Internet Marketing - How to Make Money Online

Marketing Secrets – Benefits of Article Marketing

Benefits Of Article Marketing

In the real world, advertising is synonymous with more expenses for the business enterprise. TV spots, print ads, promotional campaigns companies will have to spend just to get their business message to as many people as possible. Thankfully, online ventures are not beholden to such a rule. The World Wide Web provides so many channels wherein marketing campaigns can be launched without having to type in your credit card details. Amazing, isnt it?

This is the reason why Internet marketing has blossomed to what it is today. It is very accessible to many people, as steep financial investments are more of the exceptions rather than the general rule. Indeed, there are many avenues on the Internet that would allow a business with an online presence to advertise its offerings.

One of these amazing avenues, and quite possibly, the most cost-efficient and powerful of them all, is article marketing.

By its very label alone, you would immediately get the idea that it has something to do with writing articles. This is correct. You see, by writing articles about the subject matter relevant to our business, and by distributing the same to the many channels in the World Wide Web, we will be able to reach so many people and each of them would regard us as experts in the field.

Still confused as to how article marketing works? Here is a step-by-step guide that would teach you the ins and outs of this fantastic marketing strategy:

Write a premium, highly informative 300 to 1,200 word article about the subject of your business. If your business, for example, is concerned with dog care, you could write an article about proper dog grooming.

Include a resource box at the end of your article. Your resource box is a concise summary of who you are, what youre about, and could also have a link to your website.

Submit your article to the many article directories that can be found on the web.

Every time a person gets to read your article as displayed in the article directories, the link to your website would be exposed and there is a higher likelihood of gaining more unique visitors for your web pages. These article directories are seen by millions of people each and every day, as they are easily indexed by the search engines.

The philosophy behind article marketing is a tactic popularly referred to as back linking. Since getting indexed in the search engines is quite a difficult chore, and often, the results would take months before they could bear fruit, a lot of Internet marketers have resorted to back links to get a piece of the search engine pie.

Back links are links to your website which you manage to display in other sites that have a high Page Rank (PR) in the search engines. Its almost tantamount to piggybacking your way to instant online prominence.

There are so many benefits that can be derived from article marketing. Do consider the following:

If you could write your own article, its a free marketing vehicle.

If you cant write your own article, or if you simply dont have the time to prepare a piece, you could always hire a ghostwriter to write one for you. The going rate for a standard 500 word article is 3 to 10 dollars.

Including your link in the resource box would make it visible to the many people who would get to read your article. This could potentially equate to an equal amount of new traffic for your site.

There is always a chance that your article would get picked up by an electronic newsletter, called an eZine, and this would expose your link to new audiences which could also result in new traffic for your web pages.

There is also a chance that your article would get picked up by a printed publication, and the readership of the same would get to know the products or services which your business offers.

By writing a highly informative piece, youll be able to brand yourself as an expert in the field in the eyes of your readers. Theyll get to trust you with their needs, whenever they would arise. This is pre-selling at its finest!

With all that is going for article marketing, there should be no questions as to why it is heralded as one of the most potent marketing strategies today. Try it out and elevate your advertising campaign to the next level, all without spending a single cent at that.

About the author:
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By David Zohar http://www.articlebar.com

David Zohar is the owner of http://www.ArticleBar.comwich is is a free
directory of articles from expert authors on a wide range of topics. We invite
authors to submit original articles to our growing database.
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Magic Bullets Do You Know What Your Cusomers Want Lisa M CopeDo you ever wonder what your customers want? Most business owners ask themselves that question daily. I know I do and I bet you do too.

I was watching one of my favorite marketers speak recently and he said something that struck a chord with me and got me thinking. He said “people want magic bullets”.

They want the answer to their problems. A quick fix for their woes. A simple solution that will make their world a better place and they want it now!

That phrase made me ask, what magic bullets do my prospects want and do I have them?

How can I turn my products into the magic bullets that my prospects can’t live with out?

Side note: The best way to find out what your prospects want is to survey them but, that is a whole other article.

Now, asking these questions won’t help you get inside your prospects mind but, it will get you in the right mind set.

Think about it. When you have a problem, you want a solution right? You don’t want to wait. Do you? You want a quick fix and you want it now. You want a magic bullet. Guess
what so does your prospect!

Have you ever watched an infomercial and felt every button they pushed. Felt like what they were selling was the answer to all your problems? You just want to rip out your credit card and say take my money! You can’t wait until you can get your hands on that magic bullet.

We all have and it’s the magic bullets that get you every time.

For instance let’s say your target market is acne sufferers. If you have ever had acne you can identify with the pain and agony that acne sufferers go through. A sufferer will try and buy just about anything that offers relief from their suffering no matter what the cost. Magic bullets don’t have a price cap.

Are you starting to see? Put on your top hat and pull out your magic wand. Now start thinking. What you are selling? What solutions do you have to offer? How can you solve peoples problems? What magic bullets can you pull out of your product or service?

Once you pull those magic bullets out of your hat and put them right under your prospects nose then the real magic will begin.

About the author:
Lisa M Cope – Starting your own online business? Find information articles and tools to help you on your way. http://www.flipidy.com

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Submit Your Website to Search Engines

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Some search engine submissions are free and some pay for this benefit but before I get into it I would like to place a little word of warning.

There will be some places that will offer to submit your website to hundreds or even thousands of search engines for free. Avoid these at all costs! I know I know they are tempting, thoughts stray to woohoooo now I can do it in one push of the button.

Problem is this, when you submit your website to these programs they use a script to send out your url and most search engines these days have equipment in place to pick up when these scripts send your url to them. Its considered spam and once the search engines put your website in their spam pile they wont add your website, possibly never!

The best way is to submit your website to search engines manually yourself. Here are a few websites to get you started that you can submit to for free:

http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html
http://www.exactseek.com/add.html
http://www.splatsearch.com/submit.html

You can also pay someone to manually submit your website to search engines, but dont expect this to be cheap. If someone is offering to do it for $30 – $50 I would recommend avoiding it, chances are theyre using a script to submit it.

For proper submission and search engine optimization you are generally looking at paying around $600 – $1,000 to get someone to do this for you.

To get listed in yahoo it usually costs around $300 for businesses. Yahoo will list personal sites that arent business related for free.

Joanne King – http://www.joesy.com

About the author:
Get your Free book on Affiliate Marketing Quick Start Guide by visiting http://www.joesy.com

Pick a winning company, and make it work for you.Shelley PenneyLiving the high life?!

Well, you’ve heard it all haven’t you ?? Headlines screaming with promised riches, group meetings that pump you up with music and hype, people telling you over and over again that this one is different ! How in heck do you sort through it all ?

Network marketing is a jungle ! In fact, there are over 27,000 network marketing businesses in the world. Many of these companies will fold with in their first 2 years in business.
The hard reality is that only a measily 1% of network marketers ever make the big time ! WOW ! Still wanna leave that “9-5″
Wouldn’t you like to increase the odds in your favor ?
It is true…. you CAN. But it is not going to be easy ! Simple yes, but not always easy!
OK, let us look first at the “COMPANY”. Experts within the industry have given us some landmarks to go by when choosing the right company. You need to find a company that has reached the “benchmark” of at least $50 million in sales in one calendar year. But that’s not all! You also want a company that is not done growing. In other words, you want a business that is in it’s “pre-momentum phase” of development. This is the stage when it is steadily increasing in growth, but it hasn’t reached “the masses” yet. Here’s a litmus test for you. Go out in your neighborhood and ask 20 strangers if they have heard of your company yet. If one or less has, you may be on to something.
Now, let’s look at the products. The most successful of the network marketing companies have a consumable product. One that is used and loved and people want more. The product should also have a uniqueness to it. The best products are new, in demand, high impact (immediate results) products that are priced reasonably. Even better, the products should have an emotional appeal. (youth and vitality, health, and weight loss products fall into this category)
Now, if the company you are looking at has all of these, there are a few more factors you should look at. One of the most important features, for me, is the dynamics of the team I will be working with. Interview the people who are trying to recruit you? Do you like them ? Are they positive? Inspirational? Are they more experienced than you are? And if not, do they add skills that will round out what you bring to the table. Do they have the information you need, and if not, do they get back to you with the answer right away ? Do they keep scheduled appointments with you and are they punctual? These things are important, because they tell you a lot about what your working relationship will be like.

Now…here’s the crunch….what are YOU prepared to bring to your own business?
You need to be prepared to learn a new business. You need to have “bounce-back-ability”. You need to see your future so clearly, that nobody can take you off your chosen path.
Make no mistake about it, you DO have to do SOMETHING !
Now, if someone tells you that you can make money/do nothing you need to RUN… fast, in the other direction. We all know that is not reality.
First, you need to talk to people then you have to sell something. Yes you do ! Network marketing is just that! Let’s break it down.
“network” (talk to people) and “marketing” (sell something) This may go against what everybody has told you, but it’s a fact. The thing is, if ALL of the other things are in place, then it makes your “job” easier. If you have a team that can teach you, and help you refocus through the tough times, if you have a product that people can get passionate about, if you have a company that you can be proud of, then, just add YOU. The final ingredient in your “success recipe”.

Here’s to your success!!

About the author:
Shelley Penney is a network marketing and internet marketing specialist with 7 years in the field. She is currently mentoring a small group of people to achieve financial freedom from home. If you would like to be part of her group, please go to http://marketsmart.ws/WorkFromHome.htmland fill out the form for consideration.

Search Engine Optimization – Fresh Content Improves Search Engine Optimization

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Many search engine optimization companies will sell you a search engine optimization package that addresses many of the major aspects of search engine optimization. These aspects include, but are not limited to, use of file names, alt tags, h1 tags, keyphrase density, meta tag optimization, link analysis and the like. These are all key aspects of a good search optimization.

However, one problem is that the major search engines (especially Google) not only rank pages upon relevant content (which is determined by the factors listed above, and more), but by fresh content as well. What this means to you is that, even after your site has been “optimized to the max”, your rankings will increase to a certain level and then not go much higher. To get to the top and stay there, your site should deliver fresh, relevant content on a regular basis. Depending upon the nature of your business, your competition, and targeted keyphrases, the rate at which you should add content to your site can vary from monthly to daily.

The delivery of fresh content to your site, in a form that is readable by search engines (i.e. not through the use of javascript, iframes, or the like) requires a dynamic, database driven content management system.

The most cost effective way to achieve this is through the use of a weblog that sits on your server and resides under your domain name. Updating the weblog with rich articles or commentary, broadcasting this information to the internet, and allowing users to post comments, achieves the following:

1) Increases the number of inbound links to your website
2) Increases the frequency at which major search engines will spider or crawl your site
3) Increases interactivity for the web user
4) Improves your search engine ranking

About the author:
Matt Foster is the President and CEO of ArteWorks Business Class. Mr. Foster has been providing search optimization solutions since 1995. Please visit http://www.arteworks.bizfor further information. You may also call toll free 877-336-8266

Search Engine Secrets – How to Indirectly Get to the Top of Search Engines

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There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 spots of the major search engines. That amounts to a lot of competition! Even if your website can’t get in the Top 20, you can use indirect ways to get it there.

How do you do this? By using the success of others to your advantage. Look up the top 20 web sites on the major search engines under the keywords and phrases people would find your web site. The key would be to your website’s link on those web sites.

The most expensive way would be to buy ad space on those web sites. If you don’t want to spend any money, you could use the ten strategies below. These strategies may not apply to every web site.

1. Participate on their discussion boards. You could post questions, answer other peoples questions, and join in on conversations. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your messages. This is a great way to build link popularity for your website.

2. Ask the web site owner if they would like a f.ree ebook to giveaway to their visitors. You could have them link to your web site or include your ad in the f.ree ebook.

3. Submit content to their web site. You could write articles for their web site and include your resource box and link at the end of the article. If they publish it, you’ll indirectly be at the top of the search engines and your site’s link popularity will soar!

4. Write an excellent article review of their web site, products or services. Then publish the review on your web site. E-mail the web site owner and tell him or her about it. They may link to your web site so their visitors read it.

5. Ask the owner of the web site if they would want to trade advertising. If you don’t get as much traffic as they do, you could throw in some extra incentives.

6. Propose a cross p.romotion deal with the web site. You both could promote each others products or services together in one package deal. This means a mention and link back to your web site.

7. Give the web site a testimonial for their product or service. Include a little text link for your web site with the testimonial. You n.ever know; it could end up on their ad copy.

8. Post your advertisement on their free classified ad section on their web site. You want to be sure you have an attractive headline so they will read your ad.

9. Post your text link on their f.ree-for-all links page. You want to go back and post your link regularly so it stays towards the top.

10. Sign their guest books. You could leave a short compliment about their web site on their guest book. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your message.

If your site is not in the Top 20 positions in the search engines, then your goal should be to get your site’s link on those sites that are there. Using these indirect methods mentioned in this article should help you to accomplish just exactly that.

About the author:

Marketing Secrets – Marketing Is More Important Than Mastery

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You can be great at what you do, but if you don’t get great at marketing, you’re out of business. Learn why.

Being a master of your craft, skill, or talent doesn’t ensure the success of your business. You can be the greatest at what you do, and if nobody knows about you, you’re quickly out of business. Yes, it’s important that you deliver a quality service. But it’s even more important that you consistently and appropriately promote your business.

For many independent professionals, operating in this framework requires a massive mental shift. This is especially true for those who have recently moved from being someone else’s employee to running their own business. One of the most important criteria used by corporate managers to assess your performance as an employee was mastery of your job requirements. As an employee, therefore, your pay raises, status, and job responsibilities were tied to your level of mastery. If you wanted to “move up the corporate ladder,” you worked hard to increase your mastery of the tasks and knowledge appropriate for your job. And your self-esteem and self-respect increased with each new level of mastery you attained. Mastery is, as an employee, very much a key to success and self-worth.

But now you’re running your own business. However, you can’t be successful at running your business by continuing to think and operate like an employee. You must shift fully and immediately into the business framework that “Marketing is More Important than Mastery.”

Of course, your professional skills are still important to the success of your business. In fact, they are foundational. But they are no longer the most important aspect of your success. Now, as an independent, you must come from the perspective that promoting your business is more important. That means taking this framework into your business strategies and tactics on a daily basis. You can never let up on implementing this framework in your business.

I reiterate: You can be the greatest at what you do, and if nobody knows about you, you’re quickly out of business.

To shift solidly into the center of operating from “Marketing is More Important than Mastery,” begin by creating a high-level annual marketing plan. Your marketing plan can be as simple or complex as you need it to be. I suggest that your marketing plan includes:

An Executive Summarywhich is a top-level summary of your marketing plan. Your Business Missionwhich states what your business does. Your Serviceswhich lists each of your service offerings. Your Ideal Client Profilewhich describes who your ideal client is and why they would hire you. Your Competitive Analysiswhich lists your competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. Your Market Analysiswhich describes how you know if your market is growning, shrinking, or stagnating and what effect this might have on your business. Your Business SWOT Analysiswhich details the strengths, weaknesses, oppotunities, and threats your business is facing. Your Marketing Messageswhich lists your 10 Most Important Business Principles. Your Marketing Activities and Materialsincluding both traditional and on-line activities and materials. Your Marketing Budgetwhich details how much you’ll spend on your marketing activities and materials. Your Implementation Schedulewhich gives timeframes to all marketing activities.

That might look daunting to you. In actuality, once created the first time, you’ll then just update it on a annual basis with the information that has changed.

NOTE: Although there are very many excellent professionals you can hire to help you create your Marketing Plan, I recommend you do it yourself. Creating your Marketing Plan really forces you to define what your business is and will befrom top to bottom. And nobody can make those decisions but you. Bounce your ideas off your Business Coach and other members of your business support team, but make all the decisions yourself!

Once you have your annual Marketing Plan, it’s pretty easy to create your monthly marketing plans showing what needs to be accomplished each and every day in order to complete your Marketing Plan. If you aren’t doing at least one task each workday that contributes to the implementation of your Marketing Plan, you haven’t shifted fully out of the belief that mastery is more important than marketing…and you are jeopardizing the long-term success of your business.

About the Author

Rose Hill is a Certified Business Coach who works exclusively with independent professionals who desire to create a solid foundation for their continued business success. I do this by means of a comprehensive 4-pronged, 6-month High-Impact Business-Building program. Rose can be reached at (503) 629-4804 or via e-mail to rose@coachrose.com

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – the on World of OFFline Marketing

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Ok, now if you’ve started reading this article thinking that its going to be the same story about the business cards carrying your logo and company name, you are right. Hey, dont reach for that back button already. Okay, since business cards is one of the best ways to publicise your site, I had to mention that. But that does not mean it ends here. Read on to discover more.

Now, I mean AFTER you’ve read this article, shut down your computer, give your sore eyes some rest, get that bottom out of that squeaking chair and go out, implement the publicity tricks mentioned here.

Right so, your Bermudas and t-shirts are on, but hey, that brings us to our first suggested trick. Why not wear a t-shirt thats got your company name logo and a punch-line on it. Come on, dont put this off the list just because you dont want to get it printed. I’ve got a better reason to make you search for a screen printer in the yellow pages. You dont get just one t-shirt done. You get a bunch of t-shirts done, depending upon your budget. And so you wear these t-shirts day in and day out, NO. You distribute it. Whatever your site is based on, its got to have some people visiting it. No matter what you do its impossible to have no one visiting it. You can easily get about 10 people on your site, even if you sell skunk.

But this is not what you need. You need more zeros suffixed to that 10 right, and thats why your reading this article. Okay so find out who these visitors are, try and contact them (you could have already collected their e-mails for newsletters and ask them to send their shipping address). Now, send one of your t-shirts to them as a “gift” or “prize” for something that they have done on your site. Lets suppose if yours is a web hosting firm, they get the t-shirt as a complimentary gift. They happily wear your companys t-shirt, because they think that they took a right decision since they are already getting returns and you get that much deserved advertisement. Now, if your budget is not astronomical, send your t-shirt across to people only from those areas where your target audience is located.

Now, as an under effect, these people will also send their friends to your site, ‘coz they could also win/get something out of the site, isn’t it. Now, this is where you should start thinking out of the box. You could send Bermudas (not the one your wearing), smart college bags, pens with your company name and website printed on it (really cheap, but then your ‘winner’ is not a moving billboard) and so on. If you target the local market, you could send a pizza delivered to your customers. You could visit a book store, meet the manager, and ask him to place a bookmark in every book thats sold, and you guessed it, this bookmark has your company name and website written on it.

So basically the possibilities are endless. It all depends on what you are selling; target your marketing technique accordingly. But your product is that funny thing which simply cannot be marketed the way I say right. Wrong. Lets take the example of a site selling dog food. Now tie up with a pet shop and give a free pack of your best dog biscuit to every customer who has just bought a pup. So, you see, its not that you cant do it. Its just that you think that you cant do it.

Here are some whacky and weird things that I’ve discovered to make your product ‘visible’.

Hang your white towel in the gym in such a way that your company name sewed with red on the bottom is easily visible.
Put your site name on your car. Remember how Mercedes is read on back of every, well, Mercedes simply self promoting it. Try to put the site name on the back, coz this is the place most people following you are going to see. Now how you balance the size and color is up to you. Make sure you dont look desperate with that sticker. It should look as though you are running a satisfied business and it doesnt matter (though really it does) that whether your pursuit visits the site or not.
Send out birthday greetings to your best customers and potential customers. No, dont start searching for e-greetings. I said greetings, physical cards. They hold a lot deeper value compared to its virtual counterpart. And it shows that you are making sincere efforts to please customers. Again, going back to the earlier formula, this will elate your customers and make them loyal customers.
Take placard to any sporting event. Lets suppose soccer. Go to support your home team in a home match. Take along with you some placards that have a suggest score line with victory to home team written on it, and your site address nicely fixed on the bottom line. Distribute this in the crowd, who first of all display it all around for the T.V. cameras to catch it and then they take it home, preserve it for some time, see your site name often and now become customers. Simple, huh.

Now, one very useful trick to promote your site is one which exists right in our campuses. Confused? Well, lets clarify. University, college or school students are a great way to put your product across. Its like all bowling pins are stacked together and you just need to roll the ball. Metaphorical. Lets say, you’ve got a firm selling pets. Now, you could go meet the principal/head/president (or whoever is the authority) to hold a quiz competition in their campus about nature and wildlife or geography or anyother topic which would exhibit your product. Now, this is where you are getting loads and loads of publicity. Try making this a city effort, a state effort, whatever your pocket can handle, and hold these final inter-college events in your premises (hire a hall if you dont have a decent enough premise). Contact the press; they would love to put your event on page three. Moreover, the students, their friends and all will also become aware about your services.

You could use other competitions also. It might be a karate competition, if your selling martial arts goods, a poster-making competition if your selling stationary, a elocution or debate instead of the quiz and the possibilities are endless.

You could also sponsor a lecture/seminar by people who have been in the field and would not overwhelm you with their charges. This could also get a good press coverage, and if not that, at least a mention in the events section of the news-paper, whereby your companies name is disclosed.

So, having said all this, I dont think you would disagree that there’s a wired world out there. The sky is the limit for such ideas, and if you get some, please inform me as well. Find contact details in the About the Author section

About The Author

Shashank is the founder/editor of Pick14 – The Netizen Magazine. This magazine deals with topics based on computer and internet related subjects and caters to a wide range of audience from casual surfers to the most sophisticated webmasters. You can visit this magazine and subscribe for free at http://www.pick14.com. If you also have similar ideas, please inform Shashank at shashank_hi@yahoo.com.

You may publish this article in your e-zine, magazine or anything as long as you also include the ‘About the Author’ note. Please inform us after you have published the article.

Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

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Simple Steps for Beginners to Get Good Rank Position and Make Your Site Sell

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) method important for you especially if you come to the world of internet marketing in a shoe string budget promotion for your business. If you are a newbie or beginner, dont worry about this! This method is for you who want to optimize your website and then get the top rank on search engine. And it all could be possible for you by follow the simple steps hereunder:

1. Have Your Own Website

If you like to be an affiliate, much business opportunity will give you personal website as your rep tools which it will be customized to your name, id, etc. This is good since you dont have to put any effort to design your website and hosting. But remember, you cant modify it and put anything on your own to enrich the content and optimized to website. Besides the customized website is very similar to each other and the content is beyond your control so it is not easy to get indexed by search engine. So if you want to give good popularity to your main website (the customized website from your company) get some free or paid hosting and have your own website. Or try blog. For me blogging is very easy to use and can be purposed for many idea, both publishing personal thoughts and business. Blog is easy to update, it could give good informative things with nice template to choose. Personally I like Blogger at www.blogger.com.

2. Content, Content, and Content again.

Why content could be the most important in optimizing your website? Because no matter how beautiful and attractive your website with animation or banner, you must understand that the content hold the main important role to be indexed in search engine. Dont just put big banners and abundant links of affiliates on your website. You must focus on what your main business and what you want to offer most. Dont offer too many and wide range of product. Except they are related each others, be unique in you content. Give good quality of information, use simple words in short paragraphs and good structure and language.

3. Domain Name is Your Business Name

Try the best you can to get domain name which described your business well. Your domain name must be used as your main ad most important keyword for people to find your website or what you offer. If you like to sell food for chicken, for example, let your domain name www.foodchicken.com. Avoid putting unrelated name and description since it will hurt your rank position in search engine. If you like to list your website on directory, put the first capital like A or number 1 is good for you to get top position.

4. Put Good Certain Keywords

The next step you must evaluate with good care in your content is keyword. Put extra attention to good keywords which you think will be used by people to find your site. Use the most related keywords and focus on what your business offer. Dont just use single word only, people like t search by using certain keywords with phrase. Collect good keywords with low competition. Use Wordtracker at http://www.wordtracker.com. After you get your certain keyword, put it as Title of your Website and as the first words in sentence of your paragraph.

5. Put Brief Description

Give short and clear description on the top and at the beginning of your website informing your website content and your business offer in brief. Dont forget to emphasize your main keyword here. But avoid use excessive keywords in your sentence. It wont be good for your website and business since you put yourself in danger as noticed doing spamming by search engine. Make good language and well structured sentence always.

6. Give Important Note

Give bold, italic or under strike to your important keywords and phrase. Search engine will note that the keywords are important and will give good rank to you in search result. Make link to your other website with the main keyword as link name. It will give your sentence nice looking. For example: Enhance your knowledge and get more information at Your Business Name.

If you dont familiar with HTML, I would like to inform you even you dont want to be a webmaster its important for you to know HTML at least the basic one. If you like to get HTML knowledge, www.webmonkey.com is good place for you to learn.

7. Meta Tag

Some search engine still use the information from meta tag as their method to index website. Meta tag should be put after and before in your template. This is the sample of meta tag:

8. Link Popularity

Link Popularity is known as the number of websites that link to your website. And it is become one of the factors that help search engines determine your relevancy for a search term and index your website there. Gaining link from other site has proven to be a popular method for people seeking to improve their search engine rankings.

But not all the link your site will be good link for you and measured by search engine. If it comes from popular and reputable website sure it will give you good performance, but you must avoid the bad link which comes from spammer site or from link farm. If you cant get link from important site, just try to have it from the same content and your own related site.

Some good links can come by join forum and make good PR campaign or write articles. Sign your name at the bottom of your posting or writing and be sure to include a signature that includes a link to your website.

The most of all, the natural links will come if you give good quality content and good features on your website, people would like to link to your site as the results. So get focus on this. The links will flow naturally.

About The Author

Mira Marsellia from Indonesia is member of Elite Team International. Enhanced your knowledge about internet marketing and doing online business by get Elite Team Marketing 30 days Free Training at: http://eliteteammarketingsuccess.blogspot.com.

Mira Marsellia Personal Blog: http://www.eliteteamcenterindonesia.blogspot.com

marcelliac@yahoo.com

Search Engine Secrets – Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization a Perfect Marriage

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Pay per click or search engine optimization, which one should you use? Many view PPC marketing as a colossal waste of money while others disdain search engine optimization. In reality, the two marketing strategies form a perfect marriage.

Pay-Per-Click – PPC

PPC marketing is a love it or hate platform. For the love it crowd, PPC marketing is a way to get instant exposure and feedback on site designs. In a matter of minutes, you can start receiving traffic and adjusting your site to convert the traffic at the best rate possible. For those in the hate it crowd, bids are to high and one never knows how may of the clicks are fake and worthless.

Search Engine Optimization SEO

As with PPC, seo marketing has its proponents and detractors. Those who love it look at the free traffic and glorious profitability of a site that converts the traffic at a decent rate. Detractors view seo as an unnecessary waste of time since it can take a year or more to get high rankings, particularly on Google. Detractors also argue that high listings are subject to changes in the search engine ranking process, which means you can lose your rankings.

So, who is right? In truth, both sides make accurate arguments. PPC is expensive and click fraud is a monstrous problem. Seo produces free traffic, but it takes along time to get to the top and rankings are subject to the whims of search engine ranking changes. The truth, of course, is both marketing platforms should be used whenever possible.

Marketing Marriage

Every site is unique, but most should combine PPC and seo marketing as part of an overall internet marketing strategy. When starting out, the PPC campaign is critical for getting immediate traffic and tweaking the site to maximize conversions. At the same time, a seo campaign should be undertaken. As the site rises in search results, the PPC campaign should be fazed out for the relevant high listings.

PPC and seo marketing are not mutually exclusive. When married together as part of an overall marketing strategy, both platforms will deliver the goods.

About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company. To read more marketing articles, visit MarketingTitan.com

Use Forums To Improve Customer Relationship Management Jeff WaltersForums are great for learning, sharing of ideas, and generally masterminding with peers, but give some thought to the impact they can have on your lead generation efforts, as well as on your customer relationship management activities.

Joining an active forum can significantly accelerate your rate of learning whether you are a newbie or an experienced practitioner.

For newbies – even if you merely lurk in the shadows and dont post on your forums – you will learn a lot by reading questions by others, and the helpful replies by experienced forum members.

The benefit for the experienced members can be thought of as a web version of masterminding – ideas can be shared and validated, and various techniques can be discussed with peers often on different continents and in different time zones something not nearly as feasible in the physical world.

Apart from the information sharing and networking that forums offer, they have the potential to both positively and negatively impact your marketing efforts, levels of customer satisfaction, and the overall sentiments towards your customer relationship management.

The remainder of this article will give you some ideas as to how you can use forums in a positive way to improve your marketing initiatives. A follow-up article (Forum Perils for Customer Relationship Management) will cover how to avoid the negative impact forums can have on your business.

Forums can positively impact your marketing strategy and initiatives in the following way:

* Conduct Market Research / Investigate Market Reputation

Search engines make it so easy to research what is being said about both your products, as well as those of your competitors.

Simply type in the name of the product of service you want to research, followed by comments, review, scam, or any other relevant term. Within seconds you will have a list of website reviews, blog postings, and forum comments.

Ignore the first two (many are by affiliates just punting the product hoping to earn a fee) the ones to read are the forum conversations, where you will invariably get some pretty honest feedback good or bad about the product.

If you get some glowing comments in public/membership forums for your products, contact the individuals to see if you can post these as testimonials. Negative comments should also be reacted to once again, contact the individuals and see if you can rectify the situation. Often a fixed bad experience can convert a vocal detractor into a fan most people can tolerate a mistake, what makes them irate is when you ignore them, or pretend that no problem or grievance exists.

* Customer Relationship Management use for Satisfaction Tracking

If your business markets a product to quite a large user base, it makes marketing sense to set up a product-specific forum, and actively promote the forum to your customer base.

Once active, the postings by your customers will give you a good indication of the overall sentiment towards your product, as well as your service levels. Prospects can also use the forums as a gauge of product popularity and level of active support.

Your forum will also provide you with a communication channel to your customer base. You can use it to conduct quick polls essentially a free customer relationship management alternative to paid-for satisfaction audits by market research firms.

* New Product Ideas / Launches

Whether your website has a forum or not, it is worthwhile to join a couple of the more active forums related to your market. By monitoring questions, complaints, and cries for help, you can possibly identify the need for new products or services. A forum can also be a no-cost way to launch a pilot for a new product or service. You can get some early sign-ups/purchases without a major investment in marketing, and at the same time use the opportunity to get some quick testimonials.

* Positioning As An Expert / Attracting Traffic

Beyond merely identifying needs, you can use these forum questions as an opportunity to position yourself as a helpful expert. To do this, you need to monitor the most active threads (gets the most readership), and where you have the expertise, provide quality responses to posed questions. This will help grow your reputation over time.

If you ensure that your signature includes your website address preferably with a short tagline indicating your USP this can prove to be a very useful method for lead generation, and importantly, one that delivers qualified prospects.

If you notice frequently repeated newbie questions, consider setting up a FAQ section on your site, and then direct the enquirer to the page, rather than providing a comprehensive answer in the forum.

* Finding JV partners

Monitoring active forums has another positive marketing spin off – it will help you identify potential JV partners. In the same way you are being assessed as to your expert know-how, you can use the postings by your peers to identify those with whom it would make sense to explore setting up joint ventures. This could get you access to mailing lists that you currently do not have, and in so doing, significantly broaden your marketing reach.

If you are adding an online component to your offline business, or starting to investigate an online business opportunity, consider how you can incorpor
ate the points listed above. For those suggestions that have a nice fit with your market, make a decision to take action and include them in your marketing activities. By actively and consistently applying these forum tactics you will find that both your lead generation and customer relationship management initiatives will be far more productive.

About the author:
For the past 20 years, Jeff Walters has been transforming raw business data into profit-producing strategic information in various data intensive sectors- banking, insurance, gambling, medical, government.

He has lead several data-to-information projects:
ABC Costing, analytical CRM, datamart /data warehouse development, and Balanced Scorecard.

Jeff can be contacted through: www.IntelliNova.com,or www.SystematicDirectMarketing.com

This article may be reprinted, provided it is published in its entirety, includes the author bio information, and all links remain active.

Marketing Secrets – Fundamentals of Selling a Business – Marketing and Prospecting the Buyer

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Fundamentals of Selling A Business – Marketing and Prospecting the Buyer

To successfully sell your business, it is essential that you know how to communicate its appeal, and understand the factors that potential buyers have to consider.

Marketing Materials

There are hundreds of businesses for sale at any given time. To make your business stand out, you need to provide potential buyers with information that help them to make informed decisions. A descriptive and well-organized selling memorandum will help in the sale process.

The memorandum would provide your contact information, a brief description of the business, business location, hours of operation, business asking price, annual revenues, net earnings, number of employees, ownership description, number of years established, leased or owned property, and the reason for selling. You should also include a few paragraphs to describe the benefits of owning the business.

Potential buyers should sign a confidentiality agreement before you furnish them with the selling memorandum. This memorandum should be true, accurate, and complete. Marketing paraphernalia typically included are photographs of the business, company history, overview of operations, financial summary, company strengths and potential opportunities, as well as a list of assets.

Prospecting the Buyer

Potential buyers should be screened to ensure that their interests are compatible with yours and that they have the financial ability to purchase your business. Early in the selling process, you should determine the buyers’ sources of funds. Determining and dispelling any misconceptions on financing prior to negotiating the deal saves both parties time and money. You may want to suggest that the buyer consult with their accountant or financial advisor.

2002-03. GlobalBX. http://www.globalbx.com. All rights reserved. Buy a Business or Sell a Business on GlobalBX. GlobalBX is a free business for sale listing exchange that provides a confidential forum to facilitate the buying and selling of businesses with thousands of businesses and franchises for sale as well as comprehensive business information for business buyers and business sellers. Lists businesses for sale, business brokers, and franchise opportunities.

Jim Brown is Director of Marketing at GlobalBX, http://www.globalbx.com. Buy a Business or Sell a Business on GlobalBX, a free business for sale listing exchange that provides a confidential forum to facilitate the buying and selling of businesses with thousands of businesses and franchises for sale as well as comprehensive business information for business buyers and business sellers. Lists businesses for sale, business brokers, and franchise opportunities.

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Picket Marketing

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Gerald F Kein was a hypnotist. His office was located on the second floor of a building located on a heavily traveled highway at Fort Lauderdale. He was a good hypnotist. But he wasn???t well known. He wanted to change that.

This is what he did: He paid a few aged people who had nothing better to do than play cards whole day and told them to make some picket signs and protest against hypnotism in front of his building.

A week later, the picket signs were made. And the bunch of elderly people duly came and stood wait under the building very early in the morning. They started shouting slogans and waved their picket signs that said:

* ???Hypnotism is the work of the devil???
* ???Hypnotism is evil???
* ???Hypnotism is mind control???
* ???Save our children???

As soon as the rally started, Gerald went to his office and started placing calls to the local newspapers and television stations. Within half an hour, newspapers and television stations sent over their reporters and photographers. The TV stations featured the news story in the 9 o clock news. He also made it to his local newspaper. And his photo was published too.

All of a sudden, he became an instant celebrity in the neighbourhood. His business increased.

Action summary:

* Controversy has the potential to bring in loads of free publicity for your business.

* It???s easy to create a controversy. You don???t necessarily have to pay some one to come and start a rally. You just need to have a strong opinion and speak out about that opinion.

* But be careful, many people have been burnt before. Public opinion can sway either way. And if it sways against you, you will be in deep trouble.

About the author:

Ankesh Kothari publishes the Marketing Hotsheet 24 times a year, twice every month. Each hotsheet reveals 6 ***tried and tested*** profit making marketing tactics that you can use to build your business. http://www.MarketingHotsheet.com

Search Engine Optimization – Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

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Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

by: Robin Eldred

There are a lot of ways to promote your website and, unfortunately, a lot of these methods are mistakes. Here is a list of some of the more common mistakes (often referred to as Black Hat SEO) that you should steer well clear of.

1. Bad Neighbourhoods

These sites are also known as free for all (FFA) pages and link farms. They serve no other purpose other than to list tens of thousands of unrelated websites. Not only will these sites not provide your site with any traffic, certain search engines will ban sites who participate.

2. Over Optimization

Optimizing your web pages for a particular search engine can be a good thing. Over-optimizing can defeat the purpose, however. Search engines are catching on quickly to pages that appear over-optimized. Stuffing keyphrases into your pages is the most common problem. Never use hidden (invisible) text to add keywords. You will get caught, and your site will get banned.

3. Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are orphaned web pages that are typically optimized for a particular keyphrase and a particular search engine. They are promoted to the search engine in an effort to achieve high rankings. They are not linked back to by any other page on the website and, as such, search engines are able to flush them out quite easily and penalize the entire site.

4. Traffic Generation Scams

Services that purport to drive lots and lots of traffic to your website are typically not very useful. The traffic tends to come from seedy places like domain names that have lapsed in payment or commonly misspelled domain entries. Most of the traffic that hits these pages is accidental and is therefore of no value to you. Other traffic may come from other participants in the program who are required to visit other websites to gain credits for their own site. Again, this traffic is not targeted and therefore of no value. Some traffic may even be generated by automated software!

5. Shadow Domains

Shadow domains are small, optimized, supplementary websites designed to drive traffic to a different website. The way this works is that an SEO company will design and optimize a website on your behalf. The danger here is that the you do not own this new website; the SEO company does! This means that if the relationship sours, they may choose to redirect this sites traffic to whomever they choose (see #4 above), or even sell the site to one of your competitors! Be very, very careful of this technique, as some supposed search engine experts even use this method (no naming of names here, however).

One final note: Any company that tells you that it can achieve guaranteed rankings is either lying to you or using some of these Black Hat techniques. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a number one result within (unpaid) search results. When choosing a search engine optimization company to work with, be sure you feel comfortable with them and trust them (e.g. money back guarantee). And if you decide to promote your website yourself, consider yourself a little better educated against these common mistakes.

About The Author

Robin Eldred is the president of Apis Design, a Calgary Web Design and Promotion company specializing in building, managing and promoting quality, results-oriented websites for small businesses (http://www.apis.ca/)

robin@apis.ca

Search Engine Secrets – How to Avoid Website Downtime That Can Affect Your Search Engine Listings, Cost You Money, and Damage Your Reputation

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If your web pages are down even momentarily it can hurt you several ways. Learn why, and what to do to make sure your pages are visible the maximum amount of time.

The Internet has changed the way we access information, and the way we buy and sell products and services. When it works, which, fortunately, is most of the time, ideas and cash flow from person to person, company to company, and country to country.

But when the inevitable happens and your pages go down, your business, your bank account and your reputation can suffer, especially if you are unaware of the down status of your e-business operations for more than a few minutes. One way this can hurt you is with the search engines.

Whether you operate a corporate website, a mom-and-pop or something in between, theres no question about it. If you want to get traffic via the search engines, you have to work at getting and maintaining placement on the first page of the current big four Google, Yahoo, MSN and AskJeeves. Depending on the keywords youre trying to get high results for, this can be a time-and-resource intensive process.

Everyone who uses search engine marketing knows that getting and keeping high placement is an ongoing process filled with many unknowns. The rules of the game seem to change without notice, causing frustration, disappointment and even desperation among beginners and veterans alike. Methods that work today may not work tomorrow. Tactics that may be legal today may cause problems tomorrow.

Its as if, despite all the research, experimentation and best intentions, there really is no exact formula that can be applied to guarantee results. There is, however, one aspect of search engine marketing that is a known quantity. If your pages are down even briefly when the spiders visit, you run the risk of losing your place. And unless they come back up immediately, they may be dropped altogether.

For example, Googles Information for Webmasters area says that if your pages cannot be crawled after several attempts due to network or hosting problems, they wont be listed meaning theyll be dropped and it may take a few weeks to for them to show up again. MSNs guidelines state that if your server is offline or there is another access problem when their spider tries to crawl your site, it may not return until a later time. Neither Yahoo nor AskJeeves seems to have guidelines on this issue, but its reasonable to assume that they and other search engine spiders operate like Google and MSN.

Another pitfall of web page downtime is wasted pay-per-click advertising dollars. When PPC landing pages go down, your clicks go nowhere and your money is needlessly depleted. And the PPC medium may suspend your ad if your landing page goes down for too long.

Its a fact that web surfers have limited, if any, patience for page not found errors. Building credibility and trust on the Internet is a challenging task. When surfers click to your page, and its not there, they may conclude that you are out of business. At first exposure to you, if your page is not available they are likely to find a competitor and forget all about you. Yes, you can create a custom 404-error page, but if your entire site is down, that wont help you much.

Suppose you sell advertising on your site and it goes down. What will your advertisers think if they visit your site and dont see their ads?

Maybe you have a paid membership site. What will your members think when they try to access your site and its not there?

Suppose a reporter visits your site and its down. That could kill a budding story about you, or it could inadvertently cause them to write something negative about you.

Why risk all these problems when the solution is so simple and cost-effective?

The answer is remote website monitoring. For under $20 per month, you can get basic monitoring that will inform you if your site is down so you can take immediate action to fix the problem. Depending on the complexity of your e-business operation, you can get more sophisticated service features that can monitor not only your pages, but also your database, servers, transactions and can even check for content changes on your pages. If someone hacked into your site and changed the content on your home page, wouldnt it be nice to know about it before the rest of the world does?

To check out companies that offer these services, do a search for remote website monitoring. Most companies have free trials. The key is to find a company that has flexible service options. Depending on the scope of your e-business, you may or may not need certain features that are bundled together. Why pay for what you dont want? Also, bigger may not be better. Look for an established company that is not too big to give you excellent customer service. During your free trial, send a question or two to their tech support and see how fast they respond. This will give you an idea of what youll get after you pay.

Whatever you do, do it today. You cant afford to not know if your web pages are down.

About the author:

Nick Nichols directs marketing activities at WebSitePulse.com, a leading provider of website uptime and performance monitoring services. Visit http://www.WebSitePulse.comfor a free trial and know how your site is doing 24/7.

Marketing Secrets – Online to Success Website Marketing Tips

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Let me show you how simple and easy anyone with little or no Internet marketing skills can make money online working from home.
For years I have searched the Internet looking for ways to earn extra income, I have been sceptical about lots of programs that have guaranteed great cash flows and I have joined lots of these hoping for that big BREAK.
This of course has never happened

After all my hard work and hours of study I felt the only ones making money online from my efforts were the gurus and big players.
This had left me nowhere and my dreams of financial success shattered until I stumbled across this amazing turnkey system that has rejuvenated my dreams and given me a new direction to making money online.

I was built at no cost to myself a money making website that is a 100% ready to take orders site that will generate you multiple streams of income.
It took less than 24hrs to have my own fully customized website up and running and optimized to effectively present and sell the most in-demand products on the Internet today for F-R-E-E.
As with all business solutions there are minimum monthly running costs but the income I can generate far outlays these costs.

The biggest key to anyones success on the Internet is having their own opt-in list of subscribers and follow up e-mails, my personalised website has a built in auto responder that is setup with 400 days of pre-written e-mails so you do not have to lift a finger.

You can visit my website at http://www.onlinetosuccess.com to see how it looks and you can subscribe to my F-R-E-E newsletter at ashleybolton@getresponse.com.
Remember when you subscribe to my newsletter to pick up your 6 FREE bonuses for subscribing.
This fool proof business system will empower you to achieve more success with your Internet business within the first 30 days than 95% of the huge population of people who are trying to build their own money making systems.

This amazing marketing system that created my website is http://www.onlinetosuccess.com/pips.html
I only wished that I had stumbled across this amazing system earlier on.
I am now more excited and my future is now looking positive.

About the author:
Online to Success publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If youre looking for the *best rated* home business opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the business, come by and grab a F-R-E-E subscription today at
http://www.onlinetosuccess.com

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Misery Loves Company – a Marketing Disease

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Network marketing or MLM are widely viewed as scams and pyramid
schemes. While for many so called oportunities this is true. Don’t
be too quick to judge true valuable programs that can put money
in your pocket and even make your financial dreams come true.

Many of your freinds and relatives will tell you that these programs don’t work and you are wasting your time and money.

But why wouldn’t they – You are excited about the program you are promoting and talk about it all the time. To a point they are jealous. Misery Loves Company.

People will always knock you down for trying to better yourself.
They want you to stay with them, working everyday 9-5.
The possibility of you succeeding frightens them.

But they worry with good reason. Many MLM or Network marketing programs are indeed scams.

The important things to look for in a network marketing company are;

Is there an actual product or service being offered?

You want a company that offers a tangible product, something real.
If the company offers a service,is it a service that people want or need?

How long has the company been in business?

Look for staying power. A company that has been around awhile is more than just a MLM program. It is a true business you can
grab onto.

Does the company offer training and guidance?

Most scams will only offer you ocassional email support and usually try and sell you on the backend.
Look for companies that offer both phone and email support.
You also want complete online support – audios, videos, downloads and anything else that will help you succeed.

You want to stay away from companies that are vague in what they are selling and seem more interested in getting you to the sign up page. Or companies that just are going to “teach you to market”
without any real product or support system.

Also, companies that have a system that is too hard for you to understand. How will you succeed if you can’t sell it yourself?

The bottom line is. Don’t be to quick to ignore valuable marketing systems. Investigate, ask questions and then go for it. Many people are actually online making full time salaries with these programs.
The trick is to find the one that you enjoy and believe in.

Once you do, you will triumph. I will end this article with a final question.

If Network Marketing didn’t work, why would so many people being doing it successfully?

About the author:

Jim Hoffman is co-founder of Inetgoodies.com
An internet resource group helping people succeed online. For the absolute best real home business visit
http://deliveringonthepromise.com/40198491

Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Optimization :: The Basics and Why Websites Need It

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We all know that the most targeted traffic we can get for our websites is from search engines. If you have a little patience and time to set websites the right way you can have a great source of excellent traffic and, best of all, you get it for free.

I will outline first in this article the basics that you have to know to get started with the optimization the right way and, if you read it carefully, you will find out how to be one step ahead the majority.

If you want to have a complete optimized site you have to take care of both on-site and off-site optimization. I will first outline the basics of on-site optimization.

Title Of The Page
The title of the page is one of the most important elements of on-site optimization. Your title must contain your main keyphrase of the page,also make sure that the title describes exactly what the page is about.

Meta Description Tag
The meta description tag usually consists of 160 to 180 characters including spaces. You have to make sure that it describes what the page is about and, because it will appear as a description of your page in serps, you have to write it in a way to make the readers interested in your site. But also don’t forget to include the main keyphrases in it.

Meta Keywords Tag
For some meta enabled search engines, the meta keywords tag used to be one of the most important factor after title and description. In the meta description tag include the keywords and keyphrases from your title, description and some other important keywords but try not to exceed 20 words.

Heading Tag
Each page should contain at least one heading tag. You have to place it at the top of the page and should contain your primary keywords/keyphrases. Make sure that all the heading tags are relevant to the content of the page.

Alt Tag
When you place your cursor over an image a text will popup. This text is the alt text. Try not to stuff keywords or keyphrases in it. Make sure it will describe the image and will include your main keywords/keyphrases.

Content Of The Page
Along with the title, the content weights heavily for all major search engines. You will have to write it to grab users attention and include all your keywords and keyphrases in it in a balanced way. A good thing you can do for your site is to add at least a new page each week to give users a reason to visit your site again.

If you will build all your pages accordingly to all this basic tips, from the off-site optimization point of view, your pages will be optimized the way they should.

Although some engines still pay attention to the on-site optimization, what you need to do to achieve high rankings is a great link building campaign, also known as off-site optimization.

We all know the importance of inbound links for high rankings, but search engines algorithms evolved so much that it’s not only important the number of links. Algorithms will take in consideration many other factors such as if the link your site receive it’s an one way link or reciprocal link.

Almost all webmasters have only campaigns to build as many reciprocal links, which is wrong, because search engines recognizes them and gives them very little importance.

If you want to be one big step ahead of your competition you have to build as many one way links as you can. One way links have a very big impact on rankings. The algos will analyze the page from which you receive the link too. The best links you can create are from pages that are themselves optimized for your keywords/keyphrases.

The best and easy way to do this is writing and submitting optimized topical articles to articles banks over the Internet. Along with your article, you will include a short bio about yourself where you can place your website URL.

There are many places, like goarticles.com , where you can submit your articles in order to create many one way links with only one article. If you will write and submit one article per week you will have a great link building campaign for your site.

Because 42% to 86% of websites are found through search engines and there are over 300 million searches carried out per day, every day your website needs a good search engine optimization. If you will apply all the things I’ve outlined in this article, you just can’t fail.

About the author:
Web Site Search Engine Optimisation – Guaranteed Results! Need Top Ten Rankings in All Major Search Engines? Visit us at http://www.worcesterecs.com

Search Engine Secrets – Why Your Website's Search Engine Rankings Are Important

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I recently spoke to someone who operates a website that sells motorcycle parts and asked her how good her search engine ranking is. She told me that search engine ranking is not a concern for her because she operates a very niche market and that those who are actively seeking the parts that she sells “know where to look”. She seems quite content with the number of visitors that she is getting to her site and the amount of sales that she is making each month. I attempted to explain to her that she could dramatically improve her website ranking and thus her sales if she were to employ some keyword optimized articles, like those we create for our clients, to improve her search engine ranking results. She did not seem to care about this and did not want to spend any money on getting keyword articles to improve her search engine ranking because again, those that are seeking what she sells “know where to look.”

If the above true story sounds like a conversation that you might have with a person like myself, then there are a number of things that you need to reconsider. Let’s review my conversation mentioned above to show the importance of search engine rankings.

First of all, she is convinced that the people seeking her product can find her website. This may be true if the customer spends a great deal of time surfing through multiple sites and has a monumental amount of patience. It is true that word of mouth probably does send her the majority of her customer base and this is fine if she does not want any more customers. Her search engine ranking is so far down on the list that for all practical purposes, her website does not exist to those who type, “motorcycle parts” into google or yahoo. I encouraged her to think about the lack of patience that she has when searching for things on the Internet and how that transfers to those searching for her products. I am just as guilty as anyone in this, if I am searching for something on the Internet, I will likely stop reading the 400,000 results after about the first 20-30 websites. If the item I am looking for is not in those first 20-30 results, I will most often type in a different search phrase such as “motorcycle accessories” vs. “motorcycle parts”. This concept was lost on her as well.

This is another area where keyword articles come into play to improve search engine rankings. What EXACTLY does a person type into the search engines when looking for her motorcycle parts? One person will type in “motorcycle parts” while another types in “motorcycle accessories” and a third person may type in “motorbike parts” and a fourth types in “motorbike accessories”. A fifth person might even type in “motorcycle carburetors”, with or without the “s” on the end of “carburetor.” Basically, there needs to be an article for each of these five terms to help direct search engine traffic to her site so that no matter what the potential customer types into the search engine, they are directed to her website. This concept was lost on her too.

The third idea that she did not consider was the basic financial concept of return on investment (ROI). Return on investment simply means that if you spend $100 on marketing and as a result of this investment, you increase profits by $1,000 then you would have a 900% ROI. This percentage is calculated after subtracting the initial $100 spent on the marketing campaign, then dividing the remnant by the $100 invested, and finally multiplying your result by 100 to get your ROI value.

{ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100}

So, would you like to make $900 by spending $100? I would. The woman that I spoke to failed to realize the potential return on her investment, because she did not want to invest her cash on hand into the future of her business. Most successful website operators have realized the importance of marketing and search engine rankings. They know that they need to be listed in the top 20-30 results if they want to get the clicks, and they know that keyword optimized articles help them to achieve these high rankings.

Decide where you want your website to be located in the search engine rankings. Do you want to make “some” money like the woman in my true story? Or, do you want to dramatically exceed your current profit margins by increasing your website traffic? Just as it was with her, it is up to you to decide if you want to make ends meet with your online business or if you want to really make some money by investing in your marketing.

About the author:
Matthew Rotterman is a writer and editor at: KeywordText.com “Keyword Text” managed to bring together several writers and editors to provide a few low-cost writing services for those who are working hard to become more profitable. They offer Content Creation Services which include: Exclusive WebPage Content and Reprint Articles. Keyword Text also offers very attractive Volume discounts. Compare us to our competition, you will be surprised. http://keywordtext.com/dir.pl/ktc/index.html

Marketing Secrets – E-Marketing

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E-marketing

Let me explain some fundamental marketing aspects about e-trade:

First of all, you must get the potential clients to visit your site , and thats a whole science by it self.
Visitors, who reach your site, read a description of your company and your products.

Depending on weather you first of all want to tell about your company and build your image, or if you just want to sell products and services over the net your site should be Designed different.

In this article however I assume you are selling something on your site, and then you should create a relation to the visitor that will lead to some kind of activity from them, either by asking for more info or a direct purchase.

In marketing this is similar to Direct Mail selling. You have persuaded people to visit your site and they read your letter.
Is the reader in the wrong target- group, not interested enough in your product or if the letter is bad written, the reader will very quickly throw it away.

Or as in our case the visitor very quickly clicks away from your site and will maybe never return!

The secret is to maintain the visitors interest with the site so he/she will return and keep reading your whole message, and thereby create such positive image of your offer that it leads to some kind of continued contact.

A lot of people are laughing at this art, because we have all been exposed to irritating and bad marketing.
But well written Direct Marketing is a work of art and deserves all our respect.

Beautiful graphic images can make your site beautiful to look at and make your sales-letter look more inviting. If the graphics images are big your pages will be loading very slowly and statistically nobody waits anymore than 20 30 seconds for a page to download.

So web-pages with beautiful images and very groovy java-applets could destroy your chances to get contact with potential customers.
And if the graphics looks a little messy the visitor get confused with the purpose of your site and misses the point with
why you got them to visit you in the first place.

The best solution would be to use a minimum of graphics that makes the page load fast, and if you can make the graphics emphasize the content of a well written, contact creating letter you have THE sales letter.

To make your visitors interact with your site is another important difference to traditional marketing. Guest books, e-mails, the order of information-letters,
free samples, can be done with the click of a mouse and invites to spontaneous reactions from your visitor.

Compare the enormous progress to marketing that the fax machine meant to the sales rep.
The speed of communication with clients increased enormously and the whole process of marketing became more efficient at a low cost.

With internet and its possibilities of electronic, almost free transfer of information to anywhere in the world, the business-world has taken another step in interactive communication and has given more speed to the sales process

So now we can interact and create a relation to our clients in a very short time, if we do it the right way.

Hardworking consultant
teaching e-marketing

How to implement Network marketing to your advantage…George Papazoglou

“As the competition on the Internet grows to an enormous rate, companies in order to successfully expand and brand their operations, have resorted to Network Marketing and its’ unclaimed derivative, Stealth Marketing.

‘Building’ a squad of similar content sites to attract and to effectually attain a great portion of a targeted and specific market, entails the call for ‘reinforcements’.

By registering and actively maintaining a number of web sites that work in common to reach and grow the number of users or else, customers, puts into action the Network Marketing concept and appliance.

A would-be and demanding customer that comes across a well established and virtually branded company, by reflection sets his reliance and ‘attachment’ for a well known and instituted company.

In the battlefield of severe competition, Network Marketing is just what the doctor ordered.

The mechanism of Network Marketing puts into practice the execution of the unclaimed/unrevealed term of Stealth Marketing.

Stealth Marketing has to do with the stimulation, of the subconscious and inflexible inner mindset of an upcoming yet indecisive customer.

I’d rather withhold the further elucidation of such a term, as it would by reflection cause the reaction and remonstration of a bomb-shelled and uninformed audience.”

Would giants like, Mc Donalds, Coca-Cola and Microsoft be here and there, if Network Marketing wasn’t the cornerstone of their marketing plan?

In fact, Networking, is the ultimate success-component to brand a business on the Internet and not only.

Did you know that 95% of all prospects won’t buy the very first time they see an ad?

Did you know that 95% of all prospects in every possible industry, will buy because of continuous ad-impressions?

Prospects would rather purchase a product that gained their awareness because of continuous promotions. After all, a customer set’s his commitment to consumption with companies that know when and where to advertise.

It’s almost that explicable. The more people know about your business, the greater the referrals.

And here comes Network Marketing. Network Marketing isn’t successfully implemented by just throwing millions of dollars in commercials etc.

Network Marketing is also put into practice by small businesses on limited resources.

You’ll want to effectually expose your business to your prospective market with the less possible funds.

Discover the most potent techniques and tutorial in transforming your business to a Networking colossal, reach ever-growing, ready-to-buy prospects with minimal resources and guerilla marketing methods, right in the Cyber Getaway Market> visit http://www.web-site-promotion.gr for info…

Article Written by George Papazoglou of http://www.web-site-promotion.gr

Grasp surplus content and articles at http://www.web-site-promotion.gr/internet_marketing.htm?goart

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Marketing a Misunderstood or "

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Debbie LaChusaWhat do you do if your business, product or service is something hardly anyone is aware of or understands? Or worse yet, if it is something they are afraid of or want to avoid?

My answer is three-fold.

First, focus on the SOLUTION you are providing

What is the primary problem your prospects have that you can solve? Do they have pain you can relieve? Do they have an ailment or affliction you can cure? In these cases, you are not selling your “scary” or “misunderstood” product or service, you are selling pain relief or healing.

It is imperative you look at what you are selling from your prospects’ perspective and talk about it terms of a solution for them.

Second, understand your competitive advantage

You must understand how what you sell stacks up against the other options your prospects have. Is it superior? Do the effects last longer? Is it safer? Is it cheaper? The list of questions could go on forever.

In the end, you must be able to clearly communicate to your prospects how you can help them in a way no one or nothing else can. This makes your “scary” or “misunderstood” product or service the only logical alternative for them and will help to overcome any obstacles or fear they may have. It simply becomes THE best solution for the problem the have.

Third, undertake an educational marketing effort

Through your web site, a newsletter or ezine, special reports, tele-seminars and presentations, or other free information products and services, you have an excellent opportunity to educate your prospects about your product or service and to dispel any fears or misconceptions they may have.

You may even want to enlist testimonials from satisfied clients. People very often believe what others say about your business more than what you say. If you don’t yet have clients to gather testimonials from, treat some friends or colleagues to your product or service and ask them to provide you with testimonials in exchange. It’s a great way to get your business off to a great start!

About the author:
20-year marketing veteran Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners successfully market their business, themselves without spending a fortune on marketing. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Search Engine Optimization – Basics to Search Engine Optimization

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Search Engine Optimization popularly Known as SEO.

SEO is the process of optimizing or modifying a website to increase its popularity and ranking in listings of search engines.

What is Search Engine?

A Search Engine is the one which keeps a data base of the websites with good content or dedicated to the search and retrieval of information for the purpose of cataloging the results. Usually based on an index of several webpages or websites you are looking for your purpose.

Customers Search for the products or service on these Search Engine for keywords and the results will be provided as per your site indexing on that search engine or based on the popularity of your keyword.

Basics of SEO

1) Keyword Research
2) Site Building

a)Title Tag
b)Meta Tag
c)Develop Content of Site
d)Header Tags

3) Links

a)Inbound Links
b)Reciprocal Links
c)Threeway Links
d)Article Submission
e)XML Feed

These are used to improve the ranking and popularity of your site.

Now a days google is most searchable Engine 60% of the search traffic you will get from google. and the Rest Yahoo 20% and the rest 20%.

You should optimize your site as per the google’s search methodologies.

If you are Interested in optimizing your site for Search Engine ranking and popularity.

Please feel free to contactseo@gmail.com
Thanks and Regards
Mirza.
contactseo

Search Engine Secrets – Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

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Your website’s ranking on search engines is a vital element
of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to
improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of
dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link
popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,
and are now on guard for “spam” pages and sites that have
increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a
search engines tracks down such a site, that site is
demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search
engine’s index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely
above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page
criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in
the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index,
even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh
treatment. But there are things you can do – and things you
should be sure NOT to do – which will prevent this kind of
misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you
are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning
website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the
Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about
increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you
must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose
to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites
that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of
artificially boosting their link popularity. They have
actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.”

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be
penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;
penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the
link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and
double-check, all the links that are active on your links
page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages
you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way
to do this is to download the Google toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most
pages are given a “Pagerank” which is represented by a
sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the
scale. This is especially important when the scale is
completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages
have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you
may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be
difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose
scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.
These sites have not been penalized, and their links may
grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that
you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that
at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have
linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to
artificially boost their link popularity is the use of
hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web
pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means
that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you
have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine
ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of
keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding
their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to
any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the
keywords but made them the same color as the background
color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on
a white background. You cannot see these words with the
human eye – but the eye of search engine spider can spot
them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to
index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it
goes back and boosts that page’s link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but
search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a
search engine perceive the use of hidden text – splat! the
page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit
overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For
example, if the background color of your page is gray, and
you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider
will only take note of the gray text and assume you are
employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,
simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color
to text as the background color of the page – ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is
called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your
keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you
can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please
those spiders. A search engine uses what is called
“Keyphrase Density” to determine if a site is trying to
artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of
keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search
engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a
keyword before it decides you have overdone it and
penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass
without sounding as if you are stuttering – unless your
keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,
it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword
is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase
in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so
that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not
repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword
should never appear in more than half the sentences on the
page.

The final potential risk factor is known as “cloaking.” To
those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should
be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when
the server directs a visitor to one page and a search
engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees
is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic,
and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine
ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything
it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the
list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this
act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep
penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that
sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as
prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as
“pagejacking.” This kind of shielding is unnecessary these
days due to the use of “off page” elements, such as link
popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is
aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure
the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will
put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link
popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent
to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor
your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially
boosting your rankings.

About the author:
Zaak O’Conan discovers and presents information
on to enhance your site, newsletter, marketing and other
Internet related topics. You’ll find his other articles that
expand your horizons at http:/
/WebWorkersWeekly.com

Marketing Secrets – the REAL Internet Marketing Secrets – by a Novice!

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Forgetting the hype and concentrating on the core steps to internet marketing success
If you have anything at all to do with internet marketing or are looking to get into internet marketing, then Id like you to hear me out.

Im NOT an internet marketing guru. Im in the information publishing business and run a successful publishing company, MK Publications. I use the internet as a tool to sell my products, along with direct mail and mail order advertising. I do this through my popular ezine Product Developer Secrets and my website.

Although its not my area Ive become quite concerned with the amount of emails Im getting from my subscribers telling me how frustrated theyve become with trying to make money on the internet. And asking me for advice.

Id like to set the record straight and show you a copy of a reply I sent to a guy a couple of days ago (I get a lot of emails like this). What the guy wanted was a step-by-step guide to starting up an internet business and becoming successful. However, he had spent an absolute fortune on buying new courses, videos and anything else he could lay his hands on – to teach him “the magical formula”. Everytime a new course came out he bought it. Thinking that this was the one.

Like most people he became increasingly frustrated and overwhelmed by the amount of information he had. He ended up confused, discouraged and not knowing where the heck to go next and nursing a huge dent in his wallet!

Here’s my reply to him and I’m sure those interested in Internet Marketing will get some good value from it.

= = = = = = Start of Reply = = = = = = =

“Well, it seems to me that you’re looking for some kind of “magical formula” for success in online marketing. What I’d say to you firstly is don’t buy anymore books about internet marketing. You already know more than 85% of online marketers out there! You would be much wiser actually spending your money on setting up and promoting your own particular site. Most of the books and courses out there now are just rehashed stuff written by broke people trying to pretend they are ‘experts’. Just like that guy you mentioned – he made his money by selling books telling others how to make money before he’d actually made any money himself!

Also you can literally drive yourself crazy with all this information that’s available – one person say’s do it this way and the next person says do it the other way. You end up going nowhere. I know, I’ve been in this situation several times and felt like bashing my head up the wall in sheer frustration. It’s called “information overload”.

What I’ve decided to do now is not buy another “internet marketing course”. I’ve got several and they nearly all repeat the same thing. The exception would be if somebody with a great reputation (Corey Rudl for instance) came out with a brand new tried and tested killer method for making money on the internet. I only trust the “big guns”. The ones out there really making it happen who wouldn’t tarnish their reputation selling the same old stuff or ripping people off.

Now, I’ll admit I’m NOT an internet marketing ‘expert’. I specialise in direct mail/mail order publishing and creating info products and teaching others how to do the same. The internet is just another part of my business. But I’m doing pretty well in my internet marketing efforts – at long last. What I did was go through all my internet marketing courses, tapes and videos (one set alone cost me $2,995 – ouch!) and pick out the exact steps I needed to follow in an easy “bite-sized” formula. I then swore to myself that I wouldn’t buy another damn course or book until I made the Internet work for me (i.e. made me money). I decided that any course that I purchased HAD to be purchased through the profits I made solely from my internet marketing efforts. And since I hadn’t made a bean from the internet at that point, I had no choice but to just get on with it and make it work.

I suggest you make the same promise to yourself.

Before I give you the steps I came up with. I want you to tell you that what you mentioned about the opt-in list was absolutely spot-on. Engrave this on your brain. The single most important factor in internet marketing success is building your own opt in list. Don’t ever forget that. 95% of your time should be spent in building your list. Forget about spending weeks designing fancy looking pop-ups, web pages, learning to program, designing nifty eBook covers, etc. (WHEN you’ve made money you can pass all this over to someone else to do). Spend nearly all your time building your list. This is vital. The list is so important that if you don’t do this then all the other stuff means nothing. It’s exactly the same in Direct Mail and it’s the same online. That’s how you make a lot of money – selling over and over again to your loyal and trusted subscribers. No matter what new fancy techniques, ideas and strategies *they* come up with. This will always remain the same.

Anyway, here’s the formula I came up with. There’s nothing original about any of the steps and you’ve probably heard them all before. They’re very simple but powerful. And they WORK! But what you need to do is just follow these religiously and if the info you’ve already purchased teaches you anything extra then great. Use that too.

1/ Find a market of hungry people looking for particular types of information. Pick a subject you’re interested in whether it’s writing poetry or wrestling alligators! You can bet there’ll be others out there interested in the same thing. But you’ve got to find them first. Use the search engines to find discussion groups on your subject and then read the comments and questions. This is all market research. If you don’t find a market of hungry people then move onto the next subject. Try and pick something a little different. I.e. Dont try and teach others how to make money on the internet! (or if you do and this is your area, then put a new slant on it i.e. an internet marketing course for Real Estate Agents or Hair Dressers or Lawyers, etc. “Real Estate Agents: Use the power of the net to quadruple your turnover!” etc).

2/ Decide that you will produce a monthly or preferably twice a month ezine that you will send your list. Decide on what ‘angle’ your ezine will take. I.e. If it’s about cars will you talk about cars in general? Or a particular make and model? Or a particular area of cars such as racing cars?

3/ Think of a suitable domain name and register it.

4/ Sign up with a suitable autoresponder company http://www.aweber.com etc). So that you can start building your list immediately. I.e. you don’t have to wait until your website is finished. You just put your autoresponder email in your ads instead of your web address. You could easily have a list of a couple of hundred subscribers BEFORE your site is up and running.

5/ Begin marketing your ezine (building your list) using these strategies:

– Write to other ezine publishers in a similar area and agree to swap ads (“you put an ad in mine and I’ll put an ad in yours”) – note: this is one of the most powerful methods you can use. – Write testimonials for some of those products you bought and send them to the author making sure your web address is visible in the testimonial. – Post messages on those discussion boards you looked at. But make sure yours isn’t an obvious ad (else it’ll be deleted!) Offer useful info and then place your web address under your name. – Post articles to article submission sites for free (www.marketing-seek.com / www.ideamarketers.com). – Think up new and creative ways to market your site cheaply – or preferably for FREE! (Like all the methods above).

6/ Build and launch your site. Use templates to look really professional (www.4templates.com) and use a simple program like Front Page to design it. Or go to www.elance.com and find a
good company to build it for you whilst you build your list. Hint: Look at other Guru’s websites to see how theirs looks and model yours on it. But don’t spend ages on it. Your website is there for one purpose – and that is to capture names and email addresses. It only needs to be a form. Professional not fancy!

7/ When you’ve got a decent-ish sized list. Write to your subscribers and ask them exactly what they would like to see in your ezine and what kinds of things they are looking for. What products do they want? What information on this subject would they like to see? This is all research. But it’s very targeted research. The best research you can do. All you need to do is ask them what they want. It’s so simple that people don’t do it. They try and assume what their subscribers want instead of asking them. Crazy!

8/ Use this research to find a product to meet their wants and ‘hot buttons’. Use affiliate directories and sign up for a program that meets these desires (www.associateprograms.com). Then start ‘recommending’ these products to your list. One word of warning here, though. Make sure you at least review this product before you offer it to them. Recommending a poor or shoddy product will kill your reputation before you’ve even got going. I try out and thoroughly review every single product before I recommend it.

9/ My favourite! Create your own information product targeted to your subscribers exact wants, needs, desires and ‘hot buttons’ using the tips and techniques in my newsletter – and make a killing!

10/ Repeat steps 1 to 9 all over again but with a new market, ezine and product!

Look, just stick to that and I promise that you won’t go too far wrong. Stop thinking that there’s a magical formula out there and that “everyone else is making it” – except you! They aren’t. Most people are running around like headless chickens flitting from one ‘hot’ scheme to another, losing money. Then wasting their money on yet another “red hot” course. Eventually they give up on the whole idea until the next hot money making thing comes along.

What youve just read above is the essence of internet marketing success. I know this to be true because its working for me and it works for others Ive spoken to. The gurus out there would have you believe that theres one more vital piece in the puzzle that you desperately NEED. Or that they have been holding back on the REAL secrets.

They havent. Follow the steps above with persistence I promise that youll give yourself the very best chance of internet success.

= = = = = = end of reply = = = = = = =

I hope you found some value in that reply. And I hope it has saved you some money! If anyone has anything to add on that please write to me and let me know.

Neil Maxwell-Keys e neil@productdevelopersecrets.com w http://www.productdevelopersecrets.com

About the Author

Neil Maxwell-Keys is editor of the “Product Developer Secrets” ezine, the authoritative resource for making big money quickly by creating and marketing your own information products. To subscribe click here => http://www.productdevelopersecrets.com

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Combine Email Marketing With Your Affiliate Programs the Right Way!

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Affiliate Programs are huge today and rightly so. They provide
people with the opportunity to make a residual income with very
little cash output, and of course everything is already done for
you. All you have to do is promote.

Now, this article isn’t focusing on Affiliate Marketing, but it
does suggest a few effective ways for maximizing YOUR LIST
building potential.

You already know that in order to be successful online, you
need a list…and when I say list, I am referring to YOUR LIST.
(You will see why I highlight YOUR in a sec).

Makes sense…right? I mean which would you rather have, a nice
warm, accepting list of individuals with whom you have built a
good relationship with and who are receptive to your
recommendations?

or….

Having to continually go out and drive new traffic to your site
in order to make that sale?

Think about the process you go through for a second. You
join an affiliate program, use their ads and place classifieds
in newsletters. The link you use is sending prospects to your
affiliate “page.”

From there, your affiliate program gathers into the “system”
only those who; buy or sign up. You are only able to build a
list based on those two criteria and because of that, you are
missing out. You are missing out on those “others” who have
been to your page and maybe aren’t ready to buy, but would
be if ONLY they had some additional follow up contact with
you.

Even if you wanted to contact these “others,” you aren’t able
to because your affiliate program doesn’t allow you to make
any changes to your (or rather their) web page. Which means
that you are not able to maximize on your list building potential.

So, how do you fix this problem?

There are actually a few things you can do. First of all, let’s
start with your mindset. This is the key. What I want you to
do from here on out is always ask yourself this one key question…

“How/what must I do to add on to “MY List.”

If you are using classifieds to market your affiliate program,
then ask yourself that question and instead of sending prospects
to your affiliate page, send them to a Report/eCourse instead.
See what just happened? You have now added a name to YOUR
list, instead of sending them to your page and risk the chance of
losing them altogether.

There is another way to help you build your list and market your
programs at the same time. Create a theme-based web site of your
own.

I hear the groans. I know one of the reasons affiliate programs
are so big is because they have a page for you. But let me explain
why you really need a site of your own.

How many of you have been playing a little leap frog…jumping
from program to program because nothing is making you money?
It’s ok to admit it because you aren’t alone, there are 1000s of
people in the same boat.

Stop and think for a second the effect all this jumping is having
on you and your chances of making a residual income:

1. You are not focused, and

2. You are ALWAYS starting over from scratch.

Aren’t you tired of that?

That is the whole intent of having a site of your own. One that
is based on a theme and loaded with good, quality content. One
that allows you to build a list that is YOURS.

You don’t have that full capability with an Affiliate Program.

If you quit the program or “knock on wood” they bite the dust,
and trust me it does happen. Then all that hard work you put into
marketing that program has been lost. You don’t own the page, you
don’t own the list, so as a result you are always starting over…each
and every time.

But…

If you had your own way to build your list and added your own
web site, then you have COMPLETE OWNERSHIP. Your list is
YOURS so if you quit a program not a problem, the bottom line
is that list (your baby) is going with you.

Now, don’t go into panic mode and think that I am saying Affiliate
Programs are useless…That is NOT what I am saying. What I am
trying to get across to you is…YES participate in them, but work
smarter…not harder.

Doesn’t that make sense to you?

Excellent, now about YOUR site…

Visitor’s are looking for CONTENT…NOT a hard sales effort
being thrown at them. What are YOU more receptive to, someone
who provides you with good information so that you are better
able to make an informed decision. Or, someone who is trying to
hard sell you. If you go for the good information choice, then
what makes you think the rest of us are any different?

So, you have a site of your own. A site that is not an exact
replica of your affiliate page but one that is theme-based
with content that relates to your program(s). One that has
the opt in tools like a Report/eCourse or Subscription that
is building a good list for you.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Let’s look at an Affiliate Program that sells leads. You make
a commission off of the lead packages you sell.

On YOUR SITE (not your affiliate page) you could have a
theme built around “leads.” Your focus could cover:

1. How to generate your own leads,
2. What to look for when purchasing leads,
3. How to follow up with leads,
4. What to follow up with,
5. Teach someone the proper way to follow up…

Through your content you have taught your prospect everything
they need to know about leads. You have developed a trust with
them and by sharing this information you have become the “lead
expert” in their minds.

Wrapped within the content of your various information, of
course, your Reports/eCourses and maybe even a Subscription
to your newsletter… these are your tools for building your list.
Also built within your content you mention your affiliate program
in a non-threatening or hard sell way. In doing so, you now have
a prospect that is open to clicking to your affiliate page and
buying what you have to offer.

You even have the potential to add income streams. Looking at
the list above you could sign up for an autoresponder program,
because a prospect is going to need thatand who better to get
it than through you, right?

The main thing is, what started as one income stream (your
original Leads Program) has now developed into 2-3 income
streams.

And of course, let’s not forget about YOUR LIST that follows
you wherever you go.

Does that make sense now???

By all means participate in Affiliate Programs, they are an
excellent source of commissions for you. But, market them
the right way, through your own site, where you can plug-in
opt in tools to build a list and build a relationship with ALL
your visitors and prospects.

About the author:

Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach writing from her home
office in Northern Ontario (Canada). Imagine What You
Could Accomplish With a Marketing Coach in Your Back
Pocket! Take the test drive
http://www.profitspace.com/coach

Search Engine Optimization – the Basics of Search Engine Optimization (S.

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O.)Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, Ph.D.

One means of making sure your site receives maximum visibility is search engine optimization (S.E.O.). You must think in terms of search engine optimization from the earliest stages of planning and design if you want to receive heavy traffic from the major search engines. In order to optimize your site, you need to understand how search engines work, how web surfers search, and what elements of your site contribute to successful search placement. While much information (and misinformation) exists about search engine optimization, experts agree that the elements you must focus on are keywords, meta tags and links from other sites.

How Search Engines Work

Before delving into specific elements, its necessary to understand how search engines work. True search engines (as opposed to directories like Yahoo!) use a program called a robot or spider to crawl the web while gathering and indexing the information they find. A searcher receives the results of these crawls when s/he conducts a search. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, every search engine (and literally thousands of engines exist) has its own criteria for indexing sites, and further criteria for determining the ranking of sites. Its easy to see why S.E.O. consultants can make a handsome living its virtually impossible for a single webmaster to know all of the various rules that will optimize his/her site for every engine.

Feeling Overwhelmed Yet?

While a search engine optimization consultant can provide a greater amount of detailed knowledge for an individual web master, experts tend to agree that there are a few rules that almost anyone can apply to optimize his/her site.

First, while thousands of search engines exist, most surfers do their searching on a handful of sites. Yahoo! generally accounts for half of all web searches. While they charge a fee for simply considering a business listing in their directory (currently $299), many business people may find that a reasonable investment, considering the popularity of this portal. Among true search engines, the most popular by far are Google and Overture. Its important to know that many search engines actually get there results from these giants, so applying the rules that work for these two can help get your site listed in many engines.

Optimizing You Site

In order to make sure your site is listed in searches that directly apply to your type of business, its essential to use the best keywords and phrases. Keywords are the words that searchers use to find web sites that will give them the information they want. In order to take advantage of the power of keywords, you must find out what keywords and key phrases are most popular among the searchers you want to attract to your site, so you may want to consider using a service like Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) to find out the words and phrases that searchers are using. Once youve determined this, you want to place those words and phrases at the points in your page most likely to be noticed by search engines. Experts tend to agree that the best places to use keywords are in your page title, your pages copy, and in the sites meta tags.

The page title is likely the most important place to use the proper keywords, as all search engine spiders tend to look at it. Precision is key use the keywords that are most likely to bring the right visitors to that particular page. While some consultants suggest using many key words, or many slight variations of key words, or repeated key words, search engines have caught on to these strategies and may actually penalize your site for using such tactics. According to Webmonkey.coms Paul Boutin, its best not to include extra words, such as a company name; using only the keywords as site title will generally bring the best results.

Its also important to use those keywords and phrases in the copy of the page, as spiders do look at this also. Note, for instance, how often I use phrases like search engine opitimization and search engine in this article. Thats deliberate. Keep in mind, though, that search engines have caught on to the practice of loading down copy with keywords to achieve higher rankings, and certain high ratios of keywords to overall copy may actually hurt your placement.

The third place to use keywords is in the sites meta tags, which are part of the coding for the page. Again, its best to use only the words that will bring the best results repetition or overuse of variations can hurt your optimization.

Finally, some consultants will suggest that regardless of your sites content, you always include the most popular overall keywords in your title and meta tags. While this may bring more initial traffic to your site, you have to consider whether attracting searches on Eminem or Spiderman will benefit you in any way. Generally, its best to optimize your site so that you attract those searchers that would actually be interested in what you have to offer.

Link popularity

Another criteria that many search engines use for ranking is link popularity. Essentially, is your site linked from other sites, and are those sites ranked well in their engines? This can be a time consuming process for a webmaster, as getting links on other pages generally involves contacting the owner of that page and asking for a listing or agreeing to a link swap: you put a link on your page to their site, and they do the same for you. Again, dont believe that you can fool the search engines through short-cut methods such as FFA pages, as the engine administrators have caught on to these, also. Also keep in mind that links on other reputable pages account for a high percentage of traffic you really cant lose by having your site listed on other sites Links pages.

Some Final Thoughts

When optimizing your site for the search engines, its also important to remember that a high ranking in a search doesnt necessarily mean more qualified traffic. As in many aspects of life, presentation is everything. If the listing on the search engine appears clear and professional, youre more likely to receive more of the traffic that will benefit you. Boutin notes that the meta name field in the coding is important in this regard, as some engines use the information in this field for their site description. While you want to use keywords and phrases in this field, do so in a manner that still will make sense to a surfer looking for a site like yours.

Ultimately, search engine optimization involves using tried and true methods of design and writing to make your site user-friendly.

More information:

Boutin, Paul. Search Engine Optimization FREE
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/23/index1a.html

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, Ph.D., is an English professor and freelance business writer. You may contact Jeff at mcintirj@lincolnu.edu

Search Engine Secrets – 4 of the Top 5 Search Engine Benefits to Article Marketing

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You’ve probably heard by now that article marketing can help you build links back to your site.

But there’s a lot more to it than that. Articles aren’t only good for leveraging yourself stronger positions in Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other big search engines, though that’s what we’ll be focusing on today. Keep in mind that learning a more balanced view of promotion and marketing with articles can help you reap all the perks with essentially the same amount of work.

For now, let’s start with four of the top five search engine benefits.

1- The One-Way Link of a Resource Box backlink is More Powerful.

A link from a site that you’re not linked back to has more value than one where you may be required to link back to, simply because changes in the way search engines rank sites now include an adjustment for exchanged links.

The logic is that this would make the voting power of a link that points in one direction weigh more heavily than one that is traded. In theory, this makes it easier for sites that have earned link popularity to get more credit than those who have bought or traded for it.

Of course, over time, this effect may be adjusted and partially dampened so that articles that are just being submitted to resources with no editorial process will count less than those that don’t undergo this process. So make sure you’re not submitting junk content for the purpose of linking alone.

2- Article Resource Box Links Back to You Are Relevant

If you write articles that stay on the topic of your site, the page where your article appears is more effective as a page that links back because it is more relevant. Again, depending on the search engine, the more topical the environment where you are linked, the more credit your site gets for the link itself, particularly if you’re submitting to an online directory which allows you to make better use of linking.

There are a few little changes you can make that will make your links and articles more topically relevant than 90% of other articles, merely because other authors don’t think to balance the search engine benefits of article promotion with its value as content, rather than favoring one or the other.

3- Many of Your Articles Appear on Pages with High Google PR

If you take a look at your Google Site Information page, you’ll probably notice that Google seems to pick up only sites that have high page rank under the listing for sites that link to you.

Then, of course all the sites that use the text of your site URL, hyperlinked or not, can be found under the last setting for sites that contain your link.

Google Page Rank is typically not something to get in a frenzy over, but it does have an importance that can affect your bottom line for two main reasons.

First, on the occasions that Google Page Rank can help you get better search engine positioning, the process of being linked from these sites can help bring you more targeted traffic, which can lead to more sales. Again, this has to be part of an overall strategy, not your sole reason for submitting articles.

Second, if links from sites with higher page rank get are being spidered more frequently than your site, your link on these sites can also get crawled faster. If you have unique content on your site, this can give you a competitive edge when your content gets included more rapidly.

4- These links back to your site are permanent.

That means that instead of buying a link on a site that appears there for three months and disappears, you are getting a free, topically relevant link pointing back to your site that may be archived, but not dropped.

Over time, if you submit articles on a regular schedule, each effort towards publication is building on previous exposure, helping you brand yourself and your company, as well as build a strong link campaign pointing back towards your site that is free.

As the quality of your articles improve, you can also get qualified leads from the process, an increase in traffic and sales, and publication in resources who have stronger brands than you do, which you may then leverage for additional exposure.

Just remember, the search engine benefits of promoting your site with articles represent only the tip of the iceberg. With articles you can also brand yourself, use your knowledge to establish yourself as an expert, network, develop relationships and increase your leads, sales and traffic.

About the author:
What is the Fifth Search Engine Benefit to Article Marketing and Promotion? Find out in the free e-course on Article Promotion at: http://www.freetraffictip.com/2-article-marketing/tips-am2.php

Marketing Secrets – Strategic Internet Marketing

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I met Sue at a recent networking event. She is an author and speaker, and promotes her products by speaking at events and selling her products after the talks. Sue has a web site, whose primary purpose is to sell her products and make more people aware of her expertise. She isn’t happy with the web site, though. “I have a great product, but I only had 2 sales in the last twelve months from the site. On the other hand, I can’t keep enough inventory on hand for event sales! Something isn’t right.” So the coach in me had to ask a few questions and offer suggestions. “Tell me,” I said, “how do you market your web site?” “Market?” she said. “I don’t do much marketing. I have a great product, I am an accomplished author and well-known expert. People should be able to find me and buy from my web site.”

Many business owners put a web site on the Internet and think that “if you build it, they will come.” They, of course, being web customers. You have many potential clients out there, looking for someone with your expertise, looking for your products and services. However, it would be difficult for them to visit your web site and buy from it, if they didn’t know it existed.

Help your customers find you – create a good Internet marketing campaign to reach your potential customers and make them aware of benefits of hiring you. Here are three main online marketing areas to get you started:

* Your Expert Web Site – It should be user friendly, make the benefits of hiring you or buying your products crystal clear, and promote you, your services and your products.

Keep adding to your web site content. Write articles of interest to your target market, start a blog, and keep expanding your product line. Fresh content helps you with search engine positioning and keeps your potential customers coming back.

Curious how user friendly your web site is? Ask a potential or current customer to evaluate your web site.

* Newsletter – It should be highly relevant to your target audience. Publish a newsletter that gives your readers a lot of valuable information, but at the same time leave them hungry for more of your expertise. For example, a professional organizer’s newsletter can offer ten tips for getting kids organized for back-to-school, advice which helps the reader while inspiring confidence in the organizer’s knowledge and experience.

* Networking – Don’t forget about networking. Online networking is becoming increasingly prevalent. You can network through many online networking communities, such as Ryze.com, LinkedIn.com Ecademy.com, and many more. Each one has a different focus, feel, and dynamics. Try several and see which one is the right fit for you. Online networking is an excellent way to connect with your target market.

When you are selling your services online, your web site is the image you project to the world. Often, it is the first thing your potential customers see before they decide to hire you. Newsletters and networking are there to help you build relationships with your potential customers, and help them learn more about you and your business. Strategic Internet marketing is the combination of user friendly web site, newsletter, networking and other online strategies that you use to market your business effectively.

About the author:
About the author: Biana Babinsky is the online business expert who has helped many business owners attract more web site customers, bring in more online publicity and increase the bottom line. Visit http://avocadoconsulting.com/free_newsletter.html to subscribe to her newsletter full of marketing tips and ideas and join her online business coaching program at http://www.MarketingSalad.com

Using RSS Feeds to Help Your Search Engine Rankingsjon proRSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. RSS is an XML-based format for content distribution. Webmasters create an RSS feed containing headlines and descriptions of specific information. The majority of RSS feeds currently contain news headlines, current articles, breaking information but you can find a feed on just about any subject.

Webmasters can use these RSS feeds to help add relevant content to their webpages and move their site up the search engine ladder. The key to using these feeds is to have it show up in your websites page code so when search engine spiders your site, it will see all kinds of new content and thinks that your site is currently maintained and being updated frequently. Search engines really like to see this and rank these sites highest. Optimum rankings will likely not hold up if the site stays static. RSS feeds are an excellent way to continually freshen website content without having to make periodic content updates manually.

Buried within U.S. Patent Application # 20050071741 (aka The Google Patent) is the following paragraph:
“Documents for which there is an increase in the rate of change might be scored higher than those documents for which there is a steady rate of change, even if that rate of change is relatively high. The amount of change may also be a factor in this scoring. For example, documents for which there is an increase in the rate of change when that amount of change is greater than some threshold might be scored higher than those documents for which there is a steady rate of change or an amount of change is less than the threshold.”

Easy-to-implement RSS feeds are available for almost any imaginable topic and having one or more feeds on your website will certainly enhance your visitor experience. Your visitors will most likely appreciate this added content with up-to-date information. They will be more likely to revisit and stay longer while reading these RSS feeds.

If you are adding RSS to your website for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there is one important rule that must be followed: DONT USE JAVASCRIPT! Why not? Because search engines don’t look at JavaScript, so JavaScript feeds are useless for SEO. To make news feeds visible to search engines, their text has to be embedded into your page. If you view the source of your page and you don’t see the actual text of the news feed, then search engines aren’t going to see it either.

RSS is one of the hottest phenomenons in the webmaster community today. RSS that benefits SEO is a topic thats been very much overlooked. Implementing RSS into websites has become much easier so that even non-programmer types can do it. RSS should be viewed as a must for any website that would normally remain very static and should be strongly considered as a part of all SEO projects.

Once you find the right newsfeed for your webpage you will need a program to parse out the content and display it on your site in plain HTML. Originotions.com http://wwww.originotions.com makes this as easy as putting your RSS feed link in a form. You can customize the size, look and feel of the output. They send you a couple lines of code in PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion and HTML. You just add it in your webpage and presto, you have an RSS feed on your site, all for free.

About the author:
Kim Proulx
Webmaster
Website: http://www.originotions.com