"In the time spent roaming the Internet jumping from website to website, it strikes me that links is the only real method of travel.
With a rather large number of directories and link schemes that seam to have hit the net; paid and free link exchange directories seem to be the norm these days.
Some of which are rising to great heights in search results and some are not.
Spending some time looking into these directories, i have come to realise that each directory has its own agenda; be it money or Google greatness.
Never-the-less very few directories have one thing in common; quality.
Link building is one of the hardest things to do when creating a successful website, on little or no budget. As your newly uploaded website needs inbound links for it to be seen; let alone get to the top of search results.
There are varying methods of achieving inbound links but require a lot of work and patience. Finding reciprocal link partners with high ranking sites is almost impossiable and i read it somewhere to write articles on a topic related to your site. Good luck finding a topic not already covered.
So whats a new webmaster to do to achieve inbound links and Google greatness.
Well your guess is as good as mine.
But one things for sure; if the big sites continue to ignore smaller and new websites link requests, "yours and my dreams will remain just that."
(by: Paul Walton)
Sunday, May 6, 2007
How To Make Your Web Site And Affiliate Marketing Compatible
People who look for income opportunities, do often come across the idea of affiliate marketing. At first sight, it looks like it's just to have a banner posted on their web site to generate income.
The truth is that you need to do a little more than that. You have to test and evaluate every necessary ingredient in your particular affiliate marketing niche. By testing and optimize you will learn how to get the most out of your efforts.
To be able to make money from your web site as an affiliate marketer. You need to get your site and your affiliate program to work together. It's a team sport with two players, and to win the matches, booth players have to perform well.
Let's have a look why this compability is so important. Your visitors come to your site because they want information on a specific topic. To be able to recommend a service or a product your visitors may be interested in, you must promote something that are related to your sites theme.
If you try to recommend a product unrelated to your theme, it will only result in a click at the back button. Once your visitor spot a banner or a text link that is not related to your page content. He will think you're unprofessional. Or worse, he might think you try to scam him.
To make the affiliate marketing process work, you must keep your content and recommended products or services related. Your customer visit your site to find information and a solution of his problem. First you provide the information, then you recommend a solution for his problem.
Banner or text link placement is also an important ingredient. It will work best if you can weave it in to your content. Try to make it as a well flowing unit. However, Don't hide the fact that your visitor will land on another web site when he click at your link. Build trust and confidence by being honest. To find the most efficient placement, you have to test and evaluate over time.
Once you've learned to master the art of affiliate marketing, it will give you a repeatable income. When your first program is up and running smoothly, It's time to implement the next one.
All products or services have their ups and downs. Therefore it is wise to divide your sources of income. Your site must have one main theme, but there is no reason why you can't have several sub themes. With that, comes the possibility to promote other products or services, that are related to these sub themes.
When you add more than one source of income, it will balance your income. It will help you to gain a stable financial situation.
(by: Ove Nordkvist)
The truth is that you need to do a little more than that. You have to test and evaluate every necessary ingredient in your particular affiliate marketing niche. By testing and optimize you will learn how to get the most out of your efforts.
To be able to make money from your web site as an affiliate marketer. You need to get your site and your affiliate program to work together. It's a team sport with two players, and to win the matches, booth players have to perform well.
Let's have a look why this compability is so important. Your visitors come to your site because they want information on a specific topic. To be able to recommend a service or a product your visitors may be interested in, you must promote something that are related to your sites theme.
If you try to recommend a product unrelated to your theme, it will only result in a click at the back button. Once your visitor spot a banner or a text link that is not related to your page content. He will think you're unprofessional. Or worse, he might think you try to scam him.
To make the affiliate marketing process work, you must keep your content and recommended products or services related. Your customer visit your site to find information and a solution of his problem. First you provide the information, then you recommend a solution for his problem.
Banner or text link placement is also an important ingredient. It will work best if you can weave it in to your content. Try to make it as a well flowing unit. However, Don't hide the fact that your visitor will land on another web site when he click at your link. Build trust and confidence by being honest. To find the most efficient placement, you have to test and evaluate over time.
Once you've learned to master the art of affiliate marketing, it will give you a repeatable income. When your first program is up and running smoothly, It's time to implement the next one.
All products or services have their ups and downs. Therefore it is wise to divide your sources of income. Your site must have one main theme, but there is no reason why you can't have several sub themes. With that, comes the possibility to promote other products or services, that are related to these sub themes.
When you add more than one source of income, it will balance your income. It will help you to gain a stable financial situation.
(by: Ove Nordkvist)
Why To Improve Website Ranking?
With the increase in the number of internet users all across the world, online businesses are definitely on a great raise. Even in emerging markets like Brazil, China, India; the usage of internet is becoming very huge. Thanks to globalization, penetration of internet and liberalization of economic policies in most of the markets; now you can take your small, home-based business to anywhere in the world with just a well designed and perfectly optimized website.
Having a website, is just a prerequisite to any business in today’s scenario. But, merely having a website is not going to do any good to your business if you are not able to generate good amount of sales and revenue trough your website. To generate good sales, you need to have quality web traffic first. According to the research more than seventy percent of the web traffic all across the internet is just coming through the search engines. So, if you are looking for quality web traffic, you need to improve website ranking on most of the search engines.
To improve website ranking, you need to do lot of things, but not in a rush. You should first analyze who your target audiences are. And then, you need to analyze what are the keywords or phrases that your target audience are using on the internet while doing web searching. This is very important. Because, if and only if your website has a very rich content with full of those keywords, you will have a chance to improve website ranking on any search engine.
You also need to update your content very regularly. This improves website ranking quite dramatically. This is because of a simple reason that most of the search engine algorithms give top ranking while indexing the websites if the content is updated frequently.
So, it is quite evident that you need to have a lot of knowledge on SEO if you want to improve website ranking. Normally, most business owners or webmasters will not have sufficient knowledge that requires improving website ranking. Or, they will not have enough time to do so. In either cases, it is quite perfect if you go to professional SEO consultants to improve website ranking.
In this world of outsourcing, it has been proved that it is always a better idea to outsource the work which you are not good at to a person or a company who is good at that work. To improve website ranking, you can get many professional SEO consultants to work for you. You can even get a professional consultant at a very cheap price if you outsource the work to countries like BRIC nations, INDIA or China.
(by: Darren Dunner)
Having a website, is just a prerequisite to any business in today’s scenario. But, merely having a website is not going to do any good to your business if you are not able to generate good amount of sales and revenue trough your website. To generate good sales, you need to have quality web traffic first. According to the research more than seventy percent of the web traffic all across the internet is just coming through the search engines. So, if you are looking for quality web traffic, you need to improve website ranking on most of the search engines.
To improve website ranking, you need to do lot of things, but not in a rush. You should first analyze who your target audiences are. And then, you need to analyze what are the keywords or phrases that your target audience are using on the internet while doing web searching. This is very important. Because, if and only if your website has a very rich content with full of those keywords, you will have a chance to improve website ranking on any search engine.
You also need to update your content very regularly. This improves website ranking quite dramatically. This is because of a simple reason that most of the search engine algorithms give top ranking while indexing the websites if the content is updated frequently.
So, it is quite evident that you need to have a lot of knowledge on SEO if you want to improve website ranking. Normally, most business owners or webmasters will not have sufficient knowledge that requires improving website ranking. Or, they will not have enough time to do so. In either cases, it is quite perfect if you go to professional SEO consultants to improve website ranking.
In this world of outsourcing, it has been proved that it is always a better idea to outsource the work which you are not good at to a person or a company who is good at that work. To improve website ranking, you can get many professional SEO consultants to work for you. You can even get a professional consultant at a very cheap price if you outsource the work to countries like BRIC nations, INDIA or China.
(by: Darren Dunner)
SEO: Gaining Top Placement In The Warm Markets
Search engines become smarter by the minute. It is no longer the sheer placement of numerous keywords on a single page. There is the correct placement of anchored text, the specific Meta tags, the watching out for competitors, the page ranking and back links, the RSS fields, the appropriate content and the link popularity, the robot.txt files, just to name a few.
Today, search engine optimization can only be successful by experts, or by those that have an idea of what search engines are looking for. You must optimize everything on your site if you wish to land within the top 10 on search engines.
In the sense of web optimization, search engine is a broad subject, and a tiny branch of web marketing. When you get your site optimized, individually or with hired help, it must not show a 404 page when pinged, your IP is not blacklisted, it should be easily accessible, it should come up within the first page when searched for, it should be head to head (or supersede) your competitors site, and it should be easily read by search engine spiders.
Search engine optimization doesn't mean much until you know what your business could benefit by utilizing it.
By having your site optimized for search engines, you will gain a higher traffic and a greater chance of your site being back-linked; this will also increase your site's popularity, increase sales, increase potential repeat visits, and increase your visibility in the international market place. Not only does search engine optimization increase the knowledge of your business, it is also an extremely cost effective way to get out there.
Other search engine optimization tools include content articles, keyword density, title tags, advertising, and sitemaps/user menus. These key points are the major stepping stone of any website optimization and they should be used in moderation.
For example, your content should not have too much, but just enough of your keywords in it. It is recommended that your keyword in content density be about 10%; if more than that, or repetitious key terms, search engine spiders may recognize it as spam.
Today's marketer needs everything to be accessible and intact. Search engine optimization is one of the cheapest way of reaching the public. In this current age, everything is moving to the internet and the internet is becoming a very fierce world. Reaching the audience is all that matters if any business is to be performed. Optimization is at its greatest when it is included in blogs, forums, general discussion panels, or mentioned in high ranking sites. Once your site has been optimized to the fullest, cost reductions can come from PPC ads.
Who knows, your site might just become the world's next MySpace!
(by: Jeffrey Greer)
Today, search engine optimization can only be successful by experts, or by those that have an idea of what search engines are looking for. You must optimize everything on your site if you wish to land within the top 10 on search engines.
In the sense of web optimization, search engine is a broad subject, and a tiny branch of web marketing. When you get your site optimized, individually or with hired help, it must not show a 404 page when pinged, your IP is not blacklisted, it should be easily accessible, it should come up within the first page when searched for, it should be head to head (or supersede) your competitors site, and it should be easily read by search engine spiders.
Search engine optimization doesn't mean much until you know what your business could benefit by utilizing it.
By having your site optimized for search engines, you will gain a higher traffic and a greater chance of your site being back-linked; this will also increase your site's popularity, increase sales, increase potential repeat visits, and increase your visibility in the international market place. Not only does search engine optimization increase the knowledge of your business, it is also an extremely cost effective way to get out there.
Other search engine optimization tools include content articles, keyword density, title tags, advertising, and sitemaps/user menus. These key points are the major stepping stone of any website optimization and they should be used in moderation.
For example, your content should not have too much, but just enough of your keywords in it. It is recommended that your keyword in content density be about 10%; if more than that, or repetitious key terms, search engine spiders may recognize it as spam.
Today's marketer needs everything to be accessible and intact. Search engine optimization is one of the cheapest way of reaching the public. In this current age, everything is moving to the internet and the internet is becoming a very fierce world. Reaching the audience is all that matters if any business is to be performed. Optimization is at its greatest when it is included in blogs, forums, general discussion panels, or mentioned in high ranking sites. Once your site has been optimized to the fullest, cost reductions can come from PPC ads.
Who knows, your site might just become the world's next MySpace!
(by: Jeffrey Greer)
A Quick Guide To Web Directories
If you are a seasoned Internet marketer, then it is common knowledge that submitting to web directories can dramatically increase your page rank. If you are a newbie webmaster, then you might be quite in doubt as to how web directories can do for you. This article would relay to you what exactly is a web directory, how they work, and how you can use them in promoting your site. By the end of the article, I want you to go add your link to one of the web directories on the Internet and see how it would work for you.
What are web directories?
Simply put, a Web Directory is a collection of web sites presented in a categorized format. I suppose that you know how Yellow Pages looks like, a web directory is pretty much the same thing, only this time websites are categorized in such a way that internet users can easily navigate through them and find the website that they need.
How do web directories work?
A web directory submission is one type of marketing strategy you can employ. By simply adding your website in web directories it can dramatically increase your site’s exposure and your pagerank. Why so? Of course aside for submitting your website name, you would naturally add your website link or URL to the site. This constitute for one back link. What do you need outbound links for? Increasing the number of your outbound links would relatively increase your pagerank.
A pagerank simply refers to your position in search engines results. For instance, if an online user searches for "car parts", along with your SEO-content and bunch of good back links, you would likely hit the first few pages of the search results, thus increasing the exposure of your website. If back links are what you are after, then submitting your site to web directories is one effective way to get some.
Web directories are also one way of acquiring permanent links. Permanent links are very valuable since you would have your live link posted on web directories for good or at least during the lifetime of the web directory where you posted your link. It is important to take note though, that offering permanent links are still in the discretion of web directories owner.
Aside from improving your page rank, web directories are also a form of web advertising. In addition to using search engines, online users also rely on web directories to direct them to certain websites they are searching for. Since websites in web directories are categorized accordingly, navigating through them is easy and convenient. If for example one online user is about to buy bathroom tiles, he would probably go to the category under 'home improvement' and if your related site is under that, you are most likely to have an instant visitor, thus increasing your traffic. In the online world, traffic is everything. If you get more visitors drop by your site, then that means you have a number of potential clients, thus increasing your sales.
Choosing a web directory
There are three types of web directories – free, paid and niche directories. Free web directories are, of course, the natural choice for webmasters with a tight budget. Some free web directories requires a reciprocal link and some don’t. Reciprocal links are simply links of the web directory's URL that you are required to post in your own site. It's a give and take concept. When you post your website to a web directory, you need to return the favor by posting their URL to your site as well.
The only drawback with some free directories is that they may not be properly maintained. Spam sites may find their way into these free directories because they may lack appropriate monitoring. Then again, there are free web directories that can offer as much quality links than paid directories.
If you have the budget for it, you can also opt to submit your site to paid directories. These types of websites may charge as low as $10 per year. Some popular directories, like Yahoo, can charge as high as $299 as annual fees. The rate that paid web directories charge is relative to the website's pagerank. If the web directory site you are submitting to have PR9, then prepare to shell out a big chunk of your advertising budget. A web directory with a PR3 or PR4 would normally charge low.
The third type of web directory is a niche web directory. These are web directory sites that cater to a particular group of websites. For instance, a web directory with the niche under "business" would only allow submission from business websites. Posting your websites into niche web directories would give you better hits since you have a bigger exposure to your target market.
How to submit your website
First, you need to find a good web directory site. Check the web directory and be sure it does not contain several spam sites. One way to find out if spam sites are listed is by doing a search for terms like “Viagra”, “Sex” etc… If you notice a large number of search results, then that directory is not a good one. Because in worst-case scenario, your own website may even be penalized by some search engines.
The second thing you need to do is to choose the appropriate category where you should add your website to. You would get to your target audience better if you place your website in the right category. If not, you would not get much traffic from your possible visitors.
The next thing is to write a good description of your website. These are snippets that would describe what your website has to offer. Description should be short and catchy. It is also a good idea to make sure to write a good meaningful description as many directories do not approve websites with bad descriptions.
The last thing to do, which is very important and the part that is often take for granted, is to check if your link is working! You don't want to get your website URL misspelled or anything like that, hence the whole process would be to no avail.
(by: Karl Turnbull)
What are web directories?
Simply put, a Web Directory is a collection of web sites presented in a categorized format. I suppose that you know how Yellow Pages looks like, a web directory is pretty much the same thing, only this time websites are categorized in such a way that internet users can easily navigate through them and find the website that they need.
How do web directories work?
A web directory submission is one type of marketing strategy you can employ. By simply adding your website in web directories it can dramatically increase your site’s exposure and your pagerank. Why so? Of course aside for submitting your website name, you would naturally add your website link or URL to the site. This constitute for one back link. What do you need outbound links for? Increasing the number of your outbound links would relatively increase your pagerank.
A pagerank simply refers to your position in search engines results. For instance, if an online user searches for "car parts", along with your SEO-content and bunch of good back links, you would likely hit the first few pages of the search results, thus increasing the exposure of your website. If back links are what you are after, then submitting your site to web directories is one effective way to get some.
Web directories are also one way of acquiring permanent links. Permanent links are very valuable since you would have your live link posted on web directories for good or at least during the lifetime of the web directory where you posted your link. It is important to take note though, that offering permanent links are still in the discretion of web directories owner.
Aside from improving your page rank, web directories are also a form of web advertising. In addition to using search engines, online users also rely on web directories to direct them to certain websites they are searching for. Since websites in web directories are categorized accordingly, navigating through them is easy and convenient. If for example one online user is about to buy bathroom tiles, he would probably go to the category under 'home improvement' and if your related site is under that, you are most likely to have an instant visitor, thus increasing your traffic. In the online world, traffic is everything. If you get more visitors drop by your site, then that means you have a number of potential clients, thus increasing your sales.
Choosing a web directory
There are three types of web directories – free, paid and niche directories. Free web directories are, of course, the natural choice for webmasters with a tight budget. Some free web directories requires a reciprocal link and some don’t. Reciprocal links are simply links of the web directory's URL that you are required to post in your own site. It's a give and take concept. When you post your website to a web directory, you need to return the favor by posting their URL to your site as well.
The only drawback with some free directories is that they may not be properly maintained. Spam sites may find their way into these free directories because they may lack appropriate monitoring. Then again, there are free web directories that can offer as much quality links than paid directories.
If you have the budget for it, you can also opt to submit your site to paid directories. These types of websites may charge as low as $10 per year. Some popular directories, like Yahoo, can charge as high as $299 as annual fees. The rate that paid web directories charge is relative to the website's pagerank. If the web directory site you are submitting to have PR9, then prepare to shell out a big chunk of your advertising budget. A web directory with a PR3 or PR4 would normally charge low.
The third type of web directory is a niche web directory. These are web directory sites that cater to a particular group of websites. For instance, a web directory with the niche under "business" would only allow submission from business websites. Posting your websites into niche web directories would give you better hits since you have a bigger exposure to your target market.
How to submit your website
First, you need to find a good web directory site. Check the web directory and be sure it does not contain several spam sites. One way to find out if spam sites are listed is by doing a search for terms like “Viagra”, “Sex” etc… If you notice a large number of search results, then that directory is not a good one. Because in worst-case scenario, your own website may even be penalized by some search engines.
The second thing you need to do is to choose the appropriate category where you should add your website to. You would get to your target audience better if you place your website in the right category. If not, you would not get much traffic from your possible visitors.
The next thing is to write a good description of your website. These are snippets that would describe what your website has to offer. Description should be short and catchy. It is also a good idea to make sure to write a good meaningful description as many directories do not approve websites with bad descriptions.
The last thing to do, which is very important and the part that is often take for granted, is to check if your link is working! You don't want to get your website URL misspelled or anything like that, hence the whole process would be to no avail.
(by: Karl Turnbull)
Do You Know the Fastest Way to Get a High Page Ranking?
There are millions upon millions of websites on the internet. The majority of these site's have poor page rankings. Is your site one of them? Would you like to increase your page ranking? Silly question right? Of course, you want a high page ranking.... we all do. Keep reading and I will let you know a little known secret as to how you can quickly improve your page ranking.
In the early days of the web, search engines would get information about a website from the keywords meta tag. This is no longer true. The reason is that several people began to keyword stuff their meta tags to achieve higher rankings with the search engines. The Search Engines got wise to this and changed the criteria they use when crawling websites. This does not mean you should forego keyword meta tags, it is still good optimization practice to include a keywords meta tag however, this tag alone will not get you a high page ranking.
Before I tell you how you can quickly improve your page rank, I want to touch on Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is very important to the success of your website and to getting good page rankings. If you have not already done so, I encourage you to learn good optimization practices and use them when creating and submitting your website(s). You can learn more about Search Engine Optimization at http://www.terrysinfosite.com
OK, so how do you get a high page ranking? Did you know that most search engines put a high level of importance on the links to your webpage? When a high ranking website links to your site it will make the search engine take notice. Does this mean that all you have to do is get a lot of incoming links to your website? NO, absolutely not! In fact if you simply go grabbing incoming links from wherever you can you could end up getting your site banned by search engines. The key is to get quality links from high ranking sites. All of your incoming links should be from site's that have something to offer your visitors. In other words there content should be relevant to yours. After all, if you are searching for information on 'computer hardware' you aren't going to be interested in a link related to 'dog grooming' now are you? Another very important point needs to be made before we continue; NEVER use link farms. This is important and bears repeating.. NEVER, EVER use link farms. The use of link farms could get you banned. You want to stay focused on your site's content... that includes your incoming links.
OK, here is what you have been waiting for, how to improve your page ranking quickly;
First: Go to Google.com and download the Google toolbar. Install the toolbar on your web browser.
Second: Do a search using one of your site's most important keywords or phrases.
Third: Visit one of the first few site's displayed in the search results.
Fourth: Note where it says "PageRank" on your toolbar. The green bar represents the page ranking for the site you are visiting and ranges from 0 to 10.
Fifth: By using this toolbar and searching with your important keyword or phrase you can find a site with a high ranking and relevant content.
Sixth: Look for the contact information for the site you are visiting and send a request for a link to your webpage in exchange for a link to theirs.
Every link you get from a high ranking site will improve your ranking with the search engines.
Be aware, since these are high ranked sites, some will refuse your request. Never fear, there is a solution. Go back to your search engine and this time enter "link:" (without the quotes) followed by the name of the site you just approached for a link. You should only need to enter the site name, not the complete url. The resulting display will show you all of the sites that link to the one you approached. You can now go visit one of those sites and ask for a reciprocal link. While this is a 'backdoor' approach to getting the link you were originally after...it has been known to work.
Here is a little side-note with regard to negotiating for reciprocal links. This was learned during my years as owner of two businesses. In any negotiation the other side has one thing on their mind at all times...."What is in this for me?" When negotiating for reciprocal links you should stress the benefits that the agreement will provide to them. Try to make your offer as attractive to the other side as you possibly can.
I admit this involves a little time and effort however, a wise man once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with an empty tank and a flat tire." The time and effort you spend is well worth the rewards.
(by: Terry Morris)
In the early days of the web, search engines would get information about a website from the keywords meta tag. This is no longer true. The reason is that several people began to keyword stuff their meta tags to achieve higher rankings with the search engines. The Search Engines got wise to this and changed the criteria they use when crawling websites. This does not mean you should forego keyword meta tags, it is still good optimization practice to include a keywords meta tag however, this tag alone will not get you a high page ranking.
Before I tell you how you can quickly improve your page rank, I want to touch on Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is very important to the success of your website and to getting good page rankings. If you have not already done so, I encourage you to learn good optimization practices and use them when creating and submitting your website(s). You can learn more about Search Engine Optimization at http://www.terrysinfosite.com
OK, so how do you get a high page ranking? Did you know that most search engines put a high level of importance on the links to your webpage? When a high ranking website links to your site it will make the search engine take notice. Does this mean that all you have to do is get a lot of incoming links to your website? NO, absolutely not! In fact if you simply go grabbing incoming links from wherever you can you could end up getting your site banned by search engines. The key is to get quality links from high ranking sites. All of your incoming links should be from site's that have something to offer your visitors. In other words there content should be relevant to yours. After all, if you are searching for information on 'computer hardware' you aren't going to be interested in a link related to 'dog grooming' now are you? Another very important point needs to be made before we continue; NEVER use link farms. This is important and bears repeating.. NEVER, EVER use link farms. The use of link farms could get you banned. You want to stay focused on your site's content... that includes your incoming links.
OK, here is what you have been waiting for, how to improve your page ranking quickly;
First: Go to Google.com and download the Google toolbar. Install the toolbar on your web browser.
Second: Do a search using one of your site's most important keywords or phrases.
Third: Visit one of the first few site's displayed in the search results.
Fourth: Note where it says "PageRank" on your toolbar. The green bar represents the page ranking for the site you are visiting and ranges from 0 to 10.
Fifth: By using this toolbar and searching with your important keyword or phrase you can find a site with a high ranking and relevant content.
Sixth: Look for the contact information for the site you are visiting and send a request for a link to your webpage in exchange for a link to theirs.
Every link you get from a high ranking site will improve your ranking with the search engines.
Be aware, since these are high ranked sites, some will refuse your request. Never fear, there is a solution. Go back to your search engine and this time enter "link:" (without the quotes) followed by the name of the site you just approached for a link. You should only need to enter the site name, not the complete url. The resulting display will show you all of the sites that link to the one you approached. You can now go visit one of those sites and ask for a reciprocal link. While this is a 'backdoor' approach to getting the link you were originally after...it has been known to work.
Here is a little side-note with regard to negotiating for reciprocal links. This was learned during my years as owner of two businesses. In any negotiation the other side has one thing on their mind at all times...."What is in this for me?" When negotiating for reciprocal links you should stress the benefits that the agreement will provide to them. Try to make your offer as attractive to the other side as you possibly can.
I admit this involves a little time and effort however, a wise man once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with an empty tank and a flat tire." The time and effort you spend is well worth the rewards.
(by: Terry Morris)
Submit Your Site to Google
As soon as you register your domain name, submit it to Google! Even if you haven't built your site, or thought about your content, submit your domain name to Google. In fact, even if you haven't fully articulated your business plan and marketing plan, submit your domain name to Google.
Don't wait!
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, getting on the search engines has always taken a long time for a new site. Even assuming you do everything right, it takes months before your site is even indexed, and more months before it starts to rank well. As a rule of thumb, never expect to rank highly within 6 months of submitting your site to Google.
The second reason is a recent phenomenon called 'Google Sandbox'. Many SEO experts believe that Google 'sandboxes' new websites. Whenever it detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site).
By submitting your domain name to Google as soon as you register it, you're establishing a site history even if the site has no content. By the time you've built your site and developed your content (and written your business and marketing plans), Google will probably see no need to sandbox you.
If you wait until launch day to submit your site, you'll spend a month or two (maybe more) sitting in the sandbox watching potential customers spend their money elsewhere.
How to submit your site to Google Don't waste money by paying someone else to submit your site to Google. It's easy!
Simply go to http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html, enter your URL (domain name) and a few comments or keywords to describe your site. Then click 'Submit'. That's all there is to it. You only have to do it once, and only for your top level page (i.e. Home page).
Google's robots will then crawl your website the next time they're out and about. Of course, they don't guarantee that you'll be included in their results.
IMPORTANT: As mentioned above, it takes quite a while for your site to appear in the search engines. This is partly because the search engines are big and slow - especially when it comes to new sites. It will take a minimum of 6-8 weeks before your site is indexed.
(by: Montri Sitthichock)
Don't wait!
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, getting on the search engines has always taken a long time for a new site. Even assuming you do everything right, it takes months before your site is even indexed, and more months before it starts to rank well. As a rule of thumb, never expect to rank highly within 6 months of submitting your site to Google.
The second reason is a recent phenomenon called 'Google Sandbox'. Many SEO experts believe that Google 'sandboxes' new websites. Whenever it detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site).
By submitting your domain name to Google as soon as you register it, you're establishing a site history even if the site has no content. By the time you've built your site and developed your content (and written your business and marketing plans), Google will probably see no need to sandbox you.
If you wait until launch day to submit your site, you'll spend a month or two (maybe more) sitting in the sandbox watching potential customers spend their money elsewhere.
How to submit your site to Google Don't waste money by paying someone else to submit your site to Google. It's easy!
Simply go to http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html, enter your URL (domain name) and a few comments or keywords to describe your site. Then click 'Submit'. That's all there is to it. You only have to do it once, and only for your top level page (i.e. Home page).
Google's robots will then crawl your website the next time they're out and about. Of course, they don't guarantee that you'll be included in their results.
IMPORTANT: As mentioned above, it takes quite a while for your site to appear in the search engines. This is partly because the search engines are big and slow - especially when it comes to new sites. It will take a minimum of 6-8 weeks before your site is indexed.
(by: Montri Sitthichock)
SEO or PPC - Deciding Which Type Of Search Engine Marketing Your Business Needs
Before you get started with the Search Engines you should decide which of the two major Search Engine marketing strategies will work best for your site. This will help you to stay on track and not waste a lot of time needlessly.
The 2 major Search Engine marketing strategies that exist today are SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). You should know and understand that these two methods are very different from one another. This will help you to be better enabled to decide which one is right for you and your web site. Of course, part of this decision will depend upon what your web site is like.
One of the main reasons why it is difficult to decide which of these 2 strategies is best for your site lies in understanding why you cannot use both of these methods. In reality, there really is no reason why you cannot use both of these methods. In fact, it is encouraged to use both strategies because PPC can work well with any SEO plan.
By using PPC you can help users become more familiar with your web site. Once these users become use to seeing your web site they will stick around. Plus, the more often that visitors come to your site, the better the Search Engines will like your site. This is one of the many reasons why it is so important to try to get as many people as possible to visit your site.
If you take some time to read about the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC then you can decide for yourself which strategy will work best for your web site. Since Search Engine traffic is still the best way to get targeted traffic to your web site, a lot of marketers are still going to do battle with Search Engine optimization.
You should understand that PPC is a form of text-based advertising on a Search Engine. Whenever you use PPC you will be charged per click whenever a visitor clicks on your ad to enter your web site. You will have to bid money in order to be listed first. In actuality, this is the same as sponsored listings.
On the other hand, SEO is an attempt to alter how you rank in the Search Engines by looking at factors such as link popularity and Page Rank. The rankings that you achieve through SEO will appear on the Search Engines’ main results pages, not in the box where the PPC links appear. A lot of people like this method because it is free, yet you will have to invest your time here.
Now that you know what is involved in each method, you are probably wondering how you can tell which method is better. Unfortunately, you really cannot say that one method is better than the other because each of these methods serves a different purpose. Usually you will be able to see that one method will be a better fit for your web site though. Here are some pointers to help you make an educated decision for your site.
If you are in search of stability and predictability then you will find this with PPC. You may think that this is going to cost you a fortune, but this really is not true. The stability and low cost are what makes this method so popular. In fact, most web site owners will try PPC before working with SEO because your site can rank high without doing all of the tedious work that is involved in SEO (i.e. finding link partners, posting links, etc.). As long as you have some money that you can invest in your web site then you can rank wherever you want with PPC. Another advantage to PPC is that your site will be listed when you add it, not whenever a Search Engine gets around to finding it. Unfortunately this is a very competitive market and CPCs (costs per click) are constantly increasing. This is because it works like an auction wherein the more people there the higher the price will be.
On the other hand, SEO can be done for free. Unfortunately the traffic will be unpredictable since you constantly have to guess, adapt and change your strategies. This is important to understand because you could rank in the top 10 one month and then fall out of the top 10 the next month, thus loosing some important income. You also need to realize that SEO is slower than PPC because Search Engines only update about once a month.
If you are still finding this a difficult decision to make you should think about whether or not you have money to spend. If you do have some money then go for PPC because it will have faster results. If your budget is tight then go for SEO because all you will need to invest here is your time. The best thing would be to use both SEO and PPC at the same time aiming for different keywords with PPC than you are using in SEO.
Needless to say, while people are constantly looking for new, unique ways in which they can bring more traffic to their web site, the SEO industry will continue to grow. Nevertheless, it is still important to understand what PPC advertising is. Once you have a thorough understanding of both SEO and PPC you will be able to decide upon the best Search Engine strategy for your site.
(by: Chris Taylor)
The 2 major Search Engine marketing strategies that exist today are SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). You should know and understand that these two methods are very different from one another. This will help you to be better enabled to decide which one is right for you and your web site. Of course, part of this decision will depend upon what your web site is like.
One of the main reasons why it is difficult to decide which of these 2 strategies is best for your site lies in understanding why you cannot use both of these methods. In reality, there really is no reason why you cannot use both of these methods. In fact, it is encouraged to use both strategies because PPC can work well with any SEO plan.
By using PPC you can help users become more familiar with your web site. Once these users become use to seeing your web site they will stick around. Plus, the more often that visitors come to your site, the better the Search Engines will like your site. This is one of the many reasons why it is so important to try to get as many people as possible to visit your site.
If you take some time to read about the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC then you can decide for yourself which strategy will work best for your web site. Since Search Engine traffic is still the best way to get targeted traffic to your web site, a lot of marketers are still going to do battle with Search Engine optimization.
You should understand that PPC is a form of text-based advertising on a Search Engine. Whenever you use PPC you will be charged per click whenever a visitor clicks on your ad to enter your web site. You will have to bid money in order to be listed first. In actuality, this is the same as sponsored listings.
On the other hand, SEO is an attempt to alter how you rank in the Search Engines by looking at factors such as link popularity and Page Rank. The rankings that you achieve through SEO will appear on the Search Engines’ main results pages, not in the box where the PPC links appear. A lot of people like this method because it is free, yet you will have to invest your time here.
Now that you know what is involved in each method, you are probably wondering how you can tell which method is better. Unfortunately, you really cannot say that one method is better than the other because each of these methods serves a different purpose. Usually you will be able to see that one method will be a better fit for your web site though. Here are some pointers to help you make an educated decision for your site.
If you are in search of stability and predictability then you will find this with PPC. You may think that this is going to cost you a fortune, but this really is not true. The stability and low cost are what makes this method so popular. In fact, most web site owners will try PPC before working with SEO because your site can rank high without doing all of the tedious work that is involved in SEO (i.e. finding link partners, posting links, etc.). As long as you have some money that you can invest in your web site then you can rank wherever you want with PPC. Another advantage to PPC is that your site will be listed when you add it, not whenever a Search Engine gets around to finding it. Unfortunately this is a very competitive market and CPCs (costs per click) are constantly increasing. This is because it works like an auction wherein the more people there the higher the price will be.
On the other hand, SEO can be done for free. Unfortunately the traffic will be unpredictable since you constantly have to guess, adapt and change your strategies. This is important to understand because you could rank in the top 10 one month and then fall out of the top 10 the next month, thus loosing some important income. You also need to realize that SEO is slower than PPC because Search Engines only update about once a month.
If you are still finding this a difficult decision to make you should think about whether or not you have money to spend. If you do have some money then go for PPC because it will have faster results. If your budget is tight then go for SEO because all you will need to invest here is your time. The best thing would be to use both SEO and PPC at the same time aiming for different keywords with PPC than you are using in SEO.
Needless to say, while people are constantly looking for new, unique ways in which they can bring more traffic to their web site, the SEO industry will continue to grow. Nevertheless, it is still important to understand what PPC advertising is. Once you have a thorough understanding of both SEO and PPC you will be able to decide upon the best Search Engine strategy for your site.
(by: Chris Taylor)
Web Promotion
The main methods of online marketing are the following
Web Optimization
The professional SEO services are the first the and in most efficient method of online marketing. It would be ideal that the site should be realized from the begging after the principles of web optimization, in this way you save time and money.
Increasing link popularity
The popularity of a link is given by the number and the quality of the links who lead to your site. The links are a determinant force for search engines. A quality sustainable link it will not help you only in the ranking of search engines but also will bring you targeted traffic.
The registration in main search engines
The registration in search engines is achieved manually only by human operators. The sites who pledge the automatic registration in search engines are not accepted by Google.
Not only that this method will not help you in any way but it is considerate spam by the search engines and you risk to be penalized.
Registration in web directories
Another method is the manually registration in web directories, depending on your target market and the languages in which your site is realized.
The beginning of a promotion campaign Pay Per Click.
This type of campaign will bring immediate visitors, but with certain costs. If the results of web optimization give results on a long period of time, the Pay Per Click campaigns have results as long as they last.
Developmental systems for affiliation networks
Besides direct sales that come from direct requests from your site, your products, services can be sold through your affiliates’ sites.
Online marketing through advertising banners
Advertising banners are another method of online promotion. Our company makes advertising banners at promotional prices.
(by: Oana Olariu)
Web Optimization
The professional SEO services are the first the and in most efficient method of online marketing. It would be ideal that the site should be realized from the begging after the principles of web optimization, in this way you save time and money.
Increasing link popularity
The popularity of a link is given by the number and the quality of the links who lead to your site. The links are a determinant force for search engines. A quality sustainable link it will not help you only in the ranking of search engines but also will bring you targeted traffic.
The registration in main search engines
The registration in search engines is achieved manually only by human operators. The sites who pledge the automatic registration in search engines are not accepted by Google.
Not only that this method will not help you in any way but it is considerate spam by the search engines and you risk to be penalized.
Registration in web directories
Another method is the manually registration in web directories, depending on your target market and the languages in which your site is realized.
The beginning of a promotion campaign Pay Per Click.
This type of campaign will bring immediate visitors, but with certain costs. If the results of web optimization give results on a long period of time, the Pay Per Click campaigns have results as long as they last.
Developmental systems for affiliation networks
Besides direct sales that come from direct requests from your site, your products, services can be sold through your affiliates’ sites.
Online marketing through advertising banners
Advertising banners are another method of online promotion. Our company makes advertising banners at promotional prices.
(by: Oana Olariu)
How To Analyze Your Search Engine Competition
Analyzing a competitor’s web site may seem like a big job. You should have the mindset that you are going to do this as a learning experience though. This will help you along your way when you may feel like giving up.
Before you even begin to analyze a competitor’s web site you should make sure that you are equipped to do the job. If you do this job properly you can gain a lot of information that will help you to increase your site’s traffic and popularity. These sites can also help you to analyze your own market. After all, if a web site is getting a lot of hits then it must be doing something right. If you take time to see where it is ranked, what key words are being used, how the site is formatted, and what you can do to make your site better while not violating any copyright laws then you will be well on your way to success.
The first thing that you need to do is identify who your major competitors are. The best place to do this is to look in Yahoo’s directory for large companies, innovative approaches and new products. While looking through this directory you should also try to identify any niche markets that your major competitors have not yet identified and exploited. When you find these new niches you will be set for traffic. Another thing that you should do while here is try to get your site listed. Little associations like this are important if you want to start to build up your traffic so that you can conquer a niche or category. Some other associations that you can build occur when you figure out where the big sites’ webmasters are hanging out and you start hanging out there too. Believe it or not, knowing the right people is going to make your business bigger and better.
If you visit Media Metrix 500 you will be able to see what companies are getting the most traffic. Alexa will also teach you about relative traffic. They offer a free browser add-on that shows you how much traffic a site is getting. This will help you to see where your competitors fall in the pecking order.
Once you have found your closest 5 or 10 competitors it is time to closely study them. You really can learn a lot by looking at and analyzing your competitors’ website. The main things that you should be looking for include:
1. Take a minute to see what products or services that they are offering. Make notes of anything that is different from what you are offering. If you see any gaps in what they have to offer think about whether or not you could possibly fill these gaps.
2. Think about how their website looks, feels and functions.
3. Look at the various advertisements they are offering.
4. Act as a client for a moment and think of where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
5. Spend some time trying to figure out their strategy.
If one of your major competitors is s a publicly traded company then you can get detailed information from their SEC filings. Take a moment to jot down who their key players are so that you can read their interviews and speeches. These may also give you some insight into their website.
Once you have gathered all of this information together you need to spend some time summarizing the information for each competitor. Make sure that you highlight their strengths, weaknesses and strategies. This will be useful as you become resourceful in countering and exploiting these sites’ weaknesses.
You can also use this research in order to create a marketing plan. This should include what steps you intend to take in order to deal with this competition in such a way that your website comes out on top. Of course, you are also going to decide whether it is even worth competing with these sites or if you should try to find a market that is less saturated.
Before you even get started with trying to analyze what your competitors do you should know that it might feel overwhelming when you see what the big companies online do. This should not intimidate you though. Instead it should encourage you to concentrate on customer satisfaction.
(by: Chris Taylor)
Before you even begin to analyze a competitor’s web site you should make sure that you are equipped to do the job. If you do this job properly you can gain a lot of information that will help you to increase your site’s traffic and popularity. These sites can also help you to analyze your own market. After all, if a web site is getting a lot of hits then it must be doing something right. If you take time to see where it is ranked, what key words are being used, how the site is formatted, and what you can do to make your site better while not violating any copyright laws then you will be well on your way to success.
The first thing that you need to do is identify who your major competitors are. The best place to do this is to look in Yahoo’s directory for large companies, innovative approaches and new products. While looking through this directory you should also try to identify any niche markets that your major competitors have not yet identified and exploited. When you find these new niches you will be set for traffic. Another thing that you should do while here is try to get your site listed. Little associations like this are important if you want to start to build up your traffic so that you can conquer a niche or category. Some other associations that you can build occur when you figure out where the big sites’ webmasters are hanging out and you start hanging out there too. Believe it or not, knowing the right people is going to make your business bigger and better.
If you visit Media Metrix 500 you will be able to see what companies are getting the most traffic. Alexa will also teach you about relative traffic. They offer a free browser add-on that shows you how much traffic a site is getting. This will help you to see where your competitors fall in the pecking order.
Once you have found your closest 5 or 10 competitors it is time to closely study them. You really can learn a lot by looking at and analyzing your competitors’ website. The main things that you should be looking for include:
1. Take a minute to see what products or services that they are offering. Make notes of anything that is different from what you are offering. If you see any gaps in what they have to offer think about whether or not you could possibly fill these gaps.
2. Think about how their website looks, feels and functions.
3. Look at the various advertisements they are offering.
4. Act as a client for a moment and think of where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
5. Spend some time trying to figure out their strategy.
If one of your major competitors is s a publicly traded company then you can get detailed information from their SEC filings. Take a moment to jot down who their key players are so that you can read their interviews and speeches. These may also give you some insight into their website.
Once you have gathered all of this information together you need to spend some time summarizing the information for each competitor. Make sure that you highlight their strengths, weaknesses and strategies. This will be useful as you become resourceful in countering and exploiting these sites’ weaknesses.
You can also use this research in order to create a marketing plan. This should include what steps you intend to take in order to deal with this competition in such a way that your website comes out on top. Of course, you are also going to decide whether it is even worth competing with these sites or if you should try to find a market that is less saturated.
Before you even get started with trying to analyze what your competitors do you should know that it might feel overwhelming when you see what the big companies online do. This should not intimidate you though. Instead it should encourage you to concentrate on customer satisfaction.
(by: Chris Taylor)
How to Optimize your Blog for Search Engines
Blogs are naturally search engine friendly and optimizing your blog for search engines is really no different than optimizing your website.
Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Back Links: Backlinks play a very big role in Google's pagerank algorithm. Backlinks are extremely important to your blog's rankings, so make sure you have a large number of backlinks.
Here is a list of places to submit your feed or blog.
http://www.bloggertalk.net/blog_resources-cat-369.html
Make use of the alt description tag: Spider bots cannot read images, so when adding images to your blog it's important to place information within the alt and anchor text of pictures.
Make good use of anchor text: Don't use "click here" or other non-descriptive link text. Always use keywords as your anchor text. Google loves anchor text.
Use relevant keywords: Did you know that in a 48 hour period there was 6138 searches done for game cheats? Wow! It looks like a majority of gamers are cheaters.When creating titles for your blog posts think about the words that web surfers will be typing to find your blog.
'Inventory Overture Keyword Selector Tool' is one of the best-known services for helping you choose the right keywords. Use ‘Inventory Overture Keyword Selector Tool’ to find what people are actually typing in to the search engines. I also suggest subscribing to Word Tracker. Their report of the most popular searches is published each Tuesday and distributed to over 30,000 subscribers.
Technorati.com , is a blog search engine that also lists the top searched for words. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your return in search engines will be. Use keywords in the body of your post as well as in blog header tags and the title of your posts.
Update frequently: Remember that content is king and search engines love it, so update your blog regularly.
Be sure to read my articles "Link Popularity in the Blogosphere, Major Search Engine Submission: How to get listed in Google, Yahoo and Msn and Blogging- Developing a Readership."
Remember to optimize your blog for both search engines and people. Search engine optimization is hard work and an ongoing process. Invest a little time and learn the proper techniques and not only will your traffic come, but you'll increase your page rank too.
(by: Rose DesRochers)
Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Back Links: Backlinks play a very big role in Google's pagerank algorithm. Backlinks are extremely important to your blog's rankings, so make sure you have a large number of backlinks.
Here is a list of places to submit your feed or blog.
http://www.bloggertalk.net/blog_resources-cat-369.html
Make use of the alt description tag: Spider bots cannot read images, so when adding images to your blog it's important to place information within the alt and anchor text of pictures.
Make good use of anchor text: Don't use "click here" or other non-descriptive link text. Always use keywords as your anchor text. Google loves anchor text.
Use relevant keywords: Did you know that in a 48 hour period there was 6138 searches done for game cheats? Wow! It looks like a majority of gamers are cheaters.When creating titles for your blog posts think about the words that web surfers will be typing to find your blog.
'Inventory Overture Keyword Selector Tool' is one of the best-known services for helping you choose the right keywords. Use ‘Inventory Overture Keyword Selector Tool’ to find what people are actually typing in to the search engines. I also suggest subscribing to Word Tracker. Their report of the most popular searches is published each Tuesday and distributed to over 30,000 subscribers.
Technorati.com , is a blog search engine that also lists the top searched for words. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your return in search engines will be. Use keywords in the body of your post as well as in blog header tags and the title of your posts.
Update frequently: Remember that content is king and search engines love it, so update your blog regularly.
Be sure to read my articles "Link Popularity in the Blogosphere, Major Search Engine Submission: How to get listed in Google, Yahoo and Msn and Blogging- Developing a Readership."
Remember to optimize your blog for both search engines and people. Search engine optimization is hard work and an ongoing process. Invest a little time and learn the proper techniques and not only will your traffic come, but you'll increase your page rank too.
(by: Rose DesRochers)
25 Simple Blog SEO and Traffic Tips
This is a nice concise list of 25 ways to greatly increase your blog's traffic and search rankings.
1) Content is king!
2) Submit your site to as many search engines as possible. After the initial indexing I would recommend resubmitting every 6 months.
3) Comment on as many blogs as possible. Make your comments thoughtful and not spammy.
4) Link up with popular blogs - trackbacks can be good for SEO as well as your traffic.
5) Write a good article and post it on a site like http://www.digg.com, although this won't help as far as traffic goes (you will get a HUGE boost for a few hours, then it will tone back down, you probably won't get any permanent readers from Digg) and it sure doesn't help with your relationship with your web host, it can create some new inbound links.
6) Use http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ . Instead of the GoogleBot searching for your pages you can tell it where your pages are. This is a great way to get your whole site indexed.
7) Content is king!
8) Get listed on web directories like http://www.dmoz.com/. Although many SEO "experts" think it is overrated no one disagrees that it can help boost your site's rankings.
9) Add some links for feed readers and blog aggregators like http://www.bloglines.com/, http://www.google.com/reader/, and http://myweb.yahoo.com/.
10) Add some social bookmarking links at the bottom of each post
11) Make it easy for your users to find your RSS feed
12) Add a "E-mail This!" link either on the header or the footer of each post
13) Content is king! (see a pattern?)
14) If you write a really good post try e-mailing the URL to some big-name bloggers with a short personalized message. You never know, they might like it and link to it.
15) Try asking some big sites who are in your niche if they would like to trade links. More often than not they will say "no", but at least give it a try.
16) Don't obsess over "get rich quick" schemes.
17) Don't obsess over "get lots of traffic really quick" schemes.
18) Submit your RSS feed to a bunch of RSS directories, http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-directory.htm has a large list of popular directories.
19) Use http://pingomatic.com/ to notify a ton of aggregators that your site has been updated.
20) Don't obsess over the numbers - it takes time to build up a good reader base.
21) Make your posts as keyword rich as possible. Whenever you can use a word that has to do with your niche, use it!
22) Use lists, especially if your site is targeted towards more tech-savvy users
23) If you have a MySpace page or a home page on a similar service put up a link to your blog.
24) Tag important keywords, using this site ( http://www.richardrodger.com/tags.htm ) you can tag keywords.
25) Last but not least, offer free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff!
The really important thing you have to remember is, just have fun. If your blog is causing you to become stressed out then it probably is not a good idea to continue blogging.
If your readers can tell you are having fun while providing good content they will become permanent readers.
(by: Jeremy Steele)
1) Content is king!
2) Submit your site to as many search engines as possible. After the initial indexing I would recommend resubmitting every 6 months.
3) Comment on as many blogs as possible. Make your comments thoughtful and not spammy.
4) Link up with popular blogs - trackbacks can be good for SEO as well as your traffic.
5) Write a good article and post it on a site like http://www.digg.com, although this won't help as far as traffic goes (you will get a HUGE boost for a few hours, then it will tone back down, you probably won't get any permanent readers from Digg) and it sure doesn't help with your relationship with your web host, it can create some new inbound links.
6) Use http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ . Instead of the GoogleBot searching for your pages you can tell it where your pages are. This is a great way to get your whole site indexed.
7) Content is king!
8) Get listed on web directories like http://www.dmoz.com/. Although many SEO "experts" think it is overrated no one disagrees that it can help boost your site's rankings.
9) Add some links for feed readers and blog aggregators like http://www.bloglines.com/, http://www.google.com/reader/, and http://myweb.yahoo.com/.
10) Add some social bookmarking links at the bottom of each post
11) Make it easy for your users to find your RSS feed
12) Add a "E-mail This!" link either on the header or the footer of each post
13) Content is king! (see a pattern?)
14) If you write a really good post try e-mailing the URL to some big-name bloggers with a short personalized message. You never know, they might like it and link to it.
15) Try asking some big sites who are in your niche if they would like to trade links. More often than not they will say "no", but at least give it a try.
16) Don't obsess over "get rich quick" schemes.
17) Don't obsess over "get lots of traffic really quick" schemes.
18) Submit your RSS feed to a bunch of RSS directories, http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-directory.htm has a large list of popular directories.
19) Use http://pingomatic.com/ to notify a ton of aggregators that your site has been updated.
20) Don't obsess over the numbers - it takes time to build up a good reader base.
21) Make your posts as keyword rich as possible. Whenever you can use a word that has to do with your niche, use it!
22) Use lists, especially if your site is targeted towards more tech-savvy users
23) If you have a MySpace page or a home page on a similar service put up a link to your blog.
24) Tag important keywords, using this site ( http://www.richardrodger.com/tags.htm ) you can tag keywords.
25) Last but not least, offer free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff!
The really important thing you have to remember is, just have fun. If your blog is causing you to become stressed out then it probably is not a good idea to continue blogging.
If your readers can tell you are having fun while providing good content they will become permanent readers.
(by: Jeremy Steele)
Generating Traffic To Your Myspace Website
MySpace is an exciting online community where members can make new friends, reconnect with old friends, network or even find potential romantic partners. While there are some MySpace members who join the community simply for the ability to stay in touch with their old friends and are not looking to make new friends. These members may keep their websites private to not allow other users to view their personal information and may not spend a great deal of time visiting public websites of other members. However, most MySpace members are interested in making a great deal of friends online and are always looking to generate more traffic to their website.
Create an Interesting MySpace Website
One of the simplest ways MySpace members can generate increased traffic to their website is to create a website which is both aesthetically appealing and interesting to others. The aesthetic appeal of a website can greatly influence the amount of repeat traffic a MySpace website receives. For example members who use garish colors and fonts which are too small or otherwise difficult to read may not receive repeat traffic even if the content of their website is very interesting and engaging. This is because other members may lose interest in the website quickly.
The other part of an excellent website design is interesting and intriguing content. A website which is aesthetically appealing may entice visitors to peruse the content but if it is simply not interesting and engaging the visitors are not likely to spend much time on the website and are also not likely to return. However, MySpace members who fill their website with exciting content are likely to keep visitors interested. When visitors are interested in the content they are likely to return and also to encourage others to visit the website as well.
Visit Members’ Websites
Another way to generate increased traffic to your MySpace website is by visiting the websites of other members. You can use the search feature to find other members who share your interests. By visiting their websites you will get a better idea of whether or not you are interested in being friends with these members. When you encounter other members you might be interested in meeting you can sent them an email or instant message commenting on their website and asking to be added to their network of friends. You can also suggest they visit your website as well. Those who make an effort to meet other members are likely to increase their own web site traffic.
Invite Friends to Your MySpace Website
Finally, MySpace members can generate additional traffic to their website by inviting others to visit them. They can speak directly to friends and family members and encourage them to view their website. Also, those who participate in other online communities such as message boards may include a link to their MySpace website in their signature so those who want to learn more about them can visit their MySpace profile.
MySpace also has an invite feature which enables members to send messages to others to encourage them to start a MySpace account. Members who have friends or family members who do not belong to the MySpace community can send them one of these invitations to encourage them to participate. The invitation can include a link to the members MySpace website to give the others an idea of what MySpace really is.
(by: David Riewe)
Create an Interesting MySpace Website
One of the simplest ways MySpace members can generate increased traffic to their website is to create a website which is both aesthetically appealing and interesting to others. The aesthetic appeal of a website can greatly influence the amount of repeat traffic a MySpace website receives. For example members who use garish colors and fonts which are too small or otherwise difficult to read may not receive repeat traffic even if the content of their website is very interesting and engaging. This is because other members may lose interest in the website quickly.
The other part of an excellent website design is interesting and intriguing content. A website which is aesthetically appealing may entice visitors to peruse the content but if it is simply not interesting and engaging the visitors are not likely to spend much time on the website and are also not likely to return. However, MySpace members who fill their website with exciting content are likely to keep visitors interested. When visitors are interested in the content they are likely to return and also to encourage others to visit the website as well.
Visit Members’ Websites
Another way to generate increased traffic to your MySpace website is by visiting the websites of other members. You can use the search feature to find other members who share your interests. By visiting their websites you will get a better idea of whether or not you are interested in being friends with these members. When you encounter other members you might be interested in meeting you can sent them an email or instant message commenting on their website and asking to be added to their network of friends. You can also suggest they visit your website as well. Those who make an effort to meet other members are likely to increase their own web site traffic.
Invite Friends to Your MySpace Website
Finally, MySpace members can generate additional traffic to their website by inviting others to visit them. They can speak directly to friends and family members and encourage them to view their website. Also, those who participate in other online communities such as message boards may include a link to their MySpace website in their signature so those who want to learn more about them can visit their MySpace profile.
MySpace also has an invite feature which enables members to send messages to others to encourage them to start a MySpace account. Members who have friends or family members who do not belong to the MySpace community can send them one of these invitations to encourage them to participate. The invitation can include a link to the members MySpace website to give the others an idea of what MySpace really is.
(by: David Riewe)
Social Bookmarking - Link Building And Search Engine Optimization
Social Bookmarking could be the next big thing in web site marketing since the development of the personal blogs.
Social Bookmarking web sites like http://Del.icio.us, Digg, Stumble Upon and Furl allow their users to create a set of web site content bookmarks. Submitted book marks are organized by content tags, which are arbitrary phrases or words a user can assign to the content they wish to bookmark. This gives the user a way to classify, rank and organize web site content using tags.
The most popular Social Bookmarking web site is Digg. Digg is a relatively new social bookmarking web site and has in it's short time attracted millions of members who daily add bookmarks to all sorts of web site content. Over search engines and other bots, social bookmarking web sites have an intrinsic advantage. Users will choose what content they will bookmark, unlike relying on a program to categorize and qualify content. There is an implied quality in something that someone has taken the time to select.
Users of a social bookmarking web site will read other posters bookmarks and then add them to their own bookmarks if they liked them.. You can even view RSS feeds to see what others are tagging, which is a very cool feature and is a textbook example of a very powerful viral marketing technique.
My own experience and testing shows that 3.2% of all my web site traffic come from social bookmarking web sites, off those 50% come from http://Digg.com, 20% from http://Del.icio.us and the remaining 30% come from various bookmarking sites I am a member of. These sites include Furl and Stumble Upon.
As a search engine optimizer, social bookmarking is another tool I use to promote my web sites. An example would be, introducing a new developed web site. I could wait until Google, Yahoo and MSN found my web site naturally, but that would takes weeks if not months. I could join a link exchange network and exchange links with other web site and have the search engines find me that way. But, then again I would be relying on the indexabilty of the linking web site for the search engine to find me. Or I could add a couple of bookmarks on 3 of the most popular social bookmarking web sites. These large bookmarking web sites are indexed many times a day and the search bots are only looking for new content. Have a bookmark on a social bookmarking web site and could expect to be crawled by the big 3 within hours or at the most, within days.
To successful bookmarker, you need to supply good quality original content. Content that is going to be searched for and will solve a problem the searcher has. There is no point bookmarking content that no one wants. Spamming has become a major problem, but social bookmarking is controlled by it's users. If the content you plan to bookmark is plain spam, the users of the bookmarking web site will just ignore it and move on. Your content will wither away and eventually be dropped out of the social bookmarking web site index.
If you social bookmark properly and supply good quality content, you can expect to gain dozens of quality back links as other bookmarkers, bookmark your content. This technique is a popular tool for successful search engine optimization and the best feature of social bookmarking is that it is free to use. I have not come across any social bookmarking web site that charges the user to use their facility.
Social bookmarking web sites are growing in popularity everyday. Find the ones that best fit the theme of your web site and bookmark with them. But remember, you will only succeed with bookmarking if you have content that is worth bookmarking.
(by: Steve Szasz)
Social Bookmarking web sites like http://Del.icio.us, Digg, Stumble Upon and Furl allow their users to create a set of web site content bookmarks. Submitted book marks are organized by content tags, which are arbitrary phrases or words a user can assign to the content they wish to bookmark. This gives the user a way to classify, rank and organize web site content using tags.
The most popular Social Bookmarking web site is Digg. Digg is a relatively new social bookmarking web site and has in it's short time attracted millions of members who daily add bookmarks to all sorts of web site content. Over search engines and other bots, social bookmarking web sites have an intrinsic advantage. Users will choose what content they will bookmark, unlike relying on a program to categorize and qualify content. There is an implied quality in something that someone has taken the time to select.
Users of a social bookmarking web site will read other posters bookmarks and then add them to their own bookmarks if they liked them.. You can even view RSS feeds to see what others are tagging, which is a very cool feature and is a textbook example of a very powerful viral marketing technique.
My own experience and testing shows that 3.2% of all my web site traffic come from social bookmarking web sites, off those 50% come from http://Digg.com, 20% from http://Del.icio.us and the remaining 30% come from various bookmarking sites I am a member of. These sites include Furl and Stumble Upon.
As a search engine optimizer, social bookmarking is another tool I use to promote my web sites. An example would be, introducing a new developed web site. I could wait until Google, Yahoo and MSN found my web site naturally, but that would takes weeks if not months. I could join a link exchange network and exchange links with other web site and have the search engines find me that way. But, then again I would be relying on the indexabilty of the linking web site for the search engine to find me. Or I could add a couple of bookmarks on 3 of the most popular social bookmarking web sites. These large bookmarking web sites are indexed many times a day and the search bots are only looking for new content. Have a bookmark on a social bookmarking web site and could expect to be crawled by the big 3 within hours or at the most, within days.
To successful bookmarker, you need to supply good quality original content. Content that is going to be searched for and will solve a problem the searcher has. There is no point bookmarking content that no one wants. Spamming has become a major problem, but social bookmarking is controlled by it's users. If the content you plan to bookmark is plain spam, the users of the bookmarking web site will just ignore it and move on. Your content will wither away and eventually be dropped out of the social bookmarking web site index.
If you social bookmark properly and supply good quality content, you can expect to gain dozens of quality back links as other bookmarkers, bookmark your content. This technique is a popular tool for successful search engine optimization and the best feature of social bookmarking is that it is free to use. I have not come across any social bookmarking web site that charges the user to use their facility.
Social bookmarking web sites are growing in popularity everyday. Find the ones that best fit the theme of your web site and bookmark with them. But remember, you will only succeed with bookmarking if you have content that is worth bookmarking.
(by: Steve Szasz)
Keys to Increasing Website Traffic
The life and blood of any online business is one simple word “traffic”. It’s your life and blood. Let’s face it, it’s quite simple these days to build a website, even without any HTML knowledge. It’s easy to purchase a domain. It’s easy to set up a website. It’s even easy to build an online store. It’s easy to place content on a website. However, all this can be absolutely useless if you don’t have any traffic and qualified traffic. Whether you are a website selling products, services, or acting as an affiliate for a program, you will need traffic.
Your form of business may be selling products. Or it may be promoting products. Or even giving away free content and selling advertising space on your website. Either way, in order to cash in, you need traffic.
I have been doing extensive research over the years to find out what is it that brings in traffic. For starters, you have to realize it requires hard work and dedication. It’s not an easy fix. You will have to be dedicated. With that mind-set you are bound to succeed, as long as you do your research correctly.
The first question you need to ask yourself is what are you looking to achieve? If you are looking to sell products, such as digital products (Ebooks, Software) or actual physical products, such as consumer electronics or clothes, then PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic may be a good and easy option. You will have to set a budget and make sure you know what your ROI (Return on Investment) is. I highly recommend using Google Adword. This is the king of PPC engines. You will get the most qualified visitors. My second option would be to use Yahoo’s Overture as well. However, Google is the quickest. You can start receiving traffic within 15 minutes. Yahoo takes more time and is more difficult to get your ads approved. I would spend my time browsing the internet and searching forums on Google Adwords. There are quite a few with very good tips. Also a few free ebooks you can get on the subject. Get yourself familiar.
If you are not actually selling something, but are looking to get traffic because you are giving away free content and are selling advertising space, then perhaps PPC advertising is not going to be your best option. It may not be profitable for you. You will then want to get a high ranking in the Search Engines. The best way to achieve that is to submit to all the search engines, the top 40. You can easily do a search online. Obviously the top ones are your priority (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.). However, bear in mind it may take several months to be listed on these search engines. You will have to be a bit patient.
Also you will want to have as many links to your website as possible. The best way to achieve this, is to contribute to forum discussions, you can place your link to the website on the signature section. However, make sure you don’t spam. Make a meaningful post that contributes to the discussion, otherwise don’t make a post.
You can also post free classified ads. This could be helpful. Also you can create blogs for your website. In fact, create a couple. Make sure you fill them with relevant content and link them to your website.
The key here is consistency. You have to be dedicated and be prepared to put in the work. Once you put in the work, you will be posed to succeed.
(by: Mark Taylor)
Your form of business may be selling products. Or it may be promoting products. Or even giving away free content and selling advertising space on your website. Either way, in order to cash in, you need traffic.
I have been doing extensive research over the years to find out what is it that brings in traffic. For starters, you have to realize it requires hard work and dedication. It’s not an easy fix. You will have to be dedicated. With that mind-set you are bound to succeed, as long as you do your research correctly.
The first question you need to ask yourself is what are you looking to achieve? If you are looking to sell products, such as digital products (Ebooks, Software) or actual physical products, such as consumer electronics or clothes, then PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic may be a good and easy option. You will have to set a budget and make sure you know what your ROI (Return on Investment) is. I highly recommend using Google Adword. This is the king of PPC engines. You will get the most qualified visitors. My second option would be to use Yahoo’s Overture as well. However, Google is the quickest. You can start receiving traffic within 15 minutes. Yahoo takes more time and is more difficult to get your ads approved. I would spend my time browsing the internet and searching forums on Google Adwords. There are quite a few with very good tips. Also a few free ebooks you can get on the subject. Get yourself familiar.
If you are not actually selling something, but are looking to get traffic because you are giving away free content and are selling advertising space, then perhaps PPC advertising is not going to be your best option. It may not be profitable for you. You will then want to get a high ranking in the Search Engines. The best way to achieve that is to submit to all the search engines, the top 40. You can easily do a search online. Obviously the top ones are your priority (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.). However, bear in mind it may take several months to be listed on these search engines. You will have to be a bit patient.
Also you will want to have as many links to your website as possible. The best way to achieve this, is to contribute to forum discussions, you can place your link to the website on the signature section. However, make sure you don’t spam. Make a meaningful post that contributes to the discussion, otherwise don’t make a post.
You can also post free classified ads. This could be helpful. Also you can create blogs for your website. In fact, create a couple. Make sure you fill them with relevant content and link them to your website.
The key here is consistency. You have to be dedicated and be prepared to put in the work. Once you put in the work, you will be posed to succeed.
(by: Mark Taylor)
Process on Optimizing your Site through Keywords
There are a lot of things to analyze on your site before you start optimizing your site. Such things are your site overview, nature of business, home page, site dimension and number of pages, product/services categories, page rank and indexed pages for major search engines, link popularity, and a lot more. After that you will go to your onpage and offpage optimization.
Analyze your site and think of a generic word that best fits for your web site. Choosing the right keywords is a strategy for better search engine positioning http://www.searchengines.com/placement.html. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product. Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common -- Keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is very important. Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.
That word will act as your major keyword for your site. Then find a keyword tool that will help you generate keywords for your site. There are lots of keyword tools like http://inventory.overture.com. Type in the major keyword that you had thought of and it’ll list all related keywords that you can use. On the tool you’ll see the number of counts your keyword has been searched. Person new on search engine optimization might use the keyword with a lot of counts (I, sure did that before) immediately but SEO experts says that Do NOT use it for a start as keyword searched as many times will just give you a lot of competition and give your site less probability in regards to your visitors. So it is best to start with keywords with a little rivalry. Get some traffic with those keywords and eventually focus on the major keywords.
Examine those sites ranked from 1-10 on the keywords you chose to use in optimizing your site. Check everything about the site that is ranked highly on the search engine. Its URL, see if it is the top level webpage or it is the index page of the site as if it is not you can have a great chance to improve your index page for the target keyword and have a better placement in the SERP’s. Sites page rank. Page rank is Google’s way of giving specific value to how popular your website is. It is based on the number of links you have pointing to your website. Then check their page source, see if their actually optimizing their site for some onpage optimization factors. Factors such as title tag, check if they use the keyword on their title tag which is one of the main reasons why a site is rank well on search engine. Header tags are used to separate topics and range from h1 being very large and bold and h6 which is very small and bold, it should contain your most important keyword or keyword phrases to assist you in ranking higher on Search Engines. Image alt tags are words that will be displayed in place of your image through an older browser or when your visitors have their image turned off, insert a readable keyword phrase within the alt tags of your image and it’ll help you on your rankings. And on the main content if they use the keyword on the beginning and at the end of the page, also whether or not they’ve bolded, underlined, or italicized the keywords on that page. By continuing this process on other keywords that you’ve chose you will have an improved ranking on SERPs.
(by: Kristine Joy Francisco)
Analyze your site and think of a generic word that best fits for your web site. Choosing the right keywords is a strategy for better search engine positioning http://www.searchengines.com/placement.html. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product. Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common -- Keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is very important. Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.
That word will act as your major keyword for your site. Then find a keyword tool that will help you generate keywords for your site. There are lots of keyword tools like http://inventory.overture.com. Type in the major keyword that you had thought of and it’ll list all related keywords that you can use. On the tool you’ll see the number of counts your keyword has been searched. Person new on search engine optimization might use the keyword with a lot of counts (I, sure did that before) immediately but SEO experts says that Do NOT use it for a start as keyword searched as many times will just give you a lot of competition and give your site less probability in regards to your visitors. So it is best to start with keywords with a little rivalry. Get some traffic with those keywords and eventually focus on the major keywords.
Examine those sites ranked from 1-10 on the keywords you chose to use in optimizing your site. Check everything about the site that is ranked highly on the search engine. Its URL, see if it is the top level webpage or it is the index page of the site as if it is not you can have a great chance to improve your index page for the target keyword and have a better placement in the SERP’s. Sites page rank. Page rank is Google’s way of giving specific value to how popular your website is. It is based on the number of links you have pointing to your website. Then check their page source, see if their actually optimizing their site for some onpage optimization factors. Factors such as title tag, check if they use the keyword on their title tag which is one of the main reasons why a site is rank well on search engine. Header tags are used to separate topics and range from h1 being very large and bold and h6 which is very small and bold, it should contain your most important keyword or keyword phrases to assist you in ranking higher on Search Engines. Image alt tags are words that will be displayed in place of your image through an older browser or when your visitors have their image turned off, insert a readable keyword phrase within the alt tags of your image and it’ll help you on your rankings. And on the main content if they use the keyword on the beginning and at the end of the page, also whether or not they’ve bolded, underlined, or italicized the keywords on that page. By continuing this process on other keywords that you’ve chose you will have an improved ranking on SERPs.
(by: Kristine Joy Francisco)
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