How Internet Marketers Are Crushing The Competition

Writen by Steven Hupprich

As a marketer, your goal is to reach your prospective customers. You strive to deliver a message that will help make a sale or get a new subscriber. When you submit articles, you achieve those objectives. The process sweeping the internet is called "article marketing".

Article marketing allows you to become known, build credibility, and establish a relationship with your target audience using the web sites they are already visiting. There is no need to waste your time, effort or money marketing to a general, untargeted audience.

Speak directly to a specific audience who is already showing an interest in what you have to offer. Post your articles in the newsletters that your target audience subscribes to. Get your articles published on the websites that they are visiting. Have your words included in the RSS feeds of the most popular sites on the net. Article marketing lets you speak directly to your perfect customer.

Here are eight extraordinarily powerful results of submitting articles to newsletters and content rich websites:

~Create More Business~ When your articles appear in newsletters and content rich newsletters, a targeted audience reads them. A large percentage of your potential target audience has never heard of your website. You create more business for yourself by providing content that inspires action.

~Generate More Traffic~ When your readers are inspired to action, the action they take is to visit your website, where you have more opportunities to make offers, collect email addresses, and get sales. The cornerstone of success with internet marketing is get more visitors to show up at your site.

~Improve Your Conversions~ When more visitors show up at your site, they are already feeling good about you, your approach, and your solution to their problem because they have read your articles. Ken Evoy calls these visitors "pre-sold" and says that compared to "cold visitors", these people are much more likely to join your mailing list, subscribe to your newsletter, or buy from you. And why do these people show up? Because they found your link on popular sites around the net.

~Increase Inbound Links~ Every time your articles appear on popular sites around the net, they carry a link to your website. When your article is reprinted, you get another link directly to your site from a relevant source. No more begging webmasters for reciprocal links, no more monitoring web links. You provide content and the popular websites around the net publish more links to your site.

~Increase Your Page Rank~ Links from popular website sites, especially sites closely aligned with yours, are viewed by Google as "highly relevant". More relevant links result in a Page Rank increase for your site. Your articles give the largest, most popular sites in your industry a reason to link to you. The more relevant links you have, the higher your Page Rank

~Get Better Search Listings~ According to Google, "Page Rank provides the basis for all of our web search tools." So the bigger your site's Page Rank, the higher your site will appear on search engine results pages. Having your page show up in the top 10 of keyword search results dramatically improves your traffic and increases your site's credibility.

~Become a Recognized Expert~ Increased credibility is a tremendous factor in converting traffic to sales. When the most popular sites in your industry publish your articles, you become known as an expert in your field. Your website gains both credibility and stature. Customers start coming to you, instead of you chasing them down. The more often your knowledge and expertise is demonstrated to a potential customer, the more they'll trust you, and the more they'll buy from you. Submit articles today and gain that expert status.

~Grow Your Affiliate Income~ Expert status is one of the prime factors that turn ordinary affiliates into Super Affiliates. As you become a recognized expert, more people believe in (and act on) your recommendations. When they act on your recommendations, your affiliate income soars. It all starts with submitting your first article.

Go Here to get more information:

http://www.articlemarketer.com?a_aid=d80e4079

"Last month I just launched a brand new website and had Gregg Hall do 10 articles for it. In just 30 days, that brand new website got a PageRank of 5 and a top 10 listing on Google!"

Steve has spent the past several years helping people to find their Power, then unleash it to get what they want out of their lives -- http://bobproctor.com/a.asp?bpap&3918

Internet Advertising Agencies

Writen by Richard Romando

Internet advertising agencies carry the intended advertising message to a selected audience. It is essential to understand the distinction between the two commonly used terms- media and media vehicles. Newspapers form a media. Under this media, there are so many media vehicles. One of them is The New York Times. The same holds true with magazines, television channels, radio and Internet.

Selecting the appropriate media and the media vehicle, and arriving at a sound media mix, are crucial functions in advertising. These days advertising agencies provide help in media selection as an integral part of their service to the advertiser. The main concern of any Internet advertising agency is how best to carry the already decided advertising message to the target audience? Which media or combination of media will serve the purpose in the most effective manner?

Before assessing and evaluating the various media available, the agency has to study the firm’s market conditions- it is essential for them to find out the firm’s existing image in the market, characteristics of its major customer segments, their buying habits, their lifestyles and their pastimes. Next, the agency focuses on the marketing objectives of the firm. Ultimately the advertising campaign has to assist in attaining these objectives. He must also know the specific communication goals laid down by the firm.

These communication goals, which are explicitly stated by the firm, help the agency decide what media or media mix can deliver the advertising message for ultimately attaining these communication goals. Another factor that has to be seriously taken into account by the Internet advertising agencies is the total budget available to run the advertising campaign. This is an essential prerequisite because the money available will limit the choice of media.

Advertising Agencies provides detailed information on Advertising Agencies, Internet Advertising Agencies, Full Service Advertising Agencies, Top Advertising Agencies and more. Advertising Agencies is affiliated with Promotional Advertising Specialties.

Online vs. Offline Advertising

Writen by Dejan Bizinger

Let's face it. Email marketing and publishing have became
very popular tool for promoting your business, especially in the
USA. Many people use email in everyday communication. Email is
fast and cheap. What would you like more? Many people subscribe
to ezines about Internet, Jokes, Tips, Recipes, Horoscopes...
Majority of these emails are free and very quality.

Advertising and marketing online and offline has at least one
thing in common - you have to know your target audience. Market
segmentation is very important because you don't want to loose
your money sending your ads to someone who has no interest in
it. Email advertising and online advertising in general is more
effective because there are many state-of-the-art techniques
which enable that you track every advertising.

Some good services for tracking are:

Web Site Tracking

Stat Counter http://www.statcounter.com

Web Trends http://www.webtrends.com

Email Tracking

Group Metrics http://www.group-metrics.com

In online
advertising you can get information where your visitors are
coming from, what do they read on your web site, how much is
your email newsletter open-ratio, how much is click/thru ratio
for every link in your newsletter, also you can get demographic
reports about your visitors/subscribers and many other things.
Because of that, in online presence you have great options for
1-1 marketing. You can adjust your web site design and content
according to your visitor needs.

If you advertise on TV or magazines you can't know exactly how
many people actually saw your ad. There are some predictions
but not that precise, of course.

One of the main advantages of offline advertising over online
is that people still believe more in what they see on TV than
on the Internet.

Online promotion has one very big advantage over offline
promotion and that is interactivity. In online promotion you
can have interactive ads that behave differently based on
visitor's behavior. Popular thing in online advertising is
making ads like mini home pages. Yahoo! use that technique for
advertising their services.

______________________________

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

______________________________

NOTE: This article may be used freely in opt-in publications and
websites, provided that the resource box is included and the
links are active.

Online Classifieds

Writen by Michael Medeiros

Choosing a Classified Website and creating your advertisements.

The internet has opened a vast number of doors for people to market their products and services. Becoming self-employed and obtaining a national or global audience has never been easier. Many of these quality Classified Websites will provide Entrepreneurs with their own storefront. In addition, their is no or little programming knowledge required for a Website, as the administrator of the Classifieds Website will ensure modern and enhanced features, for consumers to find and purchase products or services. However, there are a few elements to familiarize yourself with, prior to deciding where you want to advertise.

Free Classified Ads

If you scout the Internet, you will find a variety of Websites that are promoting, "Free Classified Ads". Many advertisers will rush in and take advantage of these offers, without investigation. However, you should use caution when dealing with these types of Websites. If they do not provide a Privacy Policy, avoid them all together.

Always remember, maintaining a Website has a price. If they are not selling their advertisement space, another method is being used to generate income.

A common practice is the sale of E-mail addresses. In an online report by Tim Williams (Technical Services Specialist University of Arizona's Steward Observatory [http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/spam/]), describing how spammers obtain Email addresses, he found, "Many sites, when the dot-bomb implosion hit, realized a list of email address was an asset to be sold. The people buying didn't care if you only opted in one site they had your address used it and probably sold it off again". There is a big market for Email addresses. The value of an E-mail address rose significantly with the new legislation that enforced the, "Can-Spam Act". By opting in to a Website, and providing your E-mail address, you are opening the doors for E-mail Advertisers to safely market your address.

There are some Free Classified Websites that are legitimate. Some sites may advertise, "Free Classifieds," but charge for extended time-frames of the advertisements run. For example, an advertisement that will run for one week is free. In contrast, an advertisement that runs for one month has a fee. In addition, some free classified Websites may charge a fee for additional features. This may include Featured Advertisements, Bold Text, Placing your advertisement above all others within a category.

In any case, look for a Privacy Policy. Ensure that Website clearly states they will not sell, trade, or share your registration information.

Features to look for in a Classified Website

When choosing a Classified Website to utilize, take a look at some of the features they offer. A good advertising venue should focus on consumer friendliness. Navigation should be clear and simple for the consumer. They should offer features that help consumers shop and compare. This is what will make consumers comeback to the resource for their shopping needs.

Here are some basic features to look for:

Classified Search Engine: While some people enjoy shopping through the variety of Classified Ads, others want a Search Engine that will filter out the ads that are not of interest to them. The site should offer a search engine, and an advanced search engine that allows consumers to sort ads by item specific information. For example, a consumer should be able to shop for cars by the Manufacture, model, location, price range, Mileage, and other details related to the car they want.

Classified Watch List's: Watch Lists are a newer feature that will automatically notify a consumer when an item is advertised on the Website. This feature ensures that advertisements are targeted to consumers that are interested in the offering you have. In addition, it informs the consumer without the need to continually browse the internet.

Simple Navigation: The consumer side of the Website should have clear and central navigation. If a consumer needs to pass through several pages before seeing items for sale, avoid the site. Consumers will not enjoy having to click on a variety of links to find offerings. Classification of the items listed on the Website should be easy and direct.

Target Audience: The Website you are advertising has a Target Audience. If you are advertising something in England, it would not be practical to place the advertisement on a Classified Website for the United States. This will hold true for other countries that speak similar languages.

Other Content: In addition to a Classified Marketplace, Websites need to offer additional content to ensure that users enjoy the Website. Content is what keeps people coming back, or draws people to a Website.

Writing your Classified Ad

What many may consider the most important part of advertising is writing an effective ad. The information that you provide in your classified ad may be the deciding factor if it is successful or a, "bomb".

Create a variety of advertisements that utilize various approaches. Be prepared to revise your content on occasion. This ensures that you are demonstrating different aspects of your offering. In addition, you can promote your offering from different angles, to see what will achieve the best results.

Choosing the angle of your advertising may vary, depending on what you are offering. Writing a Classified Ad is not much different than writing an essay, with the exception of a literary work. There are three general angles that you should consider using to promote your offering. These are Expressive ads, Persuasive ads, and Informative Ads. However, you should always implement a call to action regardless of the angle you choose. Additionally, it may not be a good idea to mix any of the three angles. This is because advertisements need to have focus and be concise.

Here are definitions and examples for the different types of advertising:

Writing an Expressive Classified Ad

An expressive advertisement is very personal. Expressive ads may be a good idea for a small scale business, wanting to utilize a personal approach. When taking an expressive approach, think of writing an excerpt of the day in a journal. As the writer of the advertisement, you want to express your personal feelings, thoughts, or opinions related to the offerings. For example, a Business Opportunity may be advertised as, "I made over $100,000.00 in one year. I cannot believe how easy it was". This eliminates the need to use examples or testimonials, as the author becomes the example.

Writing a Persuasive Classified Ad

A persuasive advertisement is used to convince the reader or change their opinion. To be successful with a persuasive classified ad, the writer needs to have a firm, direct, and clear point. The goal is to evoke a reaction that causes the reader to have the same point-of-view as the Author. A very common form of advertising, that uses a Persuasive approach, is the Governments, "Register to Vote," Campaigns. They are generally direct and to the point. They provide a concise reason why you should register to vote, "Make your voice heard". By pointing out a simple benefit, they are achieving the task of the persuasive advertisement, getting unregistered citizens to register.

Writing an Informative Classified Ad

Informative advertising provides information to the readers and generally explains what is being offered. When constructing such an advertisement, the author should demonstrate observations, ideas, facts, statistics, or research data. This is becoming very common on the internet, as more people are becoming information hungry. Consumers want to know what they are buying. In addition, this is a wise choice, if consumers cannot physically see the item you are selling. An example of Informative Advertising is an Auto Manufactures advertisement for their vehicles (Not Dealerships). They generally print large advertisements that inform readers of the Vehicles Engine Horsepower, Torque, Maintenance Schedule, Improvements from prior models, available colors, Wheelbase, seating, trunk size, etc... All the information is based on facts and research. It allows consumers to compare their vehicles to similar Auto Models, without taking a test drive.

Headlines and Body of your Classified Advertisements

Headlines are often referred to as titles, and are very important in catching the readers’ eye. Headlines should always be typed in capital letters. In addition, use simple name recognition techniques. For example, if you are advertising a Car for Sale, input the Make and Model for the headline. In contrast, if you are selling Real Estate, you should use the street and Town the property is located.

Business advertisements should always use the name of the company. The more the name is seen, the better your Public Relations becomes.

Don't overextend the headline. An example of an overextended headline is adding, “Car for Sale,” when placing an advertisement under a, “Cars for Sale,” category. This text is simply not needed, as the consumer is already aware that they are looking at, “Cars for Sale”.

Consider what you see from professional journalists that writes columns in a newspaper. Simple and Straight forward, inform the readers what the Classified Ad is promoting. They never mention the words that already are in the columns’ header (Entertainment, Movies, Lifestyle, etc..).

The context or body of your classified is very important. First, the body of your advertisement needs to have proper grammar. Having a Classified advertisement with, "Typo's," gives a bad impression. Next, make sure the body is easy to read. This can be accomplished by using paragraphs with short sentences and avoiding all capital letters. Keep in mind, the body is not a headline; you already grabbed the consumers’ attention, as they are reading your advertisement.

The goal should be to make it pleasant at this point. Finally, end the advertisement with a call to action. How does a consumer proceed to accept your offer? What is the next step they need to take? Use power phrases similar to, "Call Now for Further Details".

Consider the season of your target audience (Dependent on the Offering). In the winter, people may have different motives than in the hot summer. In addition, take into consideration up-and-coming Holidays. Simply wishing a, "Merry Christmas," will evoke warm emotions when people are reading your advertisements. This may help take away the Hard-sell frame of mind the consumer has, while reading your advertisements.

About The Author

Michael Medeiros is an Entrepreneur with a background in Business and Advertising. He works as a Part-Time Real Estate Agent for Century 21 Hearst Realty, in Turnersville NJ . Michael Medeiros is also the founder of Mjmls online classifieds www.mjmls.com

Free Online Advertising: Why You Should Use It

Writen by Donny Lowy

Free online advertising offers many benefits for online and offline businesses.

Obvious benefits of free online advertising include increased exposure, sales leads, and additional sales.

Some of the less obvious benefits that can be obtained through the use of free online advertising are increased search engine ranking, greater product awareness, and credibility acceptance.

When you use free online advertising you will be receiving in most cases links from other sites.

This links will point back to your site and will count towards your link count.

Most search engines, including Google, use your link count to determine your search engine rankings. The more links pointing to your site, the higher your rankings will be.

Another benefit is that the more ads you receive, the more people will see your site, and in turn they will be aware of your products and services.

Credibility acceptance is another important benefit of using free online advertising.

The more times prospective customers see your ads, the less skeptical they will feel towards your products and services. This assumes that your ads are well written and that your products and services are in fact legitimate.

While many entrepreneurs discount free online advertising, I can assure you that it works.

Free online ads work because your prospective customer does not care of you received the ads for free. As long as he or she is interested in what you are offering, they will respond to your ads.

The question is whether people will actually see all those free ads.

While a majority of those ads might not be seen by prospective customers you will still benefit.

Even if only one sale a day is produced from free online advertising, wouldn’t you agree that it’s worthwhile?

Donny Lowy is the CEO of a free educational advertising resource.

http://www.advertisingcellar.com

Advertising Online Websites Using Traditional Print Ads

Writen by Joe Farinaccio

Ever think about advertising online websites using print ads? No? Don’t fret. Most people haven’t thought about it. Most people don’t do this. But if you have a website that’s well written (contains great sales copy, that is) then maybe you should.

Before we discuss the specifics of advertising online websites using print ads, let’s talk about why you’d want to do it. All websites like to see traffic. But simply advertising so you can attract more people to your site actually misses the point. You want to draw more potential buying traffic. You want to draw people to your sites that are interested in what you sell … who'd like to hear more about what you offer.

And once you get them there your job is to then convert them into taking the next step in the buying process … whatever that is … i.e., calling your business for more information, filling out an order form … booking an appointment ... whatever.

If your business sites are properly set up (and many business websites are NOT set up properly) then advertising online websites using print ads WILL work. Print ads in traditional media (such as newspapers) can generate huge amounts of traffic … plus result in higher sales conversions … which is the name of the game.

One extremely effective style for newspapers ads is writing them so they appear to be newspaper articles. Writing your newspaper ad (or any other form of print advertisement) so it looks and sounds like a news article works very well ... especially when giving your reader information that will entice them into visiting your URL for further information. An even cheaper way to go about advertising online websites is simply using classified ads. Like this one:

………………………

New website shows Philadelphia business owners how to create their own highly profitable newspaper ads!
See… www.sales-letters-and-marketing.com … for details.

………………………

This classified ad would pull traffic from interested business owners reading the Philadelphia Inquirer - - which is the city’s large newspaper. Most importantly, it would pull targeted prospects to my website.

Notice how the headline specifically calls out to a specific group of people - - not the whole world. I’m not looking for 50 million curiosity-seekers to visit my website. I’m trying to attract targeted readers … people who might be interested in using my services to help them create effective direct response advertising.

The way to do this in a print ad is by creating a headline that singles out the person you’re targeting. Therefore, the most important feature in a print ad will be the headline you use. Advertising online websites using print ads won’t be very effective if your headline stinks.

The most important first “test” of any headline is to ask yourself the following question ... “If my headline were the only thing my reader sees, would it stand alone and make sense to my targeted reader and offer them a benefit apart from any body copy whatsoever?”

Read the above once again.

Notice the importance of a headline being able to stand on its own, apart from any body copy. In other words, a BAD headline for me to use in a newspaper ad would be … ”Joe Farinaccio, Copywriter.” That would be extremely ineffective. It doesn’t call out to anybody (in this case business owners). Nor does it promise them any kind of benefit.

When advertising online websites using print ads also make sure you have a special message just for the visitors arriving at your website because of your print ad. If you don’t have such a message on your homepage all the time then you should put some sort of special text link copy near the top of your homepage directing visitors from your print ad to click on so they can be taken to a page that follows up on the information you promised to share with them in your print ad.

For example … if I were running my ad (from above) in the Philadelphia Inquirer I’d put a text link (in bold red lettering to make sure I’d get the attention of these visitors) at the top of my homepage saying something like …
“Readers from the Philadelphia Inquirer looking for more information on writing effective newspaper ads ... please click here.”

This text link would then take them to a page where I could give them the information they're seeking … and sell my services along with it. I hope you’re beginning to see that effective direct marketing uses all types of media. You can merge various kinds of media (like traditional print with online) to make your advertising effective.

Advertising online websites using print media is a great way for many businesses to give a long sales pitch without the cost of taking out a full newspaper ad. It likely won't have the same "punch" as a large space ad in the paper, but using a small space ad ... or even classified ad … directing readers to a webpage dedicated to furthering the sales process … gives you ample space to share all the details about your product/service while saving money too.

Joe Farinaccio helps business owners and entrepreneurs make money using direct response advertising. To learn more about this, plus learn how to write profit-pulling sales copy, or simply find out how you can get Joe’s help to sell your products or services … visit his website at … http://www.sales-letters-and-marketing.com/

Search Engine Robots

Writen by Prema Sunder

Search engines are the key to finding specific information on the vast expanse of the World Wide Web. Without the use of sophisticated search engines, it would be virtually impossible to locate anything on the Web.

How Search Engine Robots Work ?

Search Engines do not actually search the internet each time somebody types in a search query. This would take far too long. Instead, what they do is search through their databases of web sites they have already indexed. The Search Engine robots find pages that are linked to from other pages that they already know about or pages that are submitted to them. When a web page is submitted to a search engine, the url is added to the search engine bots queue of websites to visit. Even if you don't directly submit a website, or the web pages within a website, most robots will find the content within your website if other websites link to it. That is a part of the process referred to as building reciprocal links. This is one of the reasons why it is crucial to build the link popularity for a website, and to get links from other relevant sites back to yours. It should be part of any website marketing strategy you opt in for.

The search engine databases update at varying times. Once a website is in the search engine database, the bots will keep visiting it regularly, so as to pick up any changes that are made to the websites pages, and to ensure they have the most current data. The number of times a website is visited will depend on how the search engine sets up its visits, which can vary per search engine. However, the more active a website, the more often if will get visited. If a website varies frequently, the search engine will send bots more often. This is also true if the website is extremely popular, or heavily trafficked.

Sometimes bots are unable to access the website they are visiting. If a website is down, the bot may not be able to access the website. When this happens, the website may not be re-indexed, and if it happens repeatedly, the website may drop in the rankings.

Types of Search Engines

There are basically two types of search engines which gather their listings in different ways.

Crawler Based Search Engines - Crawler based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. The Google Robot crawls or spiders the web, then people search through what they have found.

Human Powered Search Engines - A human powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted.

How do you identify a Search Engine Robot?

Search engines send out what are called spiders, crawlers or robots to visit your site and gather web pages. These Search Engine robots leave traces behind in your access logs, just as an ordinary person does. If you know what to look for, you can tell when a spider has come to call. That can save you worrying that you haven't been visited. You can tell exactly what a robot has recorded or failed to record. You can also spot robots that may be making a large number of requests, which can affect your page impression statistics or even burden your server.

A better way of spotting spiders is to look for their agent names, or what some people call browser names. Spiders or search engine robots have their own names, just like browsers. For example, Netscape identifies itself by saying Mozilla. Alta Vista's spider says Scooter, while yahoo's spider is named Slurp.

Search Engine Robots Crawling Problems

Search engine robots follow standard links with slashes, but dynamic pages, generated from databases or content management systems, have dynamic URLs with question marks (?) and other command punctuation such as &, %, + and $. Search Engine Robots find difficult to crawl such dynamic sites as they include these blocking parameters in url's.
The simplest Search Engine Optimisation solution is to generate static pages from your dynamic data and store them in the file system, linking to them using simple URLs. Site visitors and robots can access these files easily. This also removes a load from your back end database, as it does not have to gather content every time someone wants to view a page.

Search engine robots sometimes have problems finding pages on the web. Spidering issues can be caused by Macromedia Flash sites which are coded with image based language, rather than a text based language, which the search engine robots can't read. Search engine robots can have difficulty in penetrating Javascript navigation menus as well.

Conclusion

Search engine robots are your friends. They ensure that your site is seen by potential customers. The search results decide the fate of a search engine. Different search engines try to cater to different users. Search engine technology is evolving every day and new researches are carried out to provide more concept and descriptive based search queries. However, the same theory applies - "The search engine, which provides the most relevant results, will rule".

S Prema is Search Engine Optimization Expert for UK-based Search Engine marketing company, Star Internet Ltd. Clients of Star Internet benefit from a range of services designed to maximise ROI from internet marketing activities. To find out more, visit http://www.affordable-seo.co.uk

Drive Tons Of Traffic To Your Web Site

Writen by Debbie LaChusa

If you've got a web site then one of your biggest marketing challenges is how to generate traffic without spending a fortune. Whether you're trying to build your ezine or prospect list or get potential customers to contact you or buy your products or services, getting people to your web site is a must and can be a challenge.

Especially if you don't have a big budget to spend on online marketing, and if you're having a tough time getting your site to show up in the search engine rankings. All of this was (and continues to be!) one of my biggest marketing challenges.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not one to back off from a challenge. In fact, give me one and I'll do whatever it takes to overcome it. I'm going to share with you one marketing technique I've used to immediately get my web site to the top of the search engine rankings and to triple my web site traffic in just a couple of months.

Getting qualified traffic to your web site

If you've got a web site then one of your marketing tasks is generating qualified traffic to that web site. What exactly is qualified traffic? Qualified traffic consists of people who are looking for what you are offering. They're in the market for what you're selling and they are actively searching for it.

Does your site show up on page 10 of the search results, or perhaps doesn't even show up at all?

If you're like many small business owners, you don't have the technical knowledge, expertise or time to do what it takes to get your site to naturally achieve a top-ranking in Google and the other major search engines.

You can move your site to #1 in less than a day

Take my web site, www.10stepmarketing.com, for example. There are tons of web sites on marketing. Achieving a number one Google ranking, or even a top 10 ranking could take a very long time to achieve even if I do everything right. But I want web site traffic NOW!

I want people who are searching for information on "marketing plans" and "how to market" to find out about me now, not months from now or a year from now (well I want them then, too, I just don't want to wait until then!)

I did it and it works!

Did you know you can buy your way to the top? That's exactly what I did, and you can do it, too. A text advertising service available through Google, called Google Adwords, enables anyone to have a text ad and a link to their web site show up as the top-ranked site for their selected keywords (keywords are the words and phrases people type into search engines when they're looking for information on the web).

These text ads show up on the right hand side of the results page when searchers type in your selected keywords. You'll see them on any page, under the title "Sponsored Links." Google even offers a keyword tool to help you pick the best keywords for your site.

You can spend as little or as much as you want

Depending on how much you want to spend, you can determine the ranking and page your ad shows up on. You can very easily garner the number one spot. You select your maximum daily budget so you'll never spend more than you can afford and you can easily test different ads to see which ones work best.

You only pay for those who click

And the best part is, you only pay when someone clicks on your link. The other plus here is you'll know if your ad is working by watching what percentage of those who see your ad actually click on it. And if its not working as well as you'd like, you can easily change it.

It's all tracked so you know whether it's working

Google offers excellent tracking reports so you know exactly how many people saw your ad and how many clicked on it. You can send them to any page on your web site (for example, you might want to send them directly to your products page, or the page where they can register for your free ezine or special report).

The quickest way to boost your web site traffic

I used Google Adwords to start generating web site traffic and ezine subscribers my second month in business. My results were so good I maxed-out my budget in a matter of weeks and had to put my ad on "pause" (stop running it for awhile). The way I look at it that's a good problem to have, considering all those clicks led to new subscribers and customers.

3x the traffic in less than 3 months

Between this technique and the one I'll tell you about next week, I was able to triple my web site traffic in less than three months. And you can bet I'll continue using both of these marketing techniques to keep growing my web site traffic. I love them because they're simple enough for anyone to do and they don't cost a lot.

Get the qualified traffic you want

If you want to generate qualified web site traffic quickly, Google Adwords is an excellent way to do it. If you want to learn more, visit https://adwords.google.com

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free 10-week Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at
http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Duplicate Content Isn't The End Of The World!

Writen by Liz Tomey

So many people are running out buying this software and that software to make private label content unique. Well, it's time to put your credit card away and listen up. You don't have to buy any software or membership. There are just a few things you need to do to protect pages that you place articles or private label content on.

The first thing you should do is always design your own site layouts. Don't use templates that have been used by 100's of other people. This way it ensures that your layout is original, and the search engines wont see it as duplicate content. You'll also need to make sure that the meta tags for each page are different. Have a different title for each page is very important.

Now that you know what to do with the actual pages of your sites, let's talk about making the content unique to your site.

If you're using an article you only have reprint rights to, you can't change the article, but you can: 1. Add your own introduction to the article. If you need more keyword density than the article has put those keywords into the introduction you write for that article.

2. Put text advertising in the middle of your article. Design it so that there is a box around the advertising. By doing this it makes the advertising stick out from the article so there is no doubt it's NOT part of the article to your visitors.

3. Add a comments box under the article where visitors can comment on the article. This allows your visitors to build your unique content for you. Their comments will become part of the pages content.

4. Add your own conclusion to the article. Again, this is another great place to add your targeted keywords to.

If you are using content that you have private label rights to on your sites, you still need to do the same changes that we just talked about to it also. It's easier to change private label content because you can edit it however you would like.

Using already created content is great, but to really succeed with it, you need to take the time to make it unique to your site. Yes, it does take time, but it will pay off for years to come. It will give your sites staying power and those that don't follow the advice here will continue to struggle as their sites get dropped from the search engines.

Liz Tomey is the owner of http://www.AdsenseGirl.com where she reveals several adsense secrets that hundreds of people are using every day to make their sites profitable with Google Adsense ads. Visit her site for the free report!

Diversifying Your Online Income

Writen by Elias Georgi

When you run your own business, there are very few certainties. Amidst all of the unpredictability, the only sure thing is that you will never know what might happen next! In today's fast-paced world of online business, things change rapidly and what might be working today may or may not be red hot tomorrow. How can you position yourself to avoid problems and losses in such an uncertain environment?

Many online entrepreneurs who work at home have found the secret to success under these circumstances. They embrace income diversification as a means of buffering themselves against market vagaries. By creating and maintaining a series of distinct revenue streams, these successes are able to weather whatever storm the changing online economy may create.

If you have all of your efforts and resourced invested in a single plan, you put yourself at great risk. If your market niche should change or some other force beyond your control should produce massive changes, you could find yourself nearly wiped out in a short period. All of your effort and hard work would be down the proverbial drain in record time.

On the other hand, if you have smartly spread your work at home efforts over an assortment of strong programs and business ideas, a change in one area of the marketplace will be an inconvenience instead of a disaster. Instead of watching all of your eggs break in a single basket, you will be able to spend time and attention tending to those propositions that are still functioning.

Diversifying your income streams requires some research and consideration, of course. It doesn't do you much good to invest in a variety of efforts for your home business if you choose a series of poor performers. Instead, you need to find a series of strong income producers among which you can spread your focus.

If you have too many of your eggs in a single basket, don't wait to diversify. Make an immediate effort to discover a few additional work at home business opportunities that you can add to your business "portfolio." Although there are no guarantees in business, you can improve your odds of success considerably by choosing plans with a healthy track record of success.

By spreading your effort over a handful of well thought out work at home business plans, you can insulate yourself from the inherent risks of the fast-moving online business marketplace. The alternative poses a great deal of risk and should be avoided.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a successful work at home entrepreneur who has focused his or her efforts on only one product or business model. Almost all online business successes have recognized and implemented a strategy of income generation. You should learn from the best and find your own ways to take control over diverse revenue streams.

Elias Georgi makes it easy to build your home based business and earn a substantial income. Learn how to increase your income in the comfort of you own home with minimal effort by visiting: http://www.eliasg.com

5 Free Internet Advertising Methods

Writen by Amy Durham

Whether you are just starting your online business or you have an established website that needs an increase in page views, internet marketing can help you to spread the word. You can have the best product or service on the World Wide Web, but if you can't get people to your website, you might as well be selling out of the back of your car. Unfortunately, we don't all have an unlimited marketing budget. So for those of you with limited assets or just an overly zealous accountant, here are five tips for free advertising online:

Search Engine Submission -- When you created your website, chances are that your hosting company offered you a deal on search engine submission. If you're hosting your own site, you can do most of this work yourself. Avoid any services online that promise to flood the internet with your site listing for a fee. Most of the sites they contact are too small to help you much. Instead, submit your site to the major search engines and to niche search sites, such as those for geographical areas or specific industries.

Links -- Be sure to include a links page on your website. This is the place to link to sites that will be helpful to your customers. For example, if you sell gardening products, link to relevant sites such as yard services, exterminators, or patio furniture retailers.

Blogs -- You've heard the word and you may have seen a few before, but you may not know that blogs are the new way to spread the word on the internet. You can update your site by keeping an online journal. Tell customers about news, updated products, and tips for success. Post often to increase your ranking in search engine results for the topics you address.

Newsletter -- Whether you turn your blog into a newsletter or use a separate service, keeping in touch with your customers on a regular basis is a great way to keep your brand in their minds. Add a sign-up box on every page of your website, and be sure the newsletter is informative and valuable, not just filled with ads for new products. Include professionally written articles so customers will pass on the newsletter to others.

Viral Marketing -- Viral marketing is simply the sale of products online to promote your website and brand. Ebooks, free samples, and mini-courses are all ways in which you can promote your site by offering quality items to your potential customers. Include links to your site and references to your services in the ebooks and courses, but don't be heavy handed. Hire a professional freelance writer to compile your expertise in an ebook and place strategic links throughout the text.

For more great free marketing ideas, check out the sequel to this article: "5 More Free Internet Advertising Methods."

Moo Juice Media offers a professional copywriter for all your business needs. Amy Durham is an Emmy Award-winning freelance writer specializing in business, IT, home design, and finance. She writes expert articles for websites, magazines, newsletters, blogs, and ebooks. Visit http://www.MooJuiceMedia.com for a free consultation today!

3 Ways To Make Money Off The Internet

Writen by Jose Miguel Poza

1. Build a website on a niche subject that you know about and are interested in and write original content for it. You can make money by placing Google advertising on the web pages that you produce. When someone clicks on one of the Google adverts on your web page you make a small amount which is usually a few pence, although it can be up to a pound a click depending on what your subject matter is. Of course if you get a good stream of visitors to your site, then this may add up to a worthwhile income stream. The Google advertising program is called Google Adsense and you can find out more about how it works and join the program for free by visiting http://www.google.com/services

Make sure that you place the Google Adsense adverts in prominent areas of your web pages as this will greatly increase the number of visitors clicking on your Google adverts.

2. You can also make money off your website from affiliate programs. An affiliate program is where a company will pay you a commission for a sale or a lead generated from your website. For best results it is best to put links to affiliates that sell products and services that are related to your site’s subject matter.

There are some third party companies which look after hundreds of companies affiliate programs making it easier for you to find, join and administer your affiliate programs. Three of the main ones are Commission Junction, Trade doubler and UK Affiliates. It is free to join these and they will give you access to hundreds of affiliate programs so you will be able to pick out the right affiliate programs for your website audience.

3. Set up a blog on a niche subject that interests you and write posts to it regularly and make money by placing Google Adsense ads on it and affiliate programs. This is a similar business model to building a website on a niche topic except that it easier to set up, maintain as you do not need to know how to build a website and can be done completely for free if you use a service like blogger.com. This is because
they will host your blog for free, you just have to post regularly to your blog to produce the content that will attract your target audience.

Jose Miguel Poza is the author and if you would like to find out more about making money online, affiliate marketing and affiliate programs please visit http://www.affiliatebusiness.co.uk

Niche Marketing the Right Way!

Writen by Case Stevens

Niche marketing is hot these days.
Membership sites pop up everywhere inviting you to make
tons of money. All you have to do is find or buy the
highest paying Adsense ads and add them to your pages
filled with automatically generated content.

That's NOT niche marketing, that's Adsense marketing.
It's a numbers game and it's dangerous. I'll explain that
below.

How did this so called Niche Marketing develop?
Solid niche marketing advice already existed for some time.
Very often you were advised to follow your passion or
expertise and set up a site for that.

Then, RSS feed techniques lead to software programs that
scrape content from directories. You have to do absolutely
nothing but entering a bunch of keywords and presto ...
thousands of new content rich pages are automatically added
to your niche site.

And when Joel Comm presented his Adsense Secrets showing
how he went from $30 a day to $500 a day - mind you, a
good book with solid advice, no doubt about that- suddenly
we had three variables that are responsible for the hype:

1. niche marketing,

2. content generating software and

3. high paying Adsense keywords.

Let's have a look at each of these variables in reverse
order.

High paying Adsense keywords.

Suddenly someone discovered that there are certain keywords
that are of great value. Advertisers paid a lot of money to
have their products displayed on pages using these specific
keywords.
It was said that a keyword like 'mesothelioma' or derivates
would pay 50 to 70 dollars a click.
I just entered this in Google Adwords, bidding 90$ per
click and it returned with an estimated number of clicks
per day of 6.2. Now, these figures are just estimates, but
if this is true, with a 1% click-thru it means you would
have to wait about 16 days to earn my 90 dollars!

Again, just assumptions, I only want to make a point.
Adsense is a numbers game. You'll need thousands of
visitors AND good click-thru's to make decent money.

To get thousands of visitors you either have to buy traffic
(Adwords or other PPC's) or create search engine friendly
pages. Now, type in 'mesothelioma' in Google and observe
the PageRanks of the resulting pages. PR 5 or higher! Hard
job to beat them! That means ... work!

To get great click-thru's you'll have to test where you
place your Adsense code. Dang, even more work!

But there's something else, something more important. Read
this carefully ...

Do you really believe ...

that advertisers are going to pay that much money only ...

to have their expensive ads displayed on ...

automatically generated content pages?

Huh ... do you ... huh?

OF COURSE THEY WON'T!

There's a fine line you have to follow playing the Adsense
game. And generating content automatically, no matter where
it comes from, is like walking an elephant over a paper
bridge. It kills the system!

Now, let's have a look at ...

Content generating software

I'm sure in the past you have used the search engines to
find information about a specific topic only to find that
if you click the resulting pages ...
you'll see another 'search-engine'-like page.

That was the work of a niche marketer (specific info)
scraping search engine result pages (SERP's) with 'page
generating software' to quickly generate thousands of pages
about the topic.

Search engines don't like that.
You see, they are looking for great, valuable and original
content. That's what they want to provide to their users so
they keep coming back.

And here's another biggie ...

they want SATISFIED ADVERTISERS!

The last thing they'll need is another copy of their own
pages.
And that's exactly what this software will generate.

Mind you, the software IS good, it does exactly what it
promises. I've used one of these packages long time ago and
that one certainly DID work.

But this kind of software also leaves fingerprints for the
search engines who are getting smarter all the time.
Eventually they will discover automatically generated
content, ignore these pages of even penalize them. That's
why I stopped using such software long, long time ago.

The only way to use this kind of software in a responsible
way is to change the templates that come with the package.
And to do that right means ...

(a lot of) work.

And that's something that wasn't included in the deal!

These days this strategy has changed into scraping articles
from directories. All you have to do is enter a keyword and
presto ...
an article containing that keyword is placed in your page.

That won't work either and for the same two reasons:
fingerprints and copies.

Search engines don't like duplicate content and that's
exactly what this software generates.

The latest trick is software that uses a thesaurus to
change article content on the fly. Apart from copyright
issues, I've seen results of that and they were just
hilarious.

If you want to use reprint articles for keyword rich
content, you have to at least add some unique content to
the page. You could write a review or your own opinion
telling what you think is good and bad about the article
that you posted below.

Dang, work again!

Publishing a reprint article every now and then won't hurt
you, but it does when you do nothing else.
And the article content better fit well into your pages and
even into your site. If it's way of topic, you won't get
far.

Here's a great tip: find unique Public Domain Software! Go here: http://www.anownsite.com/products/public-domain/

Now, let's go down to the core of the business ...

Niche Marketing

Let's define a niche first:

A niche is just a tiny, (highly) specialized marketplace.

A marketplace means that there's demand and supply.
Basically there are two ways to enter a niche:

1. follow your passion (supply) or

2. follow the money (demand).

If you follow your passion it will be easy to develop
content: you're the expert and you do what you love.
But you still have to find out if the passion you're
following is profitable!

And if you follow the money, you're already on the right
track, but you will have a difficult time to develop
content.
Recently I found one on Ebay. But I didn't do a thing with
it. Know why? Cause I don't know squat about millinery!
(THERE you have it! a niche market!)

In order to follow the money, you have to develop some ... passion for the niche otherwise you can't fill your site
properly.

So, either way you have to do something extra.
Now, let's redefine a niche. Let's define a ... profitable niche!

A profitable niche is a highly specialized marketplace with few competitors, high demand and money to pay for that demand.

That's what you have to find out.

"Gheesssss Case, you really make it sound like ... eh ... work!"

Not necessarily.

If you have no idea how to do that, read my article about niche markets.
http://www.anownsite.com/articles/niche-markets.shtml

It's just to give you an idea. Right now I'm working on a
special guide on how to find profitable niches, so stay
tuned.

If you don't want to do all the work to find profitable niches, just have a look at the 50 hot niches that were selected by niche expert James. B. Allen.
http://www.anownsite.com/products/niches/index.html

Or, if you act quickly, you can join what looks like a very, very promising and brand new niche site where everything already is done for you called Niche Site Special.
http://www.anownsite.com/cgi-bin/u.cgi?nss

Now, if you really have found your niche and you've found
profitable affiliate programs that you can gently pre-sell,
then and only then you can consider adding Adsense to your
pages.
Provided that you deliver unique, high value content!
You CAN add some reprint articles, but most of your content
should be yours.

And you'd better use a search engine optimized website for
that! (Right now I'm developing such a system, so again,
stay tuned.)

Bottom line: you still have to do some work or buy the
results of such work!

THAT is the right way to perform niche marketing!

Have fun!

Case Stevens

Case Stevens, owner of AnOwnSite Internet Marketing, is experimenting with different marketing techniques, websites, traffic and lead generation. He publishes his experiences in a newsletter featuring understandable, successful low cost Internet marketing techniques, ideas and strategies, articles, news, tips & tricks and interesting (free) downloads.

Subscribe at Affordable Online Strategies

One Niche You're Rich

Writen by Lao Anthony

Have you found yourself wondering why you are overwhelmed? There is so much material on the Internet regarding Internet marketing. If a person tries to digest all of it at one time, they will will experience a bad case of online marketing indigestion. This is not a good feeling to have. I have had these feelings before as well.

The solution to this issue is to narrow your focus on one niche. You see it is much easier to become an expert in one area rather than two or more areas. I have made a decision to devote my time to making money on the Internet. There are countless ways to make money in this world today. You can make money in real estate, the stock market, by owning your own offline business and in numerous other ways. But the people who really do well in this world financially are known primarily for one thing. Bill Gates in known for Microsoft. Warren Buffett is known as a stock expert. Donald Trump is known for real estate. I am sure that they have other things that they focus on now but they are known as being experts in a certain field. What do you focus on? Many things or one thing? I am willing to bet that if your answer is many you are in a state of Internet marketing disconbobulation. Find something you like doing and become an expert at it. The trick is to find something you like doing that is profitable financiallly. This is the secret to making money on the net.

If there is a market for your product, you can sell it. Do a search on google and see how many results your area of focus will bring up. If you use keywords, you will get better results. The more targeted the results the better. It is easy to develop a product when you are an expert in that area because you know something that your buyers don't. You are the expert and they are not. They will pay large sums of money to acquire your expertise.

As marketers we must understand that our time is extremely valuable and the more we focus on too many things, the more time that is wasted. This time could be better spent focusing on one niche. It takes time to learn what your niche market wants. After you learn what they want, give the people what they desire. If your child wants a piece of pizza and you give them fish that would cause sadness in their hearts. They may cry and be upset with you. In the same way, if you give your target market something different then what they are asking for they will remove themselves from your list or no longer associate with you.

So use your time wisely and learn what your target market wants. Once you have determined what they want, if you do not already have a product created to meet their needs create one. Remember what they have told you and use the desires of their hearts as your blueprint to create an excellent information product.

Your job as the expert is to provide the answers to the questions that your target market is asking. You answer their questions with your products and you will be seen as an expert by them. You can also become qualified as an expert by creating a blog about your niche market. You can have your readers post their questions on your blog. Answer their questions on your blog and they will also begin to view you in a different light. This will prove to them that you care about what they have to say. People buy more easily when they trust the person they are buying from. A blog is a great way to create an atmoshpere of trust. You can also build a great deal of rapport with your market in this way as well. You can get to know your market on your blog and they can get to know you. An excellent method to implement to accomplish this is simply to be open with your life. Talk about your family and life on the blog and you will find that your market is more likely to talk about their family.

You now have a number of concepts to implement in your Internet business right now. The key is to go out and do them. You will be greatly rewarded if you do. One niche can indeed make you rich.

Much Continued Success,

The creator of "The Online Treasure Box"

This marketing gem is but one of many jewels located inside "The Online Treasure Box" created to enable you to create your own Online Marketing empire.

You can can get your "FREE Ebook" called "Perpetual Profits" along with over 12 hours of video footage "completely free" at:

http://www.onlinetreasurebox.com/

Where to Start?

Writen by Susan Carroll

That's the question
you may be asking yourself today as you venture into a new
partnership, a new marketing campaign, a new web site, starting
your list or any of the other new things you may be starting for
you online business.



Maybe you've started a similar project before so you have some
experience and you know what you're going to do. Maybe you've
never done this type of thing before so you have to learn how.



No matter what you're starting and no matter if you have
experience or not, the 7 things you must do first are:

1. Decide what you're
   going to start.

2. Decide what the goal
   of the project is.

3. Make a plan on how to
   reach your goal.

4. Break each step of
   your plan into smaller, doable steps.

5. Learn what you must
   do for each step of your plan.

6. Learn how to do the
   things necessary to implement your plan.

7. Do it.

(Side note - If your
project is big like starting a business for a new targeted
market or writing an eBook, you should do some research first to
make sure the targeted market buys things online or the
information in your eBook is in demand.)


If your among the few
who are lucky enough to have the resources to pay others to do
some of the work then you may not have to learn how to do things
like create a website or write an article. But, if you're like
most online business people, then you're a do-it-yourselfer and
you must learn enough about every aspect of having an online
business to do everything.



This is a Big Task for those first getting started.



Remember when you first started your online business and you
weren't quite sure what to do?



You may have launched your first attempt of having an online
business by joining some affiliate programs and advertising them
in ezines. Maybe you created a site and filled it full of banner
ads promoting your products.



Did you have much success?



If you did then consider yourself lucky because you are in the
2% who didn't fail.



If you didn't have much success but continued learning and
trying then you are in that same 2%.



Starting your online business is like growing your online
business. You have to have a plan, you have to have a goal, you
have to learn and you have to start. If you do something wrong,
you have to learn from your mistakes and change something. If
you do something right, you remember how you did it so you can
repeat it when you start your next project.



Now I could repeat one of today's most common pieces of advice
and say that "not getting started is the biggest mistake" but I
won't. The reason I won't say it is because while not getting
started is a big mistake, not having a plan of action is just as
big.



Image going to visit a friend you haven't seen in awhile. Not
getting into the car won't get you there. But then, getting into
the car and driving around aimlessly because you don't know
where your friend lives won't get you there either.



No matter whether your an experienced online marketer or someone
just starting out. You must start with a plan.


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

Susan Carroll owner of http://www.friendswhocare.us has formed a global community of online business people through her weekly newsletter.

Susan recently finished a free report about adding automatic content to your website that search engines can see. It's available at:
http://www.friendswhocare.us/content.htm

Why Sell Information Products

Writen by Sorna Devadas

Firstly, They’re free! You only need a brain and a computer which if you’re reading this now, you meet the criteria. Time needs to be put in to do the required research and make sure that your information meets and exceeds the needs of your chosen market. When organized properly, your information becomes a positive cashflow asset. Robert Kiyosaki is a strong advocate of creating positive cashflow assets. Many people think of assets as those things that have value but a real asset puts money in your pocket on a daily basis. Examples of free content that became an asset is any musician that you know and love. The Righteous Brothers are a classic group that came up with a few chart-topping hits and assuming that they wrote the music themselves, created an asset that has continued to create revenue even decades later.

It’s fast and easy to create info products. This article took me about an hour to create and as part of a series of articles could be sold as a ebook or mini-course that created cashflow. You can have unlimited inventory and instant access for your customers. A eliable webhosting account will only cost you about $20 per month and your digital asset can be sitting on the server, downloaded repeatedly and you’ll never run out of inventory, it’s fantastic! Stop thinking about physical products, focus on digital.

The profits from an online website are instant and automatic. Each time a consumer buys, your account is credited. No hassles, no paperwork, all profit! As you may be aware of, an exra talented person may be worth $100 per hour and have a capacity to earn 2 hundred thousand dollars per year. What if they want to earn more, they are limited to their earning capacity. You are well aware of the need for leverage hence you’re reading this article. Online enterprises are one of the best forms of leverage. You can create a 24 hour money machine that never tires.

The types of info products you can create are ebooks or electronic books, where your information can be saved as a pdf or in a custom application.The next is an audio product where all you need is a decent microphone and earphones. Software can be downloaded for free or cheaply that will compress your audio into an appropriate format. The final type is video. Here again, there is free and cheap software available to make it happen. No special I.T. skills required.

Have a unique product with a unique selling proposition. You can surely think of at least 1 thing that differentiates your product from the rest in the market. The more content you create, the more money you can make from your website.

Hope you enjoyed this article. All the best with your online aspirations. Take action and make it happen.

To find out more about how to create a profitable website with an information product and for more powerful concepts, visit http://www.internetprofitmentor.com.
Here I found a wealth of useful and free information with over 12 hours of video and a 120 page e-book.

Your Website Statistics

Writen by Anita Larson

I listen to what they are saying and then
ask the Magic Question – “What do your statistics
tell you?” At this point, I either hear:

1. Crickets chirping.

2. I don’t have statistics or know how to
access them.

Why are statistics important and why should you
care? Here are a few real-life web stories that will
help answer that question. For confidentiality
reasons, names and websites are not disclosed.

E Commerce

A large retail company paid upwards of $10,000 for a
website. They have hundreds of products to buy in
their online catalog. After many months of having
very few sales they found me and said their website
wasn’t working. Then I asked the Magic
Question, “What are your statistics telling you?”
Their response was #2. However, they were
able to call their hosting company and get the
access codes. After carefully reviewing their stats
we discovered 3,000 unique visitors a day were
coming to their home page and leaving in less than
10 seconds, not visiting any other page in their site.
Traffic was coming to the site, they just weren't
taking the desired action.
The simple solution was to change the wording and
navigation on the home page to encourage visitors to
buy. Within 30 days of making these revisions the
company began getting hundreds of online orders.

Services

A consultant selling services was spending several
hours each week marketing her website. She was
exchanging links and submitting articles. She had
very few subscribers to her ezine and was hoping to
see better results from her marketing efforts. I
listened then asked the Magic Question. I
heard response #1 – crickets chirping. After some
discussion we were able to determine that she did
indeed have statistics and I was able to see
immediately what was happening. Under the Referring
URLs section I saw that 189 visitors came to her site
from one article submission. This is excellent! What is
happening? Let’s go
back and take a look at the site. On her home page,
the upper right corner did not include an action
button nor were there any clickable links to take
visitors to other pages in the site. The ezine sign-up
box was “below the fold” meaning a visitor had to
scroll to find it. I also recommended she send a thank
you note to the site that posted her articles and
begin some cross-marketing online. To get more
subscribers to her ezine I suggested offering a
bonus, package deal or free article. She now
understands the value of reviewing her stats in
connection with her marketing efforts. It’s a good
idea to get a website evaluation by a 3rd party
before spending hours of time or $$$ on
marketing.

Clients & Referrals

This architect wanted a website mainly for clients to
see and also for clients to easily refer others to him.
Their first website was designed by someone’s son in
the office. It did not portray their professional, luxury
image or have the colors of their logo on the
site. A bad website is worse than no website at all. A
company without a website these days is like not
having a business card. A website establishes
credibility and can feature so much more than a
printed brochure at a fraction of the cost. It’s
important for this firm to review their statistics to
see Page Views. Which pages are clients going to?
Exit pages tell us where they left the site. There is
no email address on the site so we made the phone
number in a larger font and listed it twice on each
page. (You don’t have to be computer literate or
even use email to have a website presence). There is
also an action button to Refer a Friend. This makes it
easy for clients to refer someone to the site. This
client recently moved and the map, new phone # and
address were posted on the website even before the
movers got there. An email notice was sent to all
current and past clients notifying them of the
change. Printing and postal mailing would have taken
much longer. This firm’s website is generating new
business and they are ecstatic with the results.

If these clients had not viewed their statistics they
would just be guessing at how much gas was left in
the car. They may have spent money on search
engine optimization when all they needed to do was
change the website itself. Statistics show results.
Whenever you hire any company to do marketing,
article submissions or search engine submissions -
you'll see the results of those efforts in the
statistics. How often should you check your
statistics? Some
people check them daily. I think once a month is fine.
One word of caution, avoid changing your website
too frequently based on small numbers. Let your
website just BE for awhile – about 3 months before
making radical changes. Then you’ll have some
substantial numbers and a good timeframe to
evaluate what is working and what is not.

Anita Larson, The Web Muse & Co., http://www.thewebmuse.com

Creating websites to attract your ideal clients.

Word of Mouth Marketing on The Web

Writen by Halstatt Pires

Online marketing presents you with an opportunity to get more bang for your buck compared to traditional marketing. This is particularly true for word of mouth marketing.

Word of Mouth Marketing on The Web

Word of mouth marketing refers to a type of marketing that promotes something by enticing independent parties to promote the service, idea or product to friends. The idea is to create a buzz for the subject matter. In creating the buzz, the goal is to create enough word of mouth momentum to get the idea to spread quickly. People are the sole conduit for the momentum. If you get it right, an entire product can become an established success with little or no paid marketing.

A classic example of word of mouth marketing, often called viral, is the situation involving Red Bull. Red Bull is an energy drink. When it was first introduced in Europe, rumors spread that the drink was an aphrodisiac. Nobody knows who started the rumors, but Red Bull became very popular. It then evolved into a mixer for alcoholic drinks in nightclubs and the rest is history. It is a hugely popular product and much of the popularity arose through this word of mouth process.

Word of mouth marketing online works in much the same way. The primary difference is it tends to happen much quicker than in the real word. The Internet is full of forums where like minded people congregate. A new, cool product, idea or service can blow up a site over night. If you don’t believe me, consider the wild success of the My Space platform, Napster, EBay and so on. Most of these sites grew into behemoths because of word of mouth endorsements, not paid advertising.

Obviously, this type of marketing can lead to tremendous riches. Unfortunately, it isn’t particularly easy to accomplish. Everyone is trying to do it, so you really need to be pushing something unique. If you can come up with something, it is time to hit forums and other sites to create a buzz.

A traditional way to pursue viral marketing online is to offer a free e-book. The book will detail your thoughts on some subject matter, such as marketing. One makes the book available for downloading and also allows people to send it to others. If you are offering something of quality, the book should spread quickly to thousands and thousands of people.

The ultimate goal is to promote it over and over until hundreds of thousands of people have read it. At that point, you write another e-book which you sell for $3 to $5. If people liked the first book, they will buy the second. If 100,000 read the first one and only 10 percent buy the second, you will have 10,000 sales. This strategy has been pursued over and over by many authors.

The word of mouth approach is definitely a hit and miss strategy. The large online communities make it a viable strategy, but there are a lot of people trying to do it. If you fail 50 times, but succeed once, life will be very good.

Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - providing internet marketing services.

3 Way Links

Writen by Mehul Vyas

Any reciprocal linking scheme (see below) that attempts to hide the reciprocal nature of the linking by introducing a third person in the link. There are various possible ways of linking. e.g. A->B->C->A

link exchanges - any system, site, or mechanism, that facilities getting links in return for giving links.

reciprocal links - links where an agreement has been made between webmasters where one links to another on condition they link back.

backlinks - belong to pages. A pages backlinks are the links from any other page to it.
What Benefits Exist in 3 Way Linking?
Citation analysis works well in academic environments but kinda falls a part in a commercially driven direct marketing environment (which is what the web is).

Many search algorithms may be able to detect link trading as an artificial means of boosting the popularity of both sites and discount the value of these links.
By doing a three way link from sites hosted on different servers a webmaster can build link popularity without the search engine being able to detect the link trading as easily.

The Problem with 3 Way Link Exchanges

Most people engaging in 3 way link exchanges are doing it with the express intent to manipulate search results. This typically means they are trying to make automated bots think their ideas are better than they are, and are willing to do deceptive things to do it.

There are legitimate reasons to do three way links, but most of the three way link partnerships I have been offered are not worth touching with a 10 Ft Pole.

The real problem is that if their two sites are not connected and they are primarily working to benefit the link popularity of their main site then it does not really hurt them if the site linking to you gets banned. If those sites get banned then they parse no link popularity to you.

In doing this webmasters can agressively market their high margin websites while keeping them somewhat shielded from the dangerous effects of their aggressive promotion.

In fact many marketers might set up 20 or 30 or more secondary sites to echange links with.

An Example 3 Way Link Technique

Some people will set up a bunk directory and ask for you to link back to one of their partner sites. In doing this they get links that would cost them thousands of dollars a month for making an investment which is sometimes less than $100.

They do not mind linking out to somewhat crapy sites because they are getting tons of free marketing for 5 - 10 minutes worth of work each day. I have recently seen more and more directories partnering up to promote more and more sleezy high margin pharmacy and debt type websites.

Mehul vyas, is a founding partner and Director of Marketing for Vyas Infotch Pvt Ltd. The firm specializes in the development and implementation search engine optimization technologies and solutions for the improvement of web site placement within the Internet's top search engines. The company is regarded by many to be the world leader in its field, with clients in 57 countries around the world.

8 Essential SEO techniques

Writen by Matt Colyer

1) Title Tag - The title tag is the most powerful on-site SEO technique you have, so use it creatively! What you place in the title tag should only be one thing, the exact keyword you used for the web page that you are trying to optimize. Every single web page should have it's own title tag.

2) ALT Tags - ALT tags were meant to be for text browsers because the images didn't show in text browsers and the ATL tags would tell the visitor what it's about. You should put your main keyword(s) in the ALT tags, but don't over do it because you could get dropped in the results or even worse banned for life!

3) Link Popularity - Link popularity is the most powerful SEO tool out of all them. Most search engines don't even consider web sites if there is not at least one or two links pointing to the web site. Having another site(s) link to your web site is important when it comes to getting your site a good ranking. Your keywords should be in the links you get and keep the keywords short. When you receive requests for a link exchange, check the site out before linking with them, check for spam (Repeat keywords, hidden text, etc.).

4) Keyword Density - This is also vital and should be used with research. You should use the keyword(s) once in the title tag, once in the heading tag, once in bold text, and get the density between 5% to 20% (Don't over do it!). Also use your keyword(s) both low and high on the web page, keyword(s) should be in the first sentence and in the last one.

5) Page Size - Your web page's speed is important to your visitors and the search engines. Why? Because the robots will be able to spider your web page faster and easier. Try your best to keep your web page over 5k and under 15k in size.

6) Rich Theme - Search engines are looking at themes more and more. Build content (Articles, FAQ, tips, etc.) much as possible and keep the web pages around 200 to 500 words. Create content that's related to your market and link them out to other related content on your site. Try to get 200 web pages or more.

7) Web Site Design - This is also important, if you want to get indexed! Text content should out weigh the HTML content. The pages should validate and be usable in all of today's leading edge browsers. Stay away from flash and Java Script, search engines dislike them both a lot.

8) Insite Cross Linking - This will help you get all of your web pages indexed by the search engines. Your web pages should be no more than three clicks away from the home page. Link to topic related quality content across your site. This will also help build you a better theme through out your web site. On every page you should link back to your home page and your main service(s).

Matt Colyer is the owner of the Superior Webmaster. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.

4 Simple Steps to SEO

Writen by James D Day

Search engine optimization is the process of improving a website in order to acheive higher search engine placement. SEO is not a complicated process, it involves mostly common sense. This article explaines the 4 simple steps that will, if followed correctly greatly improve your search engine rankings and help you gain an inital foothold in the major search engines search results.

#1 Compile a keyword list: Target the most frequently used keywords on your page. Begin with around 10 keywords. Also use combinations of keywords for example: If your site sells video games and game systems, a good keyword phrase would be: video games and game systems or video game systems. Optimizing the word video games would be pointless because the competition would be so huge most websites will not be found in the search results, taking into account the age of the domain and the number of backlinks that point to a site, which will also dramatically affect search engine the rankings. Most searches made by internet users contain keyword phrases instead of just one keyword.

#2 Edit your title, meta description tag and meta keyword tag using the keywords from your newly compiled keyword list. The title should contain no more than 10 or 12 words, the description meta tag should contain no more than 150 characters. and the keyword meta tag should contain no more than 200 characters. Insert the keywords into the title starting with your three main keywords, keep in mind the number of words used, try to stay under 10 or 12. Next, edit your meta description tag using the same keywords, location of each word is crucial. Try to keep the title and meta description as similar as possible, not completly dublicated but as close as possible. It might sound a little strange but it works. This will greatly improve your search engine rankings. Stop words are also a factor than can affect rankings. Words such as: the, and, is, in, are, etc. are words that should not be used if at all possible. Removal of stop words is a guarantee of higher search engine placement. The location of your keywords in the title and meta tags will also affect your placement.

#3 Use keywords as links on your page, referring back to video games as an example, when editing your page use text such as video games, game systems and so on as links as close to the beginning of the page as possible. Keep in mind search engines read a page header first, then starting on the top left reading down the left side, after reaching the bottom of the page the content is read from the center of the page to the bottom. Then the right side of the page is read ending with the footer.

#4 Keyword placement: It is essential that all of your keywords are at the beginning and the end of your webpage. Keywords need to be placed in the first 50 words of a webpage. Keywords also need to be placed into the last 50 words on the page. Start with the header of your webpage, use keywords there first. Then place keywords on the left side of your page. Try not to repeat keywords, and do not stuff images with keywords. One keyword per image. Whenever possible use anchor text instead of images. To place keywords at the end of the page, use keywords in the footer and on the right side of the page. Remember how search engines read a page, header first, then top left reading down, center text reading down, top right reading down and footer last. If these 4 steps are followed exactly you can guarantee yourself excellent search engine placement even #1 on Google.

There are other factors which can improve your search engine rankings such as backlinks. When it comes to linking, reciprocal or one way links both are excellent ways to increase your link popularity. One way links however seem to be the way to go because there is no linkback required by you. Meaning no link pages to set up. Directory and article submissions are an excellent way to build quality one way links. You do not need thousands of useless links to gain high rankings on the search engines. Only a handfull of high quality and relevant links are needed to give you excellent search engine rankings. http://www.submit-site.org/

1 Simple SEO Strategy To Get More Visitors To Your Site From Google

Writen by Jean Lam

Did you know that you can dramatically increase the number of
visitors that come to your site on a daily basis from Google?
And it's not constantly improving your position in Google search
engine result pages(SERPs) for your competitive keywords which
can take some time after working on your search engine marketing
campaigns.

I take this example from Google because I've experienced it some
time back now. Apart concentrating on getting and maintaining
a top 10 ranking in Google, there are lots of easy traffic
sources that you haven't exploited yet. We are still talking
about search engine traffic here.

What's that strategy you ask? The answer might surprise you but
it's a technique that works and is pretty legitimate. It's not
creating stand alone or doorway pages with practically no
content, overly optimized with keywords and a link back to the
homepage. Doorway pages work but only if you know how to do it
well. And this article will talk a bit about this topic as well.

The strategy is to search for overlooked keyword phrases which
are not too competitive and create effective doorway pages
related to these keyword phrases. These pages can be promoting a
product for instance.

Just by adding a few effective doorway pages, I managed to make
9 sales in just a few short weeks and earned $364.59.

Imagine you come up with several keyword phrases that generate
a few monthly searches, you now have several pages. So each
page targeting a specific keyword phrase is worth traffic
and not any type of traffic but it will be targeted.

So if you have one page which brings you only 1 visitor per day
and you have 50 pages, you can easily receive 50 visitors per
day for free. You see the potential now.

Keywords that have about 1000 searches on Yahoo! Search
Marketing Solutions previously known as Overture at
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
are valuable keywords with lower competition.

If you are using Wordtracker at http://www.wordtracker.com, a
keyword with only 10 searches per day can get you a good ranking
and bring you traffic.

If you have already a website which is generating traffic, you
can dramatically increase your numbers, simply by adding
relevant doorway pages targeting a specific keyword. These
pages have content and have your optimized navigation menu on
it with their specific keyword phrases. These pages are just
an entry to your site nothing more nothing less.

They should not be overly optimized with keywords but they
must have some optimized content which is readable by your
visitors and friendly for the search engines as well.

If you have a good website which is crawled by Google's robot
called "Googlebot" often, your new pages will get spidered
and indexed fast and will start bringing you small loads of
targeted traffic.

But be careful when adding pages, don't go in a frenzy with
this and add hundreds or even thousands of pages all of a
sudden. For eg if your site has 50 pages already indexed in
Google and ranking well and you add 100 new pages at once,
your indexed pages might suffer a temporary drop in
rankings. The key here is to add pages on a regular basis
say 1 or 2 pages daily until you reach the total number of
pages to be added.

Why not capitalize on this free source of traffic? The key
is to research your keywords well first, work on your content
and create these pages afterwards.

Your website will grow bigger and bigger with time and it will
attract loads of targeted traffic from multiple keyword
phrases.

Good luck and happy research and optimizing.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as
it's not modified in any way including the author bylines,
plus the hyperlink must be made active just like below.

Jean Lam is the author of the highly acclaimed eBook
Top Search Engine Ranking Secrets in Google Revealed,
a concise, step-by-step guide to high search engine ranking for
the beginner to intermediate level webmaster.