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Archive for March, 2006

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – 8 Ways to Build a Really Bad Web Site for Search Engines

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Some web sites receive hundreds or thousands of unique visitors a day, whilst others only get a handful or none. The reason is often because the web designers or Webmaster has built the site in one really bad way or other. This can end up hindering the potential success of the web site. If you want to make sure your site is not a traffic flop then here are some simple rules to follow.

Bad Move 1: Build the site using a frameset.

Framesets may save designers time but are bad news for search engines. They can struggle to follow links into the web site or read text on the page unless you use a no frames tag effectively. In addition to this, if an engine does keep a cache of a site with frames it will often pick up the individual frames/ pages and not the complete frameset. The downside of this is that you may lose your navigation for many of your pages, which is likely to turn visitors off. Whilst one or two partial fixes to framesets are out there, its still no wonder that many web site promoters still cry Please No Frames. For more information on why framesets can cause problems visit http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/

Bad Move 2: Build the site purely in flash.

Flash intros and web sites can be visually stunning, but at the same time they can be rather limiting when it comes to search engines. If your main site is all one flash site it will typically play in just one html page. Some search engines simply cant read Flash and so your web site to them is just one relatively empty HTML page. If your competitors web site has 15 or 20 pages in HTML talking about their good sand services then they will have a big advantage on you. If you must have a Flash site for graphical reasons then it would be wise to budget for a separate HTML web site to have along side the Flash so your site content can be read and indexed by search engines.

Bad Move 3: Decide that graphics are more important than words

Be careful. As great as some images can be, try not to let designers convince you that you dont need copy on your web site or that a few lines is enough. Only very occasionally is there ever an excuse to fill your web site with graphics at the expense of text. If the graphics look great, then match them with great copy. Sales copy is important to tell your audience why your goods and services are important. Search engines also like to index plenty of useful copy too. 250-500 words is a sensible starting guide for most pages or of the amount you would place in a brochure. Text copy is important and will always be so make sure web site has some!

Bad Move 4: Leaving out the Meta tags

This is a bad move as Meta Tags are important to search engines. Clear and concise title tags should be written for every page reflecting what it contains. Avoid writing things like Home or welcome as its fairly meaningless. If you page is selling blue widgets then get blue widgets in the title and keep the title to 10 words or less.

In addition to this create a well-written objective Meta description for each page, and list your Meta Keywords. These keywords should also reflect the content on your web page. Leaving these 3 things out, or doing them badly can be disastrous. The impact of Meta tags on rankings may vary from engine to engine, but without them your pages could be ignored. Most HTML editors allow you to easily insert Meta Tags into your web page and it only takes a few moments to add to a page. So there are no excuses. Make sure you have good Title tags, Meta Description and Meta Keyword tags on your pages today!

Bad Move 5: Use lots of JavaScript

Search engines have a few problems understanding JavaScript in pages. At the best of time they struggle with it, at worst they may even ignore it. On its own, it can be an unreliable way to make web site navigation. If you must use JavaScript for your navigation make sure you have some alternative ways to get to pages by using HTML text links at the bottom of the page. If you have a large amount of JavaScript think about linking to it as a separate JavaScript file.

Bad Move 6: Dont have sites linking to yours

Unless you want your web site hidden from the outside world you want to be found right? Well search engines ideally find a new web site by following a link from another site. This happens when people link to you and this kind of underpins the Internet. By having sites link to you search engine crawlers will find your web site and you never need to submit your web site to the likes of Google. It is still the case that web sites that rank highly on Google and Yahoo for relatively competitive key phrases often have scores if not hundreds of web sites linking to them Google help to explain the importance of linking here http://www.google.com/technology/. So think links and be sure to get your site listed in some quality web directories as part of the process.

Bad Move 7: Focus on submitting your web site to thousands of search engines and forget the ones that matter

Now and then you will see some companies attempting to promote this idea – often by using Bad Move 8! It is true that there are thousands of search engines but the highest volume of traffic comes from less than 10 major search engines. The logic of If I get one hit a day off each of the 1000 mini search engines Ill get a 1000 visitors a day unfortunately in practice does not ring true. It is a fact that a huge volume of search engine traffic comes from a small handful of search engine: most notably the Google, Yahoo and Msn.

Bad Move 8: Using unsolicited/ Spam email

This may seem obvious that this is not the best way to promote your business but is always worth stating. If youre in any doubt simply ask yourself: Do I like getting Spam emails? Its common sense to avoid using techniques that annoy people or damage your brand. Using unsolicited email campaigns could result in complaints and at worst your ISP could ban you. If you want a successful email campaign it is advisable to target genuine opted in newsletter subscribers and to always offer an opt-out button in every email.

About The Author

Copyright Gareth Davies 2005. You are free to reprint this article with both disclaimer and copyright notice in tact. Gareth Davies is a web promotion consultant working for GSINC Ltd based in North London, UK. For feedback on how to build better sites for search engines email Gareth via garethskettyATyahoo.co.uk or visit http://www.garethsketty.com.

Tags: Brand, keywords, market, Marketing, promo, Promotion, Search, Search Engine, Search Engine Marketing
Posted in Search Engine Marketing Articles | No Comments »

Search Engine Secrets – The Power of Topical Search Engines

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

What are Topical Search Engines?
Simply put, topical search engines are search engines focused on a specific industry, sector or topic.

While many marketers are scrambling for links, any links, an area that is often overlooked is topic-specific search engines. What many don’t realize is that these engines do produce traffic, and they often contain traffic that is very targeted. Anyone who has taken the time to analyze weblogs and track sales sources will likely see that targeted traffic converts at a significantly higher rate than non-targeted traffic.

A savvy online marketer realizes that often, the quality of the visitor is far more important than the quantity of visitors. Web marketers should focus their energies on attracting targeted traffic whenever possible.

For example, if you sell saddles, advertising on a site related to horses or advertising on a topical search engine like http://www.horse-stall.net will bring significantly more sales than advertising on a generic web site or search engine.

Niche engines are considerably smaller than general search engines but they can still be quite lucrative. The small size of a niche or topic-specific engine ensures that the there are few competitors, and advertisers are generally willing to pay a little more for the focused traffic. Advertisers appreciate the unique benefit of reaching a very targeted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service. As a result, topic-specific search engines and directories are a burgeoning market. There is far less competition in niche directories and dominating a specific market segment and establishing brand recognition is significantly easier.

It is virtual suicide to attempt to compete with the behemoth search engines like Google. Web-surfers are interested in simplicity and efficiency, which translates to as few clicks as possible. This is an area where Google really cannot compete with a topic-specific search engine. Creating a simple, clear navigational structure of related content while cross-promoting related products or services will increase the site’s value.

Advertisers will also flock to search portals that are industry-specific, as they appreciate the unique benefit of reaching a very targeted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service.

Consider the niche search engine, Alarm Tools – http://www.alarm-tools.net . The traffic this portal attracts will be of significant interest to manufacturers of security equipment or emergency supplies. Imagine the targeted traffic that an alarm company could receive from a link in the above search directory.

Comtemplate the quality traffic a financial planner could glean from an RSS search directory focussed on finance and investing at http://www.finance-investing.com .

Locating topic-specific search engines is not all that difficult. Consider using the resources provided by Search Engine Watch, Web Search Engines, and Search Engine Guide to locate engines that are topic-specific:

Search Engine Watch – http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351
Web Search Engines – http://www.web-search-engines.net/directory/topic-specific.html
Search Engine Guide – http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html

Qualified ‘clickers’ or interested buyers is what it is all about; whether you are selling a product or advertising, the more targeted the traffic the better the fit. As an advertiser, consider topic- specific search engines. As an online marketer, consider creating a niche search portal, as the market is ripe.

About the author:

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.comsoftware for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.neta wireless text messaging software company.

Tags: Brand, market, marketer, Marketing, niche, promo, Search, Search Engine
Posted in Search Engine | No Comments »

Search Engine Optimization – The Search Engine Optimization Secret That Everybody Ignores

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Search engine optimization is a very critical task in the success of any website. In recent times search engines seem to have complicated this task further by their frequent changes in rules. This has caused lots of anxiety as some of these changes have seen some sites lose virtually all their regular traffic instantly as their rankings have tumbled.

This has further added to the confusion amongst webmasters about search engines and their motivations. But no matter how mad one gets at the search engines, there is little that they can do to change the statistics which clearly indicate that well over 75 per cent of the traffic that most sites receive comes directly from search engines.

However, there is a secret that an increasing number of webmasters have discovered and are putting to good use. Whatever regular changes search engines instigate, their motivation remains the same. Most webmasters forget that there is currently very stiff competition between the leading search engines. More so because it has become abundantly clear that none of the top search engines are interested in the runners up position.

The Search Engine Motivation

This stiff competition between search engines is focused on the customer, that is the person who uses search engines to find information online. The preferred search engine and therefore the top one will always be the one that most satisfies the needs of that customer.

So whatever changes search engines make they will always be focused on improving the search engine experience for surfers. It is not too difficult to figure out what those who use search engines want, or even more important, what they do not want. Anybody using a search engine wants to be able to find what they are looking for quickly. Most will be looking for the most detailed quality content on the subject or information that they seek.

This simply means that any website that places its’ focus on the end consumer using search engines, rather than on the search engines themselves is guaranteed to retain their high ranking whatever changes search engines keep on making.

Can You Dare Assume That Search Engines Do Not Exist?

So the most effective way to ensure that a website owner focuses on the surfers is for them to direct their focus on them, just like search engines are. It would help tremendously for them to start operating as if search engines did not exist and fully concentrate on ensuring that their sites have quality detailed content.

The dangers and harmful effects of webmasters focusing on search engines are very evident. We have sites that use keywords so heavily that it affects the quality of writing on their sites. Some sites have even done worse, leaving their quality content intact but creating keywords that are hidden to the human eye but visible to search engines.

In fact there are a whole lot of schemes on the net created to fool search engines, which have no regard for the surfer or what information they are looking for. For instance there is plenty of software on sale online whose promoters bluntly state is designed to fool search engines.

These are the sort of schemes that are causing so many constant changes in the rules of leading search engines as they seek for ways to combat any tricks that would favor undeserving sites in their rankings.

Content Will Always Be King

What all this means is that content remains the most important search engine optimization tool. Just take a closer look at all the leading google websites and try and trace a common thread running through them all. You will quickly discover that the quality of writing and content in these sites is extremely high.

This means that any webmaster that makes an effort to provide quality, relevant and detailed content on their site with the experience of the surfer as their central focus will be using an extremely powerful search engine optimization tool.

If your content is good, then you can post it at other websites complete with a detailed resource box that directs traffic to your website. Quality articles will usually end up being re-posted all over the net in an endless viral effect that will create quality links back to your site. Search engines still rank websites based on the links from other sites leading to it so quality content has a double advantage.

You will of course need to do a thorough job of posting your articles to various article directories, ezine publishers and announcement lists.

About the author:
Article By David Callan. David is an Internet Marketing
professional and webmaster of http://www.akamarketing.com
Visit his website for articles and tutorials on Internet
Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.

searchEstate provides Free Advertising, Free Web Sites and Free Web Traffic…Michael A Fowler, M.B.A.searchEstate provides free advertising and free web traffic via its revolutionary new search engine affiliate scheme. Complete with free web sites and Internet tracking tools to track your advertisements and adjust as required.

searchEstate has launched a new dimension in free advertising The one and only search engine that is allied to the affiliate marketer. While Yahoo, Google and others charge for their advertising, this concept pays the affiliated advertiser and owner.

Exposure to the main business interests of the affiliate are to the fore, via an affiliate page where they can all be listed. That page is under the affiliates control and it also introduces searchEstate to its highly targeted visitors. As search engines provide 46% of all web traffic to web sites, this free advertising concept seems incredible.

Comparing that to just 1.2% of website visitors arriving by e-mail advertising and it starts you thinking about search engine advertising in a different light.

Providing the free web traffic via the free web sites and the free viral advertising component, searchEstate targets true interest via its web searching facility. This facility is integrated with all the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Quote:
“I have been in several ad co-ops to advertise my business opportunities and I must say, this one has far exceeded my expectations! Not only am I getting sign-ups for searchEstate, but the way they do it is to advertise ALL my business opportunities at the same time. It is like 2 for the price of 1. This advertising method is nothing short of brilliant.”

The claim that searchEstate is the fastest growing search engine in Internet history, would be of no surprise. Every marketer, affiliate, retailer and reseller can now grow their own piece of Internet advertising Real-Estate and benefit in several different ways.

When that Real-Estate is big enough, the advertising space can be sold as pay-per-click ads to other advertisers. This gives the Pro affiliate member an ongoing stream of residual income from his/her own free advertising network, while free members enjoy free web traffic to their main business sites.

Free web traffic is hard to find, especially the genuine kind of targeted visitors that make sales. This looks a very well thought out plan and is providing many people with the sort of advertising they both want and need, at a cost which is very affordable, or even free.

There is also a Pro version of the searchEstate model, which is relatively inexpensive for the benefits it provides. In todays marketplace, the same sum could be spent within minutes on advertising that bears no fruit.

The free affiliate web site provided is not replicated. It has keywords and can be adjusted and optimised by the affiliate and indexed by the major search engines.
The Video Presentation is first class and explains the benefits in full. There are also lead capture and Invitation pages.
/>Going behind the scenes, we find tracking facilities for the advertisements and a complete score of impressions. This allows adjustments to ads that are not performing well. Banners, hosted and provided, are also available for placements upon other sites and in exchanges… More free advertising and web site traffic?

searchEstate stand-alone search boxes are appearing all over the Internet. They even provide an e-mail version of their Internet search! It seems no stone has been left unturned, in the bid to serve the affiliate with an above-average way of advertising their main business, alongside the searchEstate model.

Under current development is the brand new toolbar, which will be freely available to anyone. Incorporating many more features than any of its rivals, it will serve as a great introduction to the searchEstate way of advertising.

Main focus is given to the search results pages, which are far more prominent than the major rivals and enhanced to their fullest extent. Product quality is extremely high on the list of priorities to searchEstate customers.

You have to admire a program that gives so much to its affiliates and end users.

A real chance to forever nullify advertising costs and provide a healthy income via its pay per click module, searchEstate will make a huge impact in the world of search engine advertising and marketing.

If this program can allow even the smallest of distributors or retailers to compete with the giants, then it is surely destined to become the ultimate internet advertising solution for every Networker, retailer and marketer.

– Michael A Fowler, M.B.A. 2005 searchEstate provides Free Advertising, Free Web Sites and Free Web Traffic…

About the author:
Michael A Fowler, M.B.A.
Creator and Author of ‘The MBA Way’
International Group Trainer and Business Coach – Helping others to enjoy online success since 1998
http://www.the-mba-way.com/freewebadvertising.htm

Tags: Brand, Internet Marketing, keywords, market, marketer, Marketing, Placement, promo, Search, Search Engine, search engine optimization
Posted in Search Engine Optimization Articles | No Comments »

Marketing Secrets – Test Marketing–How to Increase Your Direct Mail Marketing Response by Using the Internet to Test

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Ive discovered a really fantastic way to discover what works best in direct marketing, BEFORE doing traditional direct marketing. Use these internet tools to find what works best, then apply what youve learned to your traditional direct marketing, direct mail, etc. Its fast and less expensive.

How to Find What Works in Your Marketplace?

Overture provides an excellent tool to find what people are looking for on the internet. For all practical purposes, you can use that to apply to other types of marketing.

Go to http://inventory.overture.com. Type in some keywords that apply to your product or service. Overture will provide the number of times that search word was searched in the last month, and it will also provide a list of related words and how many times they were searched. This provides a really excellent tool to research what people are wanting, and how they are looking for them (at least what words they are relating to that search).

Using my business as an example: I provide training (sales, customer service, leadership and several other things).

So, which ones are in demand right now? I can do a search for training on Overture.

The results are:
Training –searched 165,196 times
Online training, searched 149,418 times
Management training, searched 133,499
Sales training, searched 70,496

What can we learn from this?
It looks like I should focus more online training instead of face-to-face, or local training.
Management training is being searched for almost 2 times as much as sales training. So, shouldnt I focus more on management training over sales training? Ill certainly have a larger market.

This can be applied to almost any kind of marketing, direct mail, cold calling, email, website, etc. Not only can I find the best direction (management training) but I can also find the right words to use in a direct marketing piece before sending it.

Heres another one.

Use GoogleAdwords, a pay-per-click online marketing campaign to find what works. If you havent experienced GoogleAdwords, just go to www.Google.com and search for something. When the listing shows up there will be 2-3 sponsored listings across the top of the page, and 5-6 down the right hand side. These are pay-per-click ads, those companies pay for the ads only when someone clicks on them. You are taken to that site. At that time the sponsoring company pays so much for each time someone clicks on it.

A really fantastic way of using this for a marketing study is that within 1-2 days, there will have been enough clicks to know which search words are working.
Another one of the fantastic benefits of GoogleAdwords is that they allow alternating ads in an Adword campaign. So for any campaign you can have several different ads running. Within just 1-3 days there will have been enough people searching and clicking through that you can see
Which search words are searched for the most often
Which one of the ads are producing the most click-thrus

It isnt unusual to see a 2 to 1 difference between the ads. So now you know how to say what in an ad and what kind of typical response rates you might have.

You can also take the best ad, tweak it again. Check back in a few days and know if youve improved it or not. Ive seen pay-per-click ads crawl upward to 10-15% response rates in a matter of a week.

Now, its time to start using those same words and structure in our next direct mail, or other direct marketing campaign. Its fast and very economical. Instead of taking weeks and costing a ton of money like a traditional test market would, we know in days what works for a lot less.

Want to know how many people are looking for your product in your small geographical area? Set up a GoogleAdword campaign and set the geographic limitation to your address with a known radius. Come back in a few days and see how many searches you got in that territory. Then go out with your local direct marketing with what you just learned.
Even if you arent an e-commerce site you can learn a lot about what works in marketing this way.

About the author:
Alan Boyer, CEO of The Leaders Perspective, LLC is considered one of the worlds leading breakthrough specialists.

With over 35 years of business experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some double, some jump 10 times.

He helps companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible.FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com

mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Tags: Direct Marketing, keywords, market, Marketing, Search
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Are You Really An Internet Marketing Professional

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Let me ask you a somewhat personal question today. The answer to that question determines how you treat your on-line business, and dramatically impacts your chances of on-line success. That question is, “Are you really an Internet Marketing Professional?”

Being a professional means that you view what you do as much more than just another job or a business. It’s something you do because it’s your “calling.” It’s something you do because you believe that it’s what you were meant to do and because you believe that it helps to make the world a better place.

You don’t have to view it as a permanent calling, but you do need to believe in the importance of what you do. If you don’t see what you’re doing as significant, then you should seek a different calling.

I borrowed that definition of a profession… of a calling, from how I felt about my job when I was in the military. That was one of those jobs that you did because you felt that it was something that needed to be done. The pay generally wasn’t that attractive, so you had to look for a higher purpose in sticking with such an often-thankless, always-demanding job where you were expect to be prepared to sacrifice your VERY life if needed.

Running an on-line business should be much more financially rewarding and certainly demand less personal sacrifice, but it should still be viewed as a profession that you can throw yourself completely into.

Like many professions, your on-line job involves offering solutions to peoples’ problems. Doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, mechanics, and schoolteachers, all provide solutions to problems. They all fill needs. I submit to you, that if you are an Internet Marketing Professional, your job is no less important, and that it comes with no less obligation than any of the jobs mentioned above.

It may seem like a “stretch” to envision your job of marketing products and services on-line the same as diagnosing and prescribing medications for an illness. Yet, that is exactly what you should be doing. You should be analyzing your customers’ and clients’ problems. You should understand what is causing the problems. You should be familiar with possible solutions, and you should prescribe the best suitable solution that you are aware of.

Adapting that view of your on-line business is one of the big keys to your success. That’s because if you do view helping your clients as a sacred trust, you WILL really strive not to violate that trust. There’s that word again…. “trust.” Lack of trust is what keeps potential customers who want and need what you offer from buying from you. Trust is earned, and people intuitively know whom they can trust.

Jay Abraham was the first person that I personally heard clearly explain the sacred trust and obligation that a marketer has to his clients. That obligation is to only offer products and services that really make their lives better. It’s to treat a client the same as you would a close friend or a family member… always deeply wanting only the best for them. It’s also selling them products and services that you know they need but may not yet realize that they need.

If you conduct your on-line business with that degree of professionalism and commitment to your clients, you do a number of things:

- Regardless of the product line or service that you are providing, you make sure that the one you offer is the best available for what your client can afford. In the real world, not everyone can afford the best doctor or lawyer. However, the lawyer or doctor that they can afford is obligated to provide the best service that they are capable of rendering to their clients.

- You take yourself seriously. That generally means that you come across to your prospect as being the expert on your topic. That sometimes means you may need more training if you’re not the expert on a topic. Taking yourself seriously also means that you charge what your time and expertise are worth. You don’t fall into the trap of competing on the basis of price.

- You promote something that you believe in. Some on-line marketers promote get-rich-quick schemes that they KNOW really don’t offer their prospects any real earning potential. These people soon burn out – or the universe simply gives them what they deserve. When you really believe in your product, that is sensed by your prospects. These prospects are therefore more open to examining the products and services that you recommend as solutions to their problems.

You don’t necessarily need to market important sounding products on-line to be a professional. People need ordinary good and services everyday, and they turn to the Internet to find them. A good mechanic, sometimes covered from head-to-toe with oil, knows the value of what he is doing. He knows that if he doesn’t service your brakes properly, it could kill you. He takes pride in a job well done. He sees himself as a professional.

That mechanic also views himself as a professional because he can do something that not everyone can do. I submit to you, that when you craft webpages, write ad-copy, create a computer program, or promote a product through the search engines, that you also do something that not everyone can do. So I ask you again, “Are you really an Internet Marketing Professional?”

About the author:

Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://ProfitMagician.com

The Online Businessperson Butterfly – Part 1Michael DixonThe Online Businessperson Butterfly – Part 1
by Michael Dixon
(c) 2004 All Rights Reserved

The Internet is LOADED with opportunity for those who want to start their own online
business today! The only thing that seems
hard to find is where to start.

Too many beginners start out like a butterfly. They go from program to program as the butterfly moves from blossom to
blossom. Like the butterfly, they never land in any one place for very long. Do you know
that the average lifespan of a butterfly is
20 – 40 days?

To be successful you need to be more like the tiger. The
tiger moves with purpose, focused on his prey to enable a
lifespan of 10 – 15 years.

By remaining focused on your prey you stand a much better
chance of a feast as opposed to a snack.

Focus is fundamental to success! Without focus your vision
becomes blurred. Eventually you become blind.

Too many of us find all those large packages of products, you
know the ones I’m talking about, and download all the free
ones we can find and buy all those we can afford.

This is our first mistake! Don’t look for products; look
for markets. Once you have identified a market, the product
will come.

How do we find a market? With a little practice, and a lot
of focus, it isn’t all that difficult.

Just think about your own life. What are the things you want?
What are the things that bring you happiness, wealth, health,
gratification, or whatever? Would others be interested in
these things? Ask them!

With just a little effort you can find out how many people share
your interest.

Let’s pick ‘bird watching’ as an example.

If you go to http://www.google.com and type in
bird watching : forum in the search bar and click the
Google Search button you will find 167,000 links listed to
sites that deal with
bird watching forums.

This gives us plenty of opportunity to visit and see
what these bird watchers are talking about and what
they are looking for. I haven’t researched this, but I
imagine it is a safe bet that birding binoculars are
a hot topic. Have you ever seen a birder without
binoculars?

Now type “birding binoculars” (enclosed in quotes) into
the search bar on Google.com and we see that their are
9,480 listings of sites that deal with “birding binocular”
in some way.

Now we need to know how many people are looking for
information about “birding binouculars”. Go to
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
and type in birding binouculars. The results show 19,390
searchs were made for birding binoculars in May 2004. That
means that the ratio of searchers to sites (potential
customers) is 2.05 (19,390/9480).

We have just closed in on our prey by remaining focused
on a market (bird watching), not a product (birding
binoculars), and we are nearly ready to pounce like the
aggressive tiger marketers that we are.

I will expound on this focused research in Part 2 of
The Online Businessperson Butterfly

About the author:

Michael Dixon is struggling to become an overnight
success (after 18 months in online marketing) at
http://www.insaneinternetincome.com and is the editor
of the free “Whacky Weekly” newsletter. Subscription form
is on the home page.

Tags: Internet Marketing, market, marketer, Marketing, promo, Search, Search Engine, Search Engine Marketing
Posted in Search Engine Marketing Articles | No Comments »

Marketing Secrets – Internet Marketing Strategy:44 Link Popularity Secrets

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

********************
The following article may be freely reprinted online or in ezines provided that reprint includes the resource box. The reprint must have all article urls and resource box url hyperlinked. Failure to follow these guideless is a copywright violation.
********************

Enjoy These BENEFITS:

-Quality targeted traffic from backlink & reciprocal link partners

-Sustained long-term free search engine traffic

-Recognition as an authority in your specific field

There are enormous benefits to be had if you master and use these link popularity secrets. These 44 linking strategies and tactics are organized into three sections:

Link Popularity Resources, Tools, & Techniques
(1-11)

Backlinks (Incoming Links)
(12-37)

Reciprocal Links
(38-44)

(1-11) Link Popularity Resources, Tools, & Techniques

(1) (1) (1) (1)

You will need a comprehensive script to manage the many tasks of a complete link popularity strategy.

First step:

Download and install Duncan Carver’s Link Management Assistant (LMA):

http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management/
The best link popularity software.

Other leading link building products are:

Arelis4
http://www.axandra.com/

Reciprocal Manager
http://reciprocalmanager.com/

Zeus
http://www.cyber-robotics.com/

…but all have significant price tags attached.

LMA is the Rolls Royce of link popularity software.

In a class by itself!

Oh yes, did I mention that it is free!

This link building software is the best option for building a niche directory for a mini site or niche site.

Even if you currently use other link popularity software, you should add LMA to your Internet marketing arsenal.

Download now or bookmark this page:

http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management/

For an example of a link directory established with LMA see the “Work At Home Website Directory” that I have started to develop on this website:

http://100FreeWorkAtHomeTools.com/lma/directory

(2) (2) (2) (2)

Read this important article:

Keyword Phrases In Linking text:
http://linkingmatters.com/linkingtext.html

Linking text, sometimes called anchor text is the clickable text that takes people to another page or resource.

Mastering the skill of using keyword phrases in your linking text is one of the critical secrets to understand in developing an effective link building strategy.

Take special notice of the importance of using this technique in your INTERNAL links within your website!

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You should be aware of the penalties search engines can inflict.

Vary keywords in linking text:

http://www.articlecity.com/

articles/marketing/article_1287.shtml

In your linking strategy you should offer multiple anchor text options for other webmasters to choose in linking to your website.

Change these options AT LEAST ONCE PER MONTH.

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Subscribe to these link popularity newsletters:

http://linkingmatters.com/Newsletter_Subscription.html
Linking Matters Newsletter

http://www.linking101.com/newsletter.htm
LinkingNews Newsletter

The dynamics of what’s effective on the Internet can change at a frightening pace. Subscribe to these ezines and keep current.

(5) (5) (5) (5)

Bookmark this website:

http://www.ericward.com/articles/index.html

Free articles on strategic link building, linking strategies and tactics, and link popularity.

Eric Ward is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in terms of link popularity on the entire Internet.

Visit this site on a REGULAR BASIS.

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Use keywords in your domain name.

The links that you are sowing all over the Internet will show up more often in search engine results, if you are using important keywords in your domain name.

Use the knowledge you gained from SECRET #2 concerning “keyword phrases in linking text”.

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Download this ebook which contains a collection of link building tactics:

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/131LinkPop.html

An array of link popularity strategies that you won’t find anywhere else.

The strategies are not numbered so make a page notation for link building tactics that fit your situation.

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Download and install the Alexa Toolbar.

http://download.alexa.com/index.cgi?p=Dest_W_b_40_T1/

Important toolbar to improve your link popularity.

Use of the toolbar positively affects your Alexa ranking. Since some webmasters take into account your website’s Alexa ranking the better your ranking the higher your success rate in getting reciprocal links.

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Install a robots.txt file in root directory of your website (server).

Google’s robots (and other SE robots) need to track your links (both internal and external). Give them help and proper guidance with the robot.txt file.

For a valuable tutorial on this technique visit:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm
Robots.txt Tutorial

For other helpful robots.text info visit:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/robotcheck.cgi/
Robots.txt Validator

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum93/
Robots.txt Forum

Search engine spiders particularly need help indexing pages that are MORE THAN TWO LEVELS removed from the home page.

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Use this Text-to-Hyperlink Conversion Tool

http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl

If you have an HTML ezine or publish articles online, you should MAKE SURE ALL OF THE URLS IN THE ARTICLE ARE HYPERLINKED. Hyperlinking only the url in the resource box is not enough.

If your articles are online, and you have referenced your own website in the article, check to make sure the links are live.

You will find some article banks where the urls within articles are not hyperlinked. Whenever you encounter this state, alert the editor to the above easy-to-use tool.

Also, express your strong preference for articles with live links.

By the way, you can edit your own articles with some article banks to include live hyperlinks. Where appropriate use the above tool to make your article links live and improve your link popularity.

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Download this powerful free ebook on time management.

http://www.howtomanageyourtime.com/

This is a talking ebook, plus a written transcript of the audio.

You will learn the powerful concept of the TIME QUADRANT, plus 12 critical time management rules.

No one can take advantage of all 44 link popularity secrets in a couple of days or weeks. There are a tremendous amount of productive steps you can take overall.

Therefore, you should SET GOALS of completing a certain step or number of steps by a SPECIFIC DATE.

Once you have put all of these link popularity secrets in place, your website will become a powerful force on the Internet!

http://www.howtomanageyourtime.com/

(12-37) Backlinks (Incoming Links)

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Write and publish articles online.

Informed opinion has it that BACKLINKS, that is, one-way, incoming links are MORE VALUABLE than reciprocal links.

If the backlink is from a high PR, high traffic site, it should prove to be extremely valuable both in terms of traffic and link popularity.

The absolute best way to get backlinks from high quality sites is to write and publish articles online.

Therefore, I have included extensive data for you to utilize.

There are five main distribution channels for your articles that you should concentrate on:

(1)Article Banks or Directories

(2)Announcement Lists

(3)Ezines that have an online archive

(4)Ezine Editors

(5)Individual websites that publish articles

Article Banks or Directories

Here are a number of different sources:

http://www.coachmaria.com/articles/articlebanks.html

http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html

Announcement Lists

http://www.homebiztools.com/article-lists.htm

http://1clickprofitst.com/article-directories.html

Yahoo Groups

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce_list/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles4you2use4promotion/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articlesubmission/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/free-reprint-articles

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_eContent/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecontentarticles/

Ezines That Have An Online Archive

You should make it a top priority to start and build a file that lists ezines with an online archive.

SUBMIT TO THESE EZINES FIRST.

Use your judgement. How up to date is the archive? How many subscribers?? What’s the Alexa rating?

By the way, if you ADVERTISE in ezines that have an online archive, any links in the ad that reference your own websites will add to your link popularity.

Ezine Editors

You will be using mainly ezine directories:

Some editors print their ezine online but do not have an online archive.

http://eclaunchsite.com/ECLezinedirectories.htm
Important list of ezine directories.

http://www.internetmarketing-success.com/email-marketing/ezine-directories.htm
Comprehensive list of ezine directories.

Copy and paste this list of urls in your email program and send it to yourself so you will have a hyperlinked list.

Here is a PAID alternative.

This list is selective so it should contain quality ezines with no out-of-date listings:

http://www.ezine-editors-list.com/

Individual Websites That Publish Articles

If you go to http://Google.com, type in:

“target keyword phrase + articles”

You will find websites where you can post articles for that keyword. As an example:

“link popularity + articles” yields this:

http://tinyurl.com/85z2j

Submit Articles To Web Rings

Here is an individual website that has integrated the online publishing of articles with submission to web rings:

http://www.e-syndicate.net/a17492.htm

Fee Based Article Distribution

Here are two paid article distribution services that I have used with good results:

http://thephantomwriters.com/

x.pl/tpw/info/distribution/index.html

The service above was the first I used for the article below:

“Internet Marketing Strategy:The Advertising Co-op”

If you copy and paste the article title above, including quotes, at http://google.com, you will see the extent of this article’s distribution.

Most of these links are BACKLINKS!

I manually submitted this article to about 10-15 websites, but it was very time consuming. After using Phantom Writers the distribution grew to about 250.

After six months I used isnare for further paid distribution.

http://isnare.com/distribution.php

This service has a very moderate cost.

Blog Posts Re: Articles

Look for June 20th post at:

http://wetrack.it/eza/af.cgi?aid=733&ent=28

Click on “Oh no… here come the critics:

http://www.joltinc.com/blog/?p=3

Then read comment #12.

Then read comment #19:

http://www.joltinc.com/blog/?p=1#comments

Powerful stuff!

Critical Secret Re Article Titles

Article Marketing & Copywriting Secret: How To Make Your Article TITLE Sell

http://100freeworkathometools.com/

archives/volume6_issue10.php

After reading this article you should realize that you can get two gigantic benefits from your online articles:

improved link popularity

free website traffic from search engines when your article shows up

If Your Writing Skills Are Poor Or Insufficient

Writing and publishing articles online has such a tremendous benefit, but what if you can’t write well, or worse, don’t feel you have enough knowledge??

Pick a hot topic and get a ghost writer!

A ghost written article means the article is published with your name as the author.

http://guru.com/category.cfm/505

The benefits you receive will more than make up for the cost when your ghost written article becomes widely distributed.

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Submit your website to these directory sites:

http://www.dmoz.org

The single most important directory listing you can have. There may be long delays in getting your site listed. Be prepared to follow up. A free listing but very powerful.

https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/

WARNING: Paying the fee does not guarantee inclusion in the directory.

http://joeant.com

You can avoid the listing fee by becoming an editor.

http://www.Business.com

An important widely used business directory. To submit your site click “Advertise With Us” at bottom of page.

http://www.directory-pages.com/

A comprehensive resource that is very valuable if fully utilized. Ranks directories by how “powerful” they are.

http://www.best-web-directories.com/

Great structure. Offers separate FREE and PAID directory listings.

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Here are some meta directories that list directory sites where you can submit your Web site:

http://www.beaucoup.com/

Beaucoup.com is a large directory which lists more than 2,500 search engines and directories.

http://www.search-engine-index.co.uk/

This directory lists more than 900 specialized search engines and directories.

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List your link or niche website directory with these directories:

http://www.incominglinks.com/
Extraordinary resource!

http://www.directoryarchives.com/

http://www.wmdirectory.com/

http://www.internet-

search-engines-faq.com/submit-url-free-directory.shtml
Valuable resource! An annotated directory.

http://www.talkingcity.com/showthread.php?t=12
See multiple post re lists of directories by Megri

http://www.massivelinks.com/

http://www.incrawler.com/

Be sure to give your directory a name that includes important keywords.

Having a niche directory with a narrow focus can add tremendous value to your website since it can save an interested party a huge amount of time in locating valuable resources.

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If you have your own website or niche directory, PROMOTE IT!

Submit it to the directories of directories referenced above.

Advertise your link or niche directory using free advertising resources such as:

http://www.free-internet-advertising.co.uk/index.htm

http://freesoloads.100freeworkathometools.com

http://freeadvertisingforum.com

http://www.dailyclassifieds.co.uk

http://www.subscribeme.net

http://adlandpro.100freeworkathometools.com

The focus is not on promoting your overall website but on advertising your link or niche directory specifically.

Your intent is to promote and secure backlinks.

You hope that other websites, once they discover it, will want to link to a valuable resource, YOUR DIRECTORY.

So make your directory exceptional and link within it to high quality websites.

Your Promotion should be RELENTLESS.

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Submit your blog and RSS feeds to directories:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

For details on setting up your syndicated feed, read this article by William Bontrager:

http://www.homebiztools.com/syndication.htm

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If you have the appropriate files, submit your site to directories for .pdf files, multimedia files and image files.

http://searchpdf.adobe.com

http://www.blinkx.tv/

http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/submit.html

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List your ezine in these ezine directories. Make sure you have a SEPARATE sign-up page for your newsletter or ezine.

Such listings will give you a permanent backlink to your website.

http://emailuniverse.com/bestezines

http://ezinelocater.com

http://www.topezineads.com/demo.html

This site has a comprehensive list of ezine directories:

http://internetmarketing-success.com/

ezine_directories.htm/

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Post to forums, blogs, and newsgroups.

When your website has appropriate useful information, your responsive answers to forum members’ requests can include a direct link to the appropriate page of your website.

Your post must be DIRECTLY RESPONSIVE to the topic, not just an attempt to gain a backlink.

In addition, many forums allow a signature file, where you can include a backlink to your website. Use the knowledge from SECRET #2 in your signature file.

Here is a link to a site with solid information on forums complete with a list of active and prominent forums to investigate.

http://www.imarketing-university.com/internet-marketing-forums.html/
Valuable resource for Internet Marketing forums.

An extremely valuable FREE ebook on posting at forums can be obtained at:

http://100FreeWorkAtHomeTools.com/

forumsupertips.php
Link popularity and posting at forums

All of the powerful knowledge and wisdom in this ebook can be applied to posting at blogs and newsgroups.

Highly recommended!

*******

Google indexes the content of newsgroups.

An easy way to post messages in newsgroups is to create a Google account and to post via their Web interface:

http://groups.google.com

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Get free publicity, free traffic, and valuable backlinks through using free press release distribution services.

http://www.prweb.com/

http://www.prfree.com/

If you want a serious infusion of valuable publicity and public relations knowledge, an excellent place to start would be subscribing to George McKenzie’s FREE Publicity Pro Newsletter.

Learn from a pro and master this knowledge, and your mastery should pay huge dividends, in terms of valuable backlinks, increased traffic and increased profitability.

http://www.publicitygoldmine.com/newsletter/

Key Paid Service

URLwire is one of the best fee based services available. URLwire is a web site announcement network started in 1994.

URLwire reaches the KEY ONLINE CONTACTS who specifically write about, review, and link to new web content.

An investment of your resources that rates to pay very big dividends.

http://www.urlwire.com/

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Post a helpful “comment” to Google Answers.

http://answers.google.com/answers

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html

http://answers.google.com/

answers/faq.html#providecomments

Use your IMAGINATION!

You want questions that are relevant to valuable information and answers supplied by your website.

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Set up an affiliate program. Here is a source of affiliate scripts:

http://www.hotscripts.com/

PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Affiliate_Programs/

Make certain that the script you choose is reliable.

Under no circumstances should you start to use a script without asking on at least a couple of forums whether anyone has had experience with your script of choice.

You can also use affiliate management software such as easyClickMate. See the link below for a free ebook that explains in detail this strategy.

http://www.supertips.com/vm/

A successful affiliate strategy should result in thousands of backlinks from theme related websites.

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Develop a simple strategy to induce members of Furl.net to establish a public link to one or more of your website pages.

You want them to store your website page with the PUBLIC SAVE FUNCTION in their individual Furl.net accounts!

http://Furl.net

This free system is one of the absolute best information resource tools you can use to store valuable information in a format that you design and use with ease.

Highly recommended. Act now!

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Link to http://amazon.com

Have someone write a review of your website for Amazon.com, and you will be automatically included in the Alexa.com. data base.

http://alexa.com

The reviewer should first do a search with your complete url in the search box at the above link.

Then look for:

User Reviews for your website.com

Be the first person to write a review of this site on Amazon.com!

The reviewer clicks the hyperlink and writes the review for Amazon.com

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List your ebook for sale with http://amazon.com.

Click “Sell Your Stuff” from the top menu.

You will enjoy listings and links from other major retailers such as:

Target.com, CDnow.com, Borders.com, & Waldenbooks.com.

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Use testimonials as a linking strategy.

These are testimonials that you provide to webmasters of high traffic, high page rank websites.

Give genuine testimonials of appreciation for tools or resources of a particular website.

When you send the webmaster the testimonial, give permission to quote you using your FULL NAME and specific city, state, and country.

Politely, request that a hyperlink back to your website be included in the citation.

By the way, what Internet marketer has used this technique the most?

By a wide margin I’d say it’s Joe Vitale!

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Write a review of a high traffic website.

Contact the webmaster and offer the free use of your review (in whole or in part) in return for a backlink.

Use keyword rich anchor text in your backlink.

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Develop niche website software where the user must leave intact a small notice that links to your website.

LMA uses this concept. Over time Duncan Carver, the originator of LMA, is likely to have hundreds of thousands of websites linking to his chosen website or sites through their use of LMA.

You must give this tactic some deep thought and try to come up with suitable software that would be installed on a user’s website.

All you have to do is come up with the IDEA.

You can always go to an appropriate website and hire a programmer to develop the software for you such as:

http://www.guru.com/index.cfm

The return on investment could be huge!

Be sure to have a Confidentiality Agreement prepared, that interested parties have to sign and return to you before you reveal your software idea.

http://www.bitlaw.com/forms/nda.html

Make sense??

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Develop software that can be downloaded free from your website, and have download websites list it and link to it.

http://download.com

http://www.simtel.net/welcome.php

Also, post to forums, blogs, and newsgroups to alert them to your free software and state anyone can link to it.

As an alternative you may have the software resource, exclusively to be used at your site (no download function).

By the way, do you think it would be a good idea to make the linking text keyword rich?? (lol)

Remember to vary the suggested anchor text as you post notices around the net. (SECRET #3)

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Be Interviewed!

Complete with backlinks to your site or sites, of course.

Use your imagination. Radio, TV, print media, ezines, even an email interview.

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Join associations or trade groups within your industry. Make sure their online sites have good page rank and have backlinks to their members websites.

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B2B websites should have contract language that specifically requires a backlink in pages that have already been indexed by search engines. This contract language should apply to all:

partners
subcontractors
suppliers or vendors
resellers or affiliates

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Host a Top Site

You will need a cgi program.

“Top Sites” are a ranking system. Websites that sign up with your “Top Site” are given a text link or button with their id, and they post this link to you on their site.

The more visitors the website sends to you, the higher it ranks. You know which sites send traffic due to the cgi script and the imbedded id.

A source for scripts:

http://return.to/topsite1

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Host a web ring.

All the links on every Web ring banner point to your site and redirect to member sites.
You will need a script to host your web ring, and a source is:

http://return.to/webring1

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Use paid link text advertising.

Placing paid text link ads on high traffic websites that have a theme directly related to your website is a powerful strategy when used in combination with the above link building strategies.

Below are two good sources that have two different processes for you to achieve this goal:

http://www.linkadage.com
Text link ads through an auction process.

http://www.linkworth.com
Direct placement of text link ads.

Trade One-Way Text Link Ads that are Relevant and Human Edited.

http://www.relevantadvertising.com/

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Get backlinks from these 100 top rated websites:

http://www.pubsub.com/

linkcounts_top100_inlinks.php

As part of your link popularity strategy you should make it a goal to get an incoming link from at least several of the sites listed in the 100 top websites.

Devise a strategy so that something you produce, an article, press release, etc., is picked up and linked to by one of these highly rated sites.

You can always benefit from news or media backlinks, but otherwise seek backlinks from theme related websites.

Knowledge that you gain from an authoritative source such as Publicity Pro Newsletter (see SECRET #21) should help you get backlinks from these high profile sites.

http://www.pubsub.com/linkcounts_top100_inlinks.php

(38-44) Reciprocal Links

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Use existing link partners and online ezine archives as sources for reciprocal links.

Search the resource pages and link directories of sites that already link to you. Seek links with high quality websites that would offer significant value to your website visitors.

Do AD SWAPS with ezines that have an online archive of past issues. Naturally, in your ad you will have an url leading to your own site.

Of course your ad will include anchor text rich in appropriate keywords!

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Find quality websites with this reciprocal link exchange:

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/tuition.html/

Take this step once you have installed LMA and are ready to request reciprocal links.

If you have other link management software in place, fine, but you should have a defined procedure for adding and maintaining links.

This exchange, originates from Ken Evoy of SiteSell.com, so you know it is a highly valuable asset. A good place for QUALITY reciprocal links.

Also, take advantage and download the free ebook, Make Your Links Work, while you are on this site.

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First a point of clarification:

Your primary goal in using these exchanges is to find useful and valuable info and resources for your website visitors. A by-product of your listing valuable websites is increased link popularity.

SO LINK TO QUALITY WEBSITES.

http://linkpartners.com/
Valuable directory of quality websites that trade reciprocal links with other sites.

http://www.links-pal.com/how-it-works.html
Join this human-compiled directory that lists websites who actively swap links.

Your referring page will need to have a page rank of 5 since that is the minimum required by this exchange.

http://coopadnetwork.100freeworkathometools.com
This is a free-to-join coop advertising network.

You exchange text links within this network on regular web pages not inside link directories.

Highly recommended!

******

http://links-for-you.com/
This program emails willing reciprocal link partners to your inbox.

Taking advantage of these programs should be a very productive use of your time, because the other program members have joined with the specific intent of developing reciprocal links.

Be selective!

Approve links to quality sites that have a similar theme to yours or offer goods or services you know your website visitors would be interested in.

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I’ll be the first to confess that I was on the Internet for five years before I knew that there was such a thing as The Google Directory?!?

You can use this directory to find websites with a high page rank and request reciprocal links with appropriate sites.

Check out the Google directory at:

http://directory.google.com/

If you locate the category or theme of the websites you want to target, they will be listed with the highest Page Rank (PR) websites at the top of the list.

Most of the sites near the top of the list will be PR4, PR5 or higher. These are the websites to target as priorities for reciprocal links.

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Obtain reciprocal links from websites that are linking to your competitors.

(A)Determine which websites are your main competitors. Make up a list.

(B)Sign up with Google alerts to determine who is linking to your competitors.

http://www.google.com/alerts (Due to technical difficulties you may have to “copy and paste” this url to bring the site up).

Enter link:www.yourcompetitorsurl.com in the “Search terms” box.

For “Type” choose web.

For “how often” choose once a day.

Be aware that you can use multiple queries and keep tabs on multiple competitors.

This is easily done by adding an “OR”. For example:

link:www.xyz.com OR link:www.abc.com OR link:www.roi.com

(C)Request a reciprocal link from suitable sites that link to your competitors.

These requests should have a HIGH SUCCESS RATE since you know for sure the target sites are actively adding links.

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Find theme related websites that offer reciprocal links.

http://yahoo.com

Your search inquiry should look like this:

“Submit a link” + “Your keyword goes here”

So a request for websites based on the keyword phrase “link building” would look like this:

“Submit a link” + “link building”

Be sure to include the quotes.

You can use other phrases instead of “submit your link” including:

“add your site”
“submit a url”
“add a url”
“add a link”

This is a sound technique to use for niche or mini sites, because it can be very hard to get search engine traffic for a mini site.

Add the link to your site first, then invite the reciprocal link.

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Exchange teaser articles with other webmasters.

What’s that??

A teaser article is one that has been cut short, and the reader has to go to another location, like your website, to finish reading the article.

If you get a few teaser articles on high traffic, high PR websites, you will get two huge benefits:

free targeted traffic

improved link popularity

I don’t have to lecture you about how much more valuable TARGETED traffic is than random website traffic. Obviously, you want to tease an article of yours that is relevant to your website content.

You should tease both articles in the exchange.

By tease I mean deciding where the cut off point should be. In other words do all the work and present a completely done package to the other webmaster.

Of course, you will have keyword rich anchor texts for both links (yours and the other webmasters links) as part of the package. And you will explain the value of keyword rich anchor text to your reciprocal partner.

Lastly, make the links open in a new window.

Tease outstanding articles and you will definitely see positive results with this technique.

Final Thoughts

Implementing all these secrets will take a long time and considerable effort.

Therefore, break the overall task down into several small manageable steps (MINI-GOALS) that you can meet by a SERIES OF SPECIFIC DATES.

The time management resource detailed in SECRET #11 is a powerful force that you can apply to maximize the tremendous impact you should get from following these link building strategies.

Start RIGHT NOW!

Best of success!

About the author:
Robert A. Kearse is editor of THE TAX TORPEDO Work At Home Newsletter. Each issue features valuable FREE tools and resources that you can use as subscription incentives to build your own opt-in lists. Articles on Internet marketing strategy. Plus, extraordinary bonuses for new subscribers! Published every two weeks.
http://100FreeWorkAtHomeTools.com/

freenewsletter.php

Bar Charts Come Alive through Data Visualization Joe Miller

Bar charts have always been one of the simplest means of conveying information, even somewhat complex information. Bar charts take into account at least two variables and have become one of the most useful tools in corporate reporting. Budget plans, market reports, comparative analysis reports on products or locations, and many other sets of information are communicated within the simple, yet informational displays of bar charts.

As businesses grow more and more complex, business reporting needs tend to also grow more and more complex, and bar charts have had to keep up. Happily, technology has combined with simple bar charts to create interactive bar charts. In other words, one bar taken from any number of bar charts may represent a general statistic. In drilling down, or clicking on that bar, more detailed information is displayed to elaborate one what the original bar represented. This interactive technology is called http://www.corda.com/lpage/data_visualization_tool.html Data Visualization.

Data visualization uses http://editorials.arrivenet.com/tec/article.php/4812.html .net technology to make bar charts interactive. Multiple levels of information are now accessible through a single bar of a bar chart. For example, Company C is a nationwide corporation reviewing a sales report comprised of bar charts. Normally poster boards are brought in and displayed one at a time, indicating overall sales for the entire company across quarters of the year. Then the sales information is broken down by regions, then by states, then by counties, then by cities, then by specific store. This results in a lot of poster board shuffling.

Using data visualization, Company C now reviews reports electronically. First, the general bar charts show general sales across fiscal quarters. Company C now wants to see sales broken down by region in the second quarter, so they click on the 2nd quarter bar of the original bar chart. The regional sales for the second quarter are displayed, and within a click or two, Company C can gather information as specific or general as they need to. A few clicks will take Company C from a specific store all the way back to general sales trends without any shuffling, allowing information to be compared and analyzed quickly and easily.

Bar charts have come alive through data visualization, which has enabled information to become interactive. Information can now be compiled and compared according a companys needs.

Interactive bar graphs are also referred to as http://editorials.arrivenet.com/tec/article.php/4979.html Flash Charts and http://editorials.arrivenet.com/bus/article.php/4917.html Interactive Maps.

About the author:

Joe Miller is an author on informational articles and online advertisements on business software. Information on Bar Charts is available at Corda.com.

Tags: Analysis, Internet Marketing, keywords, market, marketer, Marketing, niche, Placement, promo, Promotion, Search, Search Engine, submission
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Search Engine Secrets – How to Avoid Website Downtime That Can Affect Your Search Engine Listings, Cost You Money, and Damage Your Reputation

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the author:

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

Tags: keywords, market, Marketing, Performance, Placement, Search, Search Engine, Search Engine Marketing
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Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Optimization – Do-It-Yourself or Hiring Someone

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Anyone who has had a website for any length of time has already come to the realization that to succeed, you need traffic, and to get traffic, unless you have some pretty deep pockets for more traditional forms of advertising, search engines are the most effective form of obtaining that traffic.

The next realization that comes is that simply being listed is not enough. To get traffic from the search engines, you must come up at or near the top of the results for those searches that relate to your site.

Some call it search engine optimization, others search engine placement, and others search engine promotion. Regardless of the name, it is all really the same thing. It is the art of getting traffic from the engines.

Search engine optimization is a big business, and understandably so, but the question is, “Is it worth paying a firm to promote your site or is it truly something you can do yourself?”

Unfortunately, there is no cut-and-dry answer to this question as it is going to differ from person to person. In some cases, it can be well worth the money to hire an outside firm for your optimization needs, in other cases, you may be better off doing it yourself.

First let me answer a few questions and dispel a few myths that some of the less reputable firms like to promote.

Q – Can I do the optimization myself? A – Yes, and in many cases be extremely successful.

Q – Is search engine optimization hard? A – Yes and no. As with any new skill, there is a learning curve involved, but unless you are in an extremely competitive area, just having an understanding of how the search engines work and rank pages, can be enough for you to design some good ranking pages.

Q – Do I need to have any expensive software or programming skills? A – No. Anything and everything can be done by hand. All you need to be able to do the optimization yourself is a basic understanding of HTML.

Q – Don’t I just need to put my keywords in the Title and Meta tags? A – Unfortunately, while this was true a couple of years ago, it is a bit more complicated than this now. Meta tags, play an extremely small role in optimization in todays search engines.

Now that we have a few of the most common questions out of the way, let’s take a deeper look at which option may be right for you.

First let’s start with hiring an optimization firm and look at the pro’s and con’s involved.

Pro’s

- Optimization firms will already be trained in getting your site to the top of the engines.

- The will know what is required and you will often see results fairly quickly and the results will often be better than if you were doing the optimization yourself.

- You will have the free time to devote to other aspects of your business.

Con’s

- Optimization firms can range from moderately expensive to extremely expensive depending on your target market and the number of search terms you want to target. This could mean you may initially spend anywhere from $1,000 up to $5,000-$10,000 to hire a good firm and then a maintenance fee of near that amount monthly to maintain the rankings.

- As with all firms, some will be top-notch, and some will be less than stellar. You could easily end up paying a few thousand dollars with little or no results ever seen.

- No one will ever have the same enthusiasm for your site’s success as you do. Many of the less reputable companies will often use tactics that will work in the short-term, but may have some very negative long-term effects.

- Many optimization firms will create a new site that funnels traffic to your current site. The firm generally owns this site, which means, that you are trapped into paying this firm for your traffic. If you stop paying them, you stop receiving the traffic.

Now let’s look at the pro’s and con’s of doing it yourself.

Pro’s

- You will be saving yourself the cash outlay involved in hiring an outside firm (obviously one of the biggest benefits).

- Everything you do to promote your site is yours. It does not belong to someone else. You have complete control.

- Once you learn how search engine optimization works, you can create as many online businesses as you wish and be able to promote all of them without relying on, or paying, a third party.

Con’s

- An initial learning curve. It will take a while to get a good grasp of what you are doing and to begin to understand the game we call search engine optimization.

- If your in a competitive market, a good deal of your time could be spent promoting and optimizing your site.

- Your results may never be as good as if you hired a top-notch firm.

Well, there you have it. A good number of the pro’s and con’s involved in both avenues. When you get down to it, deciding whether to outsource your optimization needs, or keep it in house, really boils down to what you have more of…time, or money. If you have lots of money but little time, then hire a good firm. If you have lots of time but little funds, then you will be better off doing the work yourself.

If you decide to hire an optimization firm, be cautious with who you choose. Ask for testimonials from past clients. Find out if they offer any type of a guarantee. Do some research. Whatever you do, DON’T go on who is the cheapest. This is your success we’re talking about.

If you decide to do it yourself, there are also some things you should do. The best thing you can do for yourself is to do some research on search engine optimization. Find someone who has been doing it a while and see if you can learn anything from them. Read books on the subject (electronic or printed). Visit newsgroups and forums on search engines. If you spend some time learning about how search engines work and what they look for when ranking pages, you will quickly begin to understand what it takes to make a top ranking page.

John Buchanan is the author of the book “The Insider’s Guide to Dominating The Search Engines”, and publisher of “The Search Engine Bulletin”, a FREE monthly newsletter. Visit him at http://www.se-secrets.com for more information or to sign up for the newsletter.

Tags: keywords, market, Placement, promo, Promotion, Search, Search Engine, search engine optimization, Search Engine Placement, Search Engine Promotion
Posted in Search Engine Optimization Articles | No Comments »

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – 6 Strong Reasons Why RSS Beats Email Marketing

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

A brand new marketing tool predicted to replace email is currently sweeping the World Wide Web like a storm.

The Internet is experiencing the so-called orange revolution and theres no stopping to it. The online marketing world is rigorously seen chanting a 3-letter mantra, R-S-S.

Yes, RSS is here and its got substance, material, style, sophistication

In a word, its got the X factor.

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is the newest and the fastest growing technology online. Many publishers, webmasters and marketers are adopting RSS. It has helped spam go down to a great extent and made bulk messages a thing of past.

No wonder spammers are shaking in their boots all over the web!

Here are 6 strong reasons why RSS beats email marketing to the core:

Kiss Spam Filters Goodbye – RSS can help you distribute your content directly to your subscribers, without any spam filters interfering. Your messages will never get blacklisted and blocked and will always be delivered promptly, unless and until your subscribers choose to end the relationship themselves.
Subscribing Is Easy – Your subscribers don’t have to worry about giving out any of their personal details to subscribe and read your RSS feeds. All they need to do is, add your feed to their online or desktop RSS reader and thats it. They are ready to receive and read content from you without any hassles.
Un-subscribing Is Easier – Removing your subscribers email from your email list automatically, has its own share of problems, and it doesnt work all the time. However, when you talk about RSS, its easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe from your publication. They can stop receiving messages from you any time by simply deleting your feed from their RSS reader. Simple as that!
Get Your Message Out In An Instant – Whenever you have something new to publish, all you have to do is update your already published feed and your message gets updated everywhere its subscribed. No more worrying if your subscribers got your message or not.
Never Get Accused of Spam – Its very easy to get accused of sending unsolicited mail nowadays since people forget they even gave you their email address. RSS solves this problem completely, as the messages which you send out, will appear directly in your subscribers RSS reader. So the question of contacting them illegally does not even arise.
Build Long Lasting Relationships – Not only RSS builds a strong relationship with your existing subscribers but also helps in attracting new potent subscribers who are interested in what you offer. People who subscribe to your feed want to receive content from you and hence, can be regarded as subscribers you can count on.

RSS can work like a charm for your business and help you gain thousands of quality subscribers and leads within a few weeks

You just have to become a part of the orange revolution!

About The Author

Mustafa Khundmiri is the co-founder of http://www.rapidfeeds.com – A Free online service, which helps anyone, create, edit, publish and track RSS feeds online. Sign Up for your FREE account on his site and start publishing your own RSS feeds!

mustafa@rapidfeeds.com

Tags: Brand, market, marketer, Marketing, Search, Search Engine, Search Engine Marketing
Posted in Search Engine Marketing Articles | No Comments »

Marketing Secrets – 7 Tips I Wish I Had Known 6 Months Ago About Online Marketing

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

7 Tips I Wish I Had Known 6 Months Ago About Online Marketing

1—The importance of a schedule and staying focused. Keeping on task. schedule promotions
Plan and make a task schedule for project ideas. schedule purchases — (don’t buy on impulse, the offer will still be there in a day or so!)
schedule time — (remember to schedule time for family members as well )
schedule breaks from the computer — (not just physical breaks, take your mind of your business and have some fun –, you’ll be more fresh and productive when you go back to work!)

2—The importance and value of keeping good records, Financial
Promotional
Backing Up Files
Affiliate Information
Passwords
Contacts

3— Don’t try and run an online business with AOL. I personally have nothing against AOL It is a great service for the computer illiterate newbie. However, once you get the basics down, you can be much more productive with a different ISP. AOL does not allow you to filter email the way it needs to be filtered.

When I was doing my business through AOL, I sometimes would be dealing with over 500 emails a day. No way to send them to different folders as in Outlook Express, MailWasher or many other email programs. Unless they have drastically changed things in Version 8, it is one of the few that doesn’t work with third party email programs. This just leads to wasted time and frustration.

4— Speaking of wasted time.

Get a DSL hook up.

The extra cost is worth it in the matter of time saved. Instantaneous downloads.

Web pages that come in as fast as the click of a mouse.

It means more productive time spent on the computer. More productivity means more money.

5— Learn what a great tool Yahoo can be. I have read good comments and bad, about Yahoo. All I know is from my own experience. When I first started online, I exchanged a review for a copy of FrontPage 2002. While reviewing it, I put up a “practice site” on geocities. You can visit it here:

http://geocities.com/laurieslegends

I read where you had to have a domain name for people to take you seriously. I agree. However, I learned that a free site is very beneficial to your business as well. Putting links on a free site will bring traffic to your domain name. If you use Geocities.com, it will help you get listed in the Yahoo Directory eventually. Two of my pages at the above mentioned site, are listed in the Yahoo Directory.
They are also the two that get the most traffic. By putting links on these pages to my other domain names, I can take advantage of all that free traffic.

You will also able to access this site from any computer, even when yours is down.

You can start and manage groups easily. I love the convenience of running AutoResponse Plus right at my website. However, having a group to promote articles on Yahoo, makes more sense. Once someone has signed up for one Yahoo Group, it is a simple click of a button to add other groups.

This is where the power of numbers comes in. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. Jump in and join the success by following those who came before you.

6— Take the time to learn how to use Ebay. Even if your plan doesn’t entail becoming a powerseller, by putting up a few auctions, you can direct traffic to your site and increase sales. You can learn everything you need and more from the ebooks offered at this site:

http://www.makemoneyonline.us

I had wanted to learn Ebay but kept putting it off. To many other things to do. Because of a planned move, and the necessity of getting rid of valuable stuff, I started researching the ebooks I had about how to go about putting up an auction.

I sold more in one month, July 2002, than I had from Feb. through June, using Ebay. I also received my first affiliate commissions, several of them, from both my geocities and domain name websites that same month. It was definitely worth the time invested for my business. It can be a great traffic building for your business.

Email me at ebayqtn@gentlyused4kids.com if you have questions on Ebay auctions. I will help through emails any way I can.

7— Don’t be afraid to do a press release. I had read many articles about how they could bring you big traffic. I also read how difficult they were to get read. I worried about too much publicity, invading my privacy.

I researched and studied how to do it, and took the plunge. It worked. The very first time. I got my press released published at PRWeb.com

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2002/12/prweb52227.php

8— Write it down when you think about it. Too often, I have written an article in my mind. Then it never seems to make it to paper. Being a single mom of three, I am busy. I have found by talking into a digital recorder or tape recorder, I can be more productive. Use that waiting time. This article was generated in my mind while waiting at a bus stop with my almost 2 year old. (He was strapped safely in his stroller with a snack, of course )

This article promised 7 tips— I give you 10. These are my bonus tips.

9– Always give more than you promise. Everyone loves freebies. Put something for free on your site. It will generate more traffic. Then incorporate that freebie to generate sales. Writing articles is a great way to do this.

10– Promote free articles. After you have written several on the same topic, you can create a free ebook. Offer it as a tool for webmasters to customize and give away for free. You can offer this customization for free or charge a fee for it. Put affiliate links in your ebook articles to promote backend sales.

If I had known all these things 6 months ago, my business would be bringing in more sales everyday. Learn from my mistakes so you can profit faster.

For more detailed information on each of these tips subscribe to my Free Ezine — “Yes You Can” Visit http://you2cansellonline.com for more details. Subscribe at mailto:subscribe@you2cansellonline.com

Tags: market, Marketing, promo, Promotion, Promotional, Search
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

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Marketing Secrets – Test Marketing–How to Increase Your Direct Mail Marketing Response by Using the Internet to Test

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

Search Engine Marketing Secrets – 6 Strong Reasons Why RSS Beats Email Marketing

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