Archive for October, 2006

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Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Optimization Tips – Part Two

Friday, October 27th, 2006

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles on search engine optimization. In the previous article we discussed keywords, domain names, content and keyword density issues. This article moves past that to the nitty gritty of improving your web pages and website for better search engine rankings.

Page Title
It’s truly amazing how many people don’t realize how critical the TITLE tag can be to the success or failure of your website. Your TITLE tag needs to have your most important keyword for that page included in it. This is for the benefit of the search engines.

From a visitors point of view it also needs to entice them to click on your title tag when they see it in the search engine results. If your page is about PDA Accessories don’t just use that phrase in the TITLE tag.

Dress it up a bit. For example “PDA Accessories For The Busy Geek” or “Need Accessories for Your PDA? Come right in!” Those examples took me 10 seconds to come up with. You can do far better with a little more time and effort.

META Keyword Tag
Anybody still using the Meta Keyword tag as their sole search engine optimization method please leave the room. Go on get out and don’t come back.

The Meta Keyword tag is all but dead to the search engines. When building your pages it’s still worth including but simply put in the top 3 or 4 keywords that are relevant to your business and leave it at that. Do not spend hours coming up with hundreds of keywords to stuff into the Meta Keyword tag. It’s a total waste of time and anybody who tells you different has no idea what they’re talking about.

META Description Tag
This still has some limited value for your SEO work. When Google or other search engines display search results they display the contents of the TITLE tag and your Meta Description tag (if present) or a random selection of text from the page. Your Meta Description tag will take priority if present.

The Meta Description tag is still worth using. Your most important keyword should be in there and again you need to work this keyword into an eye catching phrase or sentence. Don’t just copy and paste the main keyword in there.

If the Meta Description tag is used well, in conjunction with the TITLE tag, then it can make your displayed search result more inviting to the potential visitor. Again don’t spend more than a few minutes on your Meta Description tag but do make sure that you include it on each page. One final note – make the Meta Description for each page different; don’t just recycle the same one over and over.

RSS
Stands for Really Simple Syndication and is probably something you’ve heard a lot about over the last few months. RSS allows you to display the news items and/or content from other sites on your website as part of a “news feed”. This adds a huge amount of value to your site from a vistors point of view – they don’t need to leave your site to get the latest news on a given topic. The other benefit is that search engines love seeing fresh content on websites.

At the moment there’s a huge upsurge in the use of RSS for search engine optimization. The question is does it work? Yes it does. Using RSS can most definitely encourage the search engines to come back to visit your site more often. How does it work? Well again that goes beyond the scope of this article so please refer to our site for more information.

Blogs
Also called Web Logs are basically online diaries. For a long time these were used solely by… well…. geeks to record their thoughts and as a way of sharing information on Star Trek. Seriously though initially blogs were never seen as anything more than a curiousity.

Recently with the increased visibility of RSS blogs have also seen their profile rise. Why? Well because many RSS feeds feature blog content. Which means what exactly? It means your blog could be included on and linked to from thousands of websites all over the world. Are you seeing the possiblities? There are some other nuances to consider but to mention them here would give the game away completely and certain ebook authors would put a price on my head for giving away their secrets.

(c) Niall Roche – All Rights Reserved

- continued in Part 3

About the author:
This article was provided courtesy of Search Engine Fuel where you’ll find tons of information on getting higher search engine placement and reviews of SEO ebooks and software.

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Search Engine Secrets – Do Search Engines Scare You?

Friday, October 27th, 2006

Do Search Engines Scare You?

What do the words “Search Engine” make you think of? I get immediate mind-pictures which vary but all have similar themes. Sometimes I see one of those tiny submarines which are used to explore the deepest parts of the ocean bed. I have this picture in my mind of the tiny submarine underwater in complete darkness apart from the beam of its searchlight which is probing the gloom. Other times I see a horse-drawn carriage driving through dense fog with only its weak lamp relieving the darkness. This scene is from a movie where the police are racing through London in search of Jack The Ripper. The final picture is of a line of policemen in old-fashioned uniforms advancing across a moor in darkness through rising mist with only their flashlight-beams to light their way.

It can get a bit scary inside my mind at times. If these were dreams rather than passing thoughts, they would probably be analysed as meaning an obsession with darkness and getting lost. Maybe the lights penetrating the darkness symbolise a fear of ignorance (or maybe a fear of getting found out). The obvious link is that these pictures all relate to a search of one kind or another. The first one might represent a search for knowledge, the second one is obviously the search for a criminal and the final one a search for clues at the scene of a crime.

Why would the words “search engine” conjure up these dark visions? If you look at the words we associate with search engines, I think the connection will be clear. We talk about “submitting” our websites to search engines. We dont “send” our websites or “apply” to search engines or “register” our websites with search engines. We are submissive and the search engines dominate us.

We adopt this submissive posture and the search engines send their robots to “crawl” over our websites. Doesnt sound very pleasant does it? The future of your website is entirely in the power of these monsters. You have spent time and perhaps some cash getting your website ready for the visit. Your website, the shop window to your home business, has been tweaked and “search engine optimised”, now you can do nothing except hope that your efforts will be rewarded with approval by these invisible inspectors.

Web site owners act as if the search engines are neighbourhood dignitaries: “We must tidy up, the search engines are coming to visit”. An anxious time follows while your website, brushed, polished and optimised to the best of your ability, waits to greet these visitors. The most respected visitor is Googlebot. He causes most anxiety and is renowned for being unpredictable. Webmasters try to analyse the “Googledance” in the hope of making Googlebot’s visit enjoyable. If we can get the mighty Googlebot to dance instead of merely crawling, he might give us a good report, but Googlebot can’t seem to decide what algorithm he prefers. How are you supposed to get his feet tapping? Unfortunately, the search engines are not the most communicative visitors and you only realise they have carried out their examination when something (either good or bad) happens to your protg’s page rank.

The search engines are not like your school teacher who gives you a class test, they are more like the university Board Of Examiners: when you have passed or failed their test, you will never get to know which questions you got right or where your weakness lies. Further improvement will have to be a matter of guesswork but suppose your guess is wrong? You might destroy the very things which met with the search engines approval. Then you hear that the search engines dont agree amongst themselves, so what pleases some of them might lose you points with others. Which ones should you try hardest to impress? Should you turn your website into some sort of private Googledancer and risk offending the rest of the robots? Would it be better to try to please one or two of the larger search engines or a big bunch of the lesser ones? Finally you hear a rumour that the search engines are changing their secret rules anyway but nobody knows what the changes will entail. You despair of ever satisfying the masters of your fate, you feel as if you are stumbling around in the dark. Panic takes you over.

Should you be afraid of search engines?

Anybody in his right mind should be afraid, very afraid.

About the author:
This is one of a series of articles published by
the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons) at
http://www.Huntingvenus.com
For honest advice on working from home
subscribe to Online Profits newsletter by
mailto:huntingvenus@SubscribeMeNow

Persist in the Right Way to Succeed in your Online Home Business ArthurBy Arthur, The Online Internet Home Business Opportunity

Persistence is one of the most important characteristics of a Business Entrepreneur. Without it, failures will follows. This happens to every business entrepreneur including me.

When you start your own online business, you often get frustrated when you cannot get the desired results that you want.
When you checked your web log, not enough website traffics is coming. You have try lots of promotion methods: banner
impression, guarantee clicks, exchange links, search engines optimization and many others ways but traffics is not coming as
quickly as you want.

That’s the problems many online entrepreneur is facing. Quick Results. They want to make money quickly and get frustrated and give up their online business when they cannot see the money coming in FAST. Many forgot how they managed to land into their FIRST job.

We forgot the vast amount of time and money our parents have invested on us on our education before we can eventually land
on the desired job that we want. Try counting back in time the number of years you spend on education before ending up on
your present job. Don’t forget to include those time you spend searching for your job, writing resume and attending interviews.

Likewise, every business take time to build and grow. Your persistence will bear results sooner or later if you continue to
persist in the RIGHT WAY. You just have to keep moving FORWARD even if you cannot see the result now.

It is good to invest on a little paper notebook to record what you have done for your online business. Analyze your written log OFFLINE and think about what are the methods that are working and strike out those that are not. Many people never realize that it is better to analyze your problems away from your work desk to allow new ideas to pop out of your mind.

Go for a jog, a swim, a walk around the park, look at the fishes in the pond, visit the zoo just take a break from your normal
routines. Have you ever encounter situation where your problems was immediately solved the next day after having a good night sleep.

Sometimes your online promotion might be working but it takes time for the search engine to rank your site, index your
contents, count the number of incoming links to your site etc. Don’t forget that there are billions of website the search engine database is handling and it will take time before you can see any real results.

Therefore, never stop feeding your website with new contents. Your body need to eat daily so does your website. At least,
try to feed your website weekly. Never stop exchanging links and provide a place for others to exchange links with you.
Regularly, free a portions of your old articles and submit it to be published into other websites, ezines with your resource box at the bottom.

QUITTER never wins and WINNERS must Persist in order to WIN.

Wishing you success in your Persistence of becoming a Successful Business Entrepreneur.

About the author:
Copyright @ Arthur

http://www.online-internet-home-business-opportunity.com
Helping to groom potential entrepreneurs into the next Business Star. Most Financial Successful individuals Grow Rich by starting their own business. You too can own your dream business.

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Marketing Secrets – A Glimpse At Online Affiliate Marketing

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Online affiliate marketing has become the wave of the internet’s future. An inexpensive and effective marketing plan, affiliate programs enable e-commerce merchants to sell
products online, and promote their web sites at the same time. The affiliate program also pays the merchant a specified amount for each sales transaction from the affiliate’s own website. If an e-commerce business is not performing as well as expected, online affiliate marketing is a way to build and improve overall site visits and sales. This is a major reason that this form of commercialization has become so popular in recent years.

Affiliates can be linked to the main merchant web site in a variety of ways. The selection of hyperlinks will hinge on the characteristics of the online affiliate marketing program, and also the qualities of the merchant. Text links are probably the most popular manner in which merchants link to web sites.

An advantage of the text link is that it does not appear to be an advertisement. The banner link is another linking method used in affiliate marketing. These links usually exist as boxes, and are composed of words and images. A hyperlink to the home page is another linking technique. This is a direct link to the merchants front web site page. If your goal is to acquaint customers with the main merchant site, this is a very effective strategy.

In essence, online affiliate marketing is a rather simple idea. However, if these programs are to function properly, a great amount of work must be accomplished. For each
affiliate to receive the correct sum of money, an individual must be designated to observe the activity related to the affiliate hyperlink on the merchants web site. And that is just the beginning! You will also need someone to alculate: the number of people who click on the merchants web site link, the number of individuals who notice the merchant’s
link on an affiliate site, and most importantly, the number of people who purchase an item or perform a valued action when an affiliate sends them to a merchant web site. While it may be an extreme amount of work, the effort can produce many rewards.

Fortunatly, services such as ClickBank and several other have software products that fully automate the process. It is worth the expense if you intend to have affiliates selling a produst of your own. If you would like a group to help you with the pressures of online marketing, you may want to consider an affiliate network. These groups will track all affiliate activity, assist affiliates in preparing proper links on their web sites, and make payment arrangements. Several of these networks provide numerous features, and are also equipped with a help and information section.

As the Internet expands, Affiliate programs continue to increase in popularity. Affiliate networks growing daily, this trend is expected to continue. Decide to today if you will offer a product for affiliatres to sell or if you yourself will become an affiliate and market someone else’s products. Either way, you can, in a short time, be on your way to a profitable home-based online business.

About the author:
Dr. J. E. Burke, an educator and entrepreneur, has been involved in various business enterprises via his business, Burke Publications for 11 years. Dr. Burke is an educator, writer and motivational speaker on a variety of topics. He is also known for his expertise on nonprofit organizations and grant proposal writing. Dr. Burke can be contacted at http://burkepublications.comor http://news.burkepublications.com

MLM Success- The Top 15 Power Phrases for Prospecting Business Professionals for MLMDoug Firebaugh
by Doug Firebaugh

What do you say to a small business owner? How do you talk to them about your Network marketing business? Many people have tried, and totally failed.

Why?

They simply do not understand that small business owners do not talk “mlm-ease.” They do not know what a “downline” or “upline” is, and most don’t really want to know.

INFERNO Secret:

Business owners want to know one thing: What is going to increase their profits and productivity.

We recruited hundreds of small business owners in our MLM group when we were active, and all were pretty much recruited the same way and with the same type of words and power phrases.

There are 2 things that you must understand about recruiting business professionals into Network Marketing and MLM:

1) They have their own CULTURE, and they stay within that culture. They have a culture of professionalism for the most part, and integrity.

2) They are used to a particular language and verbiage, that they expect, and you must speak at least some of that language in your conversation with them.

Here are just a few of the ways you can approach small business professionals and here are some KEY words and Phrases:

1)”Secondary revenue source”
2)”Introducing into the business community”
3) “Run across an idea”
4) ” I am a small business owner like you”
5) “I Need your input(insight)”
6) “Increase your revenue stream”
7) “Expand your potential market base”
8) “Increase market value of your contacts”
9) ” I am new in the business community, and introducing myself”
10) “I have an idea that I would like to run past you
on increasing revenues.”
11) ” Revenue Option”
12) ” Market Expansion Tool”
13) “An idea that has impact on the bottom line”
14) ” A value based idea that can improve revenues”
15) ” From one professional to Another.”

These work very well, as they have the terminology that a lot of business professionals can relate to. Come up with some of your own. But make sure they are all “non-mlm.” You can eventually use network marketing language, but not at first, unless you want to turn them off.

And yes, you may get some questions.
And yes, you may get some objections.
And yes you may get some negative responses.

Just understand that small business owners have a business to run, and many will make great customers, but will not be interested in your mlm business.

INFERNO Secret:

All it takes is ONE small business professional to explode your business. One business owner brought in over 500 people in less than 4 months in our group, and built a group that was in all 50 states, and eventually had over 8,000 people in his Network Marketing group. And he did it part time.

Small business owners can be an absolute GOLD MINE, but you have to do some digging in your MLM and Network Marketing business.

blessings…doug

PassionFire Intl- (c) 2005/ all rights reserved

http://www.passionfire.com

http://www.passionfire.com/pf_heat_8.html

About the author:
Doug Firebaugh is one of the top MLM Network Marketing Trainers in the world. Over a million people a month
read his training ezine. He spent the last 7 years traveling the world speaking and training on Success.
He lives in Birmingham Michigan, and you can receive a
FREE subscription to his training ezine- The MLM
Success HEAT- at:
http://www.passionfire.com/pf_heat_4.html
http://www.passionfire.com

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Search Engine Marketing Secrets – The Power of Topic Specific Search Engines

Thursday, October 26th, 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

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

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Search Engine Secrets – Fooling the Search Engines

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

Writing articles is all the rage these days on the web. Or should I say getting other people to write articles for you, joining membership sites that provide “private label” rights — that is all the rage.

And the reason? You get all the benefits of a well-written article without the work! Someone has to write the articles of course, and if you have writing skills theres plenty of opportunity for you.

Why have articles become so popular? People surf the net looking for information — or “content” to use the buzz word of the moment. They’re not interested in adverts, or flashing banners — they just annoy people. If they search for bananas they want solid information about bananas, not a list of related banana links!

A good article will provide that content, or information.

A year or so ago webmasters thought they could profit by creating sites filled with ads and related keywords. This still works, but more people are moving away from this as it’s becoming harder to get indexed in the search engines, and to stay in the search engines. So, you don’t make the money you used to from this kind of site.

That’s why articles and content websites have grown in popularity. It’s a way to fool the search engines without fooling them, if you see what I mean. You give the SEs what they want, which is good quality content. You give your visitors what they want: solid information that helps them.

And you give yourself what you want: visitors that like your site, search engines that index you, and a growing income.

A well-planned article campaign with backlinks to your site can make a huge difference. This is just one aspect of good SEO, and it’s one that everyone can pursue for little cost.

About the author:
Matt Russells latest site provides great information on good SEO techniques at www.Eze-Seo-4u.info,and it’s all free. To keep in touch with his thoughts and other websites visit Thoughts on life & success

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Search Engine Optimization – 301 Redirects and Search Engine Optimization

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

There are multiple reasons to redirect URLs. For one, your web pages may have moved but their old URLs may still live in users’ bookmarks or in search engine indexes. Without implementing some sort or redirection, that traffic would be lost to a 404 Error Page.

On occasions, you may also want to register several extensions for your domain name: ‘mydomain.com‘, ‘mydomain.net‘ and ‘mydomain.org‘, and have ‘mydomain.net‘ and ‘mydomain.org‘ automatically redirect visitors to your site, hosted under ‘mydomain.com‘.

Furthermore, if your company sells several products, you may want to give each of them an individual domain name, and have it point to a specific subdirectory of your main site. For example, if you own a site called ‘businessvideos.com‘ that sells a product called ‘Marketing Made Easy’, you may want to set up a domain such as ‘marketingmadeeasy.com‘, and redirect it to subdirectory: www.businessvideos.com/marketingmadeeasy/.

There are several ways to redirect domains, however, most of them will get you in trouble with the search engines. The search engine friendly way to redirect URLs is to use what is know as a 301 redirect (you can see how Google and Yahoo! specifically endorse this kind of redirection). Here is my take about the different redirection methods and their implications on search engine optimization:

Meta-Refresh Javascript Redirect

You can redirect visitors by placing a snippet of javascript code within the HTML code of the page you want to redirect. With this method, you can specify the number of seconds before the visitor is automatically redirected to the new page. Search engines don’t like this method, because of the potential for abuse: you could write an optimized page for a non-competitive search term, and then automatically redirect your unsuspecting visitor to whatever URL you want. For example, it could be relatively easy to write a page about english literature, have it indexed and highly ranked by the search engines, and then redirect your visitor to a casino or Viagra site. If search engines allowed this, users would quickly stop trusting them. That is why search engines penalize this practice, and why you should avoid it.

Parked Domains

You could register an additional domain name, park it, and make it point to the DNS servers of your main site’s hosting account, so that when somebody types the additional domain, they will be transported to your main site. However, this approach may lead to search engines listing the same content twice, one for your main domain, and one for your additional domain. In the past, unscrupulous webmasters would use multiple domains to spam search engines and directories, making them list the same pages hundreds of times under different domains. Even if your intentions are good, we don’t recommend this approach to redirecting your additional domains, since search engines may penalize your site for duplicate content.

302 and 301 Redirects

When a request for a page or URL is made by a browser, agent or spider, the web server where the page is hosted checks a file called ‘.htaccess’. This file contains instructions on how to handle specific requests and also plays a key role in security. The ‘.htaccess’ file can be modified so that it instructs browsers, agents or spiders that the page has either temporarily moved (302 redirect) or permanently moved (301 redirect). It is usually possible to implement this redirect without messing with the ‘.htaccess’ file directly, using your web host’s control panel instead.

>From a search engine perspective, 301 redirects are the only acceptable way to redirect URLs. In the case of moved pages, search engines will index only the new URL, but will transfer link popularity from the old URL to the new one so that search engine rankings are not affected. The same behavior occurs when additional domains are set to point to the main domain through a 301 redirect.

The URL Forwarding Feature

Most domain registrars offer a feature called URL Forwarding. With this feature, you can register a new domain, such as ‘mydomain.net‘, and have it point to mydomain.com (or to any other URL). The problem, however, is that registrars usually do this by implementing a 302 redirect (page moved temporarily). While Google handles 302 redirects very well, passing link popularity from the additional domain to the main one, other search engines don’t do this well, diluting link popularity by splitting it between the two domains, and negatively affecting rankings. Therefore, it is better not to use this method, and implement a 301 redirect instead.

Redirecting Old URLs

To ‘301 redirect’ an old URL to a new one, just go to your web host’s control panel, and choose the “Redirects” option. You can then set up the redirect by filling the blanks. You want to chose redirect option “Permanent” to implement a 301 redirect.

Redirecting additional domains

To 301 redirect an additional domain (like in the case of the .net or the .org version of your domain name), you have to set it up as an add-on domain with your web host (some hosts offer this option for free, and some others charge a small monthly fee per domain). If the additional domain was not registered with your web host, you will first have to go to your domain registrar and change the DNS (domain name servers) to the DNS of your web host (you may have to wait a couple of days before this change becomes functional). Once you’ve done this, go to your web host’s control panel, choose the “Add On Domains” option, and set up your add on domain as follows:

New Domain Name: additionaldomain.com (Do not put any http:// or www)

Username/directory/subdomain: additionaldomain (Enter ‘additionaldomain’ by itself. Do not put any ‘.com’ or ‘www’)

Password: 123ABC (Enter whatever password you want).

Then, set up the redirection by filling the appropriate box with the URL of the landing page (where you want your traffic to go).

Once your additional domain is redirecting to your landing page, take this one last step to see if everything is working fine: go to a server header checking tool, type your add-on domain in the query box and hit enter. If you get a message similar to this: “Status Code HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently”, then your 301 redirect is working.

You can also use 301 redirection for common mispelled versions of your domain name, or for other good domain names that you don’t want your competitors to get.

About The Author

Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), an internet marketing content site packed with useful articles and resources, and SEO Tutorial (http://www.seotutorial.info) where you can learn the basics of search engine optimization in four easy steps.

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Marketing Secrets – A Couple Of Basic But Killer Internet Marketing Techniques

Tuesday, October 24th, 2006

A Couple Of Basic But Killer Internet Marketing Techniques
Copyright Ian Canaway

There are many simple, infallible ways to earn income, and one of the surest ways is through marketing your business on the internet. When you learn basic internet marketing techniques, you’ll wonder why you haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon. When you think about it, the only things you’ll need to make money is a vision of what you want out of life and the wisdom and energy to put your ideas into motion.

Basic internet marketing techniques can teach us how to acquire wealth, and an important factor is to provide something the public needs (or think they need) whether it is a product, a service, information or something else entirely – there are many choices.

Every business has a goal of making money, and every business has something to sell. You will need knowledge and a product before you begin your internet marketing. You may need at least a small amount of capital to start your business, although the outlay could be relatively small if you are selling information or services as opposed to a tangible product.

You will need to develop a web site for advertising and informational purposes; if you have the ability to do it yourself, so much the better. If you dont then consider one of my business partners Plug-In Profit Sites, they are an excellent way to start out in online business.

Like any other business, internet marketers need sales leads. Retail merchants who set up offices or shops are able to buy lists of potential customers, or they may ask their employees and acquaintances to provide them with lists of names to get their business started and begin making sales. The world of internet marketing utilises marketing leads, which you can purchase from reputable companies.

Internet marketing is a very competitive market, and a large portion of your time should be spent generating new marketing leads to drive your sales. You can generate these through your own advertising or by growing and developing an opt-in e-mail list of potential prospects to which you can send your offers.

New services and products are introduced over the internet every day as fast as a speeding bullet. Some of the reasons for these new developments can be attributed to market conditions, new technology, improved search engines, or totally new concepts or products. There are services that will help you develop your internet marketing leads and attract new clients, but use them with caution and always make sure your leads are double opt-in to avoid any potential spam complaints.

One of the most common ways to attract new customers is to develop an email list. Although email marketing may not be as effective as it once was due to software that filters out “spam,” it does still work. One of the best features of email advertising is that it is a free method of getting the word out that you’re in business. The response to emails is still good when it does reach the intended party. Incentives such as freebies of reports, programs or products entice potential buyers to read the email.

You can see how I do this on my website http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com. I capture signups to my newsletter through a signup form and this produces me a list of targeted prospects to which I send my newsletter and any hot offers I decide to endorse.

An important part of email marketing is that it can be repeated again and again. You can start out with a small list of marketing and sales leads for your online business, and then build from a few email recipients until you have established a loyal clientele. In addition to generating email marketing leads, you may want to consider a couple of other methods of “getting the word out.”

Another internet marketing technique involves utilizing pay-per-click (referred to as PPC) advertising, whereby participants bid on keywords and pay a varying sum of money every time someone clicks on you advert. The two biggest PPC services are Google Adwords and Overture, but its definitely worth your while investigating smaller services as the competition is less and prices cheaper. A click is click, as long you hyper target your market it doesnt matter where it comes from.

An excellent way to inform others about your business is to join one of the many forums related to marketing. You can post information, ask questions and receive answers from other internet marketers, it is also a good way to gain name recognition and credibility within you niche market, which in turn will gain you extra traffic to your website and should increase your sales.

When you begin your internet marketing endeavours, be sure to establish enough marketing leads to sustain your business and make it profitable, develop a good internet marketing strategy early on in your planning stages. An excellent course on how to market your business online is Cory Rudls #1 Training Course and provides everything you need to know about marketing your business online.

(Feel free to use this article online and in your email newsletters as long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. The byline and biography must remain in the article.)

Resource Box:

Ian Canaway is a home business entrepreneur and the owner of http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com and also a home business based blog at http://www.ahomebusinessblog4u.blogspot.com; providing high quality information and resources. Check us out Now!

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Search Engine Marketing Secrets – Marketing to Your Niche Markets with Storylines

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

Do you remember how, in days gone by, salesmen would go door
to door selling their wares? These entrepreneurs would “go
the extra mile” just to have the chance to demonstrate their
products to people in their own home.

Why do you suppose they did that? Was it effective enough to
make that extra effort? And what can we learn from it?

The reason why door-to-door demonstrations of yesterday worked so well is because it gave the customer a chance to experience the product. Humans are experiential in nature. That is, we understand the world around us by experiencing it. So putting a product in our hands gives us that opportunity. We get to feel it, use it, and see how its application could benefit us.

Now nobody’s telling you to go door-to-door like the
salesmen of old . . .

But what if you could achieve the same results by illustrating its application with a verbal demonstration? What if you could provide a similar experience to your customers that was nearly as good as if they held it in their hands? Would you consider that a highly effective marketing tool? Can you imagine the possibilities of being able to get people to experience your product without actually having to hold it in their hands?

This is where using Storylines come in . . .

Stories have been used for centuries to create experiences
in order to teach, motivate, and instill values into us.
Through stories we gain experiences we might normally never
have. They allow us to see worlds we could only dream of, or may never even have dreamed of. Stories insite our senses, and trigger our emotions. They paint “pictures” for us and lead us to an understanding of things that are, often times, beyond our grasp.

But most of all, stories are master illustrators.

Can you see where this is leading?

Through a story, you can create a presentation that satisfies the senses, produces the right amount of motivation and emotion, and illustrates the benefits of your products almost as well as if you rang a doorbell, got let inside and gave a face to face demonstration.

And no one has to wear out their shoes doing it either.

To illustrate how it’s done . . .

First we’ll create a scenario, then give a storyline example
so you’ll see it in action for yourself . . .

The beauty of Niche Marketing is that you can just about create a new market out of thin air. What you’re about to witness is a Niche Market that was created where there was none before. But it doesn’t matter if you create a niche from a story, or a story from a niche, because it works both ways.

Scenario: You’re skimming through the news blogs and you
come across a clip about how there’s a growing number of
homes that are unable to get cable television piped in. The
clip goes on to say that, in many of these cases, satellite
reception doesn’t work either because most live in highly wooded areas. It concludes by informing that neither the cable
companies nor the satellite companies know exactly what to
do and people are getting really frustrated about it.

So you scour the web and find a solution that’s already
being marketed, though not very well. You read up about it
and discover that there’s a resellers program attached to
it.

You join it and present it something like this . . .

Story Begins:
—————————————————

Satellite and Cable Companies Can’t Reach Everybody

Television certainly isnt what it used to be. Today,
through satellite and cable, you can bring in hundreds of
channels in high definition that were once nonexistent, but
now are just a click of your remote away. Up to 80% of all
households have one or the other type of network service set
up in their homes, as the old fashioned rabbit ears antenna goes the way of the rabbit test.

Unfortunately for some, the cable and satellite companies
cant reach everyone, especially in remote parts of the
world. There are various reasons why this happens, but it
doesnt help those who are left without.

One of the problems with cable TV is the expense that goes
into running cables through a town. All too often towns
cannot afford the contracts required to get cable, or they
feel the monthly charges would be too steep for their residents because of the wiring problems the cable companies would have to overcome. Some towns just dont want the cables running through their streets.

The trouble with satellite is that you need a clear view of
a certain part of the sky in order to get good reception,
and many in wooded areas just arent able to cut down enough trees to accomplish that. So there are quite a number of
people forced to watch local TV through the haze of antenna
interferences. No cable, no satellite, no hope of it changing in the near future.

For some, who might not even get good or adequate reception
from an antenna, there’s always VCRs and DVDs. But even they can get old fast, and depending on the quality of service
from the local video store, their choices could be limited.

Recently there has been some advancement in online TV and
movie viewing, however, that just might solve the problem
for these people as well as for those who feel the monthly
fees of cable and satellite are outrageous. New companies
are springing up that offer the same services of the cable,
satellite, and even video store companies for a one time fee to download their application to your computer. One of the
leaders of this new type of online service, TV.org offers a
great package that includes a large number of TV channels,
premium movies, MP3, DVD, and game downloads.

So it wont be long when everyone will be able to watch HBO, or the Discovery Channel without worrying about location,
budget, town ordinances, trees or anything. In this world of high tech, theres something for everybody!”

—————————————————
End of Story

If you happen to have visited TV.org, you’ll discover that there actually is such a company, and yes, they have an affiliate program.

And yes, it was pretty much taken out of thin air! And it’s
just one example of how to use a storyline with a niche market. There are countless other ways and styles depending on your purpose and product. Isn’t Niche Marketing wonderful?

There are just so many different ways and reasons you can
come up with them. The above example came just as the scenario stated, by simply browsing the news blogs and creating a storyline based on a few short clips.

But until now, some Niche Markets were nearly as hard to get customers to, as the “brick and mortar” storefronts. The most that could be done with them is to set up a shopping cart page and generate traffic for them from the exchanges.

Then you’d have to wait and hope someone was looking for what you were selling at the exact time your page came up in their browser.

However, if you start Using Storylines With Your Niche Marketing, all sorts of new venues will open up for you. By using storylines as sales campaigns, your areas of advertising broaden greatly. You can send out press releases, advertise directly through ezine articles, create news clips for syndication, you name it!

Fred Farah
copyright 2005


About the author:

Fred Farah
The Best Affiliate Products
and Niche Market Strategies for Maximum Profits
Best Affiliate Products

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Search Engine Secrets – Search Engines… What They LOVE and HOW-TO Get Them To Come CRAWL Your Website

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

Copyright 2005 The IWE, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Search Engines… one of the MOST tricky marketing tactics of them all online simply because the SE’s are forever changing the rules of Website Optimization.

Meaning… what used to work “Yesterday” might not work “Today”.

Now, with that said, for the remainder of this article I want to let you in on what SE’s ‘LOVE’ and will thank you for everytime you hand them over some.

It’s really not much of a mystery to those of you who have been marketing online for some time But for those of you who haven’t this is something you should seriously consider getting into for more reasons than ONE.

OKAY. Enough of the small talk. I’m going to dive straight in and get to the point Right Now on what SE’s ‘LOVE’ and it’s simply…

… CONTENT!

That’s right, “Content” is what SE’s ‘LOVE’ and are continually crawling the Internet for Day and Night 24/7/365 and will gladly pay your website a visit if you supply it on a Daily, Weekly or Monthly basis.

The more often you supply “Content” and post it on your website the more often SE spiders will come CRAWL and “index” your website pages.

The question is… “do you write Articles?”

If you don’t, maybe you might want to consider it.

Now that you know what SE’s ‘LOVE’, your probably wondering what the BEST way is to get the SE spiders attention to get them to come on over and CRAWL your website.

Well, first off I would recommend you submitting your Articles(whether you have some already or plan on starting) to ‘Article Directories’ simply because SE spiders are constantly CRAWLING these websites since they are SO full of content and are updated usually on a daily basis.

You can find them by simply typing in “article directories” into your favorite search engine’s search field.

The other great thing about ‘Article Directories’ is they usually have HIGH ‘PR’(Popularity Ranking) which is another KEY thing SE’s take into consideration which means once you’ve posted your articles on that directory or directories, the spiders will eventually ‘Find’ your article, crawl that page within that Article Directory and follow the corresponding links within your “Resource Box” back to your website.

The more article directories you post to, the more chances you’ll have at getting some SE spider activity on your website, crawling and indexing your webpages.

This is just ONE of the ways to get SE spiders to come visit your website and only ONE reason WHY you should submit your Articles to ‘Article Directories’ but that’s another article within itself.

For the remainder of this article I’m going to share with you a way to get SE spiders to come visit your website within the next 24 to 48 hours to have a look around.

Are you ready?

BLOGS!

Blogs are simply the Fastest WAY to get the SE spiders attention to come and take a look simply because Blogs contain “Content” in the form of “Articles” and/or “Reviews or just general feedback from your readership.

The more often you post to your Blog the more often SE spiders will come visit.

The reason IS… everytime you post to your Blog it’ll PING(Ping is simply a signal being sent out telling the SE that there’s NEW content to come and index at your Blog) …the SE’s(Not all of them) …to come take a look.

When they come visit, they’ll spider your Blog and will follow all corresponding links within.

Remember the “Resource Box” located at the end of a article(you can use mine as an example) with all the authors website information and URL. This will come in handy so make sure You carefully think about what you put their with your articles.

Now, with that said, I wrote an earlier article explaining how to set-up a Blog to get Yahoo! and MSN to come visit. It’s really quite simple, so don’t worry yourself to much about it being difficult.

All you need to really focus on is supplying the “Content”.

Here’s the link if you wish to read the article:
http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_13.html

I also wrote another article explaining what Blogs are for those of you who aren’t very familiar with them yet.

Here’s the link if you wish to read the article:
http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_12.html

Now, there are many other ways to get SE spiders to come visit your website but these two methods I mentioned above are in my mind the quickest.

So, there you have it, “Search Engines… What They LOVE and HOW-TO Get Them To Come CRAWL Your Website”, so go NOW and give it a try.

About the author:
Want to find out How-To write KILLER Articles? Click here==>http://www.internetwondersezine.com/ArticleAnnouncer.htm– Or if you want to get MORE ‘Insider’ marketing Secrets,subscribe to Cory Threlfall’s ezine called… The InternetWonders eZine — http://www.internetwondersezine.comor athttp://www.internetwondersezine.com/resources.html

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Search Engine Optimization – 5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for your Website

Sunday, October 22nd, 2006

5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for your Website

by: Jim Lisi

Top 5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program

These days with millions of websites out there, you need a way to get noticed. When your company website is ranked highly in the major search engines, customers from all over the world can find your front door. suddenly, your virtual storefront becomes prime business property and you are making sales 24/7.

What can a web site owner do to make sure your site appears in the top 2 pages in any given search engine? You could buy some submission software, read some books and try it yourself. But what if you miss something and find your sites not positioned, or worse, banned. The only other option is to hire a search engine specialist.

There are alot of self-proclaimed, “SEO specialists” and “search engine submission” companies, so you need to know what to look for in the positioning program they offer.

Here are my top five things to look for in a Search Engine position program:

1. SE Optimization (SEO) The pages on your site are checked for the percentage of keywords you want to target, and the quality of the content on the page. Your SEO consultant should make recommendations regarding your site content to improve it in the eye of the Search Engines.

Key search engines like MSN and AOL Search still rely on metatags or html code that include keywords related to your site. A good SEO optimization of your metatags can mean the difference of a #40 ranking vs. a Top 20 ranking.

2. Pay per click (PPC) PPC search engines like Overture (formerly Goto.com) and Findwhat can get you targeted, fast traffic while you are patiently watching the other search engines to rank your site. Recently, Overtures top 3 keywords results show up at the top of searches on Yahoo! above the Yahoo! paid sites. For some keywords, paying for a top 3 position can be very expensive, but with careful research you can find some keywords available for 5 cents per click.

3. Regular monitoring – You should get an initial report in 4-6 weeks and then preferably a monthly report. Your SEO consultant should provide ideas on achieving better rankings for keywords that are not doing as well as youd like to see. While a Top 10 ranking is the ideal, some Top 20 rankings are realistic.

4. Inclusion in select pay for inclusion SE indexes and directories Inclusions in fee based can be useful if you want to target specific search engines or directories like Looksmart and Yahoo! Depending on your budget, you may want to purchase inclusion right away or hold off until the other Search Engines pick you up first. Your SEO consultant should provide the option to help you get into fee-based inclusions, and be able to explain the benefits and differences of each one.

5. Submission to key SE directories To rank well on Google and in turn, Yahoo! web pages, you need to be listed in the Open Directory Project directory. Directories like ODP are human edited and depending on the category, it can take from 3 weeks to 2 months to get accepted.

Yahoo! is another key directory, and you MIGHT be able to get your site in for free still, if its non-commercial or a very localized business to a specific city or region. Your SEO consultant should submit your site to ODP and monitor it to make sure its accepted, and depending on the extent of your program, offer to submit your site to the Yahoo! free submit, if its appropriate.

By Jim Lisi

Website Consultant

www.EzRankings.com

info@ezrankings.com

About The Author

From 1996 – 1999 Jim Lisi worked in the web-hosting services industry at Concentric Network, which was bought out by XO Communications. In 1999, Jim was offered the position of Director of Sales at TopTenRanking Inc, a top web promotion company in LA, California. Starting in 2000, Jim Lisi formed his own web promotion company, EzRankings.com, utilizing some of the best website promotion specialists in the industry today.

jlisi@ezrankings.com

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