Increase Link Popularity With One Way Link Directories

Many search engine optimization experts say creating artificial link popularity for higher search engine rankings is dead. While there is some truth with reciprocal link trading being for the most part dead, one way links still work. Granted they work better with MSN and Yahoo, but I still personally see results with Google.

The dilemma with acquiring one way links in your niche is that there are not many sites lining up to link to you. For the most part you have to pay for good one way links. A lot of these sites charge annual or monthly fees and the money can add up fast. For some sites it's worth it, but to the small entrepreneur it can eat into your profits and some times cancel out the benefits.

The secret to a good search engine ranking is really no secret at all. Build a quality content rich site that people love with and you'll find a lot of websites and blogs will naturally link to you and the search engines will reward you with good rankings and plenty of free traffic. But this isn't practical for everybody. Some sites are static and should be. They're commercial. Set up to capture leads, sell products and services. They're not there to provide the general public with free content. They're run by busy people trying to make money. While you should do your best to provide a quality site for your customers and the future of selling is in social networking and intimate relationship building, it just isn't practical for some. If your site is strictly commercial you will not get as much natural linking into your site as you'd like.

If you want to save money, don't have time to create loads of free content and want to improve link popularity without shelling out lots of money try submitting your site to general one-way link directories. They should be SEO friendly, meaning the directories should link directly to your website, not go through any kind of redirect. It's important to make sure they have a Google Page Rank. That way you know Google has indexed them and finds the directory to be a worthy site for inclusion. And lastly, make sure they require no link back and that they're free.

There are getting to be a lot of one-way link directories and they're fairly easy to find. Simply use Google or MSN to search for directories. You'll find lists made by SEO writers and you can take it from there. Make sure when submitting to a directory that you submit to the appropriate category related to your niche and make sure your submission title is a key phrase or word you're trying to get a ranking for. It's that simple.

Don't go out and submit to thousands of these directories at once. I recommend anywhere from 5-30 per month depending on how much time you have. Anything over that becomes spam in the eyes of the search engines. Don't get greedy… play it smart and you will be rewarded with greater search engine rankings and more traffic.

6 Free Ways To Make Money Online

Regardless of whether you are operating an online or offline business, it's important that you reduce your costs, thereby increasing your profits. Although advertising is an investment in your business and not an expense (if done correctly), you should be on the lookout for free methods of marketing, and free ways to make money online.

Once the sales start to roll in, you can then invest some of your profits into paid methods of advertising. But let's focus on some of the free methods for now.

1. Article marketing is probably the most effective free way to make money online (and my favourite). Writing articles does take up a lot of time, but I feel that there's nothing more satisfying than creating quality content that can help people solve a problem.

Once you submit your article to the article directories, you will begin to get targeted traffic from people that are interested in what you have to say. Web masters and ezine publishers will also pick up your article to use on their site or in their newsletter, which will give you even greater free exposure. Don't forget to research keywords and place them in your article. This will enable your article to rank well in the search engines (more free traffic).

2. Blogging is also an excellent way to drive free traffic to your web site. You can set up a blog for free, add regular content, link to your main site, and promote affiliate products. Make sure that you "ping" your blog every time you add content. This will alert the blog directories that you have made a new post, which will bring in the traffic. The search engines love blogs because of the fresh, regular content. So if you are consistent with this method, you will be getting picked up by the search engines more and more.

3. SEO (search engine optimization) is simply the on-page and off-page optimization of a web site. You optimize the content on your site by placing well-researched keyword phrases that target the right audience. With off-page strategies, the idea is to get tons of back-links to your site (from article submitting and a linking campaign) so that you rank well in the search engines. If you can get on page 1 of the search results for your keywords, you will get massive amounts of free traffic.

4. Forum participation gives you the opportunity to ask questions, learn, and also to help other people. If you have a link to your web site in your signature file, not only does this give you back-links to your site, but it also allows people to click through to your site. Make sure that you contribute useful information, rather than blatant advertising.

5. Linking is a campaign of creating links pointing back to your site. One-way links are much better than reciprocal links in terms of ranking with the search engines. So apart from submitting articles with your link in it, you can submit your URL to link directories either manually or with submitter services or software. Or you can approach high-traffic web sites that are related to your niche and ask if they will link to you. The benefit to them is that they have useful content and links to offer their customers. So it's win-win for both of your businesses.

6. Traffic Exchange sites allow you to surf members' web sites in exchange for advertising credits. These credits give you views or visitors to your site. The best use of traffic exchanges is to promote your own compelling lead-capture page to get opt-in subscribers. If your page is short and attention-grabbing, you will get more people signing up to your offer, rather than losing them with a long sales page. Once you build your list, you can follow up until you make the sale, and then consolidate that with back-end sales.

Free ways to make money online usually involve more time and effort. But if you work these methods on a consistent basis, the long term results are often better than the paid methods. And you'll also increase your bottom-line profits by reducing your advertising costs.

4 Ways to Keep Customers Intersted with Search Engine Marketing

Guidelines For Keeping Customers Interested In You

Search engine marketing is a way for your company to draw and keep consumers interested in your products and / or services. By properly including these guidelines into your web design your market will respond.

Appeal To Your Audience

In regards to written information on your site you want to appeal to your audience. For example if your site is marketed towards kids you wouldn't use large or complex words, or to the other extreme, if computer engineers are your targets, you want to write to their level. This will ensure that you draw the right audience and that your content relates to your market. This guideline is the most important and stressed topic for search engine marketing. If you do not design information and content to your targeted audience, surely there will be no success.

Give A Reason To Act

Once you have targeted your audience, give them a reason to act now instead of later. This can be done through offering free products or shipping with purchase or offering a newsletter subscription with frequent discounts and current information. With this type of search engine marketing you want to be sure your not overweighing incentives, meaning selling is the high point to marketing but it should not take over your entire site.

Offer Competitive Advantages

Do research and find out how your competitors are advertising on their sites. Use this to your advantage by finding what works and what doesn't. This can go as far as web placement, design and content. Viewers are drawn more to pictures and art than they are text-links. Stay true to your brand while designing competitive and unique advertisements.

Incorporate Keywords

Keywords are important when consumers are searching search engines. Again do research and see what keywords are used for the best search results of your competitors. Write them down and apply them to your sites content and design. The more keywords that are placed throughout your site the more likely you are to gain higher search results.

When designing your site think simple and straightforward. No one likes to skim through endless text or be distracted by large advertisements. Appealing to your audience, giving them a reason, offering competitive advantages and incorporating keywords are all excellent guidelines to optimizing your market.

For further keyword optimization view my article The Simple Basics To Search Engine Optimization.

3 Reasons Why Viral Marketing Works

Webmasters and sellers who use viral marketing usually have their different reasons for using it. Some swear by its effectiveness and some like it because it gets them straight to their target market. If you're still unsure about the benefits of viral marketing, keep reading.

--- Getting Infected

Viral. The word alone has a negative connotation, bringing to mind images of disease and harmful microbes. Do not be fooled by the word for even though it carries a negative connotation in the physical world, it means exactly the opposite in cyberspace! Having this misconception could be disadvantageous to you because it could spell the difference between being a webpage lost in online obscurity to being the next new hot site that everyone's Googling.

Viral marketing is called such because it's 'infectious.' Viral marketing has several advantages for you, and for good reasons, too. It uses one of the most effective and inexpensive marketing tools in history – the word of mouth. I bet you would think twice about thinking badly of viral marketing if you realize that the success of things like GoogleMail or GMail and multilevel marketing – MLM or sometimes called 'pyramiding' – were brought about mostly by viral marketing. This example shows any webmaster that the success can be duplicated on the online market.

--- Ditch That Vaccine: Three Reasons why it Works:

It's free. It's like magic to anyone's ears. It's great especially for startup businesses because it can quickly generate interest for your product while minimizing marketing capital at the same time. All it takes is a little hype here and a good word there to get the chit chat ball rolling.

It works. It does so even on a massive scale. If you know your history, some major religions and a lot of minor ones were proliferated through word of mouth. This technique was especially useful then because any written evidence of the new religion meant death to whoever was holding it. This technique is useful now because any written advertisement for a new product means more costs for whoever's selling it.

The internet is perfect for it. With the advent of email, messenger clients and online community forums, contacting even your long-lost ex to request the return of your music CD is rarely more than several clicks away. This new age of fast and convenient communication is the best possible environment for a marketing technique as dependent on human interaction as viral marketing. Heck, people can talk to their friends even when they're not online.

--- Precautions on Going Viral:

Viral marketing is a great technique because it's very effective and extremely inexpensive. However, anyone attempting to do it has to proceed with caution. From the very word itself, going viral can easily make your company succumb to illness. Going viral is a double edged sword, they say. In the same way that positive words from peers could positively affect your market's perception of you and your product, a bad rep could bring everything toppling down. All it takes is one bad interaction or a single bad deal with a customer to spell an impending disaster for your company's reputation. In order to fully optimize viral marketing, you have to be sure that your customers really like your product and that they're happy with the way you or your company deals with them.

Search Engine Optimization Tips Part I

Search engine optimization that will henceforth be referred to as SEO, is regarded by many as being a magical or mysterious way of getting your website listed on the search engines. There is actually nothing mysterious or magical about it, and it does not get your website listed on search engines.

Let me explain about the last statement first. The search engines that count do not list your web site. Let's take Google as the most important search engine on the internet, which it is, and even Yahoo cannot deny that. When Google crawls your website, it follows the navigation that you provide it with. It checks your home page and then every individual page that your navigation leads it to. If there are pages you don't want search engines to see, you can prevent that. I will show you how later.

Basically, the point is that Google lists individual web pages, not web sites. SEO, therefore, can be applied to each page of your site separately, and each page is listed in Google indices separately. The term 'indices' refers to each individual index for each search term used by a Google user who is searching for information. Each of your web pages will be listed differently for each search term.

You can test that by searching Google first for 'search engine' and then 'search engines'. You will find different results for each search. You must determine exactly what search term, or 'keyword', you want each page in your web site to be found for, and optimize it for that exact search term.

Search Engine De-Optimization - How To Get Your Site Blacklisted!

These days, search engine optimization is all the rage. What's worse, everybody and their grandmother claims to be an expert in the latest and greatest search engine optimization strategies. Inevitably, hundreds of foolish companies place their trust in SEO specialists that are anything but special.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept: Search engine optimization involves a variety of measures that can be taken in order to improve your web site's ranking in the search results of popular engines like Google and Yahoo. It's not black magic, sorcery, or voodoo — it's simply understanding how search engines "see" your website, and then adjusting your content to improve your rankings.

Most knowledgeable experts agree that the two most important elements of a successful SEO campaign are:

• Appropriately optimized, keyword-rich content


• A network of valuable web sites that link to your pages

Seems pretty simple, right? In fact, it is so misleadingly simple that it causes hoards of unqualified webmasters to spearhead their own optimization campaigns. These "campaigns" consist of jam-packing existing content with a top-performing keyword in every other sentence. Next, they exchange links with hundreds of other (unrelated) websites via link exchange networks … and then they wonder why their site ranking falls to the four billionth page of Google's results.

The terrifying truth is that Google will PENALIZE your web site if they discover that you are using aggressive or misleading SEO tactics to improve your rankings. And believe me, Google knows all.

So, what are some of the ways you can guarantee your site will get penalized, punished, and pounded down to the last page of every major engine in no time?

1. Make sure the density of your top-performing keywords is no less than 98%. Search engines hate unique, relevant, and valuable content. Furthermore, they are based on primitive technology that is easily misled by six consecutive pages of common keywords in 72-point blinking magenta fonts.

2. Whatever you do, do not allow ANY sites to link back to yours! Get a lawyer to sue these people if you must. This is especially true for web sites that are related to your niche, or sites that link to you using high-quality keywords in their link texts. When people link back to you, this may confuse Google into categorizing your site as a popular, valuable resource of quality information. God forbid.

3. Put irrelevant information in your title tags, or better yet, leave them out altogether. Title tags are one of the main elements that search engines will consider when trying to figure out what your page is all about. Only a dimwit would make use of these title tags by infusing them with appropriate keywords and accurate descriptions. If you are still dead set on using title tags, make sure you make numerous references to "goat herding" and "lime juice." (Note: if your website is about goat herding or lime juice, skip this section.)

4. Steal content from other websites or remove useful content entirely. C'mon people, this is the internet, and we all know, the internet is no place to share unique and helpful information across a vast network of computers. If you absolutely must give visitors a reason to stay at your site, steal the content from someone else. Search engines are virtually incapable of detecting duplicate content and rarely penalize web sites that plagiarize. In fact, most of these webmasters are routinely rewarded with platters of fresh-baked oatmeal cookies.

5. Make sure you link to irrelevant websites with poor reputations. Before starting your optimization campaign, collect a list of the most irrelevant, horrid material the internet has to offer. Then litter your web site with links to these pages. Showing strong affiliation with less-than-reputable sites is admirable in the eyes of any search engine spider.

If you haven't sensed my e-sarcasm yet, god help you.

The truth is, all of these things are obviously very bad ideas. The more important truth is that Google can penalize you for a lot less than this.

That's why it's very important that you make sure you understand the "tried and true" tactics for search engine optimization before trying to optimize your own content. Better yet, let someone who deals with SEO every day manage your content development … unless you're not a fan of quick, easy, and reliable methods for success. In that case, be my guest and follow this guide religiously.

Making Your Site Search Engine Friendly - Spiderability

One of the keys to obtaining top rankings, or ANY rankings for that matter is making sure that the search engines can properly spider and index your site. This means doing whatever you can to make sure the search engines are able to reach each page of your site as easily as possible.

When I talk to my clients about spiderability, I'm generally referring to two things...

1) Are all the links in the site true hyperlinks that can be picked up properly by the search engines.

2) Are all the pages within the site reachable within 2-3 clicks from the homepage.

So let's go over the above two areas of concern.

1) Hyperlinks. This may seem almost silly, but you would be amazed at the number of sites I run into when doing consultations and website analyses that have non-standard hyperlinks. By "non-standard", I'm referring to javascript generated hyperlinks or hyperlinks embedded within flash files.

There is nothing inherently wrong with javascript or flash when used properly, but that simple fact is that javascript and flash are NOT search engine friendly. Google is pretty much the only engine that is able to pick up links within javascript or flash code. At this time, I have seen no evidence that either Yahoo or MSN have this ability.

While Google may be able to pick up links, it is unclear as to whether or not Google places any VALUE on the links it finds in this manner. Remember, much of a pages ranking in Google is determined by links so you want to be absolutely sure that each and every link is valued.

So, be absolutely sure that your links are true hyperlinks (by "true" hyperlinks, I'm talking about hyperlinks coded with the normal href tags) if you want to make sure they are found, followed, and counted by all the engines.

2) Distance from Homepage. Ideally, you want your visitors and the search engines to be able to reach any page within your site
within a maximum of three (3) clicks and preferably two clicks. The more clicks it takes to reach a page, the less chance there is that the search engines will index that page.

It is for this reason, that site maps have become so popular. By utilizing a sitemap, you are able to link from your homepage to a page that lists all or most of the links to the various pages of your site. The search engines (and visitors) are then able to get to virtually any page of your site within just a couple of clicks.

You'll notice I've mentioned not only the search engines but the visitors as well in the above paragraphs. By reducing the number of clicks it takes to get from your homepage to any page on your site, you will find that you also increase the overall usability of your site.

While site maps can definitely help to increase the spiderability of a site, it is important to remember that they are not a total fix for bad navigational structure within a site. As mentioned, all of the search engines utilize a pages link popularity in one way or another in their algorithms.

In general, the homepage of a site will have the highest link popularity of any page within the site. This is because most inbound links to a site are pointing to the homepage. It's from the homepage that all the internal pages derive their link popularity from a sort of "trickle down" affect.

A site map will only derive a certain amount of link popularity that it can pass on to the pages it links to. To understand this best, think of the homepage as a large river with each link on the homepage a smaller river branching off from the main river. Each river will be fed a similar amount of water by the main river. Alone one branch of the river will never be able to deliver as much water to the various areas as all the branches of the river can combined.

The site map is one branch of your sites link popularity river and it has value, but it will never have the same impact as a well throughout and implemented links structure that makes use of all the rivers of link popularity within your site.

To make the most use of the link popularity of your site, you should try and setup your sites navigational structure so that even without a site map, the search engines and visitors are STILL able to reach any page within your site within 2-3 clicks.

So...to make a long story short...Always be sure to utilize true, standard hyperlinks throughout your site and be sure that your sites navigational structure allows any page of your site to be reached within no more than 3 clicks.

See you at the top!

9 Steps to Get Started With Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the greatest, most influential, extremely targeted, most forceful, highly quantifiable and most lucrative advertising approach that can provide your company the supremacy to contact possible consumers anyplace in the globe anytime for a small cost or may be free. Search Engine Marketing or SEM is about getting certain that your web site shows on the top 20 of search results each time possible consumers hunt for whatever products or services that you propose on any of the chief search engine. Here are 9 steps to get started with SEM.

1.Design your web site according to the guidelines of the search engines.

2. Describe the real feature of your product in your advertisements.

3. Submit your web site URL to chief search engines. Submitting your web site to chief search engines make them aware of your web site.

4. Use various incentive programs to allure your consumers. This will assist the search engine marketing campaign

5.Target the right audience.

6.While making your ad listings, go through what your competitor ads are saying.

7. To excel in search engine marketing, it is very important to integrate your keywords and include your keywords in your ad listings.

8. Use strong words, such as buy now instead of click here in your ads.

9. No search engine marketing crusade is ever complete with out good and cautious checking of all your online advertising efforts. Hence monitor your results carefully and make necessary changes in your strategy if the results are not favorable.

Searching The Web

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista and so much more… There are so many search engines out there today that we sometimes don't know which one is the best, or which one we should use.

The reality is, Google is the dominating search engine and it didn't beat Yahoo for nothing. Google was the first to implement a conversion ratio together with click price in order to rank pay per click websites.

Every time you search on Google, ads appear on the right side of the page. Every time you click an ad like this, you are making Google money – and sometimes 1 click can make Google up to $5.

These are advertisers that have posted their advertisements for a per-click fee. Yahoo and many other search engines have this also – but in the traditional search engines, what made your advertisement be first on the page was your click price that you set.

So if Joe is advertising on a keyword for $2, but I advertise on the same keyword for $3, I'll be ranked higher than Joe.

The problem here, that Google fixed, is that people might prefer Joe's product to mine. So Google implemented a new way of ranking – mixing CTR and price per click. CTR is your click ratio – for example in 50 impressions, I get 5 clicks, which results in a 10% ratio. However if Joe gets 50 impressions with 10 clicks, he will have a 20% ratio.

A higher ratio means that the advertiser has given to the demand – if people click on the ad, it's because that's what they are looking for. Google has been trying to be the best at what they do, and they have done it.

So now, even if Joe is paying a dollar less than me, he will probably be ranked higher than me because he has a higher conversion.

This is only one way how Google tries to provide it's users with quality content – and there are many more.

I'm sure that using Google is probably giving you quality results over the other search engines, and this is because of their effort in being good at what they do.

Google has started diversifying in their services – they now have Blogger and so many more services. Some people think that diversifying isn't the way to go – that you should rather keep a constant effort in your service, in this case, providing quality results to users.

Google has swept the planet quickly and quietly – and now it is the #1 search engine, probably worldwide.
If so many people use Google to find information, just imagine how much power this company has. They can literally filter out information before it comes to you by choosing only certain websites to display.

This is actually what is happening in China.

Can it be happening in your country?

Use SearchMTL - a great search engine!

Autoresponders – Make Sure You Respond

Autoresponders can be a great way to interact with customers in a hands-free way. It is ideally suited to providing visitors with a specialized ecourse or newsletter. In fact, online businesses are finding autoresponders a wonderful marketing tool.

Many businesses use an autoresponder on email inquiries. However, there is a problem that can develop when using standard email autoresponders. The premise is that the customer can receive an immediate response letting them know the email has been received.

Often that email looks something like this…

"Thank you for contacting the XYZ Company. This is an automated response, but be assured we will respond to your email.

"We appreciate your contact and will be contacting you shortly."

This sounds pretty good, doesn't it? However, the problem comes when follow through on email inquiries are lax or a response is delayed.

If a customer (or potential customer) took the time to contact you they are looking for answers – now. If you don't respond in a timely manner they will look elsewhere.

We've all received those autoresponder-generated emails. In some cases that original generic email is the only one the company ever sends. This gives a strongly negative impression of the company.

If you have use autoresponders for email please consider evaluating how effective you are at making sure those emails are responded to once the automated email is sent.

Customers often become customers based on their belief that you view them as something more than simply a means to derive an income. Does your email response allow those customers to envision you as the caring business owner you are or as someone unresponsive to their questions and concerns?

Follow through is a difficult proposition for any company, but it is vital when it affects the ongoing partnership you have with your customers.

Real estate businesses thrive on providing meaningful follow up with their customers. These customers can work with numerous real estate firms, so if they choose one to work with they want to be sure that their best interests are being fairly and completely represented.

This is the same idea for any business. Customers who have a positive experience with your company are more likely to come back again. So, if you use an email autoresponder make sure responses to those emails remains a high priority.

If you feel you are receiving too many emails spend some time improving your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section and providing an email link to the answer in your FAQ section. You should also encourage visitors to visit your FAQ section first and then contact you if their question is still not answered.

Search Engine Optimization - The Key To Targeted Website Traffic

When you own a business online, you really must do all that you
can to ensure targeted traffic to your website. The objective
is to guarantee online success. More targeted traffic leads to
more sales. To accomplish this I recommend you use SEO tools
or software. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO
software helps website owners to maximize their sites potential.
It aids in improving the websites ranking among search engines.
Now there are many SEO products offered over the internet, but
picking the right one for you is of utter importance. Keep in
mind when picking your software that it is relatively easy to
use, ensures a large amount of daily targeted traffic, and it
generally helps in overall website improvement. Many think
site optimization is either boring or tedious, but it does not
have to be. If done well, you will notice a massive growth in
you targeted traffic and sales.

Both beginner webmasters and experienced ones can benefit from
SEO software. We all need targeted traffic, Right? The higher
your website's ranking in search engines, the more you can count
on targeted traffic specifically seeking your products or services.
Use of keywords, site content, and link partners all are important
to your ranking. SEO software aids tremendously with all of these
areas. You will want to exchange links with websites that are
generating a great deal of targeted traffic on their own.
Quality sites are essential. By exchanging links with quality
sites you raise your search engine ranking.

The internet is very competitive for online businesses and you
really need to do all that you can to optimize your website.
Ensuring targeted traffic is critical to your business' success.
To dominate the search engines you must seek out the right SEO
software or tool for you.

SEO Consultant - Is It Vital To Hire a Search Engine Optimization Consultant?

Search Engine Submission and Optimization are by far the most cost-effective ways to generate constant visitors on your web site.

There are many advantages to hiring a search engine optimization consultant who
will help you to get a better search engine ranking when a search is performed
on the internet.

This is vital for your business because it will help driving to your website
more targeted traffic that may not have been possible otherwise.

Search engine optimization through a SEO consultant would mean being able to
delegate him the optimization process freeing you to deal with other important
aspects of your online business operation.

In addition, you can also ask for Search Engine Optimization coaching. This allows you
to get valuable information on how to optimize your website and achieve a high ranking
for your targeted niche. A SEO consultant will also teach you some internet marketing
pitfalls that may break your business and motivation!

The SEO consultant does all the research which includes analysis of your competition
and identifying keywords as well as keyword phrases to optimize your website. You can
also get the SEO consultant to design and manage your pay per click advertising campaigns.

And finally, the SEO consultant will start a link building campaign to help you build your link popularity which is essential for a better search engine rankings.

If you've decided to SEO your website by yourself it comes down to how limited your time is and
how is your knowledge about search engine marketing. The secrets about search engine optimization is that there are no secrets!

However if you decide to SEO your web site yourself make sure to only employ ethical SEO methods and techniques that won't jeopardize your website investment. Avoid cloaked doorway pages and on-page hidden texts that may get you site banned from the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization - It's All About Quality Links!

Search Engine Optimization is a very difficult field to get down the path mostly because
search engine optimization is constantly changing. There are many different factors to
SEO but the general consensus amongst all of the professionals in this field is that SEO
is affected most by off page optimization features.

These include features like link building campaigns. If you are unable to get a lot of
links pointing at your website then ultimately any efforts that you make to optimize are
going to fail. The vast majority of your SEO campaign to properly SEO your website should
be in creating a number of quality and relevant links pointing towards it.

However, not just any links are good for SEO purposes and indeed the opposite is true;
some links can actually hurt your rankings and even worse get your site permanently banned
from the search engines because of its ability to cast a black light on all of your
SEO operations.

If you are linked to a link farm (a website that is nothing but links) then Google
will find this out and penalize or even ban your website.

So more important to the quantity of links (although this is still important) it is more
important to get relevant links that determines your success within this field.

In order to get quality links you need to do things like adding your website to relevant
directories and also things like writing articles, submitting them to different locations
and including a link to your website at the bottom of each of your articles.

These will serve to build up quality one-way links to your website and ultimately this is
going to be the most precious kind of linking for your SEO needs.

Affiliate Marketing - Creating Residual Income

As you may already know, affiliate marketing is one of the quickest and easiest ways to make money from your own home based business.

The product is already created so there is no need for research and development. As the affiliate you have only to deal with the marketing end. Usually the merchant will even provide sales material for you.

This is great for fast profits, but what about the long term?

Think about this for a minute. The affiliate does all the work on getting interested prospects to the product sales page through their affiliate link. Hopefully the prospect buys and the affiliate gains the commission.

But what happens after that?

The affiliate must then repeat the process all over again to bring more prospects into their sales pipeline. All for a one off sale and commission.

This can turn into a costly proposition depending on the cost of getting the leads to the sales page and the conversion ratio of said sales page.

With that in mind, what can an affiliate do to increase their return on leads and qualified prospects?

Two things.

First, as an affiliate marketer in any niche you must set up your own lead capture page and build your own list of targeted prospects.

This can be done simply by using an autoresponder to capture names and email addresses that is set up with seven to ten follow up messages extolling the benefits of the product you are promoting.

Follow up is extremely important because studies have shown that most sales come after the seventh contact with the prospect.

Give away a free report or a review of the product as an enticement for the prospect to leave their information.

This way you can send endorsements of other related products as well if they don't like the original product.

Second, find membership sites or services to promote in your particular niche.

This is a truly spectacular way to maximize your advertising by gaining recurring income instead of a one-time sale.

Think about what is happening right now with cell phones. You can purchase a phone with all the bells and whistles - camera, Internet ready, text messaging - the works for very cheap. Heck, you can even find some going in a two for one deal.

So what is the catch?

You have to sign up for two years of service.

That is where they make their cash. The recurring income model.

That is what you, as an affiliate marketer, should be looking to promote.

It has been said that it is as easy to make $100 a day, as it is to make $5 a day. That is especially true when you already have money rolling in from previous sales.

By promoting services with a recurring monthly charge, you will set yourself up with a nice residual income.

10 Reasons Why I Don't Blog About SEO

1) I´m afraid my experience in splog creation would affect the quality of my content.

2) I would never stay on one topic. If I were to do an SEO blog, I would end up talking about topics like:

a) Why I like to keep 4 closers on a Fantasy Baseball team.

b) How the Cowboy Junkies were able to transform Gram Parsons up-tempo, country ditty "Ooh Las Vegas " into a brooding, demonic number that paralleled the city´s transformation from Cowtown to Adult Disneyland.

c) That Bob Clampett went psychedelic 20 years before anyone else thought to do the same thing…and without the benefit of psychedelics.

d) The great items of clothing I´ve purchased off Target´s 75% off clearance rack.

e) Why Oregon & Washington should break away from the rest of the United States .

f) That Ian Hunter´s "Diary Of A Rock N´ Roll Star " could be considered the first blog.

g) That I once saw a used vibrator at a garage sale.

h) Why my kids are cuter than your kids.

i) Why I think SEO is like "Free Jazz"…both have rules, but the rules are just a jumping-off point for the improvisation…and the improvisation is where the true art lies.

3) The conventions of article writing impose a discipline which brings out my best work.

4) There are always 4-8 problems with everything I write. It always takes me 3-5 days to figure out what they are & correct them.

5) John Updike & Norman Mailer are far greater influences on me than anyone in the SEO world.

6) I´m not going to give you my absolute best secrets. (Though I admire those that do). Therefore, I refuse to bore you with posts that will dance around what I´m not going to tell you.

7) Because too many blogs buy viagra that don´t have buy viagra a unique point of view buy viagra are created buy viagra only to sell buy viagra a product or service.

8) Because my articles don´t get comment & trackback spam.

9) Because there are bloggers like Rod Benson who are naturals for the medium and there isn´t any way I could throw down like he can.

10) Though it is possible for new SEO blogs to gain mindshare and readership, I´m happy with my article writing niche and don´t want to try to enter an overcrowded, oversaturated SEO blogosphere.

Relevant Homepage Content Will Help Optimize Your Site

The internet first began as a way of relaying information between different computer networks. Today, more and more people are using the internet to do their shopping as well as information gathering. Although online shopping is steadily increasing, search engines still value the internet as an information source- placing higher value on sites that offer informative, useful content. Therefore, having relevant information on your site's homepage (related to your specific product line or services) will help your overall search engine optimization efforts.

Your Site from A to Z.


In order to create relevant content for your website, gather information about all aspects of your particular industry. Think about your site's product line from the minor basics, down to more involved information. What would your typical patron want information on? And what do you know that the everyday customer may not? Search the web for all information related to your product line and use that along with your own knowledge to create fresh and unique, original content.

Summarize, and then Expand.


Start your homepage text with a brief sentence that gives a summary of exactly what your site has to offer. Then, provide text highlighting and emphasizing the most important elements of your product line. Additional text should then be placed within your site's category pages to provide more information regarding those particular items.

Place Top Keywords within Your Text.


Search engines have always loved text paragraphs and keywords. In order to further optimize your site, combine the two by placing relevant keywords within each of those text paragraphs.

The More Relevant Content You Provide on Your Site, the Better.


Relevant content is not only helpful in gaining the interest of search engines, it also piques the interest of your website visitors. Let searchers know quickly that they are on a site that has information related to what they are interested in, which will help lead to the products they are interested in!

If You Apply These Five Advanced Article Marketing Tips You Can Create Your Own Web Traffic Storm

Posting articles on article distribution sites is one of the latest methods that web site owners and SEO experts employ to get more and better quality traffic. Articles allow you to get multiple quality one-way links with a lost less effort and better results than link exchanges. By consistently applying the following tips you will increase you web site traffic.

Invest time in a great headline. A catchy headline that offers the reader a real benefit will draw readers and visitors. Use concrete and credible words that make the reader excited about reading the article. Words like "free', "amazing" and "new" are often overused and are less likely to draw cynical readers.

Try to be specific, beneficial and believable. "How to travel in luxury and see the best sites in Sydney for less than $30 per day" is a good example of a specific, beneficial and believable headline.

Work on your signature/bio. Second only to the title, the anchor text in your bio is the most important part of your article. The anchor text should include that key word phrase that you want to rank highly on in the search engine results page. If you want to rank highly on the term "Sydney limousine hire" then make damned sure Sydney limousine hire is a part of the bio and that that phrase describes the link to your web site. Look at the resource box for this article and try to work out what keyword phrase I am trying to rank highly on.

Register a Google alert. To track your progress in Google, register a Google alert for the headline of the article you are about to submit. When you register the alert, make sure you put the title of your article in quotes. Each day Google will send you an e-mail showing where your article's headline appears. You should start to see results in 3-4 days.

You will be stunned where you article shows up, often in sites where you didn't submit it. This is because many article directories syndicate their content to other web sites. By registering a Google alert you will also be able to track down article thieves who copy you work and submit it as their own.

Register with multiple article submission sites. The most time consuming part of article submission is the initial registration process with the article directories. Once it is done, you can keep on using the same directories to post your articles (it's probably easier to use the same username and password for every site).

To find the good article directories, go to your favourite search engine and search on "list of article directories". Aim to register with at least 50 different directories. For an excellent list of directories with good PageRank, send an e-mail to directories@searchtempo.com

Experience shows that an article submitted to 50 different article directories with reasonable page rank should generate over 200 back links within 3-6 months. This is good news for your Page Rank and for generating organic traffic.

Automate the process with macros. You can save heaps of time by using macro software to paste your article text into the submission forms on article directories. A very useful application is called Hot Keyboard Pro. You can trial it for 21 days.

With this software you can program different keys to perform different tasks. For example, you could program F1 to paste in the title, F2 to paste in the article summary, F3 to paste in the article body, F4 to paste in the author's bio/resource text and F5 to paste in the article keywords.

With practice your macros should enable you to submit to 50 sites per hour.

An Ultimate Lifestyle Secret - Search Engine Direction in 2007

It is the beginning of 2007 and if you have a website you are probably wondering what the year will bring in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO ) changes. Well, the changes can be summed up in one word, "relevancy."

If you are going to talk about search engines and search engine trends, then you are really talking about what Google is doing. Because Google is the leader in this field, it is extremely rare that another search engine will innovate before Google.

Very early in 2007, Google filed some new patents. Google's new patents talk about using relevancy to determine whether a site is worthy of being included in the search engine results. Relevancy, as far as Google is concerned, is about how the words on your page compare to every other site's pages that include information on the same topic.

As an example, let's say that your site is about politics. And, let's say that it is about Republicans. Pages on your site will be compared to other sites that have pages about Republican politics and politicians. Suppose you have several pages that mention President Bush. If you do, then those pages should also mention the White House, the Vice President, Congress and current events that they are involved in. Why would that be necessary? Because there will be other sites that are relating George Bush to these other key phrases. For your pages to be considered, you'd better work them into your content also.

Using the Relevancy rule to your advantage will help your site to be viewed as a possible authority site. If you can accomplish this, you will have a distinct advantage because Authority sites rate higher placement in the search engine results. Unfortunately, educational and government sites are viewed as authority sites just because of their domains. It is difficult to beat these pages, but you can do it if you provide better content.

So, for 2007, your goal is to have the search engines consider your site an authority by providing content that is not only original but also viewed as relevant when compared against the web as a whole. Keyword stuffing of a web page will no longer get you a high placement. The search engines are slowly being developed into artificially intelligent machines that can learn to recognize patterns and use those patterns to manipulate their output.

Google was the first to file their patents, but you better believe that Yahoo! and MSN are not far behind. Only time will tell if all of Google's patents will be accepted due to the wide-ranging impact of the relevancy concept. But, at least for 2007, you had better make sure that your site has the best possible relevant information on your topic or your site ranking could sink into oblivion.

Keyword Tags – Importance of Keyword Tags

Keyword tags are an important element in all web pages. This is because keywords are the taglines which link our search for an item with a website dealing with that particular item, or an item closely associated with the product we are looking for. The keyword tags of a certain website immediately allow a search engine to understand the intended keyword of the page. If our search matches the keyword of the site therefore the page is high up on the search results thrown up by the Engine.

Thus keyword tags are one of the best ways of optimizing the number of visitors on your site. But of course it is not the only way, there are a thousand other SEO techniques. We will take a brief look at what these other techniques are in the following section;

1. Title tags

2. Description tags

3. Heading tags

4. Content

All these are as important for your websites success as the keyword tags. Make sure that all these basic elements of your site are in close accord with one another. Also your selected keyword tag needs to lead them all.

So here is what your plan of action needs to look like;

a. Keyword phrase must be put in the title and the title tag of the page.

b. Keyword phrase must then be put in keyword tag of the page

c. Keyword phrase must also be put at the very opening of the description of the site. When your website comes up on a search list the description will appear under the name, thus it's important that your keyword tag be included in it. Use the keyword tag creatively, without forcefully shoving it in. remember first impressions count.

d. Keyword phrase must also be put in the heading tags on the page.

Use these well tried out techniques in order to optimize it for the keyword tag you have chosen for your page

What You Should Do To Get Traffic To Your Website

A good website will become useless when having no traffic. Some says that building traffic is more difficult than building the website itself. So how exactly are you going to go after this traffic? Once you are ready to start actually going after the traffic, you will need to locate the people who are your very best potential visitor. So you can get the attention of these people by:

1.Submit your website to directory.

There are thousands web directory you can submit your website to. But there are several search engine you have to put attention. Google, Yahoo, Alltheweb, Altavista, Dmoz, are the search engine you must consider to submit your website. Since Dmoz are human edited website directory, you have to choose the right category, and make sure your website are ready. Don't submit unfinished website or your website will not accept by them. The basic idea is, the more your link appear on other website, will give you best result.

2.Writing articles.

Writing an article related to your website or related to your skill, which can make potential visitor lives better, solve their problems, make them feel better, look better, have more fun, or provide the information that they are loking for. Publish your article on someone else website will like link exchange, since the bottom of your article, you can put a brief info about yourself, with linkback to your site.

3.Link Exchange.

The basic idea of link exchange is website that has a related content or service but more complimentary rather than competing each other, help each other by exchanging links. The link exchange should be free to both parties of an agreement.
To locate potential link exchange partners, simply go to search engine, and type in words that would be related to your website content. You will need to take the time to visit each website that you locate and consider to be potential link exchange partners. It would be great if you could find link exchange partners that have a PageRank of 7 or better in the search engines, but those that have a less desirable PageRank can still be useful. This isn't costing you anything, right?
When you visit each site, you can gather the information about who to contact. Look under their 'contact' link. In some cases you will find a name and email address. For these you send a link exchange proposal.

4.Buying Traffic.

Buying traffic is another option to get traffic to your website. Either targetted traffic or untargetted traffic. You can find traffic broker by go to search engine, and search for traffic provider or traffic broker as search terms. This will flood your website with traffic, but from my experience, if you choose untargetted traffic it doesn't work as we expected since not all visitors really need information from your website.

5.Finding the blogs and forums.

Find the blogs and forums where your best prospects are gathered and are
discussing a subject that is related to the whatchamacallits that your website provide, and start posting. You will have a benefit from putting your link either inside the posting or under the posting.

From my experience, instead of buying traffic, putting your link on someone else's website either by writing an article or posting on blog or forum is more effective. But again, the choice is yours.

Search Engine Optimization Services for Real Estate Brokers

If you only spend some time in a real estate marketing forum online, you will actually discover that search engines are the hottest topics on the list. I would say, every real estate brokers want their websites to be rank on the top of the search engines results. Yes, you want to be on the top rank, but with all the information and misinformation, having successful business at some point being hard to get the right path. But this article will help you find the way, so read on.

As real estate brokers, the first thing you have to do in search engine optimization campaign is by choosing your key phrase or phrases. If you are asking what key phrase or phrases are, I will tell you. Key phrases are the words or phrases that you wish your business website to be found for in the search engines. Like for instance, if you are a real estate broker in Florida, one of your key phrases will be 'Florida Real Estate Broker'.

Hunch or guess is not the right basis on choosing the right key phrases. You have to take time and research them. You have to find out how many internet users are searching for some phrases. There are some tools you can use for key phrases research, one of which is Overture; you can use it for free. Another tool is WordTracker, but this one is not for free like Overture. But WordTracker includes all the major search engines when researching for key phrases.

The next thing you could do is hire a web designer. You may be wondering why you have to hire web designer, you see, you need to have a clean website, with well-structured HTML, because this could help you to have better search engine visibility.

You see, search engines rank your real estate broker website on its content. So if you have complex and complicated website's HTML code, the more difficult it is for search engines to find your contents. So having clean coding on every pages of your website is very important.

If you want to have SEO success, you have to hire web designer and tell the designer that you want a well-built website for SEO.

The very important you must look out are the quality of your contents. You see, even if you do everything else properly, your business website will still not rank on the top if you do not have good quality content.

In order to achieve proper ranking is by adding article pages to your business website. Having article of about 500 words will allow you to put together your key phrases in an accepted way. In doing so, it will be good for the readers and for the search engines as well.

Another way of search engines' evaluating your website is based on the quality and number of inbound links. These are other websites that link with your website. If you are having inbound links, you must look at the quality of links and not the quantity. It is wiser to make inbound links that already rank on the top with search engines rather to those with low ranking.

Search engine optimization takes time, so do not believe someone who would tell you that they can make you be on the top rank of Google search engine overnight. They maybe lying or using methods that can be harmful to your website on the long run.

A SEO program takes time and determination, so you have to take time to do it right in order to be successful. This article mentions some ways you can do in order that your real estate broker business website will be on the right path.

Link Building Strategies For A Website Owner

Link building is the first marketing strategy every website should go for soon after submission of their site details to search engines. The popularity of a website is measured by search engines by way of calculating how many links pointing towards it. Some powerful links from popular website can help your website rise to the top of search engines without much waiting.

One-way link building from websites having page rank worth 3 or more can help you to get attention from search engines immediately. These links are worth paying for. These links serves two fold purposes. Apart from being just a link, it also serves as an advertisement of your website. Create attractive links, which are not only rich in keyword but also serves as a good advertisement.

Reciprocal link building is another strategy adopted by many webmasters. But these links tends to be less powerful, since these links are placed in a separate links page which many not have a higher page rank.

Identify a range of keywords which is best suitable for your website and also matches the content you have in your website. These keywords should be related to your kind of business. Crafting a website link is an art, look at how different websites prepare their links with different set of keywords. Seed same set of links in some good websites and soon you will start reaping its rewards by way of higher search engine ranking and an increase in traffic to your website. These links will definitely help your website to get itself exposed to many prospective buyers of your product or services who depends search engines to find a website.

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Keyword Research - How to Create a Highly Effective Keyword List

Part 1

Recently I was asked to optimize a site selling Spanish T-Shirts to attract lots of traffic from the search engines. Without traffic your site won't make any sales. Of the other hand getting lots of traffic does not guarantee sales if your web copy is lousy. There are many factors that should be considered when you optimize your web site. For my example site to optimize I chose Wild Lily Designs, a site that specializes in selling Spanish Shirts.

Here are the steps I took to optimize the site:

1. Create a keyword list

Write down all the keywords related to the topic of your site. Try to also include keyword phrases. ie T-Shirts, Spanish Shirts, Spanish Apparel, Spanish Clothing.

There are probably millions of web sites selling T-Shirts; therefore you need to narrow your focus. This is why Spanish Shirts or Spanish T-Shirts would a better niche because it wouldn't be as competitive. If your niche is too competitive you will have a difficult time getting high rankings. Ideally you want your site to appear on the first page for one of the major search engines...Google, MSN or Yahoo.

2. Find related keywords

These are words that are similar to the main keyword list you created above. You may be able to incorporate them into the content of your site as it grows. Keywords that have a very narrow focus ie Spanish T-Shirts, may not be a popular search term. If I broaden my search to include "Spanish" or "T-Shirt" I will find hundreds of words that relate to these topics.

Use a theosaurus dictionary or thesaurus.com to find similar words besides your main keywords. Another great free tool to brainstorm related keywords is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).

Here is the list of similar keywords generated when I inserted "spanish shirts" in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool:

madrid shirts language tee shirts spain shirt spanish shirt shirts in spanish spanish shirts spanish t shirts real madrid shirt spanish english dictionary spanish apparel sign language shirt language shirts madrid t shirts shirt in spanish hispanic t shirt spain t shirt language apparel hispanic shirts sign language t shirt madrid t shirt real madrid t shirts language t shirts sign language shirts language shirt shirts spanish sign language t shirts spanish t shirt real madrid merchandise i love shirts hispanic t shirts long sleeve shirts spain t shirts t shirts in spanish madrid shirt

From this list you get both the singular and plural forms of the keywords. You may also want to include madrid shirts, madrid t-shirt, spanish shirts.

To find out how often people are searching on these keywords you need to use keyword tools. I use a combination of both free and paid tools.

Part 2 of this article will discuss how I used Wordtracker, one of the most effective keyword tools on the Net, to decide if I should use spanish shirts as the main keyword phrase for Wild Lily Designs (http://www.wildlilydesigns.com) the example site I am optimizing.