Take Flight with Reliable Marketing

Take Flight with Reliable Marketing

by: Howard Keith

In the last year I have so many people try to educate themselves on how to market their website.

There were programs they joined that they believed were going make them rich with little or no effort only to find once again they lost their money. Then there were others who totally amazed me, since they found marketing that really worked.

Their goal was to make money on the internet delivering a good product. Then they realized, even if you have a new innovative product thatกs fantastic if people don’t know about it or can’t find it, there’s no point. I have seen so many websites come and go in the past year because they were unable to match the right kind of reliable marketing with their particular product.

Due to all the scams and misunderstandings regrding the internet people have become skeptical to use their credit cards online. Website owners found paypal to be an excellent vehicle. They remember setting up their account and next thing they knew they were finally selling more. In some cases sales increased 1000%. People find it easier and safer to enter their password and click pay verses having to enter all their personal information.

Then they discovered affiliate programs. They I had problems with only one so far. Not crediting people who joined under me as my down line. I found if you ask a friend to sign up as an affiliate to you, you will know immediately. Unfortunately for me I didn’t realize it until two months later. Everyday I learn something new and so will you if you take the time to educate yourself. I am making friends everyday with other website owners. We are becoming a team and sharing information on what’s good and what’s not.

I used a company called Build Traffic my website is number one on MSN, Yahoo and quite a few others. It shockedAnother way to increase income with very little effort.

Then they found linking to other sites helped them to get greater exposure. Some people say links to your site increases their location on the search engines.

Others submited their site for free to safe lists, FFA pages and so much more. They also used pay per click advertising. A majority of people had a steady succession as they learned from their mistakes.

There are many reliable marketing companies to help you grow. Determination helped them to become a winner with internet marketing. A new website that has been changing from day to day has quite a few marketing products. Look things over carefully and decide what may be right for you. The website offers a variety of products and yes there are free things you can join that can help you too. http://www.reliablemarketing.com. People say stay away from safelists , FFA marketing and other areas. They do this so you stay away and purchase their marketing products. I found a little of everthing worked. Thatกs what they continue to do every day.

Marketing becomes easier to understand as you experiment with different marketing techniques. Yes people make mistakes but the outcome is positive and thatกs the bottom line.

More then one person told me that build traffic helped them to hit number one on the MSN search engine, their sales increased and they were off and running. You can find build traffic at the reliable marketing website.

http://www.reliablemarketing.com.

Itกs free to look and at the same time educate yourself prior to making any major financial investments.

Please feel free to email me.

About The Author

Howard Keith has exstensive knowledge through years of marketing through the internet.

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 19

by Howard Keith

Testament to Testimonials

Testament to Testimonials

by: Cal Hyslop

Should You Use Testimonials on Your Website?

We have all seen websites showcasing their testimonials either spread strategically throughout the site or all together on their own glorious page. They’re there with the intent of leading us toward that high dollar purchase or convincing us of something’s legitimacy. Sometimes we read them and sometimes we won’t. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes we don’t. Well, are they really worth all the time and effort?

The quick answer: Only if you do it right. When done correctly, testimonials can really serve you in establishing your site’s credibility. Testimonials give you an opportunity to back up your claims. Believe it or not, as soon as someone visits your site you have immediately begun a relationship with that person. Your site will be one of the determining factors in solidifying that relationship and your testimonials can be a key component in building their trust. When done improperly, you might actually drive people away from you and what you have to offer. If your testimonials aren’t believable and honest then you probably don’t want them posted in the first place.

Here are a few guidelines to follow if you decide to use testimonials on your website.

Testimonials Should be Brief. You want your reader to get the point quickly and read the entire quote. You might have a great testimonial, but it is a page long. The odds of someone reading it in its entirety are pretty small. A good idea would be to break it up into sections.

Don’t Fake It. Your testimonials should be believable and the best way to assure yourself of that is not to make them up your self or have someone else do it for you. Honesty is always the best policy. Phony testimonials will ruin your credibility immediately. Say ขadiosข to your customers if you want to fake it.

Specifically Identify. Testimonials should be signed with a full name and a specific title. Don’t use something like ขBusinesspersonข or ขProfessionalข. People wan to see a name and area of expertise. It is also a good idea to put a link to their website. This will help establish the legitimacy of their testimonial.

Ask Permission. Before you publish someone’s comment make sure that they are aware of what you are going to post and that you have their consent in doing so. It is easier to ขsellข the idea if you agree to post a link to their website beneath the quote.

Address a Specific Benefit. A specific positive result has much more impact than something generic. It is better to post something to the affect of ขYour product helped cut costs by 18 percent last quarterข as opposed to ขYour product is greatข.

Spread Them Out. You can have a page dedicated to testimonials. It’s a good idea, but you can’t guarantee that a visitor will visit that page. In addition to your testimonial page why not post a testimonial or two on each page throughout your website. You can even interweave your quotes into your content. This can most likely increase the strength of your message as your visitors peruse each page.

SPECIAL TIP: Anytime you have a good experience with a website or online purchase send your own testimonial adhering to the abovementioned guidelines. If published, you’ll probably get a link to your website. Over time that can add up and increase traffic to your site.

When it comes down to it, testimonials help provide an independent and unbiased medium to promote you and your website. You have the option to use them or not. If you decide to use testimonials on your website then use them properly. Wellpositioned and authentic testimonials can easily make a positive impact and strengthen your site.

About The Author

Cal Hyslop has a background in business and technology with a Masters in Business Administration and is an owner of a website design firm located in Houston, Texas. The mission of his company, WebChrysalis, is to help individuals and businesses look like a million dollars online through the use of web templates and expert design.

[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 23

by Cal Hyslop

7 Strategies for Handling Last Minute Meetings

7 Strategies for Handling Last Minute Meetings

by: Susan Friedmann

Have you ever found yourself having to scramble to organize a meeting at the last minute? Wouldn’t it be nice that if and when this daunting situation arose, you were well prepared with all necessary information ready at your fingertips? That’s why I’ve developed the following seven survival strategies to help you plan for the inevitable, because you know as well as I, it’s going to happen ‘someaday.’
Survival Strategy #1. Question the meeting need.
Before you jump into automatic pilot to start your last minute meeting organization, challenge the request. Since deciding to hold a meeting demands serious consideration because of the costs involved, both direct and indirect, doublecheck the rationale for holding the meeting. Develop a few pertinent questions to ask and find out if a meeting alternative, such as a teleconference would achieve the same results.
Survival Strategy #2. Know the basics.
If the meeting really needs to happen, make sure that you plan for the basics:

What is the purpose of the meeting?
Where should it take place – on or offsite?
When is it scheduled for – date and time?
What’s the meeting agenda?
Who needs to be invited?
What refreshments and snacks are needed?
What specific materials and equipment is needed?
What travel and hotel arrangements, if any, are necessary?
What’s the meeting budget?

When it comes to budget, remind your boss that good quality, last minute buying and cheap don’t usually correlate. The reality is that last minute pricing may well come at a premium.
Survival Strategy #3. Develop checklists.
Checklists should be every meeting planners guardian angel. They’re there to help out in time of trouble and avoid unnecessary panic. With the hundreds of pieces that make up the meeting puzzle, the only way to put them together and keep tabs on all the details is with a checklist. Become a checklist fanatic and consider having a checklist for each checklist. Cover all your bases. The more thorough you are, the greater the probability of success, even at the last minute.
Survival Strategy #4. Create a contact list.
When you need something in a hurry who do you call? These are the people who need to make up your contact list. Consider your facility needs, catering, audiovisual, etc. Compile a list with phone including cell phones, fax and email information. Keep this list updated annually as contacts and their information can change. Also include useful website resources as you find them, but remember to check them out beforehand.
Survival Strategy #5. Build relationships.
Don’t wait until you need a favor from someone, rather continually find ways to build a ขdream teamข or support network. Build a contact base of other meeting professionals, suppliers, vendors and angels you can call on at the last minute to help you out. Take time to discuss their strategies and resources for dealing with last minute meetings, and add this information to your ขsurvival kit.ข Don’t forget to include your fellow coworkers who might be willing and able to help out at a moment’s notice.
Survival Strategy #6. Develop contingencies.
Because your plans are last minute, the greater the chance of something not working out the way you’d like it to. So what’s your backup? If you don’t have one, all your original plans could be destroyed in an instant, and you’ll be scrambling even more than before to put a second strategy into operation. Have a Plan B ready ขin the wingsข just in case you need it. Once again, the more thorough you are, the greater the probability of pulling off this miracle.
Survival Strategy #7. Learn to laugh.
Keeping a sense of humor will definitely help prevent you getting mad, angry and frustrated with those disorganized managers who leave things to the last minute and expect you to perform miracles. Learn to laugh at them and yourself to keep a saner perspective on life. If nothing else, remember that laughing is a great survival technique, which is good for your health and will help reduce stress and blood pressure levels.

About The Author

Written by Susan A. Friedmann, CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake Placid, NY, author: ขMeeting & Event Planning for Dummies,ข working with companies to improve their meeting and event success through coaching, consulting and training. Go to http://www.thetradeshowcoach.com to sign up for a free copy of ExhibitSmart Tips of the Week.

This article was posted on July 25, 2004

by Susan Friedmann

Creating Content: The Easy Way

Creating Content: The Easy Way

by: Steve Shaw

There is little doubt that quality content has a number of real benefits for your web site, not least increasing levels of repeat visitors, and valuable revenue streams such as advertising and the sale of products or services related to the content you provide.

The only difficulty is that creating such content can be costly, taking up valuable time and resources. This article examines different ways you can add content to your web site quickly, giving you maximum benefit for the minimum cost.

Syndicated Content Streams

Syndicated content is content provided by others for use on your web site. Certain sites provide กcontent streamsก, where you can simply place a few lines of code on your web page, and forget about it. The content provider then regularly updates the content it provides. The end result is that your site remains fresh and dynamic, at virtually no cost to you.

The content provider either charges a fee for the privilege of using their content, or they prefer to benefit through traffic, such as by placing a link adjacent to or within the content. One provider at interestalert.com even offers to pay you for adding a news feed to your site.

Here are a few examples of some content providers you may wish to try:

http://www.1afm.com/free_content/ provides a range of different content types such as news headlines or jokes.

http://submityourarticle.com/syndicate a number of different content feeds you can add to your site, displaying articles relating to internet marketing and online business.

http://www.brainyquote.com adds กquote of the dayก to your web site, from a range of different topics and authors.

http://freesticky.com an index of resources you can use to quickly add content to your site, with a wide range of content areas to choose from.

Free Reprint Articles

Free reprint articles are a type of syndicated content, and they are widely available.

The benefit for you is the provision of quality content on your web site, attracting targeted visitors via inbound links from the search engines. The benefit for the author of the article is their name and URL in the resource box (or กauthor bylinesก), which builds up targeted traffic to their web site, and builds up their กbrandก and online credibility.

Here are just some places where you can find articles to quickly put up at your web site:

http://articlecentral.com

http://goarticles.com

http://ideamarketers.com

Invite Content

Add a page to your web site where you invite your visitors to submit their content, in return for a link back to their own web sites. This will give you a steady stream of content you can choose from, and save you time in searching for it elsewhere.

As a twist on this, if you create original content on your own site, make it easy for visitors to use it on their own sites remember, many of your visitors will be actively or passively looking for content for their own web sites. Just make sure they always include a link back to your site in return, so that you stand to benefit too.

Over time, as well as increasing the amount of content on your own site, providing your content to others will gradually but significantly increase your traffic levels, and is far more effective than the more popular กlink swappingก craze, that usually just leaves your link sitting unclicked in an unvisited links page.

The common phrase is that กcontent is kingก the Internet is a contentdriven medium, and the more successful web sites are those with the best content. By using some of the techniques above, you can increase the amount of quality content on your site with the minimum amount of effort and expense.

Copyright 2004 Steve Shaw

Steve Shaw creates systems and software for effective emarketing. His powerful PopUpMaster Pro software creates popups that beat the popup blockers and can significantly increase your conversion rates. For more information: http://www.popupmaster.com

About The Author

Steve Shaw has been marketing fulltime online since March 2002, developing software products and systems for effectกive emarketing for more information see http://takanomi.com.

This article was posted on April 15, 2004

by Steve Shaw

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan

by: Herman Drost

A search engine optimization maintenance service plan will ensure that your site will continue to increase in its rankings, attract more visitors and make more sales. Itกs not enough to simply design your web site, have it optimized for the search engines and expect it to continually rank well. If left alone, you may soon lose the business your web site initially generated.

What should be included in a SEO maintenance service plan?

1. Monitor search engine rankings there will be many fluctuations in your search engine rankings. This may be due to search engines changing their ranking formulas, or competitors trying to get ahead of you. More sites are added to the web each day so you need to monitor your search engine rankings to be competitive. I create monthly ranking reports on where your site is currently ranked for each of the major search engines.

2. Traffic Tracking itกs essential to know where most of your traffic is coming from so you can make adjustments to your marketing strategies. For example if most of your traffic is coming from one particular page, you may want to place your best products on that page to get more sales. I analyze your site statistics (if they are available form your web host) to check how much traffic you are receiving, where is it coming from and what keywords are being used to find your site.

3. Keyword research web sites are being added to the web every day, therefore keywords that once got high rankings may no longer work. You may have high search engine positions for your most important keyword phrases but if you are not receiving any traffic from those phrases, you will need to evaluate the keywords that you have used. Attaining a number 1 ranking for keywords that no one will search for, will not increase your traffic.

Researching new keywords is essential to maintain good rankings. I analyze the current keywords used on your site and research and add new ones. Once the keywords have been chosen, the content should be updated to reflect them. This may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles and text headings; or it could involve adding additional sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing the web siteกs structure. It all depends on the specific requirements of the site and market.

4. Competitive analysis an integral part of search engine optimization is determining what keywords your competitors are using. I analyze where your competitors are currently ranked for the same keywords you are using for your web pages. I also check how many competitors you have for each of the major search engines. If there are too many competitors for a particular keyword it may be better to use less competitive keywords for your web pages or use them in conjunction with the most popular ones.

I will also analyze the link popularity of your competitors to determine how many incoming links they have and what the quality of those links are. You should not link to unrelated sites and ideally link to sites that already attract a lot of traffic.

5. Adding fresh content web sites that continuously update and/or expand their content, usually experience higher rankings than stagnant web sites. New keywords should first be researched before adding new content. This will help boost your traffic and rankings because visitors will have more ways to land on your site based on the keywords they entered in the search engines. One great way to achieve this is to add new articles to your site on a regular basis.

6. Web copy analysis getting a lot of traffic to your site does not guarantee sales. It primarily depends on how effective your web copy is. (Read my article: ก How to Write Effective Web Copy ก www.isitebuild.com/webcopy). You want to convert visitors into sales. I analyze how your web copy is structured on the page, what words you use, if it is written for your visitors plus check it for spelling and grammatical errors.

7. Boost link popularity this refers to the amount of other quality web sites that have links pointing back to yours. The more quality links there are, the better you will rank on the major search engines. I extensively research other sites related to yours and add or exchange links with them. This may require a links/resources page to be added to your site.

8. Tweaking web site structure and navigation if visitors are having a difficult time navigating your site, reading the content or experience broken links, then I will repair or tweak the site to make it more suitable for your visitors.

Conclusion your web site should be an integral part of your business plan. It may be the first view your visitors have of your business. You therefore should update and maintain it regularly so your visitors will want to revisit and keep doing business with you.

About The Author

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)

owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.

Choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site.

Visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 15

by Herman Drost

The Pitfalls of the Work From Home Craze

The Pitfalls of the Work From Home Craze

by: Tim Somers

More than 4 million people currently have the good fortune of working from home. From major corporations letting their key people set up a home office to the many inspiring home based business owners. Having the ability to set your own hours is the key benefit in choosing to work from home.

Home based businesses are continuing to grow at an incredible rate. The Internet has opened a window of opportunity for business ventures that were once impossible to build in a home office environment. The Small Business Administrations Office of Advocacy claims over 50 percent of all small businesses are home based and will continue to grow.

Working from home is not always a bed of roses. It is common for most that work from home to become workaholics. Having your work or business accessible 24 hours a day makes it hard to know when to quit for the day.

The fact is that working from home is enjoyable and you can get sucked into becoming a slave to your home business. You need to know when to step back and smell the roses. Setting up specific work hours for each day is key to not falling into a workaholic bottomless pit.

When it is quitting time turn off the computer and turn the volume on the phone or answering machine down low. Take charge of your home business – do not let it take charge of you.

Most choose to work from home to gain a better quality of life, spending more time with family and the freedom a home business offers is a big draw. If you do not set some basic standards you will loose focus on your intentions – working even more hours than the 9 to 5 job you left.

Some key points to being productive and not overworking yourself.

Set up a work schedule – based on the demands of your life style and stick to it.

Prioritize your work – set a daily, weekly and monthly to do list.

Interruptions and Distractions – even though you are at home you are still at work. Make sure family and friends know your work schedule. If your home office is near a TV – turn it off during work hours.

Procrastinating – Don’t put off projects or tasked that need to be completed – they will only start to pile up adding stress to your work from home environment.

Take time for lunch – be sure to squeeze in time for a small break or lunch. Breaking up the day will keep you focused, energetic and will reduce any stress that may be building up throughout the day.

Working from home is a dream for many and can be a nightmare for others. Staying focused and not overworking is hard, but the benefits of a work from home business should give you the freedom and financial life style that you are in search of. This can only be archived if YOU are in control of your home business.

Copyright 2005 – Tim Somers, 3G Enterprises, LLC

About The Author

Tim Somers ขThe Home Biz Honchoข. Changing Your Life, Helping You Make Money While You Work From Home. Get Tim’s Top Ten Home Biz Opportunities – Free Report at: http://www.HomeBasedBusinessOpportunityHoncho.com

If you are ready to start building a Residual Income – Tim will build you your very own Money Generating Website for FREE! http://www.FreeMakeMoneySite.com

This article was posted on March 04

by Tim Somers

10 Easy Steps to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

10 Easy Steps to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings!

by: Marcus Schroefel

In order that someone finds your website and buys your product on the Internet it is essential to make it known to the world. So the first thing you do is to submit to search engines.
But a search engine listing alone does not assure you will receive any new visitors to your Website until and unless you appear among the high rankers. Your Website must achieve higher search engine rankings in order that your customers are able to find your site promptly.
You will reach higher rankings if you follow the easy steps to optimise your website which I’ve compiled below:
1. Research Your Keywords!
This is the single most important aspect of search engine optimisation, so there simply is no way out. If you don’t know how your visitors search for your product or service, then you are only guessing.
And can you imagine a hunter who doesn’t know where to send his bullet? I bet you don’t. Don’t just assume you know how people are going to try and find you.
Visit your competition and look at the terms they use in the keyword tags and throughout their pages and compile a list of keywords.
You’ll spend a good bit of time on this because it will payoff big later. Once you have your list, rank the phrases in order of importance starting with the most important keyword phrase.
2. Give Your Keywords Focus!
Now it is time to start getting the text for your pages ready. When doing so, you will want each of your pages to focus on one of the keyword phrases from your list. Your homepage should focus on your most important phrase and each subsequent subpage should focus on another keyword phrase.
Ideally, you should never focus on more than one or two keyword phrases per page. Trying to focus on more than this will dilute the theme of the page and could have a negative effect on your rankings.
3. Optimise Your Title Tag!
The title tag is one of the most important elements of your page. Search engines put more weight on the title tag than any other single element of your page. Your title tag should ALWAYS contain the keyword phrase you have chosen to target for that page.
Keep the tag short, no more than about 6 words generally, but make it appealing. Make the title irresistible to your visitors but keep it also short enough that you don’t take away from the importance of your keyword phrase.
4. K.I.S.S. Keep Your Pages as Simple as Possible!
Avoid overloading your page with things such as frames, excessive javascript, flash, too many graphics or image maps. This can have a negative affect on your search engine rankings.
A good rule of thumb is that the simpler the page, the better it will generally rank. Even tables, when used too much can break up the flow of the text on a page and hurt your chances at a top ranking.
5. Create Good Content!
For sure you will find top ranking sites with very little content, but you will have a much better time getting and keeping a top ranking with good content. This not only gives the engines more to index, but it gives your visitors something worth to read and absorb.
Your customers will thank you and they will be more likely to return in the future to do business. Don’t just compile large lists of links – it’s not very attractive to your customers.
You should make it to your personal rule to offer only high quality – no matter what target group you are trying to appeal.
6. Think Big!
What does this mean? Quite simply, it means that a site of 30 or more pages has, at least, 6 times the chances to get a top ranking as a site of 5 pages.
The more pages your site has with good, solid, quality content, the more keyword phrases you can target and the more chances you have of achieving a top ranking.
7. Create a System of Internal Linking!
You should be able to get to just about any page on your site within no more than 3 clicks. Consider creating a site map with links to all of the pages within your site. This will assist the engines in properly indexing your site.
When creating your internal links try to use the actual keyword phrase that you will be targeting on the page you are linking to as the link text. Many engines look at the visible text of a hyperlink as a description of the target page. If the visible text matches the focus of that page, it will help to give that page a boost in the rankings.
8. Build External Link Popularity!
Even if this might appear to be a long and arduous task, but it is crucial to your success. All of the top engines use link popularity quite heavily when ranking sites. It is important to note that it is not only the quantity of links that is important but also the quality of those links.
One link from a site such as Yahoo is worth as much or more than 100 links from unknown sites. Also remember, it is also important that you link to other sites. When linking to other sites, or attempting to get them to link to you, always shoot for sites that are of a similar theme as your site.
9. Monitor Your Rankings!
This is best accomplished through a program like Rank Me, WebPosition Gold, or other similar programs. If you see your position starting to slide, look at your competitors sites that have overtaken you and see if you can determine a pattern. This will tell you what you need to do to regain your position.
10. Keep Going!
Now that your’re at this step keep at it, don’t quit. This is just the beginning. If you don’t get a top ranking right from the scratch don’t get discouraged. Therefore be consistent and patient in your efforts.
This will establish a basis for building a successful business online for years to come. Heck, how did your first attempt at rideing a bike turn out?
Give yourself some time to get accustomed to this new field. Keep tracking your progress, analyse your competition, and making adjustments, and in no time at all, you will find yourself sitting among the high rankers.

About The Author

Marcus Schroefel is an Author, Publisher and Success Coach. Visit: http://www.mindclicking.com. You can get more proven traffic generating tips delivered to your email box just 5 minutes away for FREE by sending a blank email to: [email protected].

This article was posted on July 08, 2004

by Marcus Schroefel

The 52 Top SEO Tips – Here Are 10 Of Them

The 52 Top SEO Tips – Here Are 10 Of Them

by: David Leonhardt

From the obvious to the กHeyIneverthoughtofthatgreatideabeforeก, here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbocharge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page.

NOTE: This tip helped me move a website from 89 on Google for a very competitive term, up to 35 for that term.

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. Youกve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone elseกs article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Be bold. Use the tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, กGumbo Pudding Popก occasionally, กGet gumbo pudding popsก as well, กGumboflavored pudding popsก some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. Itกs called the navigation bar.

There you have it: 10 of the 52 Top SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes with Don’t Get Banned By the Search Engines:

http://www.thehappyguy.com/SEO.html

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.

About The Author

David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist. Contact him at: mailto:[email protected]

Or visit his website at

http://www.thehappyguy.com .

For a copy of Get In The News:

http://thehappyguy.com/publicityselfpromotionreport.html .

Promote your website with an ezine:

http://www.thehappyguy.com/ezines.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 20, 2004

by David Leonhardt

Reciprocal Linking Techniques

Reciprocal Linking Techniques

by: Rick Rouse

Building a successful web site is a process that works best when done in a deliberate, logical stepbystep manner. The first step is to build a top quality web site that is packed with interesting and useful content.

Next, you need to submit your site to the major directories and begin a well thought out advertising campaign.

But the single most important step is getting a top ranking in the major search engines, most notably Google and MSN.

When ranking the sites in their index, Google places a very high importance on กlink popularityก, that is the sites that have the most highquality incoming links generally rank higher in Google. Getting links to your site from other sites is an absolute must for a top ranking in Google and the other top search engines (top 10 at a minimum).

The question that you may be asking is กHow do I get these links?ก. There are many ways to attain links to your web site, but it can be very difficult for new sites to get other sites to link to them.

Thereกs a simple way to jumpstart the process however. Itกs called ‘reciprocal linkingก. This is how it works: You search for sites that are in the same general topic area as yours (but not sites that compete directly). After you find a list of suitable link exchange partners, you place a link to their site on your site. Then you email the webmasters of the other sites and ask for a link exchange.

Do not send generic copies of the same email to each webmaster however. Rather, take a few minutes to browse each site. Then write a personalized email to the webmaster explaining what you liked about the site (be specific) and why you think a link exchange would benefit both parties.

Be sure to address the webmaster by name if at all possible. Also, be sure to give him your link exchange information. This should include the title of your site, a short description, and the URL that you want his site to link to (this doesn’t have to be the home page). And be sure to include the URL of the page that already has his reciprocal link on it.

After you have sent the emails, expect a few rejections for various reasons. This is normal and expected so don’t be at all discouraged. You will also quickly get a few emails from webmasters accepting your offer. Verify that your reciprocal link is in fact on their sites and then send a ‘thank youก email.

A great way to find potential link partners is to do a Google search on one of your main keywords or phrases. You will most likely have many pages of sites listed in the search results.

Here is a simple way to find out which of these sites actively exchange links: Go to the bottom of the Google search results page. Click on กSearch within resultsก. In the text box type in กAdd URLก. This will return only the sites in your original search results listings that have an กAdd URLก link on their web site. You can also do a search for กlink exchangeก.

If you aggressively pursue link exchanges on a regular basis, within a few short months youกll have built up good rankings in the search engines with a steady flow of targeted traffic to your web site!

About The Author

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Webmaster Resources and the author of กSuper Webmaster SEO Toolkitก which gives step bystep instructions for getting a top 10 listing in Google & Yahoo. Visit his web site: http://www.rlrouse.com/SEO.html

This article was posted on July 29, 2003

by Rick Rouse

Promote Your Products With A Press Release

Promote Your Products With A Press Release

by: Lisa Maliga

Writing an effective press release is a way to draw attention to the products you sell and do so at a local level, nationwide and even get internationally. You don’t need to be a writer, but you need to clarify exactly what it is you are selling.
All press releases embody the theory that you have something to say and it always begins with the words: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, followed by today’s date. This indicates that it’s publishable and it could just be printed or available online in a few hours.
Include the name of your city or town, and state or country to let people know where you are.
Next, you must tell people WHO you are, by including your CONTACT INFORMATION.
Spokesperson: That is where you include your name.
Title: This is optional, but if you are the owner/ceo of even a oneperson business then please add it! Or your title is descriptive like dog groomer or soapmaker.
Organization: Your company’s name
Telephone: Make sure you include your area code. Also, you can list more than one number.
Fax: If applicable
Email Address: Super Important!
Web Site Address: Super Important!
Heading ~ Imagine this is a subject heading in an email that you’re using to introduce your company or products. In less than 10 words, what can you say that will cause readers to notice? For example, when I was promoting my innovative new product, I made certain that people knew it was unique by telling them in this heading ~ SoapCakes ~ An Innovative Way To Promote Your Business.
Each word counts! The first word is what I’m selling, the SoapCakes. I added a description that uses the word ‘your’, which is a friendly way of engaging a potential customer’s attention.
OR my other title SoapCakes ~ Customized For Any Happy Occasion.
In my second heading, I was guaranteeing to the reader that my product was customized, thereby making it special. And I wasn’t just making a general word like ‘occasion’ being used except by prefacing it with the word ‘happy’ a word we all like to see!
The body of the press release is what will really get the person thinking about who/what is going on. Keep it as succinct as possible. Some press releases are two pages, but if yours can be told in one, then you stand a better chance of having it read. Try to keep it no more than 3 or 4 paragraphs in length.
You should use your email and web addresses at least twice in the body of your press release, and again at the end. The more you get your name out there, the more likely you are to attract business.
Think about these selling points: What makes your company different? Can you deliver your products quickly? Internationally? How long have you been in business? How long have you worked in your area? Can you supply a couple of onesentence long testimonials with the person’s full name and location? Celebrity testimonials? Do you have a special offer like buy one get one free, free samples, discount prices? How do your products help others?
Allow your personality to shine through when you write about the products you know so well. If you make your product yourself, let us know! Is it holidayrelated? If so, you might want to send it out at least 2weeks before the upcoming holiday.
Keep in mind that you want to sell your products and that to do so you must emphasize the positive qualities of what you’re selling and offer assurances to the potential customer that they’re getting a good deal. What do you look for when you shop online? As a seller, do you embody those qualities?
Once you have written about your products and company, end with a brief summary that includes your important contact information.
The last word you write will be at the center of the page and will be either –30 or the word ‘end’
End
© 2004 By Lisa Maliga

About The Author

Handcrafting soap since 1998, Soap designer Lisa Maliga makes her edible looking creations in a peaceful environment. To learn more visit her website at: http://www.everythingshea.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 15, 2004

by Lisa Maliga

How to Get Targeted Search Engine Traffic Quickly

How to Get Targeted Search Engine Traffic Quickly

by: Matt Bacak

Here’s the ขHowToDoIt Guideข for driving search engine traffic right to your website.

I only speak about methods I have used and that worked well for my business. There are a lot of people out there who will steer you in the wrong direction because they are just regurgitating old information that might have worked years ago. I’ll help you discover what’s happening right here, right now. Let’s get started with the plan.

Your first step is to define your target market. The better you are able to define your niche, the better your future clients will be able to find you and your products or services.

Next, you want to get very specific about what you’re going to market on your webpage and make sure that it’s congruent with our next step. When a person finds you on a search engine, you have a window of only 3 to 5 seconds to convince them that you are exactly what they were looking for. Make it crystal clear what you offer. If your meaning is unclear, the prospect will jump to the next site and you’ll lose that business.

The following step is to brainstorm your keywords keeping in mind your target audience. How would they search for me? What would they look for? Don’t focus on how you identify yourself. The closer you are to your target audience, the more hits you will get, which equates to more customer traffic. The more specifically you target, the better off you are. You’re not going to have success if you list yourself too generically, there is too much competition and you’ll be lost in the crowd.

Once you have established your target market, define what specific categories you should be linking to and add them as part of your navigation page. A linking strategy is very important for building your link reputation. Links to your page will count towards link reputation and link popularity.

There are a lot of different search engines six in particular that give you about 90% of all webtraffic. Of those Google has the most web traffic so we’ll focus on it. Google has a link page rank feature which rates the importance of your page. You’ll want to download their toolbar http://toolbar.google.com. This will allow you to view the ranking of every site you visit and how important it is in the almighty eye of Google. This is a key ingredient in determining linking strategy. Google ranks itself as a 10 on their scale of 0 to 10 (the higher the ranking, the more important a page).

This is determined essentially by who is endorsing and linking to you.

You must map out how you’re going to get Google give to you a high page rank. For Google, the most important attribute is the title tag. You want to make sure you use your most targeted key word in the beginning of your title tag. Google will typically list the first 83 characters so the title is where you put your most valued key word(s) so it can be easily accessed.

The next maneuver is to focus on your link relevancy. Link relevancy is how well the text on your pages relates to your title tag, also taking in consideration the content of neighboring web pages. The analysis of all of this data enables Google to return results that are relevant to user queries. You want to be sure you are listed in user queries so make your content match your title, match your links, and match your products and or services. Remaining consistent and obvious is your key to directing traffic to your site.

Copyright 2005 Frontier Marketing Intl, LLC

About The Author

Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz radio show host, became a ก#1 Best Selling Authorก in just a few short hours. He has helped a number of clients target his specialty, optin email direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a soughtafter internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the worldกs top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies. For more information, visit Bacakกs site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com.

This article was posted on April 08

by Matt Bacak

You Can Do Business Online 201

You Can Do Business Online 201

by: Scarlet Paolicchi

If you read my 101 course, you now have a website and you have begun basic promotion. It is time to increase the traffic flow! Now is the time to increase links to your site. This serves you two purposes. Number one is the obvious, the more links, the more ways for people to find your site. Number two, the more links, the higher your search engine rankings! The first step is to take a trip to a search engine and type in words related to your site. This will bring up a whole list of sites that you can potentially get your link on. Now it is time for some work. You need to visit each site one by one and determine if it is appropriate for a link to your site. Do they have a list of website links or resources already? Would they benefit from your link? Some sites will list your link for free. Others will require link swaps, which are valuable as long as the subject matter is related. In other words, will your customers find these links useful? If you have a health product site and you link a fitness site, both of you will benefit from each others customers. So find the sites and then email them your proposal for a listing or link swap. Remember to make it appealing to them.
Next, it is time for advertising you site. There is one free advertising option that produces good results. You can write articles for ezine publication. Yes, you can write articles which relate to your website. The people that read these articles will have more trust in you and want to check out your website. This is how it works, there are thousands of ezines published and often the publishers accept article submissions. You don?t typically get paid for your article but they do include a ?resource box? with information about you and a link to your site. So everyone wins! Your first step is to write a brief article for publication. Make sure you edit it. You can submit your article in several ways. Number one, you can submit it to article directories which you can find on a search engine. Publishers often get articles from these directories. Examples of these are netterweb.com, articlecity.com, goarticles.com, and zinos. Number two, you can submit directly to ezine publishers. To do this, you should use a search engine to locate ezine directories. These directories list the publications by topic and give you contact information. This option is obviously more time consuming but it can also help you to develop a network in your field. Examples of such directories include, ezinelocator.com, ezinesearch.com, and jogena.com. The third option is to pay money to have an article blaster do it for you. You can also find these through a search engine.
Paid advertising presents tons of options. One of the most cost effective is to advertise your site through ezines. Not only is it relatively cheap, it works really well. Remember that ezines have a loyal customer base and are targeted to specific interests. The readers want information on the topic they subscribed to. For instance if you are selling an ebook on the best diet ever, chances are health ezine subscribers are interested. You can use the same directories that you submitted articles to and have them run your ads. You can also check out ezineauction.com to bid on advertisements but they have a limited ezine base. There are typically several options available for ezine advertising including classified, sponsor, and solo. I recommend solo for most impact, that?s why it is the most expensive though. Sponsor also works quite well if you have a short catchy advertisement.
Great, now you are making a name for yourself and your website online, but you can still do more! Look for ?You Can Do Business Online 301? to really build your customer base and increase your sales.

About The Author

Scarlet Paolicchi has her own online business for natural health care products at www.youngliving.com/scarlet so please visit to receive a FREE health newsletter or for details on business opportunities.

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 08, 2004

by Scarlet Paolicchi