How to Profit From Your Free Reprint Articles

By Kalena Jordan

I came across a very clever tactic by an article author the other day. I was reading one of his free reprint articles and when I finished it, I realized just how smart he really was. Not simply for the content of the article, which contained very timely and useful information, but for the way he managed to hook the reader in and possibly profit from them. Let me explain:

Like me and other article writers, this author circulates his articles to hundreds of article distribution lists on a regular basis. His articles contain a link back to his web site, which is an ideal way to boost his site's link popularity on the search engines. Like other authors, he writes about hot topics and current events in his particular industry. Like most article authors, he writes in a casual, relaxed style that engages the reader quickly and earns their trust. BUT, (here comes the clever part), unlike most article marketers, this author always divides his articles into two or more parts.

The first part of the article is circulated as a stand-alone free reprint article via traditional distribution methods. But at the end of the article and in his Author Resource Box, he adds a link to invite the reader to view "a continuation of the article" on his web site. The link is described as either part two of the first article, or a related article with more detailed information or a specific tutorial on how to implement what was discussed in part one.

Why does he do this? Because most people reading the first article will naturally click on the link leading to the next. Once they are at his web site, he has much more control over how the rest of the article/tutorial is presented. If the article is a tutorial about an aspect of web design or search engine marketing, it generally includes software recommendations that integrate his affiliate links. He also manages to weave in Google AdSense ads at convenient points between the article paragraphs. And of course, by the time readers arrive at his site, he has engaged the reader and gained enough of their trust for them to take his recommendations and click on his affiliate and AdSense links so he earns commission from them. Very clever, don't you think?


You too can use this tactic to profit from your own free reprint articles, by doing the following:

1) Write articles that solve a problem for the reader, like a "how to" article or a basic tutorial.

2) Write about hot or new topics in your industry that people are likely to be searching for.

3) Write the article in two or more segments and save the key instructions for part two.

4) Design a landing page for the later part/s of your article that naturally weaves in your affiliate links and/or AdSense ads.

5) Create a text link "hook" to the continuation of your article, (your landing page), from the bottom of part one.

6) Make sure the first part of your article is well-written and contains useful information as a stand-alone article. The key is to provide a relevant, interesting article with a link to another relevant, interesting article. No-one wants to read a poorly-disguised ad for your affiliate products.

7) Submit part one of your article to free distribution lists.

8) Observe the increased link popularity your site attains and the resulting increase in search engine traffic.

9) Enjoy the benefits and potential profits from your article marketing efforts!


Copyright © 2005 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.

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The above article may be re-published as long as the content remains unchanged and the following paragraph is included at the end of the article, including the URL links:

Article by Kalena Jordan. As well as running her own SEO business Web Rank, Kalena Jordan manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

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Adsense Tricks to Explode Your Profits

By Alli Ross

There are many adsense tips floating around the internet. Here are some adsense tricks that can drastically increase your CTR and your profits.

Lots of people say to make your ads blend in. However, some people are having a lot of success by making their links stand out. The most effective style seems to be having your links blue, while your other links are a less-noticeable color. A good example can be seen at www.lockergnome.com

- Place images directly above your ads. This simple technique has been known to increase CTR by 400%. To keep the images fresh some people randomize related images on their site using PHP code. You can see an example of these images at http://www.how-to-make-money-online.info/

- Google has cited the 336 x 280 large rectangle as the most effective ad size.

- Place ads where your visitors will likely be focused. Check out this heat map by Google .

- Weave your articles into your content. This is shown at lockergnome.com

- Place link units in the top left-hand corner. This part of the website has shown to be clicked on more than any other part of the page. You can see an example at lockergnome.com. (Look at the links at the top, towards the left in blue.)

- Take advantage of the "alternate URL" feature to avoid Public Service Ads that seep money away from your website.

- One of the best things you can do is add additional pages to your site. A web site with thousands of pages and tons of content often does very well in the search engines. You can
get free content from article directories. You could also use public domain content, which is a favorite tactic of John Reese. Or, you could use content in the creative commons. This is getting easier than ever now that Yahoo and others have created a search engine specifically for content in the creative commons.

Succeeding with adsense is largely determined by the amount of traffic to your site. However, there are many adsense tricks that you can employ to get the most possible out of your site. Often times, this means doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling your earnings. The key is to find out what works for your web site. Testing and tracking is the key to increased revenue!

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About the Author:

Alli Ross is the marketing chick at Sticky Articles, where you can submit your articles for free exposure.

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Autoresponders = Automatic Internet Marketing Success

By Glenn McDonald

What if you could send out all the information that your
potential customers have requested without checking your
email or answering a phone? While this may seem impossible,
it is becoming more and more popular among the most
successful Internet marketing gurus. This is all due to
what is called an autoresponder.

An autoresponder is an automatic method of responding to emails sent by existing or potential customers and is an must for any Internet business. Time is money and answering emails personally take a lot of valuable time for both you and the customer. Not only do autoresponders allow you to spend the time elsewhere in your business, but it gives the customer access to the information almost immediately.

Since there are so many different uses for autoresponders,
they can be of value to virtually any type of business.
Some choose to use the autoresponders to answer frequently
asked questions about a product or service. Others use them
to provide information about pricing or product information. Autoresponders are also a nice way to welcome new members to a website or group as well as thank them after a visit.

One might ask what would be the advantage of using
autoresponders as opposed to simply listing the information
on the site. An important feature of autoresponders is that
they send you an email notification each time a response is
sent out. This allows you to track the success of your
promotions as well as have the email addresses of potential
customers at your fingertips so that you can easily send
out updated and new information to them.

It is of the utmost importance to choose an effective
autoresponder. An autoresponder should be as personal as
possible and send out follow-ups to potential customers
since it has been proven that persistence pays off. It
could take up to seven contacts before a final sale is
conducted. Generally speaking an advertisement should be
short and to the point. However, in this case, the customer
has asked to see this specific information and therefore an
effective autoresponder should allow you to place as much
text on the page as you desire. The autoresponder that you
choose should provide automatic updates to customers free
of charge.

The autoresponder is one Internet marketing tool that will
not cost you an arm and a leg. You can get free
autoresponders online from several sources. The automatic
responses will be a welcome addition to your marketing
strategy and will help to automatically increase traffic to
your site all while you do nothing. Be sure that the one
you choose includes all the extras that will send you site
to the top and your profits through the roof.


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About the Author:

Glenn McDonald can help YOU start your own profitable
business on the Internet within the next 24 hours... To
learn more, visit his site.

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Internet Marketing For Sales Leads

By Mike Law

NO matter what business you are trying to build online, you will
need sales leads if you are ever going to make sales, and sales
leads are what you are trying to generate if you are marketing on
the internet. In order to survive, any web site needs a steady
flow of qualified leads.

The aim of any lead generation campaign is to build your mailing
list. Internet marketers often say "the money is in the list",
which is totally true. A list of responsive buying customers that
trust you is worth its weight in gold!

While spam filtering has lessened the impact of email marketing,
it's still a viable means to getting your sales messages out
there. In theory, email is marketing is free, although of course
its costs you in terms of your time. The theory behind email
marketing is that by using a "hook" such as a free product or
some other incentive, you can "funnel" interested parties onto
specific products and services.

When you consider generating leads via an email campaign there
are basically three avenues you can explore: email signatures,
joint ventures and safe lists. One word of warning though, and
that is avoid spam at all cost, one spam complaint can seriously
damage your online business. You should familiarize yourself with
the laws concerning spam, and at the very least ensure you
include a un-subscription link in ALL your marketing emails. Due
to spam, it is advisable that you avoid buying leads, no matter
how reputable the company, buying leads can easily lead to a spam
complaint, you have been warned!

In its simplest form, email marketing is a matter of putting a
signature in all your emails that contains a link to your main
product.

If you are looking to vastly increase your list quickly then a
joint venture (JV) may well be the key you need. In its simplest
form, in a JV you supply the product and a fellow marketer
supplies the leads and you share the profits. Hopefully, you will
then get the emails of your fellow marketer's customers, so you
can then mail them with further offers.

When considering a joint venture there are many considerations
you have to think about, but the main one, before you consider
contacting anyone about mailing to their list, is "what's in it
for THEM", not "what's in it for me". NEVER write to a fellow
marketer unless you can offer them something of value in return
for their help, and that is not necessarily just a share of the
profits, be inventive!

Finally you have safe lists. A safe list is a list of people that
have agreed to receive marketing emails in return for being able
to send their own marketing email. The value of this form of
marketing has never been that good. After all you are trying to
sell to people who are only interested in selling to you!

You can use pay per click advertising such as overture or Goggle
adwords to advertise your site and draw in interested leads.

One other highly effective way of generating interested leads is
posting in forums that are related to your area of business.
Include a link to your site in your signature and people
interested in your sphere of business will often click it if your
forum post was interesting.

Three other popular sales lead generation techniques are
submitting articles to ezine publishers and article directories,
press releases and testimonials for products in your target
market.

No matter what lead generation technique you employ you will need
a way to capture your leads email address when they arrive at
your site.

The traditional method has been to use a pop up or pop under
which contains some incentive to get someone to sign up. With the
invention of pop up stoppers their effectiveness has dwindled and
therefore unstoppable pop ups (also know as hover ads or slide in
ads) have evolved. This new generation of pop ups are built into
your webpage and as such cannot be stopped. Simply do a search on
Goggle for "unstoppable pop up" and you are sure to find a
software solution to produce these types of pop ups for you.

The other alternative is to use what is called a "name squeeze
page".

In essence a name squeeze page is a web page whose sole purpose
is to capture an email address.

They generally contain a small amount of information about the
product or service you are selling as a "teaser" for the reader
and will contain a sign up form, with a message like "to find out
more simply fill in the form to be immediately directed to
further details on this amazing product".

A name squeeze page not only helps build your list, this
information can also be used with certain software to help
personalize your site for your visitor, a technique that has been
shown to increase sales. Again, simply do a search for name
squeeze page generators.

No matter how you generate sales leads there is one thing always
to bear in mind, and that is to be effective your leads must be
in your targeted market. If, for example, you are selling
internet marketing products, then it's no use advertising on a
site that is all about scuba diving!

When you start to build your online business, ensure you include
a well thought out sales lead generation strategy from the
beginning. Do not make it an afterthought; this should be in
place from the very beginning if you want your business to be a
success.


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About the Author:

Mike Law is also CEO of http://www.wealthontap.com whose mission is to better people's lifestyles by substantially improving their health and or their financial status.

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Starting Your Own Home Based Business

By Alvin Narsey

Starting a home based business is a common step for
those looking to create more wealth or leave the daily
grind of the rat race. Starting your own home based
business requires a great deal of planning to ensure
that you are on the correct path to achieving your
goals. Many businessess fail without adequate
planning, and indeed a home based business will do the
same.

There are a few fundamental questions that you need to
consider in starting your own home based business.

1) Your motivation: ie: Why do you want to start your
own home based business? Understanding why you are
starting a home based business will give you better
grounding for all future endeavours. This will be the
anchor to your purpose in starting your own home based
business.

Some questions to help you determine why
you want to start your own home based business:

a) Do you want to work better hours? not 9-5?
b) Do you want to be your own boss? Why?
c) Do you want to improve your financial position? By
how much? When do you want to do it by? Why?

2) Are you prepared: ie: Are you prepared for the
demands of starting your own home based business?
Starting your own home based business means you will
be doing multiple roles within the business. This can
be stressful to your physical and emotional health.

Some questions to help you determine why you want to
start your own home based business:

a) Are you prepared to put in the hours required to
succeed?
b) Do you have the support of your family in starting
your own home based business?
c) Are you prepared to lower your standard of living
until your own home based business is properly
established?

3) What skills and experience you have that you can
bring into starting your own home based business?

a) Do you have experience in the field you are
starting your own home based business in?
b) Are you good at making quick decisions?
c) Are you prepared to learn new skills in starting
your own home based business?

4) What are your finances in starting your own home
based business? Are you able to fund the initial
investments and operating cash flows in the early
stages of starting your own home based business?

a) Do you have enough money to start your own home
based business?
b) Do you know how much money you can borrow start
your own home based business?
c) Are you comfortable taking financial risks in
starting your own home based business?

These are some of the key things that need to be
considered when starting your own home based business.

The above points are often overlooked, and planning
stages rushed through when people are starting their
own home based business. By considering the above
questions, your will have clear indications on why you
are starting your own home based business and a
reference guide should you run into any difficulties
in starting your own home based business.


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Alvin Narsey (http://www.parttimeincome.org)
leverages the Internet in starting his own home based
business by employing cutting edge automation systems
and Resources which allows him to put his business on
autopilot. Take a free tour to learn how YOU can
achieve your dreams the same way.

Who Is Alvin From Melbourne Anyway?

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Researching the Pros and Cons of Getting Your Degree Online

by Dan Allen

Are you considering getting your bachelor's or master's or other
degree online? It's a growing field that's receiving acceptance
and approval for all types of career and education goals.

The biggest advantage to online degree education is that it's
a complete college degree program that is delivered via the
Internet. All classes, materials, tests and lectures are
delivered online. This process allows the student to "attend"
class from anywhere at any time that is convenient to them.

According to educators from Cornell University, "the web
provides significant new functionality in transmitting
information to the student and providing forums for exchange.
The web is revolutionizing some areas of study through increased
opportunities for learning and alternative formats for
information." (Dwyer, Barbieri, and Doerr, 1995).

One of the ways it has done this is through enhanced student-to-student and faculty-to-student communication. Students and faculty can both benefit from using the communication and assessment tools that are made available via online learning.

The technology also enables students to exercise more flexibility
in their approach to education, depending on what best suits
their personal learning styles and busy schedules.

In addition, the class material and program is continuously
updated for up to the minute, real world application. This allows
the student to immediately begin applying their new knowledge to
their existing work environment.

There are many different types of programs available. Students
can receive a bachelor's or master's degree in many areas such as accounting, marketing, human resources, e-business, information technology, nursing and even elementary education.

The typical online program takes three years to complete. A
master's degree program may take up to four years depending on
the type of degree sought and the prior education of the student.

Most programs are accredited and they usually accept the transfer of prior credits from other accredited universities. Some of them are also well-known off-line schools such as Duke, Stanford, Jones International, and Capella.

While enrolled, a student typically takes just one class at a
time for a five to six week period. This allows the student to
concentrate solely on that material before moving on to the next
module of information.

The price of an online degree education program is comparable to
that of a regular college degree. Plus, many students are
eligible for financing in the way of a student loan. Sometimes
employer education programs can even reimburse a student's
tuition fees.

Keep in mind though, that you may have to be a little more
organized and self-motivated for this type of education and you
will have to manage time demands in other areas of your life.
Because you normally won't have set class times, it will be up
to you to the time into your schedule. Then again, some programs
require that you log on to the Internet at designated times for
virtual class sessions.

Another potential disadvantage is that some employers still
prefer that their employees have degrees from traditional
colleges. However, these views are rapidly changing.

A recent survey of 1,300 graduates and 80 employers asked
supervisors to rate the value of the degree earned by their
employee compared to a resident school degree in the same field.
Sixty-nine percent of the supervisors rated the online degree
"just as valuable" or "more valuable" than traditional degrees.
This means that one out of three supervisors need to be convinced that an online degree offers the same quality and content as a traditional degree.

Plus, traditional brick and mortar universities who offer online courses often make no separation between their programs and the type of degree awarded. And transcripts do not indicate whether a course was done at a distance or on campus.

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About the Author:

Dan Allen is the founder of AboutOnlineDegrees, a site dedicated
to providing a wide array of information and resources for those
thinking of getting their degree online.

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Increasing Link Popularity

By Paul Buckley

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are
the first tool that potential customers use to find the
products and services they need. This is why link
popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find
your website, you have no possibilities of making any
sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about
a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to
the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,
and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords
are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably
wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking
to sites that have links to their pages from related,
quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important
one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the
most popular search engines employ it to rank your web
pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will
be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this
step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly
on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are
tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the
most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is
that just linking up with a large number of other websites
will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have
quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when
pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link
farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate
links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against
your website if you are associated with a link farm, so
steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site
you are linking to. Never link to a page you have
reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you
want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.
Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link
popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link
popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on
all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the
door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as
Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is
business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and
despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,
it will be money well spent. If your site is
non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take
time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open
Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are
business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make
a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site
listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of
appropriate category, and this just takes some common
sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from
an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny
State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from
Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is
look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine
Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself
with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is
to locate other quality sites that will increase your link
popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related
to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,
but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to
avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful
to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site
example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies
would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the
knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are
also greater. By linking to a related site that will be
relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both
of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites'
link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have
to do some research when you are looking for possible
linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for
your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think
quality customers will also enter to find your own site.
Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,
non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.
Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the
quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.
Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and
determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must
set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link
on your own links page to their site. This is an essential
first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances
significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added
their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.
Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make
sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk
mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat
that you have added a link to their page on your site. A
hook like this almost always insures the reader will read
on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much
you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that
you have actually visited their site, and that their site
is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your
links page, and ask them to check out the link for
themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not
only benefit from the increased traffic your website will
direct their way, but you will also increase their link
popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so
essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't
sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would
greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on
their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as
you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and
non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant
sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if
they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,
and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then
give it another month, and if your site is still absent
from their links page, it's time to remove their link from
your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a
link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial
to your link popularity and your business needs. Just
remember to keep all your communications complimentary and
cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search
engines frequently to see if your link popularity has
improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It
will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no
way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your
link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with
such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined
site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.
Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long
as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!


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About the Author:

Published by Paul Buckley of The Profit Eye
Copyright © 2005 Paul Buckley

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23 Ways To Use An Ad Tracker

By Harvey Segal

The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record
of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This
article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad
tracker.


FOR AFFILIATES


#1. The Long Url Problem

Have you ever seen an ad where you are asked to click on an
affiliate URL so long that it stretches over 2 lines, like
this

www/anysite.com/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/.cgi?
code=123RT&type=10235&subid=89715

Do you think your reader will bother to do the necessary cut
and paste to put it in a browser?

Probably not.

And that's probably one lost sale.

And even a one line affiliate link may exceed the
permissible length for some ad posting requirements.

The solution: use a short tracking URL.


#2. Losing Your Affiliate Code

As an affiliate you may have your affiliate code embedded in
a link something like this:

http://www.abc.com/123

Some customers will bypass the affiliate code and just type
in the home URL http://www.abc.com (possibly because they
think that they will be paying extra for an agent's
commission)

The solution: use a tracking URL - so that your affiliate
code number is never seen.


#3. Make Your Ad Stand Out

You may have seen search engine results showing near
identical listings for the same product, differing only in
an affiliate code appended to the URL.

Your listing here will be just one of many unless you make
it stand out. So bypass the standard affiliate URL and use a
tracking URL.


#4. How Effective Are The Links

You can measure and compare the effectiveness of the
different banners or text links the affiliate programs
provide you by using a tracking URL.


#5. Changing Links

If an affiliate company change their links then your
existing ads, wherever they are posted, become worthless.
But if you use a tracking URL you simply revise the
affiliate URL at the tracking control centre.


#6. Affiliate Program Discontinued

Similarly if an affiliate program is discontinued you just
change your tracking URL to a new page where you explain
the
circumstances and point your visitor to your other
promotions.


#7. Better Affiliate Stats

Not all affiliate programs provide you with stats about visitors.
And if they do are they adequate ?

Compare a basic monthly figure say
- Jan: 39 hits

with a detailed analysis such as

- Jan 12: 10 hits
- Jan 13: 2 hits
- Jan 20: 21 hits
- Jan 21: 6 hits

where you can relate those dates to particular ad campaigns.

Tracking URLs will give you these improved figures.


#8. Checking Affiliate Stats

Even if you do receive good stats from your affiliate
program it still makes sense to use tracking URLs so that
you can compare your figures with theirs.

A large discrepancy could mean errors in their software or
(hopefully not) fraudulent activity on their part.

An alternative reason is that their measurement takes place
when their page is fully loaded rather than at the start,
indicating that visitors are clicking away because it is
taking too long to load.


FOR EZINE PUBLISHERS


#9. Win Advertisers With Tracking Reports

If you sell advertising space in your ezine you can offer to
your advertisers to replace their URLs with your tracking
URLs and Email them the results.

Tell your advertisers about these benefits in your
advertising guidelines

- They will know the number of clickthroughs their ad has
generated. They can then decide how to improve the ads for
better performance

- If they use a tracker program with your own domain name in
the tracking URL your ezine subscribers will be more
inclined to click

- They can use your ezine as a test centre, modifying their
ads until they are happy, before launching with other
publishers


#10. Use Tracking Report Results

The tracking reports above will provide you with information
on your subscribers' interests, influencing your editorial
content and helping you select which potential advertisers
to approach

Also, once your advertisers have seen for themselves the
benefits of an ad tracking program they will be inclined to
purchase one. So set yourself up as an affiliate for a
program and promote it to them.


#11. Measure Your Readership

You may know how many subscribers you have but how many
actually open and read your ezine and which parts of it
attract most attention ?

Here's how to find out if you distribute your ezine in HTML
Format: include an image on your page, e.g a banner or logo
or a single pixel GIF. Then reference this image with a
tracking URL.

For an ezine distributed as plain text it is not possible to
see if it is actually opened or read. But what you can do is
insert tracking URLs at the appropriate points, such as
product offers or special articles, and get comparative
figures for which items are being read.


AT YOUR WEB SITE

#12. The Problem Of Permanent URLs

Web sites are continually evolving and changing.

You may want to rename a page to make it more consistent
and logical but there's a huge problem. You have given out the
URL in an ebook, or a directory submission, or an article or
wherever. There's no way you can undo this.

The solution ?

Never provide the actual URL, just a tracking URL. You can
then just edit the link at the tracking centre whenever a
page is moved or renamed.

The external links, in your ebook for example, stay the same
but they will redirect to your new page.


#13. What Are Your Visitors Doing ?

You have text links all over your site, links to your other
pages and links to recommended sites.

Where are your visitors clicking ?

Where are they leaving your site, why, how can you stop
them ?

Which graphic do they click on the most ?

Do they click on the text link more than the graphic link?

Your log files may tell you at best which are the most
popular pages at your site but it is vital to know how your
visitors move through your site and what is tempting them.

Use tracking URLs to replace actual links wherever you need
to monitor click activity.


#14. Sell Website Advertising Space

You can offer tracking reports to your advertisers in the
same way as for ezine publishers (above).


#15. Stop Piracy

If you have invested man-months of time setting up a vital
resource site involving a directory of links it's very easy
for a pirate to simply copy your page and provide useful
content for his own site.

If you use tracking URLs for those directory links you can
detect this copy - because the ad tracking program will
record the referring URL.

At the same time of course you can measure the popularity of
the directory links.


USING PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES

#16. Better Click Activity Reporting

Pay per click search engines will report to you click
activity on your URL. Engines vary in the frequency and
format of the reporting so you can use tracking URLs instead
to obtain better information.


#17. Prevent Fraudulent Activity

You can compare your figures with the engine's and should
query any large discrepancy.

If click activity is unusually high you may have a
competitor clicking on just to incur costs against you. You
may be able to detect this by comparing the figures for
unique hits and actual hits (several hits per visitor).


OFFLINE MARKETING

#18. Check How Successful

If you have ever wondered whether it was worth advertising
off line because of the supposed impossibility of measuring
the response then ad tracking URLs will answer that problem.
Just include them in your ads in

- newspapers
- magazines
- flyers
- billboards
- press releases
- shop notice boards
- and so on


#19. Use The Time Reports

The date and time when clicks are made will allow you to
check the progress of your ads, for example

- has your newspaper ad been submitted yet ?
- has your billboard notice been removed ?
- how long does a magazine ad stay around ?

For a long running ad you can study the response and switch
the link midstream if necessary to an improved web page.


EBOOKS

#20. Do Free Books Work ?

The main purpose of a free ebook is to get the reader back
to your site. But how successful is it proving ?

Put tracking URLs in the book and you will find out.


#21. Maintain Control After Download

Once your ebook is downloaded it would appear that you no
longer have any control over it. Not so. You can redirect
the reader to other pages of your site by changing the
tracking Url links.


OTHER WAYS

#22. Become An Ad Tracking Affiliate

Since ad tracking programs are high demand marketing tools
you can profit by joining their affiliate program (if they
have one).

Owning the product that you promote always gives that extra
advantage e.g you can give an example of how you use it or a
personal testimonial as to how it has benefited you.


#23. Privacy

You may want to post an URL somewhere and - for reasons of
your own - not let it reveal your website. You can do this
with an ad tracking program where the supplier domain name
is used in the tracking URL.


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About the Author:

Learn all about ad trackers with Harvey's
free ebook Ad Tracking SuperTips.

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Google Sitemaps: 7 Benefits You Can't Ignore

By Tony Simpson

Google Sitemaps enables Webmasters to Directly Alert Google to
Changes and Additions on a Website and that's just one of 7
Benefits.

Telling search engines about new pages or new websites use to
be what the submission process was all about. But major search
engines stopped using that process a long time ago.

Google has for a long time depended on external links from
pages they already know about in order to find new websites.

For webmasters and website owners Google Sitemaps is the most
important development since RSS or Blog and Ping, to hit the
Internet.

Using RSS and Blog and Ping enabled webmasters to alert the
search engines to new additions to their web pages even though
that was not the primary purpose of these systems.

If you've ever waited weeks or months to get your web pages
found and indexed you'll know how excited we webmasters get
when someone discovers a new way to get your web pages found
quicker.

Well that new way has just arrived in Google Sitemaps and it's
a whole lot simpler than setting up an RSS feed or Blog and
Ping. If you haven't heard of Blog and Ping it's a means by
which it's possible to alert the search engines to crawl your
new website content within a matter of hours.

If you're a webmaster or website owner Google Sitemaps is
something you can't afford to ignore, even if you're also using
RSS and/or Blog and Ping

The reason you should start using Google Sitemaps is that it's
designed solely to alert and direct Google Search Engine
crawlers to your web pages. RSS and Blog and Ping are indirect
methods to alert search engines, but it's not there primary
purpose.

It works now, but like most things it's becoming abused. Search
Engines will find ways to combat the abuse as they've done with
every other form of abuse that's gone before.

Abusing the search engines is a short term not a long term
strategy and in some cases certain forms of abuse will get you
banned from a search engines index.

You may also be thinking, don't we already have web page meta
tags that tell a search engine when to revisit a page. That's
true, but the search engine spider still has to find the new
page first, before it can read the meta tag. Besides that meta
tags are out of favour with many search engines especially
Google, because of abuse.

If talk of search engine spiders leaves you confused, they're
nothing more than software programs that electronically scour
the Internet visiting web sites looking for changes and new
pages.

How often the search engine spider alias robot, visits your
website depends on how often your site content is updated, or
you alert them to a change. Otherwise for a search engine like
Google they may only visit a website once a month.

As the internet gets bigger every second of every day, the
problem for search engines and webmasters is becoming evidently
greater. For the search engines it's taking their search spiders
longer to crawl the web for new sites or updates to existing
ones.

For the webmaster it's taking longer and becoming more
difficult to get web pages found and indexed by the search
engines

If you can't get web pages found and indexed by search engines,
your pages will never be found in a search and you'll get no
visitors from search engines to those pages.

The answer to this problem at least for Google is Google
Sitemaps

Whilst still only in a beta phase while Google refines the
process, it's fully expected that this system, or one very
similar, is here to stay.

Google Sitemaps is clearly a win-win situation

Google wins because it reduces the huge waste of their
resources to crawl web sites that have not changed. Webmasters
win because they alert Google through Google Sitemaps what
changes or new content has been added to a website and direct
Google's crawlers to the exact pages.

Google Sitemaps has the potential to speed up the process of
discovery and addition of pages to Google's index for any
webmaster that uses Google Sitemaps.

Conventional sitemaps have been used by webmasters for quite
some time to allow the easier crawling of their websites by the
search engine spiders. This type of sitemap is a directory of
all pages on the website that the webmaster wants the search
engines or visitors to find.

Without sitemaps a webmaster runs the risk of webpage's being
difficult to find by the search engine crawlers, or never being
found at all.

Do I need Google Sitemaps if I already have sitemaps on my
websites ?

Google Sitemaps are different to conventional sitemaps because
they're only seen by the Search Engine Spiders and not human
visitors. Google Sitemaps also contain information that's only
of value to the search engine in a format they understand.

Creating Google Sitemaps in 5 steps

1. Create Google Sitemaps in a supported format ( see end of
article )

2. Upload Google Sitemaps to your Web Hosting space

3. Register for a free Google Account if you don't already have
one

4. Login to your Google Sitemaps Account and submit the
location of your sitemaps

5. Update your Sitemaps when your site changes and Resubmit it
to Google

From your Google Sitemaps account you can also see when your
sitemap was last updated and when Google downloaded it for
processing. It will also tell you if there were any problems
found with your sitemaps.

Google Sitemaps can be used with commercial or non-commercial
websites, those with a single webpage, through to sites with
millions of constantly updated pages. However a single Google
Sitemaps file is limited to 50,000 web pages. For websites with
more pages, another Google Sitemaps file must be created for
each block of 50,000 pages.

If you want Google to crawl more of your pages and alert them
when content on your site changes, you should be using Google
Sitemaps. The other added benefit is it's free.

If you're expecting this special alert process with Google
Sitemaps to improve your Page Rank, change the way Google ranks
your web pages, or in any way guarantee inclusion of your web
pages, Google has made it clear it will make no difference.

Google Sitemaps web pages are still subject to the same rules
as non Google Sitemaps pages.

If your site has dynamic content or pages that aren't easily
discovered by following links, Google Sitemaps will allow
spiders to know what URLs are available and how often page
content changes.

Google has said that Google Sitemaps is not a replacement for
the normal crawling of web pages and websites as that will
continue in the conventional way. Google Sitemaps does however
allow the search engine to do a better job of crawling your
site.

The Google Sitemap Protocol is an XML file containing a list of
the URLs on a site. It also tells the search engine when each
page was last updated, how often each page changes and how
important each page is in relation to other web pages in the
site.

Google Sitemaps 7 Benefits You Can't Ignore

1. Alert Google to Changes and Additions to your Website
Anytime You Want

2. Your Website is crawled more Efficiently and Effectively

3. Web Pages are Categorized and Prioritized exactly How You
Want

4. Speed up the process of New Website and New Web Page
Discovery

5. No Waiting and Guessing to see when Spiders crawl your web
pages

6. Google Sitemaps is likely to set the standard for Webpage
Submission and Update Notification which will extend the
benefits to other Search Engines

7. The Google Sitemaps service is Free

Exactly how to create a Google Sitemaps file to upload to your
website is explained on my site.


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About The Author:

Tony Simpson is a Web Designer and Search Engine Optimizer
who brings a touch of reality to building a Web Business. He
also provides advice on Website Automation at his site.

Tony explains how to create Google Sitemaps in the continuing
part of this article.

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Do Marketers Really Need RSS?

By Rok Hrastnik

The recent Forrester Research study, which claims that only
2% of online households in North America use RSS, took the
internet marketing world by storm. Does this data really
mean that marketers can still afford to ignore this channel?

Soon after the Forrrester study became public, I received a
press enquiery asking whether marketers should be
interested in RSS now that so few online adults use it.

Is this the correct question to ask? Let's take a look at
the bigger picture .

1. THE FORRESTER STUDY VALIDITY

The Forrester study is just one of those available and
cannot be considered as the only relevant study, although
it was conducted on a sample of 68,000 households.

Jupiter Research estimates RSS penetration at 12% of the
American online population, while the latest report from
PEW shows that 9% of the American online population has a
good idea of what RSS is. An October 2004 PEW study
actually estimated RSS penetration at 5%.

It is also important to understand that Forrester data does
not include those that might not even be aware they are
using RSS, especially through services such as My.Yahoo,
which is actually the most popular RSS reader.

Also, at the same time, Forrester Vice President Henry
Harteveldt says that »RSS is critical for any organization
that wants to reach out to people under the age of 30«.

2. THE FUTURE GROWTH OF RSS

Regardless of the numbers we put our faith in, the future
growth of RSS is without question. Microsoft just recently
announced full RSS support in the next edition of their
Internet Explorer browser and full RSS integration in the
next edition of their operating system, the Windows Vista.

Once RSS becomes easily available to most internet users
out-of-the-box and becomes as widely spread as bookmarks,
its adoption will grow at an incredible rate. Microsoft has
now made sure this in fact will happen.

Consequently, the time for marketers to not only become
interested in RSS but also master it is now. Those that
test and discover the best possible ways of using RSS for
marketing will be ahead of their competition once everyone
starts using RSS.

Furthermore, since RSS implementation can actually be free
of any charge, there's no reason not to start providing
your content in RSS feeds now.

3. GOOGLE SHOWS THE WAY

Microsoft and Yahoo! aren't the only big players to show
support for RSS. Google recently launched RSS advertising
as part of their Google AdSense program, giving publishers
reason to start their own RSS feeds to generate direct
revenues.

Those that depend on Google AdSense for part or all of
their online revenues actually need to provide RSS feeds,
or stand to lose some of those revenues due to their
visitors switching to sites and feeds from their
competitors.

Face it, today many users are already starting to request
publishers provide them with RSS to subscribe to their
content. This trend will only continue, with many users
selecting RSS as their primary channel of receiving and
reading online content.

4. THE QUESTIONABLE RELIABILITY OF E-MAIL

All marketers today are experiencing e-mail delivery
problems, constantly wondering whether their messages are
getting through or not. Simply put, e-mail can no longer be
relied on.

For one, offering your content via RSS as a supplement to
e-mail will help you make certain that at least a portion
of your visitors, those that decide for the RSS option,
will be receiving all of your content without any doubt.

Lockergnome.com decided to start pushing RSS instead of
e-mail some time ago, and as a result saw that their RSS
feeds are outperforming e-mail when it comes to
clickthrough rates for about 500%. Also an interesting
fact, they today have 5 times more RSS subscribers than
e-mail subscribers.

And two, for your most important content updates, RSS
really is becoming a must, especially if you need to be in
contact with your existing customers, partners and other
key audiences. If you want to be 100% certain that your
messages reach your audience, RSS is the way to go.

5. OTHER BENEFITS OF RSS

But all of the above don't even touch all the reasons why
marketers should start using RSS today .

a) RSS will help you generate additional traffic and reach
new audiences. Considering the low cost of RSS
implementation, this is reason enough to get started with
RSS today.

b) RSS helps you to easily get your content published on
other sites, thus generating you more credibility and
visitors.

c) As a publisher you can use RSS to display content from
other sources, thus making your site more relevant and
interesting to your existing visitors.

And the list goes on and on.

RSS may not be mainstream yet, but it provides enough
advantages even today to make it a must-choice for
marketers.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

About the Author:

Find out immediately how you can power your online business
with RSS and integrate it in all of your marketing. Request
the free 28-page Business Case for RSS report, with
easy-to-follow instructions, examples and advice on how to
get the most out of RSS in the shortest possible time.

Get the free download here:
http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/case/index.html?src=sa15

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Fueling the Ideal - Marketing with Articles

By Bonnie Jo Davis

It's that time of year again ... pages of backpacks, notebooks
and back-to-school clothing fill every circular that hits your
mailbox. And you're off to the races ... the races being the
mall, plus every other store in between.

You're in the same spot you were last year this time, getting
ready to head off to work while your kids head off to school.
Back to hugging them goodbye in the morning and seeing them just long enough in the evening to say I love you and tuck them in.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if the easier schedule of the summer
lasted all year long? No more spending all your hours away from
your kids just to earn enough money to cover the essentials and
pay daycare?

Take it from someone who knows both sides of the deal here and
believe that there's no time like right now to make the
transition from the regular grind to working from home. As the
proud Mom of a 2005 honors graduate who's heading off to college soon, I know first hand what a major impact working from home has had on his success.

When my son was very young, I worked a full-time job away from
home, plus at least one part-time job on weekends. This meant
that my son was in daycare while I worked. As a single parent
who didn't receive child support (for years) though, I had no
other choice.

A few years later in the 1990's, I decided there had to be a
better way so I started a part-time medical billing service from
my home. This allowed me to give up the outside part-time job
and gave me the practical means of earning the much-needed
income. Best of all, it gave me the priceless opportunity to
take care of my son while I worked. I quickly saw that I was
onto something great here ... what a concept!

I moved from the east coast to California with my son in 1995
where my first full-time job was with a consulting firm co-owned
by a professional speaker. After some negotiations with my boss,
we entered into an agreement by which I would work mornings in
the office, leave to pick up my son from school in the
afternoons and work from home the rest of the day. It worked out incredibly well ... so well in fact, that in 2000, I decided to leave the consulting firm and start my own full-time home based
virtual assistant business.

Starting from scratch, I knew that gaining exposure for my
business was essential if I wanted to be successful in my new
venture. I also knew that traditional forms of marketing are
very expensive and quickly gobble up the profits, particularly
in the early stages. However, I also remembered a technique that
I used successfully for my former employer.

Besides being a consultant and professional speaker, he was also
an author, so his goals included increasing his number of
speaking engagements and selling more copies of his books. He
hoped to accomplish these goals by establishing himself as an
expert in his industry, which meant having his work published by
every major magazine in his field.

Committed to accomplishing his goals, he gave me a list of those
publications, so I drafted a query letter based on one of his
story ideas and e-mailed it to the editor of one of the
magazines. The editor responded in short notice and offered my
employer an article assignment. They published my boss's
article soon afterwards and featured it on the cover of the
magazine, producing an onslaught of calls to the office!

Writing and submitting that one article produced several paid
speaking engagements. This new marketing intrigue fascinated me, so I fine-tuned my article submission process creating logs and checklists, and within a few months, my boss had accomplished his goal of publication in every magazine on his list!

Even online and in-print publications we hadn't contacted began
calling and e-mailing in request of articles. The results of
writing and submitting articles was so successful that we put
other major marketing techniques on hold so my boss could travel
to his paid speaking engagements.

As my interest and experience grew in this area of marketing, I
knew that if it worked for my boss that it would work for other
professionals as well. Soon, I was earning over half my income
handling article submissions for other professionals.

Then I realized that if this technique worked for other
professionals that it would work for me too in building my own
business. And it has worked for me!

This same marketing technique, which I call marketing with
articles, has been the success behind my own business. I've
used it to expand my client base and build my virtual assistance
business into a solid income-generating company, which has
allowed me to work full-time at home for the past five years. As
my son is getting ready to leave for college, my personal goal
now is to help other parents be successful in achieving their
career goals while living the dream of staying home with their
children.

The concept of marketing with articles does not require a
professional writer. Anyone can be successful in building their
business and gaining credibility as an expert in their industry
or area of expertise by writing and submitting free reprint
articles to online and in-print publications. The key to
success is in reaching your target audience with resourceful
information that is valuable to them.

Editors of both online and in-print publications are in constant
demand of quality content for their readers. They have a
continuing need to publish content that appeals directly to
their target audience, which is where you come in. By writing
and submitting free reprint articles to publications that reach
readers in your market, you have the opportunity to establish
yourself as an expert and gain a generous amount of exposure for
your business.

True, you aren't earning money for actually writing the articles,
but you are earning a huge payoff here. Not only do you
establish your credibility as an expert in your industry or area
of expertise, but you earn significant exposure for yourself
and your business. Most editors will include your byline with
your articles, which gives you the opportunity to include your
name and contact information, plus the URL of your web site.
Readers come to recognize your name and relate it with certain
topics. The more articles you write and submit, the more
exposure you gain!

The marketing with articles technique helped turn my dream of
working from home full-time into a precious reality that has
made a positive impact for both my son and me. As he goes off to
college, he'll be leaving with all the benefits of having had a
mom who found a way to support him financially without the high
cost of being away from him all day. Me, I'll have the benefit
of knowing that the bittersweet wind I'm putting beneath his
wings comes from my deepest desires for his complete success!

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(c) 2005, Davis Virtual Assistance. Reprint rights granted to
all venues so long as article and by-line are reproduced intact
with links made live.

Bonnie Jo Davis is a full-time work-from-home mom who built her
business on the concept of marketing with articles. An
accomplished writer and marketing strategist, she offers over
ten years of success in writing and submitting articles for
gaining exposure and growing your business. Visit
http://www.ArticleSubmissionSites.com to learn how her technique offers the means for success in starting and/or growing your own business.

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Turn Harmful 404 Error Pages Into Helpful 301 Redirects

By Tony Simpson

It's a fact, Page Not Found, known as a 404 error, can harm
your website Ranking with Search Engines as well as being a
Turn-Off for Visitors.

A search engine that repeatedly gets a 404 error will de-list
the page from its index. Too many 404 error pages on your
website and its ranking with the search engines will suffer.

Visitors are always just one click away from clicking to
another search and another website. Present them with a page
not found 404 error and these days they'll not stick around
long enough to search for your missing page.

How Many 404 Error Pages Do You Have Right Now on Your Website?

Unless you check your web stat error logs regularly you'll
never know just how many 404 error pages your site has. Even if
you don't have a single 404 error right now, I can absolutely
guarantee you'll get them.

How Can I Avoid 404 Error Pages ?

The simple answer is you can't, a 404 error can not be avoided.

They happen when you rename a page.

They happen if you delete a page.

They happen if you change the page file extension i.e. htm to
html or php.

They happen if you move a page to another location.

They happen if other sites link to pages which don't exist.

They happen if visitors have bookmarked pages that no longer
exist.

They happen if visitors mistype a URL.

How is a 301 Redirect Helpful ?

A 301 redirect enable you to send you visitor or the search
engine to any replacement page you specify. A 301 redirect is
also important because it's what's known as a permanent
redirect. A permanent redirect is the one preferred by search
engines so they are the only ones you should use if you want
your website to be search engine friendly.

How Do I Setup a 301 Redirect ?

Basically there are two ways to setup a search engine friendly
redirect. One is by directly modifying what's known as the
.htaccess file found in the root directory of your website
where your web pages are stored.

The second way is to use a software redirect script. The
advantage of using a redirect script is that you can setup and
maintain any number of 301 redirect 's through a control panel.

You can also do very clever and helpful things that will make
your website even more friendly to visitors and the search
engines, but more of that in the 2nd Part of this article.

Setting Up a 301 Redirect Manually

First let's deal with modifying the .htaccess file to setup a
redirect manually just so you know what's required. Then I'll
tell you a much simpler way to do this and a whole lot more.

First you must find the .htaccess file on your web server.
There could be more than one, but you need to locate the one in
the same directory as your web pages.

On some web hosts the .htaccess file is hidden, it's there but
you just can't see it listed when you FTP to your host. On most
web servers it's visible, so I'm only going to deal with the
visible file. Download the .htaccess file as ASCII not Binary
to your PC then open it with a text editor like Notepad or
Textpad, not Word.

In the .htaccess file, type the following line but substituting
your locations for the missing and replacement files shown in
[] brackets, excluding the brackets.

Redirect 301 [relative URL of missing file] [complete URL of
replacement file ]

For example:

Redirect 301 /directory/discover.html
http://yourdomain.com/adventure.html

For every other redirect required you must add a new line of
code to the .htaccess file then FTP to upload it as an ASCII
file back to the same location you downloaded it from.

If all this sounds quite complicated, you'd be right, it can
be, but life gets a whole lot easier in the 2nd part of this
article Setting Up a 301 Redirect with Redirect Script
Software.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

About The Author:

Tony Simpson, Advises on the use of Automation in Website
Design, Promotion and Optimization.

The 2nd part of his article "Setting Up a 301 Redirect with
Redirect Script Software" deals with the advantages of using
automatic redirect software.

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How You Can Easily Compile A Gigantic Keyword List

By Martin Enevoldsen

It doesn't matter what kind of marketing you are involved in. Having the most keywords for your market or niche is a surefire way to win over your competition, and that's a fact!

The most important place to have thousands of keywords is in your pay-per-click campaigns, as you want to hit as broad an audience as possible, within your market or niche.

If you are using pagemill software to automatically build websites surrounding a particular market or niche, you know that the more keywords you have, the more pages your site will contain, and ultimately the higher pagerank and position your site will have.

Therefore, having as many keywords as possible is absolutely critical to your online success.

Luckily, there are a several free resources you can use in your quest.

3 Great And Free Keyword Resources

The most widely known resource is Overture's Keyword Tool:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Type in a phrase and all related searches on yahoo for the past month will be yours for the taking.

Another great resource is Google's Keyword Tool:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox

Simply type in your phrase and out comes a large list of related searches on Google.

What's even more cool is that Google's Keyword Tool will also give you a list of similar searches. These may not be exactly for your market, but they will be highly revelant none the less.

The Last Free Keyword Tool is Good Keywords:

http://www.goodkeywords.com/

This is actually a free piece of software that you download and install of your computer.

It's an excellent tool for digging out even more keywords.

The Killer Keyword Resource

The all time number one keyword resource is WordTracker. It's a paid service, but you are getting much more than what you pay for.

You can sign-up for 24 hours of access at http://www.wordtracker.com for only $7 and pump their system for as many keywords as you want!

Within WordTracker you feed their system with your main keyword, e.g. "gardening" and they will show you all related serches and phrases for the past 60 days.

What To Do Next

Once you have all your keyword lists from wordtracker, good keywords, overture and google, you simply combine them into one gigantic list.

Naturally, some of the keywords will be identical, but you will definitely end up with a huge list, and depending on your market or niche you easily can go from a few hundred keywords to several thousands using this method.

How Quickly And Easily Combine Keyword Lists

There's a new keyword tool available that will handle this task for you in seconds.

It allows you to simply paste in your various lists, and voila, you will end up with a neatly formatted and clean keyword list.

It can do a variety of other tasks, such as format your entire list for Google AdWords, adding i.e. brackets to all phrases.

Read more about this great keyword tool here:

http://www.keywordjuggler.com

I hope this article has helped you in your search for more keywords and ultimately, more traffic and sales.


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Martin Enevoldsen, a certified software engineer, specializing in developing highly useful and in demand solutions for internet marketing. Read more about his latest invention http://www.keywordjuggler.com that is currently helping many marketers.

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The Basics Of Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

By Kirk Bannerman

Not long ago, Forbes magazine has reported that pay per click ad
sales are expected to increase to at least $8 billion by 2008.

There are three fundamental elements that form the basis of a
successful pay per click ad program and they are constant
monitoring, response analysis, and refinement.

Pay per click search engines offer a way to buy your way to the
top of search results for any term you wish. With proper
management, and a clear focus, pay per click search engines can
offer some of the most well targeted and economical advertising
on the Internet.

Pay per click advertising works through a bidding process, and
the ads appear prominently on the results pages of search engines
such as Google and Yahoo. The highest bidder for a particular
word or phrase receives top placement, and depending on the
engine, the top three to five bidders also generally also receive
placement on the first page of unpaid search results.

Fundamental questions to be addressed when formulating a pay per
click search engine strategy include the following:

When is the top pay per click bid necessary for highest
conversion, and when will bidding for a second or third place
position create a more attractive return on investment (ROI)?

How can you keep your PPC bids from cannibalizing your search
efforts on other (non pay per click) search engines?

What percentage of your pay per click budget should go to each
search engine?

Does either Google Adwords or Overture work better for your
particular product or service? Or, perhaps neither one is
appropriate from a return on investment (ROI) perspective.

It is of critical importance to focus sharply on identifying
the search terms that convert most frequently for your particular
site, eliminating those that don't perform, and most importantly,
calculating and maximizing your return on investment.

The cost structure of pay per click is action-driven and each
time a user clicks your ad, the pay per click engine deducts the
amount of your current bid from your account. Pay per click
offers a high level of assurance that your ad is reaching the
proper target.

Pay per click campaigns, however, are not perfect. Without
CONSTANT monitoring, you sometimes risk incurring advertising
costs that can spiral out of control, focusing on terms that
don't convert well for your product or services, or falling way
down in position during a bidding war.

PPC advertising can be a great help to a site's success, but only
with very close supervision and a thorough knowledge of the
unique characteristics of each PPC search engine.


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About the Author:

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.

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