a good idea to end each description with the word photo, image or graphic.

Many marketers like to include their main keyword or keyword phrase they are targeting in the Alt Image Tag. They also place this keyword phrase in the text on their page, in the title tag, meta description and many alert marketers also place their keyword phrase in the URL of that page. You should also include your keyword phrase in the last 25 words on the same page.

Feed the spiders but be careful!

DON'T repeat the same keyword or keyword phrase numerous time on your page in the image tags - this may be seen as keyword spamming by the robots.

Using plurals and variations of your keyword is fine, such as: faxing service, fax services, efax services.

Many marketers also use misspelled keywords in the Alt Image Tag as it can only be seen when the image is scrolled over. Spiders can't spell but they will index these misspelled keywords and bring in extra traffíc!

Graphics

The ordinary website will have more than just photos or images on a webpage. You will have headers, backgrounds, liners, etc. all of these should also have Alt Image Tags. Although in this age of the broadband Internet, your page loading time is not a major factor as it once was, you should still reduce all your images so that they will download quickly.

Many professional web designers place unneeded or useless keywords (ones that get no searches) in the graphics on their site. For example, instead of placing 'Welcome to our site' in a headline - place it in a graphic at the top of your page. This will free up your headline for your main keywords.

Placing these useless words in a graphic where the robots can't read them - frees up your Alt Tags for keywords that you're promoting. Place your main keywords in the headline for better SEO. Keep feeding those spiders!

But always keep in mind, you are creating your content or web pages for real live human beings so you should chëck to see what your site's graphics look like in the different browsers. Try here: www.anybrowser.com.

Since we have an ever increasing number of different screen or display sizes, always chëck to see how your graphics look on a different size display. You might be horrified to find your perfectly designed page on a 15" PC is totally distorted on a 17" widescreen laptop.

Needless to say, for site consistency, keep all your background images and logos the same throughout your site. Same goes for your fonts and text size, it will keep your site's visitors more focused and on track.

Thumbnails

Many online sites use thumbnails to raise the professional quality of their sites. It makes for a higher standard of design, not to mention, it will increase the usability of your site. It will also increase your clíck thru rates.

Thumbnails are screen capture shots of a website. They give the surfer some idea of what a site looks like before they visit that site. In a billion site Internet, this can be very important for the promotion of your site.

Using thumbnails will increase the visibility of your site and make it stand out from the crowd. Many professional sites like AOL, Network Solutions, and Alexa use thumbnails. Any site can use thumbnails - chëck the resource box at the end of this article for further directions on how to place thumbnails on your own site or sites.

Conclusion

Using images, graphics and thumbnails to promote your site can be easily done if you use the advice given above. Always remember to use Alt Image Tags to position your selected keywords or keywords in the search engines. Consistently do this over a long period of time and you will see your site rise in the rankings. Keep those spiders well fed and happy!

More importantly, using these visual aids will also improve the friendliness and usability of your site. It will help raise the professional look and feel of your site so that other webmasters and sites will want to link to your site; further increasing your rankings and the popularity of your site.

Don't underestimate the power of a simple image - it can do wonders for your site.

About The Author
The author is a former teacher who now works full-time online operating numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: MarketingToolGuide.com. To place thumbnails or thumbshots on your own site, try this free service: ThumbShots.org.
2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Use a Review Site to Build Your Commissions

2006-10-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Every web site owner is looking for great ways to boost his or her commissions, but did you every consider the value of creating a review site to accomplish that goal?

If you have not considered creating a review site before, you may at least want to consider it. A well designed and well executed review site can be a great way to boost your commissions and increase your monthly income.

The beauty of a review site is that you can review a couple of merchants all selling items in the same category, and provide links to those merchants. That way, you get a commission regardless of where your web site visitor decides to buy.

Another great thing about review sites is that they are highly sought after by internet users. Many internet surveys have shown that gathering information about products and services is one of the main reasons people search the internet. Providing a useful and intriguing review site is a great way to give visitors to your web site what they have been looking for, while providing yourself with some great commissions.

If you are curious about review sites and how they work, it should be easy to find at least a few to look at. A quick search of the internet will probably review many such review sites, reviewing every product under the sun. Using these sites for inspiration is a great way to jump start your own review web site.

The product you choose to review at your review site is entirely up to you, but ideally it should be something that:

-You have a personal interest in. Writing about products in which you have a genuine interest will make your reviews more useful and engaging to your web site visitors.

-You have a good working knowledge of. If you need to create a review site about a product you are unfamiliar with, you may want to solicit reviews from others.

-Is popular enough to be worthwhile. It is important to choose a product that has a wide appeal, or at least a strong following and a good niche market.

-Is sold by a variety of internet merchants. The idea of the review site is to provide several links to merchants selling the same type of product. It is important to be able to provide several different links on your review site.

No matter where your personal interests lie, or what types of products you choose to review on your site, we think you will agree that creating a dynamic review site is a great way to boost your commissions and your income.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about How to Earn As Affiliate
in his Free Courses on Internet Marketing. You can sign up
for his free Courses and get additional information at his
website: http://FreeInternetMarketingCourses.com

Hanging Ten on the Next Big Net-Wave: Social Search

2006-10-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

Abstract: The latest frontier in search engine technology is social search. Born out of the social networking boom, social search will attempt to humanize search results thereby providing users with consumer driven answers to their queries. Considering that 50% of queries go unanswered, social search could be the biggest breakthrough since page ranking.

As search giants, Google, Yahoo and MSN continue their fierce battle to become king of the search engines, internet marketers are faced with increasing challenges to dominate in the rankings. As algorithms and methodologies change, savvy entrepreneurs and Madison Avenue continue their heated battle for a coveted Top 10 spot in search engine rankings.

Social search is not officially here but the debut is not far off. Yahoo, MSN and Google are all purportedly working on methodologies to converge search and user generated content all while walking the tightrope known as "privacy." Yahoo has been beta-testing Yahoo Answers since December 2005 and has hired powerhouse, Raghu Ramakrishnan, the co-author of Database Management Systems and co-founder of QUIQ. Microsoft is in talks with Eurekster.com, a company specializing in social search and Google is experimenting with Google Base Beta.

Why are these internet behemoths investing so much in social search? Social networks such as MySpace and Friendster are threatening the domination of established search giants.

Social Networks are Pulling in a Significant and Increasing Share of Web Traffíc

Social network sites are actively working to improve their internal search capabilities and provide an even richer experience for their members. Search giants such as Google, Yahoo and MSN must accelerate their social search efforts or they may be left out of the search game that they now dominate. Search giants must step it up or they will get left behind.

It is hard to believe that in the early days of the net, there was an underlying assumption that technology would replace or hinder human interaction. There were those that believed users would prefer getting their information from a computer rather than a person.

Social networking is really something old made new by bringing it online. It turns out we humans still rely on other humans and technology simply allows us to expand the boundaries of our social networks. Studies have proven what we already knew intuitively, we pay attention to recommendations from real people. Social search, viral marketing and social networking are not at all new concepts. Social search is really the technology derivative of asking friends and colleagues for recommendations.

In the long ago, dark ages before we "googled", if you needed a mechanic you asked your neighbor, your colleagues and your friends for a recommendation. We now google for mechanics and visit websites to gain information that will help us in our decision. Social search will enable users to combine the two for a robust result that combines user driven content or the human element with the power of technology. Pretty heady stuff, when you contemplate the impact of this new era of search.

What Does All of This Mean to the Internet Marketer?

The internet marketer's goals remain the same - drive traffíc and convert that traffíc to profitable salës.

Social search will not change the foundation of marketing but it will change the way in which you present your information to generate leads. In other words, you will still need to apply good old fashioned Public Relations and Marketing tactics to the new fangled Social Search Medium, fondly dubbed SMM by some.

Drive Traffíc to Your Site from Social Search and Search Engine Optimization

To take advantage of social search, the first step is to develop a plan. Who is your ideal customer? Contrary to popular belief, the world is not your customer. Do you merely want 200,000 hits per day or do you want 200,000 hits from people that have a problem your product or service can solve? Often the focus is on pure traffíc results, but none of that matters if you're not hitting your salës goals. So, what does your ideal customer look like? What complementary products or services do they buy? How often do they make purchases? Take the time to identify your target market before you launch a marketing plan. Make sure to include complementary offerings through popular email courses.

Now that you have identified your niche, you'll have a much easier time capturing them using SMM. Marketing, whether online or off, is all about relevancy, visibility, and credibility. As an internet marketer you want to dominate your niche market by establishing yourself as the expert in your area, delivering content to your potential customer that is relevant to their needs and preferences and have greater visibility than your competitors.

Steps That You Can Take to Achieve Expertness With SMM:

1. Become an expert source of information.
Use the bookmarks and article submission features of sites such as Digg to establish yourself as a credible and recognizable source of information.

2. Hitchhike on a blog.
Post relevant and informative content on high profile blogs in your industry. Contributing to a blog on relevant subject matter will increase your visibility and credibility with your target market.

3. Share, share, share.
Create a Squidoo lens, write and publish articles to online article banks (i.e. ezinearticles.com), contribute to wikipedia. Issue quarterly press releases through PR Web. Providing content will establish familiarity with your name (the "haven't I heard of you?" effect) and enable you to cement your expertise with your audience. You will then drive pre-qualífied users to your site, who have already established interest in what you have to sell.

4. Create your own friendly network.
Link sharing with complementary products and services is still a great way to expand your social network, and hence your visibility.

5. Build on your existing foundation.
The technical aspect of search will not be eliminated with the dawn of social search. Rather social search will augment technical search. Thus, it is important to continue utilizing the tools and resources that drive technical search including optimization techniques and paid inclusion.

6. Apply innovation directly to your site.
Here's an example: Microsaw Social Search that we are using, and it's a frëe service.

Summary: Social search will not entirely replace the traditional technical driven search but does open up yet another avenue for internet marketers. One of the more exciting aspects is that smaller businesses are better positioned to make the most gains from the social frontier. We have seen the power of the "regular Joe" community in driving site popularity and outpacing Madison Avenue marketing efforts. YouTube, MySpace and Facebook owe their growth to the power of viral marketing. Big Business has not yet mastered the art of getting up close and personal with its users providing savvy entrepreneurs with the opportunity of a lifetíme. By using the simple techniques outlined in this article you will be well poised to take advantage of that opportuníty.

Social Marketing Resources:
Digg, Wikipedia, Wikihow, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, MySpace, Ma.gnolia, Yahoo Answers, Reddit, Technorati, Squidoo, Shoutwire, 43 Things, YourElevatorPitch, Ning, Yahoo 360, BlinkList, Shadows, Wetpaint, Jotspot

Article Banks:
Ezinearticles, GoArticles, SubmitYourArticles (fee required), Buzzle, Articlealley

About The Author
Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search marketing, and has spent over 10 years developing websites and marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo. His website, Microsaw.com, provides a wealth of informative articles, resources and frëe email courses, including complimentary site ranking reports at http://www.microsaw.com/emailpage.asp.

SEO Tips for MSN

2006-10-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

MSN may be the most complete search engine out there. It seems to me that every web site that I look at in order to find the number of pages that it has listed has the following fallout: MSN has the most results, Google comes in second, Yahoo! comes last. Other search engines will generally fall somewhere between Google and Yahoo!

This is a result of some very extensive work by the team and MSN. The beautiful thing about MSN is that you can find results for just about everything. If you can’t find it at Google, can’t find it at Yahoo! head on over to MSN and you’ll find something even if it is nothing more than a forum posting.

It’s still quite easy to figure out what you need to do to your site to rank highly at MSN. MSN generally indexes every page that it can find anyway and is a pretty handy search engine in that it is the third most popular out there and it is also a nice one to foreshadow what may be happening to your listings at Google in the not too distant future.

They’ve recently changed their algorithm, though, and everyone wants to know how it works. Well, here are some answers.

MSN’s ranking algorithm analyzes factors such as page content, the number and quality of the sites that link to your pages, and the site content, and keyword relevance. Keep in mind that there are lots of differences between MSN and Yahoo and Google.

All search engine algorithms are similar, but little differences can have big effects when it comes to SEO. The nice thing about MSN is that its algorithm isn’t as strict as those of Yahoo! and Google and is therefore a very powerful SEO tool in and of itself.

Relevant themes and topics are very important to MSN optimization, and you should also consider keyword density – remember, no keyword stuffing, as MSN explicitly says this is against their rules. The general rule is that you should make sure that there are key words in your title and then follow the basic platform for key words.

Put a few in a header at the top of your page; scatter a few throughout the page including several in the first and last paragraphs; finally, put a couple of links that contain key words towards the bottom of your page. These steps are common for all search engine optimizations and should be a set process for every page that you attempt to optimize. Complete this work before attempting any other SEO procedures as this is the basis of SEO.

Links are important, and maintaining good incoming links with your keywords will get you good rankings. It’s very important to get as many natural links as possible – providing interesting and useful content can make this happen for you with no extra work at all! You’ll seem completely natural to MSN’s spider. These natural links are the basis of link SEO.

If you are trying to attain links you should first attempt to attain these links from pages that would naturally link to you but may not have heard of your site yet. After you have done this you should go to directories and other sources of links that may not be as obvious. First things first, don’t mess up your search engine listings because of a bunch of bogus links from unsuitable, questionable, or malicious locations. These links can and will get you banned.

MSN doesn’t allow you to pay to boost your site’s ranking, but they do offer advertising. This advertising will allow you to pay a certain amount for links in their “sponsored links” boxes on the top and sides of each results page. The value of these links depends on the demand for them. At any particular time a sponsored link could become very expensive by somebody bidding an outrageous amount for a link, or by a large number of people trying to overwhelm a niche market.

MSN doesn’t update often, but when it does it often removes links it believes to be out of date, so make sure you change your site occasionally.

One thing that MSN likes a lot is well-formed HTML code, with closed, valid tags. Watch out for broken links, and make sure you have static URLs that don’t move around, and contain your keywords.

--------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his Free Internet Marketing Courses. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.freeinternetmarketingcourses.com

SEO Tips for Google

2006-10-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

Google is still the most popular search engine out there, and they’re not showing any signs of slowing down. It’s important to know how to get on the right track with your SEO for Google. It is also important, however, to remember that Google is not the only search engine out there and that Yahoo! is also a highly rated search engine which actually has more pop culture usage.

Before you can truly understand Google you must understand a little bit of the history behind Google. In the beginning, Google was considered by many to be the “Geek’s Search Engine.” This changed as Google started delivering better and better results.

Google slowly evolved into the most trusted search engine around, but Yahoo!’s advertising strength and popular usage has still claimed a large number of users. It wasn’t all that long ago when Yahoo! was the most popular search engine by far.

Google’s search engine is based on PageRank, a complex algorithm that was revolutionary when it was invented. This page rank is the primary reason that Google is so popular. The Page Ranking technology that Google has created and the evolutionary steps that Google has taken to increase the strength of its algorithm has made it a search engine giant which actually sets out to protect internet users from fraudulent web sites.

Google has come to be a search engine that cannot really be tricked. It’s kind of the integrity police f the world wide web. Basically, Google checks the number of links to each site in its database, and treats them as ‘votes’. Here are some tips on getting ranked high on Google:

1.The more incoming links you have, the better your chances are. Good links are ones that are relevant to your own page and link with text that makes it obvious that they intended to link to your site. Google has also recently integrated a new piece into its algorithm which makes old links better than new links.

In Google’s opinion, if a link withstands the test of time it is has to be relevant or else both parties would have removed the link after not seeing any positive action by Google. Basically, this is another one of Google’s “keeper of integrity” options that have become so famous among SEOs.

2. Links from ‘authority’ sites, such as directories or non-profit organizations, tend to produce better results than links from commercial sites. Google likes to decide what sites are important.

A site has some huge credential for being a spectacular source for quality information will be appreciated more than sites that don’t have such strong affiliations with quality work and content. This will result in stronger, more heavily weighted links to and from this site.

3. Site elements to consider for Google are the title (including the strongest keyword phrase), the meta description (Google displays this to its users) and the body text (it needs to be highly-focused and use keywords well), as well as your onsite navigation.

4. Make sure that Google can spider the whole site easily. You’ll probably want to have plain links to every page on your site at the bottom of each of your pages.

Don’t forget, though, that Google is strict about ‘cheaters’ who use unethical SEO techniques. Here are some things that Google hates:

1. Getting lots of ‘shadow domains’ that all point to one site.

2. Using doorway pages.

3. Using falsified WHOIS information.

4. Sites that are "fake" search engines or spyware.

Google Facts and Fiction.

Google has an article on its site called ‘Google Facts and Fiction’. For example:

Fiction: Advertising on Google affects my rankings in the search results.

Fact: Advertising with Google neither helps (nor hurts!) a site's rankings on Google.

Fiction: Sites that are not HTML are not included in Google's index

Fact: Google is and does index as many file formats as possible, however there are some that it cannot index. File types Google is able index include: pdf, asp, jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfm, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf.

Everyone who wants to optimize for Google should make sure they read this article, to avoid common mistakes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his Free Internet Marketing Courses. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.freeinternetmarketingcourses.com

Search Engine Ranking Factors

2006-09-28T00:33:00.000-07:00

Search engine algorithms are becoming increasingly complex and they keep changing every day. Not everyone can be expected to do the hard work, keep up with the details and figure out exactly what the search engines want – in fact most people are still unclear on what the basics of search engine optimization are. Asking regular people who are trying to establish a business online to figure all of that stuff out is too much.

This article will do two things. First, I'll discuss what search engines are aiming for when they rank and index web pages (in the search engine wars you have to be familiar with the battlefield). After that, I'll give you a rundown of the most important search engine ranking factors that, in my view, will do your websites a load of good not only in getting indexed fast , but also in getting high rankings across the search engines.

The Holy Grail Of Search:

Let's start of with what I like to call the “Holy Grail of Search” – this differs for each individual search engine but to generalize, here is a brief definition:

To deliver the most relevant result to a user's search query.

That statement sounds meaningless until we define ‘relevant' as well. A relevant result is one that:

Matches directly with the user's search term
Is correct and authentic – information that is accurate
Is NOT a copy of another web page
Is informative
Provides the ability to dig deeper into the topic
Gives an answer quickly and effectively

To put all the above into an example:

If I search for car repair service in New Jersey , the answer (the web page delivered to me as the top result) should be:

On or about car repair services (or a particular car repair service) in new jersey (and not a gambling site operating out of Mexico)
Should give me details on car repair services in New Jersey – stuff that I can use to contact them, evaluate how good they are, find out how much they charge, etc.
If it's not a specific site, it should give me links to different car repair services in the region – and if there's analysis on each service, that's even better
Should be focused on that topic – a web page that focuses on one topic as compared to a web page that is about several different topics is ‘cluttered' – note that this does not always apply to a website – clutter on a web page is bad, avoid it.

Ideally, the first result should provide all the answers a user needs. In reality, you get a bunch of ‘best fit' web pages that are most likely to match your question / search. This is a result of building an automated system – and it also shows that:

No answer is perfect.
Everyone has a chance to be on top of that list if they can get at what the search engines are looking for.

To arrive at their list of best-fit web pages, search engines use a mixture of on-page and off-page factors to determine rankings for specific keywords. On-page factors are those elements that can be evaluated directly from a web page document (such as the title tag, keyword frequency, and also details about the website the page is on). Off-page factors basically refer to link-based analysis – or rather, analysis of the web pages linking to that particular document.

On-Page Ranking Factors:

How relevant this document is to the search query? This determined through the following factors – note that I'm putting in only those that are MOST important:

Title Tag

The title tag reflects the contents of the document. This is elementary and yet many people get this wrong. How you refer to the document yourself makes a lot of difference – and if you're not putting your important keywords into the title tag, the search engines are going to think that this is not a relevant page (for those keywords).

For example, if you have a website on exercise equipment and one of the pages is a review of the ProForm treadmill – which one do you think would be a better title tag?

ProForm Treadmill Review >> URL.com
Or…

URL.com >> Treadmills >> ProForm Review
The first one is much better optimized for that page's key term – “ProForm Treadmill Review”. The second one will only confuse the search engine, and as a result of the unclear title tag that page would have been ranked much lower.

Put your keywords (focused and specific to that page) first.

Keyword Use in Document Text

Keyword density has been abused ever since search engines started becoming popular. Search engines don't measure density anymore – they analyse your content for various types of ways your keywords are present (keyword concurrency, related words, keywords in tags (headings, style, image), keywords as anchor text to other pages) and base their decision on that.

Getting keyword use right is tough when you are also trying to write for your readers and therefore trying to maintain a natural flow to your writing. Most people tend to resort to search engine spamming – forgetting their readers and writing heavily optimized pages that are tailor-made for the search engines but drive readers away.

The solution to this is to make sure that the topic of your page is extremely focused and specific – this will allow you talk in depth about one thing at a stretch – the optimal keyword usage that you want will come out of this sort of focused writing.

Accessibility of Document

Accessibility here refers to two things:

How accessible your website is:

easy to follow links (plain html links, not hid behind javascript redirects or embedded in flash)
common navigational structure (menu)
sitemaps (google and regular)

And how accessible the pages are:

no extra-long urls with multiple parameters (such as www.url.com/random.php?id=1&x=2&y=3... (and so on))
Keeping all javascript code in an external .js file.
Minimising the amount of flash and other non-indexable content on your pages.

Primary Subject Matter of Site

The topic of your website matters greatly (determined usually from the main page, but also through an analysis of your web pages as a whole) – for a search engine, the more focused the site is on a topic the better it is at providing information on that topic – this knowledge of course is combined with link wealth (what everyone else says about that site) to give definite answers.

Keyword Spamming

In short, keyword spamming is easiest and the stupidest way to get your website busted by the search engines. This includes keyword stuffing in the meta tags, in the title tags, in the alt image tags, etc. White on white text is also another incarnation of keyword spamming and is caught pretty easily by the search engines.

Avoid keyword spamming – you can spend the time doing something far more important, such as tweaking your title tags.

Off-Page Ranking Factors:

Everything I've said about on-page factors is relevant, but the reality is that with overwhelming link wealth, you can trump all of those factors (in most cases, just get the title tag right, use the keyword once or twice in the text and boom, your link profile can take care of the rest).

Off-page factors are important because of a ‘real-life' analogy – link-based analysis – that Google brought to the search engine world and the other SEs have subsequently adopted to some extent. Google's analogy to the real world:

Links act as recommendations / editorial votes of quality for web pages. As each “editor” is different in terms on knowledge, expertise and primary subject matter, these votes have different values as well. Expertise in an industry is gauged through the number and quality of votes one gets.

This is democracy in search – a good idea in theory, but in practice it is quite hard to manage, especially because of the temptation to game the system and create inflated link wealth by pursuing links through blog spamming on one end, and buying up links on the other.

In this backdrop, what are the key off-page factors that search engines consider most important?

Anchor Text of Links

The anchor text of the links pointing to a web page is about as important as the title tag of the page itself. This anchor text acts as a quick identification mechanism of what the linked-to page is about. If you can in some way control your anchor text, you can make sure that you get optimized links.

One way to ensure that you remain in control of your anchor text is to remember that when you are exchanging / buying links, it is most effective to give people the exact html code that they should insert in their website. People are lazy and for someone who isn't too proficient with html / site coding, this small step may just be the reason you get that link.

Make sure that you vary your anchor text considerably – use related words and extended key phrases as much as possible.

Links to Document from Your Site's Internal Pages

This refers to the links the webpage gets from the internal pages of the host website. Essentially, while internal links are not as important as external links for ranking purposes, they can give a huge boost especially if the anchor text is optimized and these links are within content.

This is one way that you can use to transfer your site's link-wealth around to your most important pages.

External Links to the Document

How many links does this page receive from other websites? While your inner pages may not get many links from outside your website, any page that does automatically stands a great chance of being ranking for its key terms.

When you are exchanging links, getting a couple of links to your internal pages is always a good idea, especially if they are focused around a popular keyword. Also, once you start creating good, linkable content, people coming to your website will also start linking to your pages gradually.

Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community

This is something that's still being implemented, but what you can see of its implementation is the rise in importance of themed links. The Ask search engine is most advanced on this front, with Google close behind. Themed links are an extension of the ‘real-world' democratic model of search – editorial ‘votes' from highly ranking websites within your industry are worth more than votes from outside.

One thing most people forget is that when you are going after themed links, make sure that you cover your related industries as well (for example, a vote from a successful online business counts a lot for an SEO service).

Global Link Popularity of Site

This one is self-explanatory – essentially, how many links the website have, how many of those links are high-quality links, which of those links are themed links, how of them are one-way, etc. These questions (and more) help determine the link popularity (or link wealth) of your website, and eventually, your search engine rankings as well.

Recap - Using This Knowledge To Your Advantage:

So, if you're looking for a quick rundown of what you need to do to improve your site rankings, here are two lists.

First, get all your pages in order by making sure that:

your title tags are optimized
your web pages are using the right keywords
each web page is specific / focused
each web page (and the site as a whole) is accessible
you're not spamming the search engines

In addition, get your link-building campaign in order as well by making sure that:

Your website gets themed links
Your internal linking is well done – in-context linking to related pages on your website
You create web pages that are linkable – to help you get deep links naturally
You use internal pages when doing your link building
You get links from high-ranking websites

Just by following these simple steps you will be ahead of 95% of your competition in no time at all.

------------------------------
Brad Callen
Professional SEO
http://www.seoelite.com

Internet Glossary- helpful terms and meanings

2006-09-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

I found this on my computer. I do not remember where I got it from, but I have added to it. I will add to it more... I hope it is usefull.... enjoy

Backgrounds
Images which sit in the background of a web page. All other information (text, pictures, etc) sits on top.

Bandwidth
The amount of information that can flow through a given point at a given time. This is usually measured in bits per second (bps).

BETA
The stage a software program goes through before a final version is released.

Bomb
A bomb is when someone sends you a virus via email, or a rude hateful email. Often folks say will say, "Don't send SPAM or you'll get "bombed".

Bookmarks
Pointers that take users directly to web pages that they visit frequently. Sometimes referred to as favorites.

Bounce
The term used to describe e-mail that fails to arrive for any reason at its intended destination. Generally, you will receive an error message that indicates that the message was undeliverable.

Browse / browser
A software application that allows you to view web pages. (ex: Netscape or Internet Explorer). To 'browse' is to search the WWW for information.

Bulletin board System (BBS)
A system that provides its users files for downloading and areas for electronic discussions.

Chatting
Talking in to other network users in real time.

CGI Script
A CGI script (Common Gateway Interface) is a program that runs on a web server, usually triggered by input from a browser. These scripts are commonly used to process form information.

Click Through
The number or percentage of visitors that click on a banner or link. This is important information to determine the effectiveness of any particular link.

Cookies
A mechanism for server-side connections to store and retrieve information on the client side. Often affiliate programs will use cookies to track affiliate sales.

Download
To retrieve a file from another machine, usually a host machine, to your machine.

Copy
Any content or writings you use in your ads or on your site is often referred to as 'copy'. For example: I have some ad copy to write today. OR I saw some really great ad copy today!

DNS
The Domain Name System. A system for translating computer names into numeric Internet addresses.

Domain name
The unique name that identifies an Internet site. (ex: www.affiliatemastery.com)

DSL
Digital Subscriber Line. A form of high speed Internet that utilizes telephone system infrastructure. Depending on the service, speeds up to 30 times that of a standard modem can be achieved.

E-mail (Electronic Mail)
Messages that travel through the electronic networks rather than being committed to paper.

Export
This simply means to move a file from one place to another. For example, if you have a database of customers and you move them to another database...you could "export" them.

Ezine
An ezine is short for electronic magazine. They are simply newsletters sent via email.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Contains questions and answers that are frequently asked.

Flame
A flame is when someone sends you a rude, hateful email. Often this is in response to SPAM.

Forms
A web page that is requesting input. This information can then be processed with a cgi script or sent to a file or a specified mail box, usually the manager of the web site.

F.T.P.
File Transfer Protocol. A method of transferring one or more files from one computer to another over a network or phone line.

Finger
A program that displays information about someone on the net. On most UNIX systems, this command tells you who is logged on right now. On most Internet hosts, it tells you the name, possibly some other information based on the person's Internet address, and the last time they logged on.

Firewall
A filter for Internet activities. A system that has a firewall lets only certain data pass through. If an organization wants to exchange mail with the Internet, but does not want other Internet members "Telnetting in" and reading those files, its connection to the Internet can be protected by using a firewall.

Flame
A strong opinion or criticism of something, usually as a frank inflammatory statement in an email.

Freeware
Software made available free for public use by the author.

Gateway
A computer that connects one network with another when the two networks use different protocols.

GIF
Graphics Interchange Format. A platform-independent file format developed by CompuServe, the GIF format is commonly used to distribute graphics on the Internet.

Graphical User Interface (GUI)
GUI, pronounced "gooey," is a graphics based interface that lets you access programs by pointing and clicking rather than typing a string of commands at a command prompt.

Hits
This refers to the number of people who have visited a given Web Site or page.

Home Page or Homepage
the top-level hypertext document in a collection of linked HTML documents.

Host
A computer on the Internet you may be able to log on to. You can use FTP to get files from a host computer, and use other programs (such as Telnet) to make use of the host computer.

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The method by which World Wide Web pages are transferred over the network.

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language. A system used for writing pages for the World Wide Web. HTML allows text to include codes that define fonts, layout, embedded graphics, and hypertext links.

Hyperlink
A feature of HTML that enables one location or document to be linked to related locations or documents with a click of a mouse.

Import
To import means you are "bringing in" something, such as a file. A sentence example could be "You will "import" the names onto your system".

Impressions
The number of people who have seen a specific Web page or advertisement. Many companies sell advertising based on the number of impressions. (ex: 1000 banner impressions)

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
A service provider is a company who supplies Internet services to personal users or business.

IP
Internet Protocol. The transport layer protocol used as a basis of the Internet. IP enables information to be routed from one network to another in packets and then reassembled when they reach their destination.

IP Number
A four-part number separated by periods (for example, 201.113.155.252) that uniquely identifies a machine on the Internet.

ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network. A way to move more data over existing regular phone lines. ISDN is only slowly becoming available in the USA. ISDN can provide speeds of 64,000 bits per second over a regular phone line at almost the same cost as a normal phone call.

ISP
see service provider

Java
This programming code works in conjunction with HTML to allow dynamic programs to run and interact with your computer, where straight HTML is primarily linear information downloaded to your computer for static display.

JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group. A group that has defined a compression scheme that reduces the size of image files by up to 20 times at the cost of slightly reduced image quality.

Knowledge Base
A database of knowledge about a particular subject. Contains facts, data, beliefs, assumptions, and procedures needed for problem solution.

List Server
A list server is a server that is designated to send large email files (or lists). These are recommended for folks who have more than 2000 email addresses in their list.

Local Area Network (LAN)
A group of connected computers, usually located in close proximity so data can be passed among them.

links
By inserting hypertextual links into web documents it is possible to connect two documents together.

LOL
Abbreviation for Laughing Out Loud, LOL is used in various online communications such as e-mail messages or postings to newsgroups or BBSs.

Lurker
Slang term for someone who regularly reads newsgroup, BBS, or mailing list discussions, but rarely participates in them.

Mailing Lists
An electronic group discussion specific to a topic or an interest carried out with email messages.

Meta Tags
The HTML codes that contain information about the content of a Web page and Website. Meta Tags are generally used to enhance the display and effectiveness of search engine listings.

Moderator
A person, or small group of people who manage some subset of mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups. Moderators are responsible for determining which email submissions are passed onto a list.

Net
Net is an abbreviation for the term Internet with stands for Interconnected networks.

Netiquette
The informal rules of conduct for Internet users. Breaching these rules can result in highly disruptive aggressive behavior or nasty messages (flames) being sent to your organization and through the Internet.

Newbie
Slang term for a user who is new to the Internet. This is not an insult, just a descriptor.

Newsgroup
A distributed bulletin board system about a particular topic. Usenet News (also know as Netnews) is a system that distributes thousands of newsgroups to all parts of the Internet.

Node
A computer on the Internet, also called a host. Computers that provide a service, such as FTP sites or places that run Gopher, are also called servers.

Off Line
This is working on a computer that is currently not connected to the Internet.

On Line
This is working on a computer that is currently connected to the Internet.

Opt-in
To "opt-in" means someone chose to sign up or join. An opt-in mailing list is a list of folks who all chose to join the mailing list.

Packet
A chunk of information sent over a network. Each packet contains the destination address, the sender's address, error-control information, and data.

Page
A document on the World Wide Web. To make information available over the WWW, it is organized into pages. A page may contain text, graphics, video, and/or sound files.

PERL (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language)
A robust programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs on web servers because it is faster than UNIX shell script programs, it can read and write binary files, and it can process very large files.

Ping
A network management tool that checks to see whether you can communicate with another computer on the Internet. It sends a short message to which the other computer automatically responds. If the other computer does not respond to the ping, you usually cannot establish communications.

Plug-Ins
Software program additions that allow you to take advantage of new technologies and capabilities from your browser.

POP
Post Office Protocol. A system by which a mail server on the Internet lets you grab your mail and download it to your PC or Macintosh.

PopUp
A popup is simply a web browser or HTML window that a webmaster programs to "popup" in front of their vistor.

Protocol
A standard for the exchange of information. Different computers and operating systems and software are able to communicate with each other on the Internet because of the adoption of protocols.

Network
Any time you connect two or more computers together so they can share resources, you have a computer network.

Search Engine
A software application found on-line which allows you to search for information, by key words, available on the Internet (e.g. web sites, newsgroups)

SEO Search Engine Optimization
Optimizing your webpage to be search engine friendly, compliant, and with in regulations. When your webpage is optimized your page has a better chane of ranking well in search engines.

Secured Server
A server using software that protects the privacy of electronic transactions conducted on the internet.
Server (web server)
A server is a computer that "serves" webpages when they are requested.

Signature
The three or four line message you can automatically append to the bottom of an email message or Usenet news article that identifies the sender. Large signature files (over five lines) are considered poor "netiquette". When used correctly, signatures can be a very effective marketing tool.

SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol A protocol used to transfer e-mail between computers.

Snail Mail
Regular postal mail, as opposed to e-mail. The term is usually implying postal mail's slowness relative to email.

SPAM
To send a message (usually an advertisement) to discussion groups (bulletin boards, mailing lists or email, and/or newsgroups), without regard for its topical relevance. It's basically unsolicated advertising and it can get you in serious trouble.

Surfing
Informal term for exploring the Internet, as in "surfing the net". Most often used in reference to accessing sites on the World Wide Web.

TCP/IP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol A protocol used to transfer e-mail between Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The system that networks use to communicate with each other on the Internet.

Telnet
An application program that allows users to interactively logon to menued services provided at TCP/IP internet sites.

Traffic
This term is used to describe how many people visit your Web page. It can be measured in many different ways, such as hits and impressions, by many different software packages.

UNIX
A computer operating system. UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is "multiuser") and has TCP/IP built in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.

Upload
The process of transferring information from your computer to another computer through the Internet. Every time you send e-mail to someone, you are uploading it.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks like this: http://www.affiliatemastery.com.

WAN
Wide Area Network. Any internet or network that covers an area larger than a single building or campus.

Web
An abbreviated term for the World Wide Web.

Web Document
Is a collection of information stored on the World Wide Web (WWW) which has the benefit of using hypertext links to link to other documents on the (WWW).

Web Site
A collection of html files, graphic files and any other file types that are supported by the World Wide Web that can be viewed by using a World Wide Web browser.

Zip
A method of file compression. Zip files contain vast amounts of information that has undergone compression to reduce the amount of space that the data take up.

3 FREE Programs that will Explode Your Website TRAFFIC

2006-09-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Thousands of website and ad veiws everyday. everyday for FREE. Dont wait join each one follow directions and get traffic.

1.http://www.AdGizmo.com/?u=20780

2.http://MyViralads.com/index.php?affiliate=7581

3.http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?mikewithsfi

Incorporate these free programs, and you will receive thousands a day.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Making $100,000 a year is as easy as making $15,000 a year if you have the right resources.

http://www.rocketstart.com/woods

Untapped Advertising Hot Spots

2006-09-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Online advertising is exploding. By 2007, online advertising spending is expected to reach over 20 billion. With such growth, a multitude of opportunities have opened up for the online marketer. Unfortunately, not all of these are worth your time or your ínvestment. That's why I would like to show you some of the untapped advertising hot spots that are currently available to you.

As an online entrepreneur, it's not enough to have a great website with quality information. You must also position yourself in front of a qualified audience of people who are hungry for what you have to offer.

So, let's explore 4 of the most lucrative online advertising spots that are currently available to you. They include CPA programs, blog ads, comparison shopping engines, and the ISEDN.

CPA Programs

Cost per action is an online advertising model that is highly undervalued. In this model, you only pay when a qualified visitor converts to a sale, registration, or other action. Because of this, CPA (cost per action) is often much less risky and often more profitable (in terms of ROI) than cost-per-clíck.

To begin your own CPA marketing campaign, you can choose from a variety of companies. AzoogleAds is the top CPA network. Within their network, you can advertise on sites like True.com, Stamps, NetFlix, BlockBuster, and a number of Fortune 500 companies.

You may also choose ClickBooth. Within the ClickBooth network, you will have access to over 25,000 of the biggest publishers in the industry.

Hydra Network, another leading advertising network, reaches over 100 million Internet users. Find out how you can tap into this traffíc at HydraMedia.com.

Each one of these companies can help you devise a successful CPA campaign that only requires you to pay when you acquire a new customer.

BlogAds

In recent years the popular belief has been that most blog readers are comprised of nerdy teenagers who live in their parent's basement.

However, this simply isn't true. Blog readers have quite a lot of buying power. In fact, according to the 2006 blogger reader surveys from BlogAds, 75% of blog readers make more than $45,000 per year. Blog readers are journalists, opinion makers, and powerful online citizens.

The blogosphere is becoming very influential on the Internet. This demographic is a hot spot online that many advertisers are missing out on.

So, how do you tap into this kind of audience? Well, there are a number of options.

One of the most popular blog advertising agencies is BlogAds. With BlogAds, you can sign up to advertise on sites like SearchEngineJournal.com, Lockergnome.com, PFBlog.com, and BlogShares.com.

Another great source of blogger advertising is the Creative Weblogging network of blogs. They power 70+ blog sites in categories ranging from personal finance and social entrepreneurship to social networking and Web 2.0. In fact, they have recently joined forces with the Washington Post, which links to some of their blogs on the homepage.

The Creative Weblogging network delivers 5 million page views per month. To find out more about their different advertising options, go to Creative Weblogging.

Wherever you choose to advertise, please keep blogs in mind. Through blog advertising, you can tap into a very targeted group of individuals.

Comparison Shopping Engines

If you're selling products online, then one of your main advertising sources should be the comparison shopping engines. Unfortunately, many online sellers do not take advantage of this potential goldmine.

Yahoo! Shopping, Google's Froogle, Bizrate.com, Become.com and other comparison sites make it much easier for you to get the online exposure you need to be successful in a very crowded online marketplace. These sites allow you to get listed by all the big names like Best Buy and Circuit City.

One of the biggest benefits of this advertising option is that visitors from comparison shopping engines are buyers. They are there for a reason. They are looking to compare prices, evaluate different companies, and buy their desired products. Because of this, the return on ínvestment from this type of traffíc is much higher; a stark contrast from the general search engines which can send you visitors who aren't truly interested in your products.

Much like traditional search engines, comparison shopping engines position your product based on a number of factors. Some of these include bid price, product price, user rating, relevance, and CTR (clíck-through rate). Each of the shopping engines has a different ranking algorithm and uses different factors to position your products.

If you would like to start experimenting with this advertising medium, I would suggest you start with Froogle, which is free. However, don't underestimate Froogle's power. Just because it's free doesn't mean that it can't send you lots of qualified visitors when used correctly.

I urge you to start taking advantage of these lucrative advertising spots for your own website. Remember, comparison shopping engines send you buyers, not browsers.

You only pay for perförmance.

ISEDN

Another untapped marketing hotspot is the ISEDN. This paid inclusion program is a cross between the older paid inclusion models and the current pay-per-clíck model.

Purchased ads are displayed in a similar manner to the PPC ads shown by Google, but advertisers are charged on a flat fee basis, not on a per clíck basis. You can buy top 10 exposure across the network for $3 to $4 per month. Your ad will then be shown across a network of 230+ members.

Through the power of the collective community, ISEDN paid inclusion ads are displayed over 150 million times per month. This equates to 150 million potential advertisng opportunities.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog. Kim's email is: kim @ seo-news.com

10 Shortcut Secrets To Closing The Sale In Print

2006-09-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

Ask any salesperson the hardest part of making a sale and they'll tell you that it's closing the sale and gaining a
commitment from your customer.

And in a sales letter or advertisement, it's even more important you get it right? Why? Because it's so easy for your reader to forget about you. All they need to do is put your marketing piece aside... and you're a dead dog.

And that's why, over the last few weeks, between 6 and 7 am I've been rewriting some of the world's best closes in my own handwriting.

I've written virtually dozens of closes, trying to find the common bond between each of them.

It's been an insightful exercise. And now you can use all the hours of my hard work to construct your own.

Here are the 10 'closing steps' you should consider factoring into any sales letter or advertisement:

1. Reinforce the fact the customer is special. And this is a special offer especially for them.

2. Advise your prospect what they have to do: call and give you their credit cards, post a cheque, etc.

3. An apples to oranges comparison (this involves comparing your service to something different in order to reinforce what a great deal it is. For example, if you're selling an ebook on fitness for $37, don't compare it to other ebooks on the market. Compare the price to a personal trainer who charges $50 an hour (or $1000 a year). That makes the ebook sound like one heck of a deal.

4. Tell your prospect they are getting a bargain.

5. Guarantee your offer

6. Explain why you are giving your prospect such a great deal (people are skeptical if it sounds too good to be true, so make sure you explain why!)

7. Allow the customer to picture themselves enjoying the benefits

8. Reinforce the urgency: (most people will put off making a decision if they can. So make sure you reinforce the offer is available for a limited time. And tell people exactly why it's limited

9. Social Proof: Show how other people are enjoying the benefits / respect what your product has to offer

10. Take Away: Mention who the offer is not for (usually disqualifying the people who the offer is not for) Why do we do this? Quite simply, because nobody wants to do business with someone who is desperate, therefore disqualifying who the offer is not for is a powerful process.

Is that a powerful little closing system or what? I have never seen anyone else break it down quite like this, so what you've just read is information you're probably not going to find anywhere else.

So print it out. Put it in your copywriting file under closing. And the next time you need to 'close a sale' in print... use this as your secret weapon.

Copyright © 2006 Scott Bywater
Copywriting That SELLS
http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au
-------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Bywater is a professional direct mail and direct response copywriter, and the author of Cash Flow Advertising.
To get a complimentary copy of his special report '7 Ways To Increase Your Turnover... No Matter What The State Of The Economy' (valued at $29.95) simply visit his web site at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au

Submit Your Site The Right Way

2006-09-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

Are you going to submit your site to the search engines the right way or the wrong way? To do it right, you need to know what you’re doing, and your site needs to be optimized before you take it anywhere near a search engine.

How can you know if your site is ready? You consider these things before you submit. Have you included your keywords in your title tag, description, and content? Make sure you’re tightly focused on only one or two keywords. You should also check for broken links, as these can cause big problems with search engines’ spiders.

Once you’ve submitted your site, you need to be prepared to wait. The chances that you won't be added to any engine's database for at least a month.

The Rules of Submission.

1. There’s no need to submit more than once. Despite the hype, you should never resubmit your site unless it gets dropped entirely. This doesn’t apply to new pages, however.

If you have created a few hundred pages in the last month or so and you don’t think that they will be indexed quickly enough via links to them it is a good idea to submit them manually rather than waiting for your site to be indexed again. If you are using a Google Site map, simply adding them to this document will get them indexed pretty quickly.

2. Do it right the first time: be thorough when submitting, especially to directories. Take the time to research and find the most appropriate category for your site.

If your site would fit into multiple categories find out what the policy is on multiple submissions. Some directories want you to submit to every relevant category, others want no more than one submission or they reject all submissions. Some want every page, others (most) want your index page and nothing more.

3. Be brief when you describe your site: get right to the point in two short sentences. Most directories will actually restrict the number of characters that you can use. If they don’t it is still a good idea to try to wrap it up within twenty-five to thirty words.

This is one of the largest differences between directory listings and search engine listings. In the directory you only get a short line to attract visitors; this is static for every visitor.

4. Be as accurate as you can. Don’t try to trick people into visiting your site, as it’ll only backfire. Most directories are actually monitored by a team of editors. These editors will visit your link and red flag you if you are trying to deceive visitors or if you are trying to cheat in any other way.

When it comes to directory listings, there are even less avenues for cheaters than there are in search engine listings as directories are checked out by hand.

5. Make sure that all your information is relevant, and try to make it appealing to humans as well as dense with keywords. Directories don’t care about your key words very much. If your site isn’t attractive to human beings it will be listed poorly. When human beings edit, human beings rank, and human beings get what they want.

6. Be patient: good things come to those who wait. Let the search engines take their time.

7. Don’t submit any more than your homepage. The crawlers are quite capable of following your links and indexing your whole site from just your homepage’s URL.

If you’re submitting you site to the DMOZ directory, follow these steps. If one doesn’t work, wait a while and then do the next.

1. Submit your site.

2. Write a follow-up email to the category’s editor, explaining that you’ve been waiting and would like to know your site’s status.

3. Email the next category editor up, in case there’s a problem with your category’s editor.

4. Seek assistance at the Open Directory Project’s public forum.

5. Email DMOZ senior staff seeking help. This is pretty much the last resort.

Submissions can be time consuming at first, but you’ll quickly get it down to a science. If you work hard on your SEO before you submit your site then you can get to the top more quickly than you’d think.

Cody Moya

http://freeinternetmarketingcourses.com

Five Ways To Win The Favor Of Search Engines

2006-09-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

You’ve got a cool new website with all the works: cool Flash presentations, eye-catching colors, informative text, easy-to-use layout, and an interesting topic. You think your site is amazing, and you know that others will agree with you. If only they know it exists.

How do you make your website known? How do you make yours stand out among millions of others? You can spend lots of money on advertisement, but that will not work if you don’t have the money to spare on advertising. So what do you do? Make search engines work for you, that’s what!

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, Altavista - you want to be at the top of their results list. The higher your site is in a search results page, the better chances that it will be visited. The science behind making your site a popular search result is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t worry, though - even if SEO is referred to as a science, it is not all that complicated. You just need to take note of a few things, and before you know it, your site will have more visitors than you could ever dream of.

Here are five tips to ensure that your site would be a favorite of search engines all around the cyber world.

1. Give importance to substance over appearance.

Do you want to share your knowledge on a subject that you have authority on? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to build an online shrine for your favorite actress? Whatever topic you have chosen for your website, make sure that you are able to give useful information on it. Search engines work by scanning sites for keywords. They search text and completely ignore everything else. So if you have made your site rich in colors, don’t forget to make it rich in content as well. After all, a beautiful layout can make people look, but relevant content is what will make them stay. Remember, in this day and age: content is king!

2. Know your topic well

If you know much about your topic, you will know what people usually ask about it, and what they ask about it is what they will type in the search bar. When writing the content for your website, put yourself in your other people’s shoes, people who will be your target audience or market. Know the possible questions they might have about your topic, and give answers in your site.

3. Learn from the best

Take time to browse and read sites that get lots of visitors and have the same topic as yours. Take note of any recurring phrases in these sites’ text. These phrases are most likely keywords. Incorporate them in your own site’s content. Don’t saturate your site with keywords, though. You don’t want to sound redundant to your site visitor. A 3% density level would be enough.

In searching for the right keywords, use Overture’s services. It may take quite some time, as it is more of a trial-and-error method, but the results are conclusive, and a pattern can easily be observed.

4. Submit…and re-submit

You will never get a certain job if you don’t send in your application for it. The same thing applies to SEO. If you want your site to be recognized by search engines, then go out of your way to register your site with them. After a couple of weeks, search for your site by putting in the keywords you used in your content. If your site is still not coming up in the search results, do not give up, and just re-register and resubmit your site. It’s possible that your initial registration was discarded without being processed. This usually happens because a lot of submissions are being done everyday.

5. Constantly update your site

This can’t be stressed enough: search engine spiders love sites which constantly change their content. You can’t build your site and expect it to last forever without any updates. There will come a time when those search engine spiders would stop fetching your site for query requests. Here’s a tip: integrate a blog program in your site. Blogs have a user-friendly interface that allows easy updates.

A Guide to SEO Resources and Discussion Groups

2006-08-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

Finding the right SEO tools and resources can be challenging – but we’re here to make it a little easier on you. SEO forums and newsgroups can be very confusing to a person with no SEO experience. These forums and newsgroups are just so heavily populated that they can intimidate many new users.

The first rule regarding these situations is to just slowly try to integrate yourself into the community. Follow these rules closely and concisely so that you do not offend anybody:

1. Do not spam the forum with your problems. If you have a few things that you would like to discuss you will probably get help, but do not try to hog all of the assistance for yourself. For one thing, most of your questions have already been answered, believe it or not. There is generally a “search” option. Always use this before posting your problem.

2. Do not “Flame.” Flaming is a term used among forum dwellers to describe the behavior of “yelling” at people via the forum. This is generally associated with cursing, constant argument, typing in all caps to try to convey anger, and dismissing other people’s posts in an undignified fashion. There are other problems that are included in flaming, but I have given you the jist of it.

3. Never take a post off topic. If there is something that you would like to discuss that was inspired by a post on another topic, post a new topic in the appropriate board and explain where the topic was conceived. You may still want to reply to the post just to let people know that the topic has been created so that somebody else doesn’t take it off topic.

4. Do not “bump” your thread (or post). Bumping a post is when you reply to your own post in hopes of getting a response sooner. The only time that this is acceptable is if your thread has laid dormant for about a week. Bumped threads are very annoying to most forum users. Bumping posts on a regular basis will probably lead to a lack of interest in your posts and will probably contribute to a lack of support in your ventures.

6. Be friendly. There is no reason that you can’t be completely polite when posting on a forum. You will get very good response if you are simply polite in your post. Politeness in the world of forums includes making sure that you have communicated your problem carefully so that people attempting to help you can understand and provide answers to the best of their abilities.

7. Join in on the community favorites. Many forums now include “games” which are occasionally pretty fun. They are pretty much just there for if you are bored and waiting for a response to your other posts, but they are enjoyable if you keep up with them as many forum dwellers are quite articulate and witty.

Here’s a list of resources that you can use when you need help but you don’t want to pay for it.

Finding Groups.

Google makes discussion groups easy to find with their ‘Google Groups’ tool (groups.google.com). Go there and type in ‘seo’ to see what’s on offer. Two popular groups are alt.internet.search-engines and alt.www.webmaster. If you don’t like Google’s groups, try Yahoo’s instead (groups.yahoo.com).

Either of these sources will provide you with a pretty substantial list. Remember, regular search engine listings seem to apply here so generally you will see the best results towards the top of the listing.

dmoz.org is a good place to start: from their home page, you can browse down to any subject you want, and you should find at least one mailing list, discussion forum or message board in the listing.

There are several forums out there on the web that focus on SEO, and you can learn a lot from all of them, even if some of the discussions are over your head at first. Even ordinary searchers can learn a lot from following these discussions, as they tell you a lot about how search engines work.

Here are some useful forums: WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, ThreadWatch, Best Practices Search Engine Forums, cre8asite forums and the High Rankings Forum. Check them out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his Free Internet Marketing Courses. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.freeinternetmarketingcourses.com

Vlogs and Wikis and Pods, oh my!

2006-08-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

Perhaps you've heard about blogs - the hottest communication story of last year. Commentators from Newsweek to the Wall Street Journal, from CNN to PBS have devoted time to the phenomenon. Blogs are just one of the new technologies that are changing the way politicians communicate with voters and businesses communicate with customers.

For marketers, these changes mean more direct interaction with customers and potential customers. By speaking and listening directly with the customer marketers are able to reduce the expense for public relations and advertising. Of course, these developments are worrying some in the pr and advertising industries, as well as the news media.

Many things about marketing communication won't change, of course: you still need to have something to say. And the best way to apply all these technologies is still within a business niche. With that said, here are some of the other ways communication is changing:

1. Podcasting is the hottest idea on the internet. Starting in 2004, people began downloading homebrewed radio shows to their iPods. So instead of "broadcasts" they're "podcasts". Unlike streaming audio, podcasts require the file to be downloaded. The advantage of podcasts versus streaming is that you can take it with you when you're not on the net.

The disadvantage is that streaming audio is much easier for a customer to play at his or her computer. The solution is to do both - create an audio file for streaming, and an mp3 for podcasting. The same recording can be used for both.

2. A vlog is a video blog. Unlike podcasting, vlogging can refer to either streaming video or downloadable shows. Combined with the rapid development of internet video delivery, vlogging seems poised to take off.

As with audio, you can prepare your video file in both streaming and downloadable formats. Also like audio, you can begin with very low-cost tools and work your way up to full blown professional equipment. Remember that people like good production quality, but they like watching something interesting even more.

3. Wikis are websites that are editable by the site users. Content becomes part of a dialogue among the users, instead of something fixed. This interaction can build strong communities, and produce large sites with enormous information.

Up until recently, wikis have been difficult to use, and limited to techs. New approaches to wikis are making them easier to use, and reinforcing the next trend:

4. Social software. Community sites that encourage sharing and conversation are springing up in many areas. Photography and music have been drivers of this trend, in addition to political activism. Interaction builds community, and community is where the market is.

5. Almost all of these tools involve RSS, a technology for feeding information to people who want it. Unlike email, which is "pushed" by the sender, rss feeds have to be "pulled" by the user. While still not completely mainstream, rss is a rapidly growing delivery system.

For the small marketer, the price of reaching customers directly has dropped. Large corporations, though, are picking up on these technologies rapidly. To truly gain an edge, the small business person needs to develop a strategy for these channels before the big companies figure them out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

How to Integrate RSS Into Your Marketing Mix

2006-08-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

By Kim Roach (c) 2006

RSS is changing the way we consume information online. Instead of being overloaded with mounds of information in our inbox, we can pick and choose exactly which content providers we want to hear from.

On the other side of the story are the publishers. Not only is RSS changing the way visitors view information, but it is also opening up vast opportunities for publishers wanting to syndicate their content across the Internet.

RSS is turning into one of the most popular distribution channels for webmasters, publishers, article writers and news syndicators. With RSS, you have the opportuníty to have a continual digital conversation with your readers. You can use RSS to syndicate a wide variety of media formats including text, video, and audio.

No longer is the Web all about text. You can use RSS to syndicate your very own talk show, weekly podcast, or a collection of video tutorials.

With over 100 RSS and blog search engines available online, it's time that you started integrating RSS into your marketing mix. This article will outline how you can combine the power of RSS with your current marketing activities.

To begin, let's start with email marketing. Some people have predicted that RSS will one day overtake email as the top communication model. However, this is not likely to happen considering the differences between these two technologies. Instead, the two should be combined to form a powerful marketing duo.

Email Marketing and RSS Intertwine

You can complement your email marketing campaigns with one or more RSS feeds. By providing your readers with alternatives, you will reach a much largër number of subscribers.

There are a number of ways that you can integrate RSS into your current email marketing campaign.

1. Use RSS to announce each new issue of your ezine. Announce your e-zine in your RSS feed as a single RSS content item. When your subscribers click-through, they can access your newsletter in full on your website, drawing additional visitors to your content.

2. If you are currently using email autoresponders, provide those very same autoresponders as RSS feeds. You can do this at http://www.zookoda.com .

Using RSS, you can syndicate a wide variety of content. One of the most obvious uses of RSS is to deliver content updates to your users. RSS is an excellent communication medium for delivering daily updates of your web site content. You can't expect your visitors to come back to your site every day to chëck for updates, but with an RSS feed they can quickly pick up any changes that interest them.

However, this is just the beginning of what is possible with RSS.

Deliver Content Updates, News, and So Much More...

You can also use RSS feeds to deliver news announcements, forum discussion updates, new product releases, quick tips, quotes, new coupons, job listings, classifieds, and real estate listings.

RSS can even be used to deliver content that is not available on your site. Let's face it, you cannot possibly publish all of the great information that is available on your site's particular topic.

However, you can supply your users with a content aggregation service that directs them to the best content within your industry.

With all of the digital junk that is currently being delivered online, you would be delivering an extremely valuable service simply by syndicating the most important and relevant information within a particular niche.

Keep in mind that relevant information goes beyond whether or not the content relates to your visitors' interests. Relevant information can also speak to each individual user. Just like email marketing, you can use personalization within your RSS feeds to increase your response rate.

Speak Directly to Your Visitors with Personalized RSS Feeds

One of my favorite examples of personalization can be found at Babycenter.com. As soon as you enter the site, you are asked for two pieces of information:

Your due date or your child's birthday and...
Your email address

After you submit your information you start receiving a weekly e-zine that is relevant to your pregnancy stage or the age of your child. If you have a 2-year old, you'll be receiving articles, tips and product recommendations for that age.

Do you see the power in this? By using profiling, webmasters are able to send information that is highly relevant to their readers on a case-by-case basis.

You could use this same idea with your RSS feeds.

Basic personalization might include elements such as the reader's first name, while more advanced personalization might deliver personalized content, product recommendations and so on.

Once you have decided on what type of content you would like to syndicate, you must then start organizing content for your feed. If you want to use RSS to its full potential, then I would highly advise you to create multiple RSS feeds for your users.

Use Multiple RSS Feeds to Increase Your Exposure

You can do this by creating RSS feeds for each category of content you cover. This extends your reach and marketing capability. Do not pack all of your content under one generic RSS feed. This is not beneficial for you or your visitors. By breaking your RSS feeds into categories, your visitors will be able to tap into the exact information that they are looking for.

For example, visitors who only want to keep up with forum updates shouldn't have to sift through articles, news, and other content.

When you begin marketing your RSS feeds, keep in mind that this is still a fairly new technology.

RSS Isn't Quite Mainstream, So Educate Your Visitors

Take your visitors step-by-step through the process of locating, subscribing and reading an RSS feed. By doing this, you are informing your website visitors and helping to promote the use of your own RSS feed.

To see a really good example of this, go to BBC News.

There is one last step to integrating RSS into your overall marketing strategy. This one is often overlooked, but can be extremely powerful when executed properly.

Take Your RSS Marketing to the Next Level with Your Affíliates

Provide your affíliates with an RSS feed of your product catalog. They can then use your feed to syndicate your latest product releases on their own websites. Whenever someone clicks on a headline, they would be directed to your web store. If they decide to make a purchase, the referring affíliate would make a commission on the sale.

Of course, this type of RSS would most likely need to be customizable, allowing the affíliate to carry only the products updates they feel would be a good match for their website.

Amazon.com has implemented this very same technique and it's time that the rest of us do so as well.

RSS is one of many ways to communicate with your customer base. RSS should not be your only communication mechanism, but rather simply a piece of the marketing puzzle. When RSS is combined with other communication models, including email and postcard marketing, your message will finally receive its true potential. When any of these techniques are used alone, they löse much of their marketing power.

Start combining your communication models to see much higher response rates.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com

10 Ways To Extend The Reach Of Your Site

2006-08-14T08:20:00.001-07:00

Successful websites extend their reach far and wide! They build links, connections, partnerships, or use whatever means they can to extend the reach of their sites. By extending their reach, these websites create greater exposure, bringing in more targëted traffíc, leads and sales.

You should do the same with your site. It will greatly increase the importance of your site - boosting name recognition and increasing your site's visibility.

ere are some of the best techniques for extending the reach of your site. Some of these are very simple, some a little more complex:

Article Writing

Get one way targëted links placed all over the web by writing simple 'how to' articles on the topic or theme of your site. Extend the reach of your site by simply including your live links in the author's resource box at the end of your articles. Simple and very easy to do - just try it!

Viral Desktop Applications

You can extend the reach of your site by placing links directly onto the desktops of your visitors by offering them simple desktop applications like wallpaper, software programs, or ecalendars, like the DATEwise desktop eCalendar (see below). These are great for building brand recognition.

Old Fashion Link Building

Finding related websites and asking for reciprocal links is still one of the best ways to extend your site. Takes a bit of hard work but it pays off big time. And don't forget about testímonials, simple little recommendations about a site or product. These can be great link building opportunities.

Bookmarks

Make sure you have a bookmark link on all your pages. You might also want to make a favicon - a small logo that goes with your bookmarks. And subtly ask those who bookmark your site to place a shortcut on their desktops.

Ezine or Newsletter

You can reach and keep reaching your site's visitors by building your own opt-ín list newsletter or ezine. Broaden the scope of your site by offering diverse information in these publications.

Viral eBooks and Reports

These can be simple 'how-to' ebooks on topics related to your site. Include links to your website and build name recognition as well as targëted traffíc.

Forum Posting

Becoming a regular poster on all the online forums will give your site greater exposure and build site or brand recognition. More importantly, if you offer helpful and well informed information your site will acquire a resident expert - you!

Off-line Advertising

Placing your site's logo or URL in off-line places - billboards, t-shirts, caps, but try to resist the latest trend - putting URLs on body parts! Off-line exposure will greatly extend the reach of your site.

Burning CDs

Burning your best programs or information on CDs, DVDs or disks and distributing these around to all interested parties will create more recognition. Great for reaching non-online computer users.

RSS Feeds and Blogs

This may prove to be the granddaddy of ways to extend your site. The original name for RSS stood for 'Rich Site Summary' - you make a summary of your website and syndicate it to all interested parties. Other webmasters will take your syndicated RSS feeds and place them on their sites. You create mini satellite sites of your content all over the web!

In addition, as your site expands and grows, other opportunities will present themselves... in traditional media such as TV, Radio and Print advertising. Starting an affíliate program for your site is another option you may want to consider. An affíliate program can greatly expand the reach of your site. So too, will starting mirror sites in different languages or countries.

As you can plainly see, there are countless ways to extend the reach of your site. However, just trying a few of these will boost your site's credibility and visibility, bringing in more targëted leads and traffíc. So it's your move, don't just let your site sit there, start implementing some of what you've just read.

The whole world is waiting...

About The Author
Get a Frëe DATEwise eCalendar & Personal Planner for your Desktop. Clíck here http://www.bizwaremagic.com/Free_Desktop_Calendar.htm. Other frëe marketing tips can be found at: MarketingToolGuide.com. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

No Charge Online Advertising Channels For Any Business

2006-08-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful invention it is, this thing we call the Internet!

If you would just take your time to know your way around, you could discover a lot of premium products and services being offered for free. What’s best is that there is a seemingly endless number of these wonderful finds, what with the Internet being a vast network of constantly evolving ideas and all!

Among these magnificent benefits is the chance to be able to promote your business, any business, online, free of charge! It doesn’t matter if your enterprise is a purely online or offline venture, the World Wide Web is home to a great number of marketing opportunities that you could avail of, with no damage to your business’ budget whatsoever.

Advertising can be a big problem otherwise. A lot of companies reserve a big chunk of their budgets to cover marketing expenditures. Sometimes, these gambles pay off, but there are occasions when they fail miserably, putting to waste some good money that could have been used in other areas of development for the business involved.

But with the many channels available online, marketing has become a less risky course of action. There so many avenues available online where you could advertise your business for free and attain more exposure for your products or services. Here are some of them.

You could advertise through your own website. Ordinarily, you should pay a nominal fee for web hosting and your domain name. A paid web hosting service is more reliable. Your own domain name would impress upon your visitors an immediate sense of professionalism. But if you don’t want to spend for them, there are a lot of free web space providers on the Internet!

You could advertise through other people’s websites. And you could do this in a lot of ways too! You could create a banner that would summarize your business’ offers and have it displayed on existing pages. Or if you have your won website for your business, you could use the said banner to link to your pages, or you could even settle for simple links. Additionally, you could have other webmasters rave about your venture and they could talk about it in their own websites.

You could create your own affiliate program. By giving commissions as incentive, you could invite a lot of Internet users to become your affiliates. Each affiliate would work to help you make a sale. It’s like having a battalion of sales representatives that you’d only have to pay if they manage to refer a willing customer!

You could try viral marketing. Viral marketing is the online equivalent of word o mouth advertising. By giving away something for free, for as long as that something has a link or a simple reference to your business, you’re encouraging the recipient to spread the word about your business to the people he knows. This would result in the exponential expansion of your business message like wildfire.

You could advertise in online communities. Forums and mailing lists are popular venues that could likewise convey your business message. Membership to these groups is usually free. Additionally, you could also create your own mailing list and start capturing leads for future sales by doing some helpful follow-ups.

The Internet is a great place for promoting your business. There are five million people online at any given time and the world is, quite literally, your market. It would be best for your business to capitalize on this wonderful opportunity and expand your audience a thousand fold bigger!

And you wouldn’t even have to spend a penny while you’re at it

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

10 Tips for Raising Your Search Engine Rankings

2006-07-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a website that needs more traffic. If your website doesn’t have a good position in the rankings then no-one will find it, so you need to make sure that your website is ranked highly enough to be seen.

The other important quality to getting high traffic to your site is having a nice arsenal of links. The more links that you have to your site the more traffic you will get, but also, the more links to your site the more search engines like your site. Keeping a nice supply of links pointing at your site requires similar precautions and practices as getting high search engine listings.

Although no SEO company can guarantee a high ranking for your site, here are some tips for raising your search engine ranking. Using these tips will not get you to the top unless your site is the best out there, but they will at least put you into the positioning that you truly deserve.

After all, the internet is basically a free market. You will naturally flow into the place that you deserve and many search engines try to insure that you do not rise above or fall below this position. This is why they are so strict, and this is why you must keep yourself on good terms with them.

1) Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. It’s also worth doing a search for websites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas.

The more content you have the better. It is generally a good idea to have between three hundred and five hundred words per page, but more important than a quantity of content is the quality of the content that you are providing. You cannot just put out three hundred words of jargon and expect your visitors to find it interesting and stick around for the long haul.

2) Your website’s URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, don’t think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings – you need to do more than just that.

3) Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you do use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. The alt tags in your pictures are almost as important as text. It’s also a good idea to put some of your key words in links to other pages.

In the eyes of a search engine it is almost as good to have a link to a page full of the content that the visitor is looking for as it is to have the content that the visitor is looking for on your page. If a visitor is looking for something that you are linking to and he or she finds your page, they may look around your site on the way through.

4) The title of your page is very important, and making sure that you choose it wisely will make a big difference. Terms such ‘free article on safe children's toys’, or ‘contact the children's toy expert today’ are good to use as titles, for example – they would get you a high ranking. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you put them all in.

5) The navigation menu that appears on each page of your website should include your page’s title.

6) Don’t just use the most popular keyword phrases – the market is so competitive that you should be sure to include some niche keywords too.

7) Make sure that you don’t have a lot of irrelevant links on your site. The more closely related to your site your links are, the better your chances of being ranked in a higher position.

8) You need to periodically update the content of your website, even if it’s only a slight change, as websites like sites that are kept updated.

9) You need to consider the fact most search engines don’t like automatic submissions or multiple submissions – submit once, manually.

10) Always be on the look out for SEO news – staying up to date and using the latest techniques will help you stay one step ahead of your competition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his Free Internet Marketing Courses. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.freeinternetmarketingcourses.com

The Value of Good Link Partners

2006-07-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

As you already know, good link partners are vital to the growth of your website. Without good link partners you won’t be ranked highly in the search engines, and you won’t receive the traffic you need to gain new customers and make new sales. Building high-quality links to your website helps it to succeed.

Websites that maintain good incoming links will get many targeted visitors from their link partners. These link partners are also a good source of information and can offer value for the visitors that come to your website more often. The idea behind link partners is to find web sites with complementary content so that you enhance your web site. For example, if you sell computers, it wouldn't be a bad idea to link to a site that sells printers.

Linking to your competitors is much more dangerous. The fact of the matter is that when you link to your competitors you are handing them your business. They may be handing some of theirs back to you, but the trade off simply isn't worth it. If you are in a situation where it is your product or theirs, do not link to them. Aside from the obvious issue of losing business to their site, you may even lose the returning link if you don't keep an eye on it.

When dealing with link partners, there’s virtually no point unless you get reciprocal links. These links make your website look good, as well as getting you targeted traffic from users clicking on the links.

When you are optimizing your site for key words, however, it is important to link to sites that provide more information regarding the content that you have provided. In cases like this, the link is already helping you. If you get a returning link in addition it's like killing two birds with one stone.

With good-quality incoming links, you will benefit greatly from the increased traffic to your site. Most major search engines’ rankings are at least partly based on the number of quality links pointing to your website. Google, HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi and more all use link popularity in their formula for calculating rankings.

The value of your link partner's sites will be very important, as many of the search engines use this in determining how relevant your site is to the terms that are being searched on. A site with a page rank below three generally isn’t worth exchanging links with.

Then again, if the site is on its way up, it might be a good idea to get in on the ground floor. If you are curious as to whether a site is going to be accumulating a higher page rank in a short period of time try going to http://www.iwebtool.com/rank and punching the site’s URL into the “backlink” tool or the “page rank predictor.”

These will show you how many links the site has going to them and will let you know what the page rank could be within the next three months.

You must always keep an eye on the value, and use value-for-value exchanges only. Make sure that your link doesn’t get removed from any sites you link to, and remove your own link to them if it does. Many people will agree to link with you and then remove your link after a week or two. If you leave your site linked to them, then they’re the only one benefiting.

Good link partners are hard to find, and it will take some time for them to respond. You may have to contact them more than once, and probably won’t take you seriously if you just ask them to trade you links.

It is important to provide them with information relating to your company and let them know why your link will be worth while to them. If you are serious about SEO, you will be able to let them know that you expect your page rank to explode within the next few months and you may be able to accumulate links this way.

It’s important for to make sure that you links are checked on a regular basis. Of course you don’t have much control over the incoming links, but you can still do whatever you want with the outgoing ones. You should immediately remove any links that don’t work, as they can and will bring your search engine rankings down.

By understanding how link partnering works and maintaining good quality links on your website, you can increase your targeted traffic and improve your sales. After all, isn’t that the whole point of having an online business? Just remember that your website, like any other business, takes time and effort to make it succeed, and any little way you can speed up the process is good – as long as it’s not against the rules, of course.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his free 50 part Big SEO Course. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.bigseocourse.com

Boosting your affiliate traffic through higher search engine ranking

2006-06-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

It is the goal of every affiliate to boost the traffic to his or her affiliate web site, and one of the best ways to accomplish that goal is to increase the ranking of that web site in various search engines. While Google is by far the largest and most important search engine, it is important to have your web page rank highly in other popular search engines as well.

When attempting to raise your search engine ranking, it is important to understand how search engines like Google go about the important business of ranking web sites. The algorithm that Google uses puts emphasis on a number of different elements of the web site, including keywords and keyword density, and web site linking.

Having other web sites link to yours is probably the best way to boost your search engine ranking, and boosting your search engine ranking is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to your affiliate web site and to that of your merchant partners.

One of the best ways to increase the number of web sites that link to your site is to submit a large number of articles to article directories, and therefore to internet publishers. These articles are then picked up by various web site authors, ezine publishers and bloggers.

When this happens, that means that all these articles are linking to your web site, and having a large number of quality web sites linking to yours is one of the best ways to boost your status in Google and other popular search engines.

Having your web site rank highly in search engines will naturally make it easier to find for those who are searching for the products or services that your merchant partners sell. Having your affiliate web site be one of the first to appear on a Google or Yahoo search is a great way to boost your credibility, sell more through your affiliate link, and of course to boost your all important monthly commission checks.

There is one important caveat to remember when creating the articles that make this linking happen. Before you can submit the articles to directories and have them published on an ezine or a blog, they must first be written, either by you or by a quality ghostwriter.

The best, and most cost effective, way for many affiliates to get the articles they need is to buy them from a web site such as http://www.YourOwnArticles.com. These web sites provide articles with private label rights. Buying a private label article means that you, as the affiliate, have the right to attach your name as the author. When creating articles for use in an program, it is vital to use only private label articles. Using articles created by another author means that you will miss out on the traffic made possible by using a resource box link. A resource box link allows you to point visitors back to your web page for more information.

Using private label articles is one of the best ways to achieve a number of important affiliate goals, including increasing search engine ranking, creating compelling emails that get attention, and of course urging readers to click through your affiliate links and buy your merchant’s products.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about How to Earn As Affiliate
in his Free Courses on Internet Marketing. You can sign up
for his free Courses and get additional information at his
website: http://FreeInternetMarketingCourses.com

10 Costly Search Engine Mistakes to Avoid

2006-06-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.

Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.

1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.

2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.

3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.

4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing.

5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.

6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible.

7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.

8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.

9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.

10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free.

This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.

Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.

BOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

Warning! You Can’t Fool Google

2006-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Almost daily, I see a report about a company or individuals who is trying to fool Google through SEO. When are they going to learn that you just can’t fool Google? Why would you even want to try it, with when you risk being banned from the biggest search engine in the world? Many people seem to try just because they wonder if it could ever be done. As a general rule of thumb: it can't!

There are some instances in which people think that they have tricked google. They believe that something that they have done has rocketed their site to the top of Google's listings and they truly believe that they have managed to "stick it to the man."

Nine times out of ten when this happens they either performed an SEO procedure that Google allows or even endorses or they just happened to fill Google's criteria better than other sites in their category without even realizing it.

Once in a while someone will actually come up with a way to fool Goggle. They will be enjoy a nice high spot on google's listings for maybe even several months, but then the end comes for these proud sites. As soon as Goggle notices that it has been cheated, these sites are removed from the index; sometimes permanently.

The fact is that these people don’t understand the power that Goggle has. Anyone with a real interest in making money from the web should consider that getting banned from the search engines effectively removes your site from the web. They don’t have to let you back in, and they don’t have to give you any right to respond – you’re entirely at their mercy. You don’t want to get in their bad books.

Aside from the fact that Goggle will remove you from its listings, there is another incentive against trying to fool Goggle. If you fool Goggle, you are fooling your clients. There is no reason to try to lure visitors onto your page expecting to get something and really giving them something else. This is a poor way to conduct business and more often than not it will chase the customer away for good.

If you want your website to be found in categories that don’t apply to it, try purchasing ads on pages that are listed towards the top of the Goggle listings in these categories. You can actually increase your sites reputation in Google’s eyes rather than hurting it by adding another link to your site. This is an excellent form of marketing because it allows you to reach out beyond your market simply by dishing out a few dollars a month.

Some of the most popular methods of trying to fool Google's PageRank system are link farms and link exchanges. Link farms are basically websites that exist only to get links to specific sites counted by the search engines.

Link exchanges are groups of websites that each pay a monthly fee to link to each other – like link farms, only more expensive and dodgy. In both cases, the websites involved are attempting to climb the ranks of Google's search results through the sheer quantity of links to them –this is known as Googlebombing. But it doesn’t always work.

Goggle knows that cheaters can ruin their search engine for the rest of us. After all, if link farms inflate the rankings of less-useful Websites, then we’ll all start seeing worse search results. That’s why Goggle constantly updates PageRank to keep those kinds of sites away. The Page Rank formula that Goggle implements is mysterious and ever changing. This is the primary reason that Goggle cannot be fooled.

It has been found recently that Goggle is now sending out ‘cloak bots’, disobeying robots.txt to find out whether sites are ‘cloaking’ – serving a different page to search engines than what visitors see. These ‘cloak bots’ are controversial but seem to have some positive effects on the Google’s results.

Unethical methods make it difficult for people who are trying to do SEO the proper way, which is one of the reasons why it needs to be monitored so carefully. If people stopped trying to find ways to manipulate the system, it would be much easier to keep up with what’s going on.

As you may already know, Goggle publishes a list of guidelines suggesting legitimate ways to improve a site's ranking, by making it more accessible and better. One of the tips is to make pages for users and not for search engines. You’d do well to listen to their advice.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his free 50 part Big SEO Course. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.bigseocourse.com

Article Directories: Good Idea, or Dead End?

2006-06-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

o you were browsing the Internet and stumbled across this amazing thing – a huge database filled with articles, many of them about your very specialty, and all of them free to use!

And now you want to know why on earth you should ever pay for anyone to write articles for you; after all, you have access to all the free articles you want.

There's a principle you should remember here: nothing is ever, truly, free. Even when you give away things for free on your website, it's with the hope of generating a sale from it. Article directories are no different.

Finding Article Directories

There are several major article directories online, including the following:

- http://www.goarticles.com
- http://www.ezinearticles.com
- http://www.ideamarketers.com
- http://www.marketing-seek.com.

It's a great idea to contribute articles to them. In general, however, it's a bad idea to use articles they want to give you.

Every article in these directories is a viral marketing scheme. The idea is that you'll download their article and place it, for free, on your website.

But with each of these articles, you also have to download what's called a resource box. This is a box with the name of the author, his or her URL as a clickable link, and sometimes a bio. You are barred from deleting this resource box if you're using the article for free.

Here's what happens: you have a website you've carefully developed to display your expertise. All over the website, you've used your knowledge, tastes, and personality to bring your customers what they want.

But now you place an article with someone else's name on it, and a handy clickable link. Aha! says the customer. Another expert! And, because Internet audiences are notoriously fickle, he or she clicks on the link, taking them away from your website and into the website belonging to the article author.

The article has done exactly what it was intended to do – bring someone else more business. And you may lose more than the customer's momentary attention. If the writer of the article has a website that competes directly with yours, then you may have lost that customer entirely.

How To Use These Articles

There may be times, however, when you feel you really must use an article from an article directory. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this.

First, never violate the terms of the agreement of the article directory – in other words, don't remove the resource box from the article and try to pass it off as your own, and don't tamper with the link in the box in any way.

It's ethically wrong, and besides, in small niche markets people talk more than you might realize; if the author catches what you've done (surprisingly easy to do) and starts talking about it on bulletin boards and egroups, you could find your reputation ruined very quickly.

Second, use articles from an article directory sparingly and with great care for what they say. Ideally, only articles that contain information or news of major importance should be used on your website.

Articles by recognized experts in the field are also fine, though, particularly if you know that most of your customers know who this person is.

You can also use articles from an article directory if you have an affiliate link with the person who has written the article anyway. You get the free article from someone who's sending you traffic, and if you let them know you're running their article, they'll be flattered and might return the favor.

Look around in the article directory's terms of use. You may find that the directory allows you to purchase the right to use articles without the resource box. If you have this option, you should take advantage of it.

Using Article Directories Yourself

A better use for article directories is to upload your own articles and allow people to download them on the same terms as the other authors.

If you can't write well, there are solutions available to you. The best solution, and one that sets you up as a clear expert in your field, is to purchase directly from writers or from content article brokers like www.YourOwnArticles.com.

It’s viral marketing: you're giving away something and allowing other people to spread the virus – your information and the fact you are an expert – using their own resources.

Next to active word-of-mouth advertising, viral marketing of this sort may be one of the best tools you'll ever find to publicize your business.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Article Marketing in his free 50 parts
course on Article Marketing. You can sign up for his free
Article Marketing Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.articlemarketingcourse.com

2006-06-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Less than a decade ago, Amazon.com, an upstart little online bookseller, started a unique new business model: have other people's websites sell books for you.

It made so much sense that other booksellers started doing it as well: have fishing websites sell fishing books, and needlepoint websites sell books on knitting and crochet. Any site that sells a book, they decided, deserved a piece of the profits made from the book.

Affiliate sales program today still make up a large chunk of Amazon's sales, although many other innovative online business models have come into practice. And with several years of experience, those affiliates have learned a number of tricks to maximize their book sales. These tricks don't work only with books, but with any number of affiliate programs.

Know Your Customer

Affiliate sales sites that try to sell everything are going to be a turnoff to the average consumer. Even though the Internet is an anonymous electronic force, consumers want to feel as if the website owner knows about and cares about them as individuals, and a website that tries to be Wal-mart to you is going to get exactly what it deserves – nothing.

At the same time, if you understand the type of person coming to your website and you can deliver to them items that they really want and need, you're going to get a repeat customer.

Ideally, your affiliated sales should take place within articles or in the right sidebar of your website, and when your customer sees the item you're selling, they should instantly want it.

Use Targeted Content

Once you know exactly what you should be selling to your customer, you can target your content to support those sales. Consumers, more than anything else, want information on products they may want to buy.

And those who sell products depend on "buzz," people like you talking about the product's advantages and disadvantages, to get those products sold.

Targeted content can be the obvious reviews of books, new products, etc. But it can also be things like descriptions of fishing trips where you drop in links to affiliated products you actually used.

For instance, if you caught a huge bass last weekend using a particular lure, you can drop in a photo of the lure, linking the photo and a text reference to your affiliated sales page where you actually allow the consumer to purchase that lure.

This is a trick that television networks are just catching onto. While recent fashions may have been largely driven by the clothes characters wear in popular TV shows, there was no way to purchase those fashions without searching for something similar throughout stores.

Just this season, networks are starting websites where you can purchase the sweater Jennifer Aniston wore, or Tom Welling's jacket, even funky new glasses frames. It's the ultimate targeted-content model, if they sell it right.

You probably don't have a network to sell your products on. But you can develop a dedicated audience that knows your recommended affiliate products are good, reliable, and exactly what you say they are.

Develop a Reputation

The largest sales driver online is trust. This is a rare commodity in today's world of corporate scandal, downsizing, and sell-it-now trends. If you can develop a growing loyal customer base who know they can trust you, you are guaranteed success, no matter who tries to move in on your territory.

One of the best ways to do this is by writing excellent reviews. Another is by giving information away on your website. You must be able to write well to do all this, or at least contract with article broker like www.YourOwnArticles.com.

To grow your customer base, you must expand your communications outside your own website. You must be able and willing to distribute articles to other newsletters, websites, and content distributors who are willing to print your information and retain your personal name and URL in a resource box attached to the article.

You also must be honest about the items you write about. If it's junk, you should be willing to say it's junk. You won't sell many of the junky things, but you'll gain something priceless: respect from your customers.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Article Marketing in his free 50 parts
course on Article Marketing. You can sign up for his free
Article Marketing Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.articlemarketingcourse.com

The Dangers of Link Farms

2006-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

So you want to get ahead of the competition on the search engines, and you decide to use a link farm. Stop! There’s danger in link farms as with all SEO methods that seem to good to be true.

Your website shouldn’t link to, or be linked from, websites with any of the characteristics of link farms. Link farms are web sites that have been set up for no reason other than to contain masses of links, exploiting search engines’ link popularity algorithms.

They serve no real purpose, other than getting everyone who joins to link to and from them and boosting the rankings of everyone involved. This is a big problem, as most people consider it to be nothing more than search engine ‘spam’.

Do not get link farms confused with directories which are excellent places to get your site listed. The difference here is that a directory attempts to provide its users with a nice organized way to get to the information that they want while a link farm simply posts a ton of links (generally at cost to the linkee) and serves no purpose to anybody on the web.

Avoid all link farms and similar sites! If you try to use one then the end result could be a ranking penalty, or your website might even be banned from the search engine altogether. Being banned from a search engine is a terrible loss for your site and will generally lead you to creating a brand new site out of sheer necessity.

Remember: the number of links to your site isn’t as important as the quality of those links. You’re trying to get people with real, quality sites to link to you. There are even rumors (which are being validated daily) that Google is implementing a quality control algorithm for links which includes the amount of time that a link has existed between two sites as well as the reputations of the two sites based on how many links they send out.

For example, if you have a link from a site that only links to three sites all together and this link has stood strong for months, Google will consider it a valuable link. On the other hand, if you get linked to by a site with a massive number of links, Google could care less. Remember, Google is the Santa Claus of the internet, it’s always watching.

Free for All (FFA).

An FFA is a links page where anyone can add a link – quite similar to a link farm. Don’t be fooled into listing your site on these or linking to them. Many programs will submit your link automatically, to hundreds of FFAs all over the web. Don’t use these programs! The search engines will steer clear of your site for a long time if you do.

Who Should I Link To, and How?

Be very selective about your outbound links and your requests for inbound links, and avoid any site that’s anything like a link farm. Look for websites that have similar subjects to yours, good rankings and good traffic. Depending on the topic, they might be hard to find – but then you should find it easier to rank highly in these topics.

Once you’ve found a few good sites, the next step is to email them and request a link. You should, of course, offer one in return. You will run into some opposition with this method and you will sometimes be ignored completely, but you should have a reasonable amount of success. We can’t stress enough, though, that you should be careful about which sites you link to, and check your links regularly.
The Bottom Line.

Link farms are dangerous to your website and a complete waste of time. They can bring your business crashing down by getting you banned from the search engines. You should be concentrating on real marketing methods – even though they’re not a ‘quick fix’, they can work if you give them some time.

There are many real ways to get traffic to your website, and using professional methods can give you a big increase in traffic. Using link farms and FFAs is a good way to get yourself nowhere fast.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya
writes about Search Engine Optimization in his free 50 part Big SEO Course. You can sign up for his free
Big SEO Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.bigseocourse.com

Top Internet Marketing Techniques

2006-05-26T14:34:00.002-07:00

By Cody Moya

The Internet offers many means of affordable marketing, often with full-color imagery to go along with text. And multimedia components add some spice to the mix and increase online visitors and purchases. Here are some top Internet marketing techniques to help increase your sales and income.

1. DIRECTORY - Create your own directory on a specific industry topic, placing your own ad or banner along the top. Then invite others to add their website links via a link exchange program, listing themselves in your directory.

This will result in lots of free advertising for you as your directory expands with links across the World Wide Web. Enter “link exchange software” into your favorite search engine for help with setup.

2. TEACH A COURSE – Write out a simple step-by-step instructional class in your area of expertise. Then break it up into smaller segments and set them up in an autoresponder as email messages with your ads included at the top and / or bottom of each message.

Invite website visitors to sign up through on online form or email subscription address offered through the autoresponder service. Then as people sign up, they will learn more about you and your products and services.

3. EZINE EBOOK – Forget about small daily or weekly ezines. Try publishing one large monthly e-zine as an e-book format, preferably an Adobe .pdf file.

Include a large number of articles with each issue and regularly featured areas like inspirational quotes, industry tips, favorite sites and advice from the pros.

Also insert full-color graphics, multimedia components like audio file links, if you like, and ads. Then you can charge a monthly rate, with an annual discounted package purchase, and sell advertising spots.

4. TIP OF THE DAY – Set up your own Tip of the Day targeting your own area of expertise, relating to your own products and services.

You can set it up on your website in a targeted box, via autoresponder, a blog, an RSS feed, an audio file or others means of communication.

Add your own ad along with your tip for whichever product or service you want to target or maybe even your own online store for all. This will gently remind your target audience where to go to learn more.

In summary, by using Internet Marketing techniques customized to fit your own products and services, you can reach out and increase your website traffic and purchase opportunities. Internet marketing can mean a more affordable way to grow your business

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Business and Marketing in his
weekly Business and Marketing Tips Ezine. You can sign
up for his free Ezine and get additional information
at his website: http://bmtezine.com

Change the way you get visitors to your website

2006-05-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

People are so used to advertising that they have
literally "tuned out" from seeing the ads online. They
have trained their eye to skip and their mind to completely
ignore them and this makes advertising for your site
harder than ever.

But not anymore - someone had this revelation and
changed the format of traffic exchanging. KenoHits
is free and is very simple to use. All you do is

1) go to >> click meand quickly get info on the "tune out" problem.

2) go to "signup free" and do it today.

3) Play Keno numbers and place your program into it too.

This is a new concept and it will grow quickly.
I am getting traffic so can you....

CHANGE THE WAY I GET TRAFFIC

"Finding a Niche"

2006-05-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

If you don't find a niche market for the product or service you offer, you will have a difficult time being successful. Most newcomers who wish to do business on the Internet often market to everyone they can find with the expectation that everyone will do business with them. This is the same as throwing mud against the wall and hoping some of it will stick. They have not yet found their niche market.

What is niche marketing?

A niche market is composed of individuals and businesses that have similar interests and needs, which can be readily identified and that can be easily targeted and reached.

Finding a niche for your business means finding a great product or service for a highly targeted audience.

Here's the process to find your niche business

1. Find a niche product or service you are passionate about. This will greatly improve your chances of being successful. Why? Because it's the only way you're going to be able to devote the kind of time and effort to create a meaningful web site, build up the right traffic, generate worthwhile income, and enjoy what you're doing.

2. Choose a niche product you are knowledgeable about. Reflect on what skills, hobbies or products you know the most about. If you don't have the knowledge yet, then choose a niche product that you would love to promote, and then spend the necessary time to research it, so you can eventually become an expert in your marketing field.

3. Define your niche market - do the necessary research to see if there is a market for your niche product. To create a profitable business for your niche product, you need to ask yourself these questions:

a) Is there sufficient demand for it? - If you choose a field that is too broad it may be hard to stand out from the competition. For example, camping equipment could be your niche product. Well, unless you are a large corporation such as Sports Authority (a large retail store in my town), you won't stand out from the crowd. However, a more highly targeted niche product could be Coleman Camping Equipment.

b) Keyword research - use keyword tools such as the overture suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion) or word tracker (wordtracker.com) to find how many people are searching each month on keywords related to your niche product.

Here's an example:

According to overture (at the time of writing this article), the keyword phrase "camping equipment" was searched 76164 times in one month. If you do a search on Google.com for camping equipment you will find 1,610,000 web sites show up - heck, that's too competitive.

However "Coleman camping equipment" generated 1242 searches in one month according to overture. Google.com shows 93,200 competing websites. That's much better though still somewhat competitive.

Tip: Notice there are not many web sites (even the top ones), that have "Coleman camping equipment" in their titles. This is just one of the ways to obtain a high ranking on the search engines for your newly targeted web site. This will then provide lots of targeted traffic to your site.

c) Take a survey – you may already have products or services that you selling to your customers. If so, ask questions within your survey about what product or service would help your customers business. If it can help them save time by gaining more knowledge or automating tasks, you could have a winner.

d) Create Your Own Unique Selling Position (USP) - study your competition to find out what they emphasize about the product which makes them stand out from the crowd. Then decide on something that will make your business unique from the others. It could be something unique about the product (i.e. discount Coleman camping equipment) or you could choose a more highly defined target market (i.e. Boy Scout organizations and clubs throughout the USA that use Coleman’s camping equipment).

4. Build and promote your web site - to develop a profitable web site for your niche product you need to create a number of informative pages that will not only attract visitors from the search engines, but inform and move them to purchase from your site.

Niche marketing is the key to developing a profitable business that will make you stand out from the crowd. By doing the necessary research and building an informative web site, you will become an expert in your niche marketing field.

Warmest regards,

Matt Bacak,
#1 Best Selling Author and....
Entrepreneur Magazine E-Biz Radio Show Host
Toll-Free #: 1-866-MATT-123
www.powerfulpromoter.com

What's Wrong with Content Generators?

2006-05-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

Content generators are programs that create multiple copies of your website, look for synonyms for the words you used in your articles, and then posts fresh, each-a-little-different pages up.

It sounds like a great idea: you take advantage of the way the search engines catalog websites, get several extra hits per day, and take in the advertising revenue for each of those hits. The search engines get their views, you get your money, and it's a win-win, right?

Wrong. First, any time you use the words "take advantage of," you should know instantly that what you're doing is ethically wrong. If everyone used content generators to duplicate their sites, search engines would be unusable in short order.

And though you're maximizing advertiser views, you're not selling a product, which is what the view system is set up to do; instead, you're annoying web visitors, and they will eventually dump your lame site and go somewhere interesting, like a music download site.

Second, any time a technology threatens the search engines, they instantly go on the defensive. Rest assured: somewhere out there a team of web geeks are working on a language program that will be able to deduce when a site has been using a content generator.

When they are successful, they'll shut down entire domains, not just individual sites. Content generator sites will be found in violation of search engine usage agreements, and they will not be listed any longer.

Worse, the revenue you've been accumulating through that same search engine is going to shut off completely, and you may find lawyers on your doorstep stating that you are in violation of the advertising agreement you made with the search engine and thus are liable to pay back all the money you collected for advertising – plus extra money for legal fees, taking up the search engines' time, and just being a nuisance to the engines.

This is not a good end to your experiment with content generation. The only winners in this situation are the people who've made money by selling content generators to people willing to take advantage of them.

And these are the people who will build the next generation of software designed to take advantage of the search engines – and take your money while they're at it.

What's the Alternative?

Many people don't use content generators to effectively spam search engines. Instead, they use content generators to create lots of pages with links back to their own web site.

There are better, more reliable, and above all completely legal methods for driving traffic to your web site. The drawbacks: they're not instantaneous, they do take some work on your part, and they may cost you a little more money.

First, add real, valuable content to your website. That's not the content the generators wanted to add, where the same article has been reposted in different words.

Instead, it's using actual creative content written by human beings. This sort of content is not that costly, though it's generally not free either.

You can contract with a professional writer, a college student, or an article broker like www.YourOwnArticles.com to supply your site with content; and you can either supply the topics to be written on (with or without guidelines) or you can trust the content producers to come up with their own.

Second, develop a relationship with your customers and site viewers. This can be as simple as just setting up community bulletin boards, an FAQ, or even an email response form that you actually respond to right away; or it can be as complex as a blog, real-time chats, emailed newsletter subscriptions, and special offers for your best customers.

Now you're ready to drive real traffic to your website. Start exchanging links with sites similar to yours that have content and information you yourself find useful and interesting. When you exchange links, try to do it by mentioning the other sites in articles on your website, or in your blog.

Take some of the articles you have archived or freshly-written articles and take them out to free article directories, posting them to share with other sites.

These other sites get your information, but in exchange will post links crediting you for the information and directing readers to visit your site.

Be certain to give the titles and links names that reflect the keyword you're focusing your website around; this increases the value of that keyword to you by emphasizing to web spiders that it has to do with your site.

And start tweaking your site. Look at other ways to include content, or to include keywords. Keep up with developments in the search engine industry, and laugh as you find out that they've shut down the content generators that you were smart enough to avoid.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cody Moya writes about Article Marketing in his free 50 parts
course on Article Marketing. You can sign up for his free
Article Marketing Course and get additional information at his
website: http://www.articlemarketingcourse.com

How to Choose the Right Keywords

2006-04-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

Many SEO experts will tell you that they have specific ways of choosing the right keywords for a website. Some do it using SEO tools – software that compares possible keywords to see which are used the most. Some will give you DIY methods with spreadsheets. We say, however, that you should try every method you can in the search for keywords. Here are some steps that might help:

Identify and create a list of keywords from meta tags, research on your competitors, your highest-converting products and biggest current traffic sources. For each term (typically between 30 and 50 terms overall), narrow the field down to about 15 or 20, choosing the terms you feel are most relevant to your website. Your higher ranked competitors are probably up there for a reason so take a look at what they are providing.

Make sure that everything is directly relevant and try to stretch yourself out into some unchartered water. The less common that your key words are, the more likely you are to get the search engine results for these key words.

We would recommend a piece of software called WordTracker to find out how many searches have been done on a certain term. You can choose to work with this information however you want – spreadsheets are good, but you can use anything that will make it easy reasonably easy for you to track these keywords.

You’re trying to find a popular word that has a low competition rate. Although this is easier said than done, it’s very rewarding to find an area where your site can succeed because of the lack of competition. You should remember, though, that these search databases are relatively small, and should be used for comparing keywords against one another rather than for estimating their true ‘market sizes’.

This keyword selection research should then be compared with client experience of which keywords may be most profitably optimized, as well as any current ranking on the target keywords. Data from PPC campaigns can be helpful for this. The outcome should be a focused list of, say, 15-20 keywords that are both strong performers in terms of search volume, as well as solid candidates for successful optimization.

When determining how profitable your key words are you should look into your web sites statistics and see what key words were used for what number of sales. This is called your conversion rate. The more sales that are associated with a certain key word, the more valuable that key word is.

It is important to account for all of the variables, however. If ten people come across your site through a certain key word but only one of them buys an item this key word isn’t as profitable as a key word that one person finds your site through and still orders a product. It is important to work percentages into your decision of worth of a key word. Your “conversion rate” is the number of sales divided by the number of visitors.

You probably know who your competitors are, so go to their site and open the source code of a few of their pages (select ‘View Source’ from your browser’s menu). Look for the < META NAME =" keywords" > tag to see which keywords they’re aiming for. Their keywords are often garbage, but if you look around at a few sites then you can often find keywords you hadn’t thought of.

It is not good practice to simply copy and paste a list of key words. It would even be concievable that you would be charged with copyright infringement for such activities. Whether or not you get charged, it is morally wrong. Looking through and coming across a few extra relevant key words is one thing. Steeling an entire list is something else completely.

Another approach is to type in the keywords you have in mind and look at the current top results. Analyze their pages for keywords, descriptions and content – this will give you some idea of what kind of keyword density you should be looking at for your keywords. If the sites that come up are a different kind of business to you altogether then you’ve probably chosen a dodgy keyword – remember that you’re trying to get relevant traffic, not just any traffic.

The general rules that you need to keep in mind when selecting key words are:

1. Try to select unique key words that your competitors have not thought of.
2. Optimize for your most profitable key words. How many sales does the key word generate? How much profit is made for each of these sales?
3. Make sure that the key words are very relevant to your site so that people who find your site through your key words will not immediately leave.
4. Try to assemble a list of key words that covers your site very will so that you aren’t leaving anyone or anything out.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

How to Become an SEO Ninja

2006-04-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

Every website listed in the search engines has a position, or ‘ranking’, and each one of these rankings can change very quickly, in some cases as often as weekly or even daily. One day your website’s in a good position, then the next you’re wondering what happened to it.

Staying on top of this situation is a must for any SEO professional – you need to become a search engine ninja. If that’s what you want to do, then you need to keep these things in mind at all times:

1. Good SEO requires frequent updates and ranking checks.

You might have a good spot today, but all it takes is for a few new sites to open, and before you know it you’re back down at the bottom. If you pay attention to your rankings, then you have a shot at fixing things that go wrong before your rankings fall too far.

2. You should check all your links weekly to make sure they work.

Maintain high-quality, relevant reciprocal links and check them weekly to make sure they’re working. Remove any dead links, as search engine crawlers may mark you down if they find them on your site.

3. Tweak and assess your website on a daily basis.

You need to continually assess and tweak your listing to keep your site in its proper place – that is, at the top. This ensures that your site is in the best position possible, and helps you keep your competitive edge.

4. Maintain the content on your website.

Update your content weekly at the very least, to make sure that search engine crawlers come back frequently. Even the smallest changes will be picked up on by the search engines and will help to maintain your ranking. If you can’t write, find someone who can: you need content.

5. Keep up-to-date with the latest developments in SEO.

If you can’t decide what you should be doing or you don’t want to keep up with SEO on your own, you could consider hiring a specialist. Consulting with an SEO specialist will still allow you to make your own changes to your website and learn which things work best, but you’ll have someone to answer your questions if you need them.

You should review your SEO techniques at least every few months, to see how the algorithms have changed and to devise new plans and strategies for increasing your rankings based on those changes.

Any SEO ninja will tell you that there are only really two major search engines that you need to worry about: Google and Yahoo. You can do well even if you only have the time or energy to focus on these two engines. Being an SEO ninja is hard work, but it can be very rewarding if you’ve got the dedication for it.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

3 Marketing Tactics That Will Send Your Sales Through The Roof

2006-04-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2006 Cutts Group, llc

When the tide comes in, all boats in the harbor go up...
the tough part is figuring out how to bring the tide in.
Booming economies come and go and bring surges of profit
increases, then ebb to leave behind shortages and tough
times. Regardless, there are some business that just seem
to weather the tough times with grace, not really affected
by recessions. It's almost as though they have a secret
source... maybe they do... customers.

Hey, customers always buy... in the good times and in the
bad times. They still have needs and still make purchases.
When you understand their needs and wants, you have the
keys to keeping your business afloat when others are
grounded. Implement these three tactics successful
marketers use, and you're set for success.

1. Just One
Customers can be like a two year old in a candy store...
they want it all. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to make up your
mind about what you really do want when everything looks so
good. That’s why it pays to promote one product over the
others. It spells out loud and clear... I’M THE BEST DEAL.
That will be the deciding factor in most cases.

2. Make Them Feel Good
Customers buy because they want to enjoy the benefits of
the purchase. A lady might buy a dress because she wants to
feel sexy, or a man will buy a saw because he finds
pleasure in creating things. Emotions are the key element
that drives purchases.

Use word pictures to stir up the emotions that will
instigate the sale. Let them “feel” the benefits, and
they’ll be more apt to head for the cash register. Put them
where you want them.

Selling a riding mower? ... the birds are singing, Easter
lilies are blooming and kids are flying kites in the
wind... spring has arrived. Yep, it’s time to get out that
mower and fuel it up for the summer ahead. How many springs
have come and gone since you promised yourself a riding
mower? ... It’s not hard to paint mental pictures that whet
their appetite for the product you are advertising.

3. Make Contact
Following up with a customer who didn’t buy can be the
determining factor between and “almost sale” and a
satisfied, loyal customer. Simply contact them afterwards
and let them know the product is still available or offer
them further information they may find valuable.

Internet marketers can offer free newsletters or reports
that consumers find useful and marketers find profitable.
Not only do you keep your product in front of the customer
on a regular basis, you get email information to stay in
contact. Both parties win!

----------------------------------------------------
Who is Allyn Cutts, and why should you care?
Allyn has spent over 24 years helping businesses like yours
find new customers and increase sales to current customers.
Allyn is a marketing and sales fanatic, providing
measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results for
small-to mid-size business clients. Allyn works personally
with clients to design and deliver off-line and on-line
direct marketing strategies that focus on metrics and
measurable results. You can learn more about Allyn Cutts at
http://www.AllynCutts.com and you can call 610.437.4106
between 10 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Search Engine Optimization: Your Page Content

2006-04-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

By Cody Moya

According to SearchEngineWatch.com, a recent survey of businesses using the Internet as a primary marketing tool reported that only 11% said SEO gave a lower return on investment than search advertising. More importantly, 35% said that SEO was more valuable in terms of return on investment than paid advertisement.

This means that in 89% of businesses who could determine the relative value, inexpensive search engine optimization of page content was as valuable or more valuable than paying for advertising on Google, Yahoo, or other pages and search engines. A full third of all businesses found SEO to be the most valuable advertising tool to use with search engines.

This is remarkable news because, with patience and attention, anyone can optimize their page content for search engine placement. This means that your little computer business, with its tiny marketing budget, can compete in search engines with international corporations if you do things properly.

SEO: Making Your Page Work

So how do you harness this incredible tool to make your own page's ROI higher? By understanding the search engines and how they work, and by taking steps to ensure your page is optimized for best usability by these engines.

First, search engines use text-based algorithms. They send out miniprograms regularly called search engine spiders, robots, or web crawlers that catalog the data contained in web pages – data in the form of text – and use that to determine where to place a page in search engine returns on keywords.

So when your potential customer types in "butterfly handkerchief," the placement and frequency of your keyword phrase "butterfly handkerchief" is one of the main things a search engine pays attention to when deciding where to rank your page.

If you are the only "butterfly handkerchief" site that is clearly demonstrating you offer these by placing the keyword phrase in the header, metatags, and text of your page, then you'll get first ranking. If Billy Bob's Hankies does a better job of this, he will get top ranking, bumping you down.

But that's not all the search engines look for.

Content Has An Expiration Date?

Because there are so many billions of web pages search engines are trying to organize, some sites are going to do equivalently good jobs of inserting those keyword phrases. There has to be a way of organizing pages beyond that phrase.

One way is cataloging regular fresh content. A website that delivers different content on a regular basis containing the same keywords is a site that will rank higher in the search engines. So if you rotate your "butterfly handkerchief" articles frequently while Billy Bob gets lazy and leaves the same one up for a year, you'll regain that top spot you lost.

A second advantage to using continual fresh content is that it gives your customers something to come back for. Repeat customers are among the most valuable. If you continue to provide excellent content to this customer base, you'll find them returning to – and spending money at – your site on a regular basis.

Not everyone has the time to create continual fresh content, of course, especially content optimized for the search engines with good keyword placement. One way to always have fresh content on hand is to purchase private label articles at www.YourOwnArticles.com to place on your site.

These are articles pre-written and pre-optimized for the search terms you need. You purchase private label rights to the articles – once you've paid for them, they are yours to use as you see fit. You can edit them, add or delete information, personalize them to your content, and even list yourself as the author if you like.

Reciprocal Links

A third item the search engines look at when cataloging you is linking. If you have great content and lots of other web sites link to you, this will boost your ranking.

That's why the New York Times is placed high in a search for "The New York Times," even though their name is mentioned infrequently on any given page; the search engines see other sites linking to the content contained there.

This helps the engines, which are really big programs with very good logic and artificial intelligence, determine that the New York Times website is the primary site for this term.

Your little site will probably never have the name recognition of the New York Times. But if you make agreements with complementary websites to link to one another, particularly if you link within articles or at least not on "My Favorite Links" pages, you can boost your ranking quite a bit.

And if you offer great information on your site, other sites will be more eager to link to you. After all, when they link to you, they're recommending you to their customers. They wouldn't want to recommend someone who won't reflect well on them.

If you trade reciprocal links with another webmaster, check occasionally to ensure that your link is indeed posted, and posted correctly. And do the same courtesy for them – be sure you have their link up and active somewhere it will be noticed on your website.

Here For Your Success

Cody Moya

Business Cards – Twenty Quick Tips

2006-03-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2006 business-cards.com

In this age of digital this, and technology that, when it
comes down to it, there is very little to beat the business
card for effective and economical promotion. It is quick,
easy and efficient and will repay you many times over for
its cost. Here are some tips to help you make the most out
of each and every business card you hand out.

• Don’t leave home without them.

• Keep a supply in your car glovebox and in your wallet or
purse.

• Order in large quantities, making the per card cost
substantially less.

• Ensure your business card bears every possible way to
contact you, including landline, and even a map (on the
back) if you are difficult to locate.

• A tagline or slogan is essential. Encapsulate your work
in a brief, catchy but simple phrase and make sure it goes
onto your card.

• Consider having your business card in magnet form.
Magnets are widely used and even collected. They will
often be used on the refrigerator door or filing cabinets
at work and as such will be read many times over.

• Prior to designing your business card, collect them from
everywhere you can. These will give you ideas for your own
card, and you will see clearly what works and what does not.

• Even if you are working with a tight budget, it is wise
to avoid using standard clipart to create a business logo.
A logo brings with it brand awareness and today there are
online companies who will produce a professional logo for
you for as little as $100.

• Consider it essential to have a website on your business
card. If you do not have a URL mentioned on your card,
many people will notice it, and you risk losing credibility.

• Make absolutely sure that all the information contained
on your business card is current and accurate, without any
typos. If you change address or telephone number, don’t
simply write the new details over the old, to look
professional it is a must to get new cards.

• As with most things, simplicity is the key. Don’t use
too many colors or fonts when designing your business card
-- don’t cram on too much information. Make sure that your
slogan or tagline is prominent.

• Ensure that your business card reflects your business and
your image to its best advantage. Ensure your color scheme
and fonts are appropriate. Startling psychedelic colours
on a lawyers card would be completely inappropriate.

• Be sure that your business card is easy to read. Light
background with dark text works best. After your company
logo, your name should be the largest text on your card.

• Don’t make the mistake of cramming so much information on
your card that the font has to be tiny and the print then
becomes impossible to read.

• Proof read the copy for your business cards at least
three times. Let someone you trust also proofread it to
ensure there are no mistakes.

• Pin your business card on free notice boards in
supermarkets, schools, libraries and anywhere else you can
think of.

• The back of the business card can be used for a map if
your location is difficult to find or for a translation if
your clients speak another language.

• Use your business card as an attachment to emails, by
scanning it to your computer.

• Make sure that you do not give out business cards which
are damaged, bent or torn. Keep them in good condition.

• Find a way to make sure that your business cards stand
out. I have seen business cards cut into an oval shape,
and even with the four corners cut off. These made the
cards unique and memorable.

• If you have a mobile phone number or a direct phone
number that is not listed in your business card, write it
at the back of your card before handing it out, and tell
your prospects that you are giving them your direct number.
This will make your card more important, and less likely to
be lost or thrown out.

----------------------------------------------------
http://www.business-cards.com . One of the leading business
stationery websites on the internet today. For more
business related articles please take a look at his journal
at http://www.business-cards.com/business-cards-journal

5 Secrets to Effective Pay-Per-Click Advertising

2006-03-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

With so many companies swarming the World Wide Web with their products, how can you and your products and services stand out?

Your ready answer would most likely be effective marketing. But how? How can you catch the eye of a surfer skimming carelessly through web pages? How can you keep the attention of a typical website reader who spends no more than 30 seconds to read any given article online? How can you garner sales online?

One marketing technique is to be listed in search engines - but again, with thousands of companies offering the same products and services as you, how can your scream for attention be heard?

One technique is pay per click advertising, or PPC. You write out and place an advertisement in a search engine, list yourself under keywords of your choosing, and bid on the placement of your ads. This narrows your field to the people who are actively searching for your products and services.

If someone finds the ad and clicks it, that person goes to your website, and you pay the bid price. As a rule, the higher you bid, the higher your ad goes in the list of search results for a certain keyword, and the more people will go to your site.

PPC can be used to widen your reach, but it can be very expensive, especially if people click your ad only out of curiosity, or if you bid on more keywords than your budget can handle. However, PPC can get you customers and increase your profits. If done well, it can earn you money.

Here are five tips to get the most out of PPC.

1.Get Ten Specific Keywords.
If you are a company specializing in exercise equipment, don't select "exercise equipment" or "gym" as your keywords. Chances are, there will be hundreds of thousands of other bidders waiting to jump on those same keywords. Be specific. Try "treadmill" or "stationary bike." Select a maximum of ten words, just to test the waters and see how your potential customers respond. If the first ten keywords succeed in getting you a larger market, then research additional keywords which are not as specific. However, if your first try yields less than satisfactory results, then try another set of keywords if you can still afford it.

2.Write Your Ads but Write the Truth.
Most ad writers will broadcast their wares as being the be-all and cure all of all ills and pains. If they do this, web users will click on their ads and storm the site. This is well and good if the product or service will live up to the ad's promise - but what if it doesn't? A customer clicks, you pay, but the customer doesn't buy. You lose.

Write a succinct but accurate ad that doesn't sue vague language. Avoid using words such as "free," "low cost," "extremely effective," and "cheap." Tailor your ads to fit the keyword, and if you can, include your prices on the ads. This way, you will get a buyer who is ready and willing to purchase your product or service.

3.Budget Your Bid.
It's tempting to go all out and set your prices, especially if you think your product will sell. But what if it won't? Set a monthly budget of about $100 for your bids, and bid just right - bid too high and you will run out of money, bid too low and your ads won't show up.

Even if you believe in your product, keep within bid budget, and do not get into bidding wars, especially with another advertiser who has a much larger budget than you. Don't waste your time thinking about your bids. Instead, invest your time in designing what your ad is linked to, which brings us to:

4.Make Your Site a Professional One.
The standard rules of web design apply. Check your web content for spelling and grammatical errors. Update your web content regularly. Fix any broken links and images. Design your website so that it will be easy to navigate and load, so do not use Flash animation, as this will slow down your buyers' browsers. Link your ads to the exact place on your site where your product or service appears.

5.Know When to Stop.
PPC ad campaigns can lead more buyers to you, but take care to check profit against spending. If you have already spent double your advertising budget, but have had little or no sales, consider dropping your campaign. You can also measure your progress in clicks. A total of 300 clicks is average for any ad. If your ad has reached 300 clicks and you have made no sales yet, then terminate your PPC project.

Equally as important as knowing when to stop is knowing that all is not yet lost and you can still go on. Running a web-based business means investing time, money, and effort, so keep your PPC up and running as long as you are raking money in. PPC, after all, may first mean pay-per-click, but, if you're successful, can soon mean Profiting Perfectly in Cash.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author: Daegan Smith is the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. Find out how we're creating financial freedom all across the globe and how to get in on the action free at http://www.comlev.net.

Articles and Keywords

2006-03-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

By Cody Moya

The Internet is driven primarily by content.
Content is driven primarily by keywords.

New websites are designed to attract new visitors, as many as possible. By going through the steps to make certain that your content, and then your keywords, are just right, you can keep your search engine rankings high and maximize your new visitors. By maintaining fresh content constantly, your established visitors will keep coming back.

What's Your Theme?

The theme of your website is basically the purpose of it. Are you here to sell a product? Or are you more interested in informing people about something, reviewing other products, or cataloging something?

Most people take their theme and run straight to – graphics. And why not? Graphics are fun. Create your company logo, get it just right. Take pictures of your products, toss on some fancy Flash animations, maybe stick a dancing GIF email down at the bottom of the page so people will see the movement and email you.

You're done now, right? The intro page is awesome and forces viewers to go through it, the bells and whistles are impressive, and the logo says exactly what you want.

Here's the truth.

Most customers remain on a website for a maximum of ten seconds before giving up. If it takes your graphics-laden site more than that to load, they won't wait for it before clicking the back button and going to the next store on the search engine list.

Animations distract your customers from what you're selling. Fancy logos are largely a waste of time until you're a huge company worried about brand recognition don’t bother with designing a complicated logo. Keep it simple.

The most important item on your website, and the item most often ignored, is good solid content. Keyword rich content. Content that makes the customer go "wow," and then bookmark your site to come back to later.

Search engines catalog content, not images. Why? Content is recognizable and categorizable to automated programs used to map the Internet; images (except in certain cases) are not.

And when customers look for pages for information, they are generally looking for informative text, not your bells and whistles or your logo.

Rich descriptive words make your site rise in search engine rankings. Some fortunate webmasters are also prolific writers, and can whip up content articles in a jiffy to toss up on their websites.

If you're not one of this fortunate group though, you can purchase articles at www.YourOwnArticles.com and place them on your website as your own. Or you can use free articles from an article exchange (beware – there is a hidden pitfall here. More later.) This unique and fresh content is vital to your site's success.

The perfect content article delivers easily-understood and useful information to the reader. It also is keyword-rich – that is, it focuses on specific words that the search engines will subsequently catalog and use to rank your site in the listings it returns to searchers.

Your first job before writing (or hiring someone to write) your articles is to determine what keywords your customers will likely use to search for sites like yours. One place you can do this easily is at http://www.nichebot.com. Nichebot and similar sites can inform you on what search terms are most often used to find websites like yours.

Keywords should be listed in the metatags, headings, and description of your site, as well as sprinkled through at least the first portion of the article. This tells the search engine spiders how to catalog your site.

Fresh and unique content keeps the spiders ranking you higher, and it keeps your customers coming back. Your content should be organized, easy to scan as well as to read, and user friendly. It should also be spread among your pages, not just on your index page. Avoid heavy graphics, and make sure your site is free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Now, about those article exchanges. Deals that are too good to be true usually are, and article exchanges offer you free, well-written content that you can use on your website at will. What's wrong with that? Article exchanges also require that you include something called a resource box. This box contains information about the author of the article, including his or her website link.

By using this, you're telling your customers: I'm not really the guru here, but you can click here to get to the site of the guy who is. What are they going to do?

Well, what would you do? Click to the other guy's site, of course.

If you must use article exchanges to get your site going, follow the rules, but try to replace it with content you own as quickly as you can. This makes you into what you should have been: the information guru for your site.

Powerhouse Marketing With Persuasive Postcards

2006-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Copyright 2006 Marketing Maven

The lowly postcard…it’s more than just a "having fun, wish
you were here" delivery system. This tiny billboard is
actually a powerhouse of a marketing tool with almost
unlimited uses. Harness this little dynamo and you'll find
a surge of new business opportunities.

Here are some reasons your company should consider a
postcard:

1. Cost effective: A regular-sized postcard only costs
$.23. You can send up to a 4 1/4" x 6" card without
incurring additional expense. This cost is before any
bulk-mailing discounts, which can substantially add to
savings. They are also inexpensive to print, even if you go
to a four-color job. And, since a postcard is a single
piece of paper with no envelope, post cards don’t incur a
folding and stuffing charge: simply print, label, and send
'em.

2. Postcards are versatile: Your business can use a
postcard to show a picture of a new product, send a reprint
of a recent advertisement, invite people to an upcoming
event, or announce a new service offering. You can also use
a postcard to direct people to your website.

3. Quick to read: Another benefit to postcards is the speed
at which people can read your message. Studies have shown
recipients don't open every piece of mail. Since a postcard
doesn't take any time or effort to open, most people simply
flip the card over to see what it says. Your audience is
reading it as soon as it reaches their hands. It's a
powerful way to entice people to visit your website. Offer
a free e-report or a chance to win something to drive them
there. Make your sales pitch online.

4. Make a bold statement: If you don’t mind spending a
little more on postage, go for the OVERSIZED card. You can
create some amazing pieces that are 6" x 11" and mailed out
with a first-class stamp. These are surefire way to make a
lasting impression and recipients are less likely to simply
toss them.

5. Stay in touch: Postcards are an easy and inexpensive way
to keep your customers aware of your company and showcase
new services or products. You can send out coupons to
customers you haven’t seen in a while. Offer your
recipients an incentive for referring new business. Let
them know about new areas or content on your website.

6. Eye-catching handouts: Use extra postcards left over
from your mailing as a fancy “business card” at a seminar
you offer or a networking event you attend.

7. Feedback forms: You can develop a quick survey.
Recipients can check a couple of boxes and fax them back to
you. It's likely you'll get a good response if with such an
easy-to-complete format.

8. Test your messages: Print several versions of your
postcard message and send each to several different mailing
groups. Find out which version gets the best response and
that's your winner. Use the high-response one in a mailing
to a larger group. Watch the responses roll in!

9. Coupons: Use the postcard to entice a visit to your
location. When customers come in to your service location,
they can bring the postcard offer with them to receive a
discount or freebie.

10. Remind your customers: If you are a dentist, a
mechanic, or another type of business that provides a
routine service, a postcard can be sent as a reminder to
your customers that it's time to come in for a check-up.

So, the next time you're thinking about doing a mailing,
consider trying postcards to reach your customers. You can
generate a BIG response without spending a lot of money!

----------------------------------------------------
Wendy Maynard, your friendly Marketing Maven, publishes
REMARKABLE MARKETING, a free weekly ezine for
entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers. If you're
ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers,
and make more money, sign up for her FREE ezine and
marketing report now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com

10 Easy Ways to Make Your Flyer Stand Out in the Crowd

2006-02-25T10:47:00.000-08:00

10 Easy Ways to Make Your Flyer Stand Out in the Crowd
Copyright 2006 Karen Saunders

A flyer is an inexpensive and highly effective way to grab
attention in a very busy marketplace. How do you make your
flyer stand out in the crowd? Here are some techniques that
professional designers use to make flyers "pop."

1. Write a snappy headline or title.

Make it memorable, unusual or provocative using a few
carefully chosen powerful words. Popular titles contain one
or more of these words: Easy, The Secrets to, Unlock,
Finally, Insider, Time Sensitive, How to, Free Bonuses, Now
You Can, Discover, Proven.

2. Use colorful or striking graphics.

One large image will have more impact than many smaller
images. A stunning photo or illustration grabs attention,
creates a mood, and supports your story. This image is your
"focal point" and will draw your readers in. You can
purchase inexpensive but quality stock photos on the
Internet. Download individual photos or purchase a CD with
hundreds of images.

3. Focus on the benefits of your product or service.

Your prospects will ask the question, "What's in it for
me?" Write from the their perspective using the words "you"
and "your." Avoid using the following words: we, us, I and
our. Be sure to keep your text short and to the point. Some
of the most powerful words to use are: free, save, love,
new, results, and guarantee. Break up long paragraphs with
bullet points and place them in a separate box.

4. Use compelling testimonials and case studies.

Nothing strikes a chord like an endorsement from a happy
customer, especially if it demonstrates the results they've
had with your product or service. Be sure to include the
first and last name, company name and location of the
person providing the endorsement.

5. Organize your page with boxes, borders and areas of
contrasting colors.

You don't need to fill your flyer with wall-to-wall text
and graphics. Incorporate some white space to make certain
elements stand out and to make the flyer easy to read.

6. Make your points easily identifiable.

Highlight titles and subtitles in bold, but avoid using ALL
CAPS because they are more difficult to read.

7. Don't get too complicated.

Make it simple with two typefaces, and align items to a
grid. Your page layout program will provide non-printing
guidelines. Use the "snap to guidelines" function to align
items easily to the grid. Be aware of printing margins. I
suggest you create your layout with 1/2" margins on all
sides, or add 1/8" for bleeds on items that print off the
edge of the page.

8. Don't forget to proofread.

Have someone else proofread your work. Check your contact
information. Dial the phone numbers on the flyer to make
sure they are correct, and type in the URL of your website
to make sure it is correct, too.

9. If you are on a tight budget, try this.

Select bright-colored or unique paper, and print with black
ink. Use shades of grey to provide tones and contrasting
background areas.

10. Offer a discount or special limited-time price.

Design a coupon on the bottom quarter of the flyer. Be sure
to clearly state the deadlines and limitations of the
offer. If it is a mail-in coupon, be sure to include the
payment specifications with areas for filling out credit
card information, mailing address, etc.

You don't need to re-invent the wheel when creating your
flyer. Use these proven techniques and you will see big
results in your marketing efforts.

----------------------------------------------------
Karen Saunders is the author of "Turn Eye Appeal into Buy
Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into
dazzling, persuasive sales tools!" Hundreds of business
owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to
create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their
products and services! FREE audio classes, articles, an
eCourse, and ezines on marketing tips are available at
http://www.macgraphics.net

Impressing Your Customers Is Easy With 3 Guaranteed Tactics

2006-02-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

Impressing Your Customers Is Easy With 3 Guaranteed Tactics
Copyright 2006 Cutts Group, llc

Customer satisfaction isn't one single act, but a group of
actions that work together to make their experience a
pleasant and satisfying experience. You've probably eaten
at a restaurant where the food was wonderful, but the
service slow and unprofessional. Somebody was doing a good
job, but your overall experience wasn't up to par. There
are three areas of service that work together to impress
your customers. Provide good service in these three areas,
and they'll be back... time and time again.

1. Instant Response
Let’s face the facts... people just don’t like to wait.
When they walk out the door, they want to have the product
at their fingertips. Hey, they may have taken weeks to
decide on the purchase, but once the decision has been
made, they want it NOW.

The best way to make customers happy is to make the product
available at the point of sale, but not all businesses are
able to do that. Internet marketers obviously cannot
provide immediate service, but can be sure to keep delivery
time to an absolute minimum.

2. Make Buying Simple
Keep the buying process as simple as possible. Customers
are just like you, they hate paperwork. To an online
customer, clicking on 20 different screens translates as
paperwork. It’s annoying, time consuming, and a turn off.

Use the “easy as 1, 2, 3” idea as a selling point in your
advertising campaign. Busy and tired customers take notice,
and you’ll see results!

3. Give Customers Personal Attention
Good listeners are hard to come buy. The world is full of
people trying to sell us something, or trying to persuade
us to their viewpoint. You want to make an impact? Learn to
listen to your customers.

Make it easy to ask questions. Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s
time consuming and you don’t have time to spare. But
listen, you’ll find that a lot of questions are repeated
over and over again. Create a frequently asked question
form, and you’ll be able to answer a lot of consumer
questions without sacrificing as much of your time.

----------------------------------------------------
Who is Allyn Cutts, and why should you care?
Allyn has spent over 24 years helping businesses like yours
find new customers and increase sales to current customers.
Allyn is a marketing and sales fanatic, providing
measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results for
small-to mid-size business clients. Allyn works personally
with clients to design and deliver off-line and on-line
direct marketing strategies that focus on metrics and
measurable results. You can learn more about Allyn Cutts at
http://www.AllynCutts.com and you can call 610.437.4106
between 10 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time Tuesdays and Thursdays.

How to Boost Your Traffic and Profits with Content

2006-02-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

by Cody Moya

Are you aware of how vitally important and valuable content is to your online business? In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.

Following is a list of 5 key ways that content can help build your traffic, subscribers, and customers starting today...

1. Boost your search engine ranking and daily visitor count by posting keyword rich articles and content on your web-site. For example, if your business involves offering products and services related to fitness, posting fitness related articles and content will attract unlimited prospective customers on a regular basis.

2. Generate double or even triple the number of newsletter subscribers you do currently, simply by offering content in the form of "special reports" or manuals as bonuses for subscribing to your publication. People love freebies, so give them what they want and watch as your results increase.

3. Create an automated cashflow by using content to formulate multi-part email training courses with related web-site or affiliate links "sprinkled" throughout each course. Use an autoresponder service to automate the delivery of your training course (such as a 5 part training course delivered over a 5 day period).

Training courses can also serve as excellent bonus offers for your prospective newsletter subscribers.

4. One of the most important keys to a successful online business is not just having a list of mailing list or newsletter subscribers... It's about building a trusting relationship with your subscribers (ie, "cultivating" your list)...

By sending informative articles (content) to your list on a regular basis you will establish yourself as an expert on your topic of business, as well as gain the trust of your subscribers over time. As a result, your subscribers will be eager to take advantage of your "paid" product and service offers. (Just make sure that you never take advantage of the relationship you develop with your list by offering products or services of poor quality just to make a quick buck)

If there is one "constant" in Internet marketing, it's this: A cultivated list of subscribers is as good as money in the bank. Write that down and never forget it.

5. Another excellent way to generate no cost traffic is by submitting ready-made articles to "content hungry" web-site and newsletter publishers with your "resource box" attached. A resource box is nothing more than a little 3-6 line "bio" about you and/or your web-site - including a link to your site (or even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter)...

When submitting or offering your article(s) for reprint purposes, just make sure to specify that each article is to be reprinted "as is" with your resource box attached.

...Even one article can go a long way towards generating no cost traffic and visitors for you. Just imagine your article being sent out to a newsletter subscriber base of 100,000 individuals - many of whom will be reading your included resource box and clicking on your URL to learn more about what you have to offer.

Well there you have it, 5 sure ways to build your online business exponentially with the help of articles and content...

With the declining effectiveness of many of the online advertising methods that we've relied on in past years, content is only strengthening its position as the ultimate key to generating unlimited traffic, subscribers, and customers

Money is like Milk, it is good with Anything!! Got Money

5 Copywriting Secrets for Knowing Your Market
Copyright 2006 Joseph Farinaccio

If you’d like to know 5 copywriting secrets for truly
knowing your niche customer then you’re in for a treat.
The most important element in good sales copy is appealing
to your reader -- by writing about something that interests
them. In other words, you have to give them what they want.

This means appealing to their self-interest. Their
personal desires. Getting to know their feelings … etc.
So how do you do this? By intimately knowing your audience
… which is what these copywriting secrets are all about.

Here are a few copywriting secrets the pros use on a
regular basis:

1) Read all the best-selling books relating to your subject
/ target market. Note the book’s title, then any sales
copy or reviews on its back cover. Open it up and review
the table of contents and index. Finally, read the first
and last chapters. Makes notes on all the details /
benefits readers are promised to find inside. These will
give you a heads up on what your market currently desires.

2) Find all the magazines relating to your subject / target
market. If you’re at the library get as many back issues
as you can. Leaf through these and note any recurring
themes or subjects. These will be the popular ones … the
ones your target is hungry for.

3) Even more importantly … carefully read all the ads in
these magazines. Find the ads appearing over and over in
each magazine – from issue to issue. These ads are
probably money-makers. What do they sell? What are the
emotions they appeal to? What are the key benefits they
promise? The key words used? Etc.

4) Hold on … you’re not done with the magazines yet. One
of the most overlooked of all copywriting secrets is
reading letters to the editor. They’re filled with strong
feelings and emotions. Emotions powerful enough to
motivate a reader to sit down and write ... then go through
the hassle of addressing an envelope ... stamping it ...
and then mailing it.

5) Now you’re ready to confirm all the research you’ve done
up to this point. By using the biggest secret of all - -
which is getting the industry “controls” already being
mailed to your subject / target market.

Direct mail packages that keep mailing over and over again
are surely profitable … and a winning standard for whoever
is mailing them. These are referred to as “controls” in
the direct mail industry. And the following resources are
relatively inexpensive ones you can use to find such
controls:

a) Who's Mailing What! … found at www.whosmailingwhat.com

You have to pay for a one-year membership. This basic
subscription allows you to get information about direct
mailers. Paying extra fees gives you access to industry
controls. They even identify the “grand controls,” which
refer to direct mail packages mailed many, many times …
over a lengthy period.

b) Inside Direct Mail … found at www.insidedirectmail.com

This excellent resource also tells you what’s currently
mailing to your market. Get a hold of these controls.
Read them very carefully. Note every benefit promised.
Every emotional hot button. These mailings can be worth
more to you than gold if you’ve got a great mailing list
and a great offer.

Alright. That’s enough for now. Use these copywriting
secrets to your advantage, and enjoy success with your
direct mail!

----------------------------------------------------
Joe Farinaccio helps businesses and entrepreneurs make
money using direct response advertising. To discover how
to prosper from copywriting and direct response marketing
in your business ... visit his website at ...
http://www.sales-letters-and-marketing.com