Key Words In Searches

By John Fowler

One of the things we don't seem to have much of these days is time. Everyone rushes everywhere and communication is compressed into new shorter forms like all of the text messages I receive, I still don't get all of the abbreviations. There is a danger that this short, fast communication is carried over into web sites we develop. All short, bulleted points lacking any grammar or sentence construction, and as I have said before search engines seem to like well-constructed grammatical sentences.

However, there is another knock-on effect of shortening text and that is the effect it has on key words. I am not really talking about the meta tag keywords here, but the words in the text that the search engines find multiple times. This is often known as key word density i.e. what percentage of the text is taken up by a single word or multi-word phrase. Have you ever considered this in writing your own code? Have you thought yourself very clever, by managing to get 100 instances of your key word in one A4 page?

Having your keywords and phrases sprinkled throughout the text is obviously good, but how can you ensure you don't overdo it. Well, one way is to spend time creating a more lengthy piece of well-written text. This will mean that although you still have lots of key words and phrases in there, their relative density is reduced because of the greater overall volume of text.

We have a number of domains that we run purely to test theories on topics like key word density. By creating multiple pages with similar overall information, but written differently, we can test how the different search engines treat different key word densities. Just a note of warning, don't try this at home. You can actually be sandboxed (your site held in limbo) for having duplicate pages on a single domain. So being able to calculate how similar pages are to one another is important when doing this.

Finally, just a word on meta tag keywords. The importance attached by search engines to keywords specified in the meta tag has greatly reduced due to the overuse of this feature. Many sites I have seen have tried to use the same keywords over and over again. Our advice is to choose these words carefully and use maybe 4 or 5, but don't go over board. Then try and use them throughout the actual page text, but without forcing the density. After all, if they really are your key words, then using them in the text should come naturally.

And now a poem reflecting web page writing techniques.

If I write half a page
and you write thirty four
I can use three keywords
whilst you get forty more
I can be brief and concise
and speedily spit pages out
but your one and only masterpiece
Carries far more clout,
I am but a comic strip
to your Tolstoyan drama
I am all wild excitement
whilst you are perfect karma,
I have few words to play with
to juggle in a subtle key
whilst you have an epic
to aid keyword density
the old bull takes his time
never rushing, always serene
he has created multiple options
whilst young bull was over keen,
so when you code your pages
don't undersell your wording
or you'll be virtually alone
when you should be herding,
ten keywords in a thousand
dilutes the trend to oversell
and makes the reader relax
from the instinct he can tell
that a little page is but a ploy
to put him onto a sales hook,
whereas an interesting article
is worth a second look.

About The Author:

John Fowler trained as a Mathematican and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via http://www.seogurus.co.uk

Visitor Traffic Statistics 101

By Cherie Davidson

As we all know, visitor traffic is crucial to the success of every Website. If you do not know how many views your pages get, how can you know if anyone is seeing your site, product or service? With an online business, you can not afford to guess at how effective your marketing, content, message or Website design is.

Ideally, you need to know what pages are viewed, how long the visitor stays on any given page and what page they click to next. Also, if you can see the keywords they used to search for you, or see what link they clicked to get to your site (referral link), you have great information for SEO (search engine optimization) of your site content and keywords. This is all part of Web analytics. The more you know about site analytics, the better prepared you will be to get the most out of your site traffic and visitor usage. Read through these basics and you will be ready to go look for an effective visitor traffic reporting service, find the best features for the price, and boost your site's effectiveness.

Who are your visitors?

You spend many hours identifying your target market. Through SEO, you spend even more time, and often money, to focus your keywords, search indexing and content for this market. You devote yourself to find the optimal visitors by geography, interest, demographics and other important criteria, all for one purpose ... to get the attention of potential customers or clients.

Once you know your target market, you need to know if your efforts are effective. You do that by tracking your site visitor statistics. Web analytics analyze your site traffic and break down the data into usable information reports. Visitor stats you need for the best tracking include how many total visits ("hits" on your site pages, which means the total number of views by everyone who visits your site), unique page views (views of any given page by the same visitor), and geographic location of your unique visitors.

The advantage of geographic location is that you can monitor where your visitors are coming from. For instance, DogWidgets.com (note: fictional company) began by selling to one region in the US but was getting traffic from Canada and Germany. Owner saw that marketing focus was needed for a more specific geographic area.

What are your visitors searching for?

This area of analytics is a terrific opportunity for SEO and refinement of your keyword strategies. With a good tracking service, you will be able to get a report on search engine keyword usage and clickstream (click path) data. In other words, the report will show a breakdown of the keywords your visitors used to find you as well as the search engine they used. This information is invaluable as it spells out exactly what your visitors are looking for, how effective your keywords are, and lets you know what search engines have you listed. If your chosen service provides it, you can click the report link to see what your page rank is for that engine, in real-time.

A good analytics site will also provide the clickstream data, which will show you the path your visitor's took inside your site, from page to page. This data is invaluable for marketing your site and product or service. To demonstrate, the owner of DogWidget.com has been trying to decide what areas to focus on. Owner's dog widgets have a wide variety of applications, and Owner
sees through the keyword report that the search terms are all over the spectrum. There is no focus. This tells Owner that a marketing strategy is needed to grab visitors that want specific dog widgets.

When do they visit my site?

You will also want to monitor your peak traffic hours. This is very easy with a good analytics report. The more detail your reports show, the more information you have to work with. You should be able to have the data on your site visits broken down by year, month, week, day and hour. This is important information, but you really need more than just "visitor totals." You should look for this time breakdown by page views (total views of every page on your site) and by unique visitors (pages viewed by each individual visitor).

To show the importance, let's consider our dog widget site scenario: DogWidget.com sells a variety of multi-colored widgets for dogs. Owner notices through tracking reports that there is a much higher page view of the Outdoor widgets on Friday mornings. The Outdoor page seems to compel the highest number of clicks to the order page. No one clicks from the Rainy Day widgets page to the order page. So now Owner has the information to rethink the Rainy Day page, and to begin focusing more advertising to Outdoor topics, advertisers and markets.

Where are visitors coming from?

When you begin marketing your site, whether it is banner and link exchanges, classified ads, posting articles, press releases or pay per click advertising, you need to know what is working for you and what is wasting your time. Referral link reports help narrow this down and allow you to see what active links on the Internet are being used to bring site visitors. For instance, let's see how our enthusiastic and dedicated dog widget owner has been advertising.

Being on a shoestring, Owner decided to try SEO and send out weekly press releases. DogWidget.com has been indexed by several major search engines, keywords have been refined thanks to the keyword usage reports. Using the referral reports Owner sees that the SEO is beginning to roll along nicely and is even picking up a little momentum. Now for the press releases. Owner sends out a new press release each week for two months. Without the referral link report, Owner would be in the dark as to whether the links on the releases were being used, unless it was a paid distribution service (and that info is only for one release on that one site).

With the referral report, Owner was able to send out press releases at no cost, and see what sites picked them up and posted them through the clicks on the contact links. So the press release about Vacation dog widgets got a lot of attention, excellent. That was time well spent. So now, Owner focus can shift so efforts are optimized.

Why is all this so important?

I must answer this question with a question: do you know how your site has been doing? If you do not have reports to give you the real-time traffic information necessary to gauge visitor performance, how can you know how your site is really doing? Are you thinking some decent sales is doing well? Or because you get nice feedback, the site is ok? If this is the case, you are settling for inferior results.

This is not a solid way to manage any business, and a Website is business. Why would you want to settle for "ok" when you can get the tools at little expense that can make your site soar? Our Owner wanted to quit the "day job" and make a real living from DogWidgets.com, and with diligence and Web analytics, there is a good chance Owner will succeed, and make a lot of dogs happy at the same time! Please don't settle for "ok." Take your site to the next level. All it takes is having the right information to work with. To paraphrase an old idiom, Visitor Knowledge is Site Success.

How do they use my Website?

Your visitors are valuable. The visitors that buy your product or service are priceless; they are the key element to success. You want to make them happy and keep them coming back. You also want them to spread the word about you. And yes, Web analytics can improve this as well. By knowing how visitors are actually using your site, which pages they visit, how long they view the pages they visit, what pages compel them to continue inside the site (clickstream), and what pages they use to leave your site (exit page) will tell you a great deal.

For instance, back to our dog widget site. Owner sees that the Uses for Widgets page seems to hold the visitor longer than other information pages. It was written with humor and has a fun, clean look. Wow, a winner page. However, Rainy Day Widget shows as a big exit page. Not a good page, it appears to kill the site visits. Ok, Owner knows that Rainy Day page needs some redesign and rewriting fast.

Don't let your Website stall like a rainy day widget. As with any business, a Website is needing continual marketing and refinement to stay focused and on target. You need to keep on top of your markets, keep fresh, interesting and compelling content, keep your site available to those who want your product or service. Staying alive on the Web means you need visitors ... visitors who are looking for what you have to offer. With good Web analytics you have the tools you need to put your site in front of your target market, increase your ROI and find success on the Internet. And isn't this why you have a Website?

About the Author:

Cherie Davidson works as content and marketing manager for VisiStat.com. VisiStat is a detailed, real-time site traffic and Web analytics report service that is focused on ease of use and user-friendliness. VisiStat's goal is to help site entrepreneurs make the most of their site marketing and search engine optimization efforts -- to be a virtual "goldmine" for marketing. Learn more at VisiStat.com.

Google SiteMaps - Get ALL Your Pages Listed!

By Robert Fuess

Google has a new trick! Don't get left behind! It's the hottest thing since RSS.

I was working on my Google AdWords campaign for http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com and I noticed that Google had a new feature called "Google Sitemap". It was a perfect fit with my needs. I was concerned with how deep Google would be able to get into my site. Teachers are able to have homework posted daily on my site but will Google see the daily changes? Now they can. When a new teacher signs up, how many months will it be before Google recognizes it? With Google Sitemap, Google can be informed about new pages quickly and when a page last changed.

If you have a website and want Google to know about ALL the pages in your site, build a Google Sitemap. That's it. Keep reading, since I will show you how to do so, and where it proves most useful.

Webmasters (like me) have been frustrated by the slow methodological way in which Google gradually finds the pages in your site. If your site starts out big and has a lot of dynamic pages, then this is unacceptable. Hurray for Google! They are listening.

Many webmasters like using DHTML menus, but are concerned about the search engines finding all the pages. This will help Google to find them. (In reality, I would still recommend having a regular site-map to help the other search engines find the rest of your pages. Google may drive the most traffic but customers coming in through any search engine are welcome. Don't throw this away.)

DO WE KEEP OUR OLD SITE MAPS?

Yes! The Google Sitemap is not useful to your normal human user just to Google. (It is in XML format, not HTML.) Also remember that other search engines (like Yahoo and MSN) don't use this type of site map yet. Hopefully they will.

WHAT DOES A GOOGLE SITEMAP LOOK LIKE?

It is XML. For XML gurus, here is the schema: http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd

But if you are new to XML, here is a sample. I will go through it. Don't let the tags scare you and remember to replace "[ ]" below with "< >"

[?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?]
[urlset xmlns ="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84" xmlns:xsi
="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation
="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84
http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd"]
[url]
[loc]http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com/OneClass.aspx?ClassId=1[/loc]
[lastmod>2005-7-4[/lastmod]
[changefreq>monthly[/changefreq]
[priority]0.7[/priority]
[/url]
[url]
[loc]http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com/OneClass.aspx?ClassId=2[/loc]
[lastmod]2005-7-1[/lastmod]
[changefreq]monthly[/changefreq]
[priority]0.5[/priority]
[/url]
[/urlset]

EXPLANATION OF TAGS:

[?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?]

This should be at the top of the document. It states that this is an XML document and what version of XML is being used.

[urlset xmlns="http://www . . . "]

This tag is the wrapper for all the URLS in the sitemap. Just copy it from the full example above. If you are new to XML, don't fret. Just recognize that this is how GOOGLE wants it.

[url] .. [/url]

This wraps the set of XML elements (pair of opening and closing XML tags) for each URL you want to tell Google about.

[loc]YourUrl[/loc]

Here is where you put the URL to the webpage you want Google to know about. Try to avoid extra spaces.

[changefreq]monthly[/changefreq]

This tells Google how often you expect there to be changes in a web page. It may be hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never. Be honest with your real expectations.

[lastmod]YYYY-MM-DD[/lastmod]

This tells Google when you last modified your web page. This is a really important tag. (You can put the time in also if you feel the need to.)

[priority]#.#[/priority]

This tells Google what you feel is the most important to crawl. These are relative numbers from 0.0 1.0, with 1.0 being the most important. The default value is 0.5 (even if you leave the tag
out). THIS HAS NO IMPACT ON PAGERANK!!! This is just a relative weight for Google to crawl YOUR site. If you have all of them at .9 it would be no different than all of them being .1

Look at it this way. If Google was super busy one day and had time to crawl only 3 pages in your site, which ones should it crawl? I would want them to crawl the three with the highest priority (to me) that have changed recently.

BUT I DON'T WANT TO USE XML

You can just provide a text document with the list of URL's. This will help Google find your pages, but will not help Google effeciently decide on what to spider. I would strongly encourage you to build an XML version of google sitemap.

BENEFITS OF USING THE XML VERSION:

1. Google can know what pages have changed and not have to re-crawl those pages that haven't changed.

2. If you have a lot of pages and Google doesn't have time to crawl all of your pages all right away, it will focus on the ones that changed according to your priority.

3. Google is your friend. If they want information on how to efficiently crawl your site give it to them.

WHAT TO SUBMIT?

You may submit a sitemap, or an index of your sitemaps. Either will do. Google has documentation on both. (Don't worry about the index yet. That is addressed at the end of this article.)

I BUILT ONE - NOW HOW DO I SUBMIT IT?

First TELL GOOGLE IT EXISTS

1. Upload your Sitemap to your site to the highest folder in your website.

2. Sign into Google Sitemaps with your Google Account. (Use this link: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login)

3. Click on "Add a Sitemap" link.

4. Type the URL to your Sitemap location.

Congratulations! Google now knows about it!

Now tell Google whenever something changes. It will check this sitemap to see where the changes are.

Quick and Easy Way:

Type the following into the address section of your browser:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=
http://www.YourDomain.com/YourSitemap.xml

Of course, you should replace the YourDomain.com with your domain and YourSitemap.xml with your sitemap.

If you have a dynamically built site then you would want to automate this using screen scraping techniques.

HOW OFTEN TO SUBMIT?

Ideally, it should be submitted when changes are made. Personally, I would avoid doing so more than once per day. However, we will look to Google as they may provide further guidance on this. Search engines are our friends, and we should be respectful of abusing any service they provide or making them process things needlessly.

WILL THIS IMPROVE MY GOOGLE RANKING?

Google doesn't make any promises of this. This is mainly a way for Google to find your pages, and to efficiently know what pages need to be re-crawled on your website. If your site makes frequent changes, this feature helps Google to know about them more quickly. It won't have to spider through your whole site to find the changes.

HOW MANY URLs CAN I HAVE IN A GOOGLE SITEMAP?

According to Google documentation, you may have up to 50,000. If you anticipate more than this, then you should build several sitemaps and use a Google Sitemap Index. This Index will point to the several sitemaps. If you want more information on the Sitemap Index, go here.

FOR more information, please refer to Google Documentation.

About the Author:

Robert Fuess is a website designer, who focuses on developing SEO friendly, database-driven websites (such as shopping carts). If you are interested in a dynamic website that has a Google Sitemap automatically generated and submitted to Google, visit: http://www.spiderweblogic.com/

How Many Keywords Are Too Many?

By Matthew Rotterman

Let us suppose that you have a new website that you want to launch and you have a little knowledge of how Internet search engines work. You know that these keyword rich articles dramatically help to boost your search engine rankings. Search engine algorythms love keyword dense articles and this has been a proven strategy for some time now. Experienced website masters have been using these keyword rich articles for a long time.

You decide to find the keywords that are most searched for, related to the topic of your website. You can easily find these lists on the search engine websites telling you what people have been searching for recently in a given area of interest. People have told you that article lengths can vary but to generally keep them under 1,200 words so that the readers do not get bored and feel like they are reading a book. So, now you have your list of the top 100 keywords that people are searching for in your topic area and you have decided how long you want the articles to be.

Now you contact a writer to write these keyword rich articles for you. The writer will likely ask you what density you want to use on these articles. This is where it gets tricky!

The truth is that people are usually guessing as to what the best density is to use when writing keyword rich articles. However, most have agreed that keeping the densities in the neighborhood of 3-7% is about right. One thing that I have seen people try to do though is that since they came up with a list of 100 keywords they only want to pay to have 25 of them written. So they decide to cram keyword phrases into each article. An extreme case would
be using 4 keyword phrases in a single article. If the article is 1,000 words long and each phrase is 2 words long we are looking at a total of 8 words. Now lets suppose that the density is 5%
for each phrase. This means that each word of the phrases will be used 50 times each. 50 times 4 are 200 of the total words in a 1,000-word article. This is 20% of the article dedicated to
keywords and only keywords. This may not sound like a lot, but when you see it in print you will realize that it is a very large amount of keywords. This put you from a 5% density to a 20%
density by cramming extra keyword phrases into the article.

The end result is that you may get the keyword density you are looking for but at what price? The readability of such an article will be poor to say the least. Even the most experienced and well qualified writer will have difficulty getting that many keyword phrases into one article. A writer will be forced to put at least one keyword phrase in almost every sentence of the article in order to meet the density requirement.

The idea behind the keyword rich articles is to improve search engine rankings and to get people to go to your website and purchase your product or services. If the reader comes there and sees a poorly written article that is chock full of keywords and little information, the reader is likely to look elsewhere for the information that he or she was seeking. Just because you CAN
put a bunch of keywords in an article does not mean that you SHOULD.

When I do searches on the Internet I steer away from obviously keyword heavy articles and towards articles that actually provide relevant information. There is a needed balance between the density of the keywords and the readability of the articles that you are having written for your website. If you are ranked #1 in the search engine rankings but no one visits your site because there is not valuable content on your website, then being ranked #1 is rather pointless.

Try not to get caught up in the formulas that people suggest for keyword densities and always keep in mind that these articles will ultimately be read by a human being who is searching for
information. If you are able to provide that quality information, then the reader is more apt to purchase your product or services.

Search engine rankings are very important, but they are not the cure all.

About the Author:

Matthew Rotterman is a writer and editor at: KeywordText.com.
"Keyword Text" managed to bring together several writers and
editors to provide a few low-cost writing services for those who
are working hard to become more profitable. They offer Content
Creation Services which include: Exclusive WebPage Content,
Reprint Articles, and Newsletter Creation and Development
services. Volume Discounts. Compare us to our competition, you
will be surprised. http://keywordtext.com/dir.pl/ktc/index.html

Does Your Website Induce Seizures?

By Tim Knox

Q: We promote our web site in all our ad campaigns, but according to my website statistics program, we are getting very few visitors who click past the first page. The site has a cool Flash intro page that the designer said would impress visitors, but it doesn't seem to be working. What can we do to get people to spend more time on the site?
-- Christopher O.

A: The first thing you should do, Christopher, is find that designer and beat the living Flash out of him. It won't increase the time visitors spend on your website, but it will make you feel better after you've read this column.

What your designer thought would appeal to visitors is probably the very thing that is driving them away. A Flash introduction page (Macromedia Flash is a software program used to create animations for Web pages) may seem "cool" to you, but from a website visitor's point of view, they can be about as appealing as sitting in the front row of a Pokemon movie with four hundred screaming six year olds (and here comes the segue, folks).

In December, 1997, during an episode of Pokemon, the popular Japanese TV cartoon that has spawned everything from movies to action figures to lunch boxes, a scene featured a rocket explosion that flashed red and blue lights in rapid succession. After the episode, over 600 children were taken to hospitals complaining of seizures, blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, and nausea.

Any adult who has ever been exposed to Pokemon for more than two seconds can understand the nausea, but the seizures at first baffled doctors. Scientists ultimately came to attribute the mass reaction to "photosensitive seizures," which are brought on by exposure to certain visual stimuli like rapidly flashing lights on a TV screen. Remember when your mom told you not to sit so close to the TV or you'd ruin your eyes? Turns out she knew what she was talking about. Who knew?

The event caused such concern that Japanese broadcasters and health officials met to discuss ways to prevent future occurrences of bad-cartoon induced illnesses. They established guidelines for the broadcast of flashing images: no image may flicker faster than three times per second; flashing images should be displayed for no more than two seconds; and stripes, whorls, and concentric circles should not take up the largest portion of a TV screen.

It's my humble opinion that these rules should apply to websites as well. I've been in the Internet design business for nearly a decade and I have been witness to numerous websites
that could induce photosensitive seizures in blind moles. It sounds like your website might be suffering from a similar ailment.

If visitor's are not clicking past your fancy Flash intro page, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that therein lies your problem. Remove the Flash intro page for a few weeks to
see if your website's click-through rate improves and the number of page views increase. "Click-through rate" refers to the number of visitors who click links on your homepage to go deeper into your site. "Page views" refers to the overall number of web pages that were viewed by visitors. If click-through and page view rates improve, you'll know that the Flash intro was your problem.

Here are a few other things you can do to make sure your site offers visitors a pleasant - and seizure free - browsing experience.

Sit In The Visitor's Chair The best way to make sure your website is as user friendly as it can be, is to sit down at a computer and approach your site from a typical visitor's point of view. Try to imagine that you are seeing the site for the first time. If you are unable to do this, have a friend who has never seen the site click around and offer comments while you take notes.

Have your friend assess the following points: Is the site appealing to the eye? Are the colors pleasing and complimentary? Is the site easy to navigate? Are the topical categories and subcategories in logical order? Is it easy to find what you're looking for? Does the site have a search engine to make finding things easier? Is every feature of the site less than two or three clicks away? If the answer to any or all of these points is no, you have some work to do.

Don't Dictate Technology One sure fire way to repel web site visitors is to require that they have special browser plug-ins or 3rd party add-on browser software installed to view your site. Dictating that the user download and install software is not your place and users will resent you(and your business) for it. Visiting your site should be an effortless pleasure, not a technological chore.

Don't Make Them Wait If your homepage takes longer than 20 seconds to download (appear in the visitor's browser) you are losing visitors, period. Gratuitous animation, large graphics, poorly formatted HTML, bad page layout, and a number of other factors can increase download time. You might have the greatest web site in the world, but if it takes ten minutes to download no one will ever see it.

The lessons to be learned, then, are threefold. One: a website should be designed to satisfy the visitor's needs, not to pacify the site designer's ego.

Two: visitors to a business website are not there to be awed and entertained. They are there looking for information, and unless you give it to them quickly and effortlessly, they will go elsewhere to get it.

And Three: for better mental and physical health avoid Pokemon at all costs.

Here's to your success.

About The Author:

Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies and is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs
http://www.prosperityandprofits.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
http://www.30dayblueprint.com

Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission

By Kalena Jordan

Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs - Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.

Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!

The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:

1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.

When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog - notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.

Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.

This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.

2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.

3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.

4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.

5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example of this on the Internet Dating Stories site where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Sponsor Links".

6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats here.

7) Place images next to your ads to attract the eyes. You can see this in place on the search engine article library page at the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to the bottom of the page. But be careful here - the use of arrows or symbols enticing viewers to click are NOT allowed by Google and publishers may NOT label the Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements".

8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories where you see:

- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad.

You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.

9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click. Don’t create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.

10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!

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The above article may be re-published as long as the following paragraph is included at the end of the article and as long as you link to the URL mentioned below:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena 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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How To Win The War of Pay Per Click Advertising

By Raamakant S.

Do you know what is the most important question among most internet marketers specially newbies. It's "How to get highly targeted visitors to my site?" Believe me, I know it because I received this question from my subscribers almost daily.

Well, earlier when I started my internet business I also faced this problem. I tried safe-lists, I bought so called guaranteed visitors, I even blasted my ad to 10 million (Yes, you are right. It's 10 million) sites but couldn't make a single sale.

Than I changed my strategies and get this problem solved by finding a right solution, and that is "Pay Per Click Advertising". Pay Per Click Advertising is a great solution for traffic worries which directs a highly targeted traffic to my site. Yesterday only I got around 280 visitors and I made 24 sales.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are pros and cons. Where there are flowers there are thorns also. What you have to do is to protect yourself from thorns and let only the fragrance touch your inner sense. I am going to tell you advantages the Pay Per Click Advertising.

One of the greatest advantages of PPC is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.

Now comes the very point in your mind that what is bad about Pay Per Click Advertising. The downside is that PPC is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position - which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 10000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

Since when you are doing the business of earning money and you are losing a heavy part of it then you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

The only way to assess your success in this field is monitoring, not only monitoring but careful monitoring. You can easily analyze it by visitor behavior which can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and pay-per-click campaign is a must for this.

About the Author

Raamakant S. is owner of http://www.umtezine.com. Subscribe to his Ultimate marketing Tips eZine by sending a blank e-mail to umtezine at getresponse.com -- Learn Everything You've Been Wanting to Know about Internet Marketing. REAL Tips, Tricks and Techniques You Can Use In Your Business and Consistently Produce MASSIVE Amounts of Profits.

Article Marketing - How to Make It Work For You

By Tinu AbayomiPaul

Information based marketing is one of the oldest and most
effective techniques for bringing targeted prospects to
your site and converting them into buyers. This is part of
the reason that software, and distribution services that
make the process of article promotion easier are so popular
lately.

Though the various tools you can use to make the process of
distributing your articles more easily are invaluable in
getting your content the most exposure, that's only half of
the story.

Getting article marketing to work for your site lies
primarily in two things:

. The article you're submitting, and
. The preparation you do before you a single word of your
content is written.

Since those two determining factors make at least 50% of
the difference in bringing you success, let's take a look
at what the most common mistakes are in that area, and how
to overcome them.

Mistake #1 - Confusing the Reason to Promote with Articles
with the Reason to Write Articles

There are three key benefits to promoting an article -
branding, lead generation, and as a corollary, online
promotion, particularly as part of your optimization
efforts.

Yet there is only one reason to write an article, and that
is to inform your audience. If your article is not geared
towards this as its primary purpose, you will fail to see
the three benefits of promotion - because no one will want
to read your article.

How many links you're able to generate by submitting your
article to hundreds of sites will matter little if you're
unable to get them picked up by publications, or read by
people who search for information.

Sure, if you know what you're doing all those links
pointing back to your site will count for something in your
search engine results - but remember that generating links
to your site is only one part of optimizing your site for
Google, Yahoo or MSN.

To overcome this issue, you'll need to figure out how to
get people to read what is in your article, and then click
through to your site from your resource box. The best start
to a solution is to produce better content.

In the end it's a matter of choice. You can get a little
exposure from increased link backs, on a very basic level,
or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra work.


Mistake #2 - Starting The Article Promotion without a Plan

Not every article can fulfil all three purposes of
promotion. Some will work better for branding, others can
generate leads and increase sales. But if you don't start
out with a plan for what the function of your article
should be, you'll end up unhappy with the results.

To overcome this issue, before you write a single word,
decide what purpose the article is supposed to serve. An
article meant to brand you as an expert should display your
knowledge. One for generating leads may need to be geared
towards solving a very specific problem.

An article that gets published every where and helps to
make you known is not meant to have the same level of
exposure as hyper-targeted content geared towards a narrow
group of people. Learning the difference will help you know
what kinds of articles to write.

Mistake #3- Publishing Content That Doesn't Help Your Reader

Maybe you're thinking: "All I want is links back to my site
- any visitors the article generates is gravy."

Well guess what? Not all article banks and directories are
going to accept your content automatically. You can double
the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles
that the directories want to share with readers. And all it
takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to
increase your potential audience tenfold.

So if you want article marketing to work for you, write
articles that publishers want in their publications.

This also means obeying the standard guidelines, running a
spell check, researching a good topic to write about, or
even hiring a writer to produce articles on your behalf.

Mistake #4 - Failing to Maximize the Promotional
Opportunities of Article Marketing

You already know that articles marketing can help you
generate additional links back to your site. But did you
know that you can get more visitors and better search
engine results from articles in a variety of ways?

You can mention your desired keyword in strategic places,
though you should take care not to overdo this. Some people
will also tell you to make use of anchor text, which can
also is an effective method. However, you should know that
the majority of directories and publications aren't able to
support this.

There are alternatives to this method that are just as
effective, if not more so, but they require more space to
explain.

It's not just about the links back to your site either.
Part of doing well with article marketing is getting picked
up by publishers with large audiences, or gaining the
ability to leverage other brands due to the quality of your
work.

Better search engine results are great.

But by themselves they don't put money in your pocket -
there are a myriad of factors that can turn your article
marketing efforts into an opportunity to increase your
income, not just the number of visitors to your site.

About the Author:

Tinu Abayomi-Paul is a Web Promotion Specialist who runs
the Free Traffic Tips Blog. You can read part two of this
article at http://www.freetraffictip.com/article-marketing
and learn about three more common mistakes even veteran
article marketers make.

How I submitted my internet marketing articles

By Christopher Kyalo

There is no internet marketing chore that I enjoy more
than doing a regular google search to check the viral
effect and progress of my online marketing articles.
Within a recent short period I saw the number of
websites where my articles are listed grow by a
staggering 16,000.

The full implications of this is that without me
lifting a finger 16,000 more websites, blogs and their
pages, with search engine prominence, now contain my
articles. This means that even if just one person in
the entire month reads only one of my articles in each
of those locations, I will end up with a total of
16,000 unique readers per month. And without any more
effort on my part.

But for articles to enjoy this kind of magic they must
have 3 key ingredients.

An effective internet marketing article will have a
good headline

What causes you to click on a link or ad? What
attracts your interest to any content online? It is of
course a headline. Writing headlines is an art in
itself. Those who are good at it, earn a lot of money.
Tabloids like the National Enquirer or The Sun in
Britain understand the power of a headline because
they've sold millions of copies of their publications
regularly for many years and it all hinges on how
effective the main headline is.

I learnt this lesson well in my offline marketing days
when a newsletter I used to publish would sell a few
hundred copies on one headline and then sell over
300,000 copies with another headline.

On the net, headlines are even more important and when
writing articles you should bear this in mind. Apart
from taking care of the keywords (with search engines
or google adsense ads in mind), your headline should
be so enticing that anybody mildly interested in the
subject you are covering will want to read it.

In writing this article, this are the headlines I
considered and discarded before I ended up with the
headline I used. Study them carefully and learn
something about internet marketing headlines.

- 3 things an effective internet marketing article
must have
- Why my internet marketing articles posted in only 20
sites suddenly appeared in 16,000 other websites
shortly after
- Why my internet marketing articles grew from being
in only 20 sites to 16,000 within no time
- 3 things an internet marketing article needs to go
crazily viral

I would have chosen this last headline listed here,
except that more specific headlines are more
believable in a World Wide Web that is choked with
hype these days.

An effective internet marketing article must contain
useful information or tips

Why would somebody bother to take an article and post
it at their website or blog? There is only one reason
that would cause them to do this. Your article must
contain useful and valuable information. Some internet
marketers deliberately hold back vital information and
refer others to their websites for it. This is a
mistake because the reader will judge you from the
information they read in your article. If there is
little or no information then the assumption is that
your website will not be any different and probably
has more of the same.

Remember that online there is always too much to do
and too many websites to visit. So for anybody to
visit your site, they will need to see some really
useful and valuable information.

An effective internet marketing article must be well
written

Your internet marketing article must be very well
written to be read and posted widely. Remember that
people on the net are in a hurry and they have the
widest choice mankind has ever had in history. So if
they have a problem making head or tail of what you
are trying to say in your article, with a simple,
impatient click of the mouse, they will move
elsewhere.

Online writing should be brief, direct and to the
point. It also helps a great deal if the article is
broken down the way it has been here, with simple
points listed in bold.

With a little effort, most people can write reasonably
well. But even if you can't good online writing
services are very affordable. In fact the going rates
are so dirt cheap that many offline writers used to
earning a minimum of $500 for any piece of writing
they do, are bitterly complaining. Luckily their
complaints haven't changed anything.

Check this site for details on an excellent
experienced online writer who charges only $9 per
article.

To receive a free ecourse on this subject send a blank
email now to bizboom at freeautobot.com

About the Author:

Christopher Kyalo has made money online using articles
as his only online marketing tool. Discover all his
secrets at his blog
http://big-online-story.blogspot.com. He can be
reached at strongwallafrica at yahoo.com

How To Use a Podcast For Internet Marketing

By Michael Murray

Although podcasting is trendy, it's vital to remember that when you use a podcast for Internet marketing, your podcast is really just another delivery mechanism - a way to get your marketing message across.

Because it is a new delivery mechanism, there's a chance you'll get so wrapped in the technology that you'll forget the basics, the AIDA formula. You need to give people something that they want to listen to, and you can't go wrong with the AIDA formula. AIDA is used in copywriting, and is an acronym: AIDA means Attract/ Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

You need to get people's attention, arouse their interest in your product, get them to want it, and finally take action to buy it.

Using AIDA In Your Podcasts

You can use the AIDA formula to market your products via podcasts in several ways.

Firstly, you can use the podcast to attract people to a Web site where you're selling products related to the podcast theme. The podcast is the attention-getter. You can have ads on your site selling your products, and include mention of them in the podcast too.

Next, include valuable information or entertainment in your podcasts to make sure that people subscribe. When they subscribe, you can market to them over and over again. This is the Interest factor.

You arouse Desire by mentioning your products and their benefits in your podcasts.

Finally, you need a call to Action, to ensure that people take action. "Buy before midnight on Thursday, and receive
_________"

Making Your First Podcast

Making a podcast (it's really just making an MP3 file) couldn't be simpler. Here are the steps:

1. Plug a microphone into your computer;
2. Record your podcast using a program like Audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (it's free);
3. Create an RSS feed - more information on that here http://www.ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting (don't let the technical jargon make you nervous, the RSS Feed is just a reference enclosure that lets listeners know when you've put a new podcast online);
4. Upload the podcast to your Web site, and then upload the podcast's RSS Feed to a destination like Podcast Alley at http://www.podcastalley.com/ so that you can start getting a mass of happy subscribers.

Get Interviewed On a Podcast

If you don't want to make your own podcasts, offer yourself as an interviewee on other people's podcasts. This saves you the trouble of recording your own material and putting it online, and you can promote your products on someone else's show as easily as you can on your own.

When you create your own podcasts, you'll want to ask people to join you for an interview too. You can even ask people to send you MP3 files of questions or tips, that you can include in your podcast.

So there you have it: podcasting, another tool to add to your Internet marketing toolbox. If the idea appeals, give podcasting a try.

About the Author:

Michael Murray is a 22-year old full-time Internet marketer and college student with Cerebral Palsy who lives in sunny Orlando Florida. Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or
affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising!: http://www.marketlikeapro.com/words.html

10 High Powered Ways To Increase Your Traffic

By David Riewe

1. Trade links with other web sites. They should be related to the subject of your web site. Instead of trading links, you could also trade banner ads, half page ads, classified ads, etc.
2. Start an e-zine for your web site. When people read each issue they'll be reminded to revisit your web site. They'll see your product ad more than just once which will increase your orders.
3. Form an online community. It could be an online message board, e-mail discussion list or chat room. When people get involved in your community they will regularly return to communicate with others.
4. Write articles and submit them to e-zines, web sites and magazines that accept article submissions. Include your business information and web address at the end of the article.
5. Give away an electronic freebie with your ad on it. Allow your visitors to also give the freebie away. This'll increase your ad exposure and attract people to your web site at the same time.
6. Combine your products or services into one big package deal with other businesses offerings. You could share a web site and advertise the package deal; which means double the traffic.
7. Submit your freebie to the online directories that list your particular item or service for free. If you're offering a free e-zine, submit it to all the free e-zine directories on the internet.
8. Participate on message boards. Post answers to other people's questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your signature file at the end of all your postings.
9. Exchange classified or sponsor ads with other free e-zine publishers. If there is a huge subscriber difference between e-zines, one can run more ads to make up for it.
10. Post your ad on free advertising areas on the internet. You can post it on free classified ad sites, free for all links sites, newsgroups that allow ads, free yellow page directories, etc.

About the Author:

"Not Only Will I Give You the Secret Blueprint that I Use to Make Six-Figures Per Year Online, I'll Also Provide You with the Products, Resources and Services Needed to Do It Yourself!" http://www.push-button-online-income.com/pbi

Is Your Website Credit Card Friendly?

By Tim Knox

In my last column I discussed the process of credit card enabling your brick-and-mortar business. I pointed out that research has shown that accepting credit cards can help increase revenue and enhance cash flow. I also pointed out that you may have to look beyond your local bank for help in getting things set up. This week we will look at setting up an online payment system for your business website. If you think hooking up a brick-and-mortar location with a credit card system stymies most bankers, try asking them how to do it on your website.

If you'll recall, the question that spurred this topic came from a lady who went to her local bank for help in setting up a credit card acceptance system for her business and her banker wasn't very knowledgeable on the subject. I pointed out that her banker's ignorance of the subject probably wasn't a reflection on his skills as a banker, but a reflection on the compartmentalization of the credit card aspect of banking.

The fact is, most banks can provide you with the merchant account needed to accept credit card payments, but beyond that have little to do with the process. Even larger banks may only have a single person on staff who is tasked as the "credit card expert" and if that person ever goes on vacation, you're pretty much out of luck (voice of experience talking here, folks).

I have helped many clients set up online credit card processing systems and more than once I've had to sit down with the bank issuing the merchant account and educate them on how online payment systems work. Don't believe me? This is a direct quote (here's the Bible, here's my hand) from the bank employee who was in charge of processing internet merchant account applications, "When someone pays online how do they swipe the credit card in their computer."

Much like a brick and mortar credit card processing system, you will need the following to accept credit cards on your website: (1) an electronic shopping cart system that allows the customer to select products and checkout when ready; (2) a payment gateway service to get approval or declination of the credit card; (3) a credit card processor who will process the transaction; and (4) an internet merchant account issued by an acquiring bank in which processed funds are deposited.

We covered most of these elements last week. Here's a quick refresher for those who missed the basics, then we'll talk about a shopping cart system.

Payment Gateway Service: The payment gateway service comes into play when a customer submits their credit card information to the webpage form. Think of the gateway service as the middleman in the process. The website's shopping cart checkout system electronically submits the credit card to the gateway service who then routes the information to the processor for approval. Depending on the reply from the processor, the gateway service will return an approval or declination for the purchase. This entire process takes just seconds to perform.

Credit Card Processor: The credit card processor is an electronic data center that processes the credit card transactions coming from the gateway company, ensures that the charge is valid, then settles the funds in your merchant account.

Internet Merchant Account: An Internet merchant account is a bank or financial institution account in which funds from online sales are deposited. Merchant accounts are usually issued by banks who are associated with the major credit card services like Visa and MasterCard. Be aware that many banks will not grant merchant accounts to Internet merchants as they are often categorized as "high risk ventures." This policy varies widely and in the end, the granting of the merchant account will come down to economics from the bank's point of view. If the bank sees even the smallest iota of risk, you will not be granted the account. Fortunately, the growth of online sales has given rise to an entire industry of merchant service bureaus that will grant you a merchant account and everything else you need to accept online payments. The fees are usually higher, but it's better than not having an online payment system at all.

Shopping Cart System. To accept online payments you must have what's called a "shopping cart system" that allows your customer to choose and purchase products. Adding a shopping cart system to your website can be simple or complex, cheap or very expensive. It depends on the product you're selling and the options you wish to offer your customers. As in everything, you get what you pay for.

A shopping cart system typically consists of three components: a product catalog, the shopping cart, and a checkout/payment system. The product catalog is your inventory component and displays the items you have for sale on the website. The checkout/payment system is the part of the program that allows your customers to "add this to my cart," and the checkout/payment system is the component that allows the customer to checkout and pay for their purchase.

There is a wide variety of shopping cart software on the market and the price is dependent on the features you want. Shopping cart systems range from simple HTML form insertions to full- blown catalog and inventory systems like those used by Amazon or Dell.

You can spend from zero to tens of thousands of dollars. Some of them you can set up on your site yourself while others should be set up by someone who knows what they're doing.

You can get a free Paypal.com shopping cart system which is the most simplistic in nature, but the easiest to implement. Using Paypal also alleviates the need for a bank merchant account because everything is handled by Paypal, for a fee of course. You insert HTML forms into your website code and when an item is purchased.

There are also numerous online companies who will assist in the setup of your ecommerce / credit card system. These companies charge several hundred to several thousand dollars for their services, so it would be wise for you to have an idea of exactly what you need before calling them into play.

Customer submits credit card. The site sends the transaction to the gateway. The gateway sends the info to the processor. The processor contacts the issuing bank of the customers credit card. The issuing bank returns the result of the processor. The processor routs the result to the gate. The gateway passes the result to the website. The website displays the result.

One thing to remember when setting up an ecommerce system on your site is this: online it's all about security and privacy. Though online credit card processing has been around for years there are still many people who are uncomfortable giving their credit card number online. These are the same folks that do not hesitate to give their credit card number over the phone to a complete stranger or hand their credit card to a waiter who disappears with it for ten minutes. Online credit card processing is much less susceptible to fraud and abuse than either telephone processing or giving it to a waiter.

Eighty-five percent of internet users surveys said that a lack of security made them uncomfortable sending credit card information over the Web.

It's up to you to instill a sense of security and make the customer comfortable shoving their card into their computer.

Here's to your success.

About The Author:

Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies and is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs
http://www.prosperityandprofits.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
http://www.30dayblueprint.com

Can YOU Really Make Money From Blogging?

By Willie Crawford

One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.

My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!

Today I'll share with you how I do it.

Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by.

Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."

The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.

How Do I Monetize My Blogs?

I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.

I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.

I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out
numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.

How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?

I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me. I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!

The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.

I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at: http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Examples Of Profitable Blogs?

I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)

To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It's less than 2 months old :-)

The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and
about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at: http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.

If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4: http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html. That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.

I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...

"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"

Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.

I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at: http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html

What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.

My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.

WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the
blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.

Here's how I use AutoBlogger:

I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is
automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.

AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.

AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE
sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.

If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.

OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!

It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."

Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!

There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September.
We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense.

About the Author:

Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing techniques to thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs since late-1996. Grab a free copy of his comprehensive, 20-Lesson Internet Marketing Success Course now at: http://WillieCrawford.com

Blogging For Profit: The Simple Success Strategies Of A 19 Year Old Kid

By Ian Canaway

A blog is a simple but powerful tool which all marketers and businesses should be utilising to explode their sales, build credibility and improve customer retention.

I've been doing a lot of research with regards to blogging and came across a case of a 19 year old kid who was making something ridiculous like $50,000 a year with a blog on mobile phones, from his bedroom! This is an extraordinary case but clearly there is a good earning potential through blogs, however they do take time to grow and build up a readership.

Blogs provide a very simple, quick and easy means to add fresh content to your website. As I'm sure you've heard many times over 'content is king' from a search engines' view point and by providing high quality, regularly updated content your website should benefit with regards to your search engine ranking.

By providing fresh, high quality relevant content you will gain an increase of both first time visitors and repeat visitors, they will come back to check out your new content. Providing it's interesting, relevant and useful to them, you will begin to build relationships with your readers, increasing your credibility and building their trust in you and your business.

These repeat visitors will be exposed to your messages more and begin to trust you and your recommendations. This in turn will fuel sales and referrals. Just make sure you don't recommend a product you haven't tried, if it is bad you will lose all credibility.

Whenever you buy a new product, review it in your blog and be brutally honest, your readers will love you for it. Take a completely unbiased view point and talk about both the positives and negatives of each product. In essence you are providing more of an insight into the product than the sales page itself, this will help convert those prospects that are 'sitting on the fence' so to speak. As it has been shown that prospects are seven to ten times more likely to buy from a blog recommendation than from other sources!

There are many ways in which you can monetize your blog, for example, by using it as a tool to promote your own products or affiliate programs. Other ways that you can generate extra income through your blog are through the Google Adsense program, selling banner/link space as your traffic increases or by adding you own opt-in sign up form to which you send your newsletter or other targeted offers.

Your blog can be syndicated using RSS, enabling savvy webmasters to use your blog content on their web pages. This benefits them as they have regularly updated fresh content for their website and benefits you through increased exposure, free targeted traffic and extra inbound links.

To get the most benefit from my blog I use a technique called 'blogging and pinging', whereby every time I post to my blog, I ping Ping-o-matic.com to inform the search engines and blog directories I've updated my blog.

You should submit your blog feed to blog directories to gain more exposure. You can do this manually however, these are three automated sources that I have had the most success using and best of all.they are free!

http://pingomatic.com/
http://www.rssfeedpromoter.com/
http://www.feedsubmitter.com/

Be passionate about your blog, love your blog. If you do not then it will become obvious through your posts and you are unlikely to be anywhere near as successful as you could be.

Add to your blog regularly provide good quality content and reviews and you will be on your way to blogging success.

About The Author:

Get your FREE step by step guide to setting up your first blog, visit: http://www.trafficstrategiesonsteroids.com/blogsetup.pdf. Ian Canaway will help you launch your very own money making website today that's 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now. guaranteed! http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/

Online Book Marketing: How to Market Your Book Even If You Are Not a Salesperson

By Jeremy M. Hoover

What you do after you have written your book is as much, if not more, important than the actual writing of it. You can take a great book and poor marketing and have very poor results. Conversely, I believe you can take a mediocre book, market it well, and make very good sales from it. The only limiting factor is you. You probably think, "I'm a writer, not a salesperson." That's true, but there are some very simple things you can do to create a website that sells your book.

1. Create a direct-response sales page for your book.

   This doesn't need to be an extra site, your home page, or anything extravagant. Devote your home page to information about you or your most recent work and a subscription form for a newsletter for your fans. Create a secondary page, linked to from your home page, that sells your book. But instead of simply stating a few sentences about your book, either put up a full book review or a direct-response sales letter. Either way, at the end of the review or the letter, you must ask your readers to buy your book. Put a direct order link at the bottom of your page. Simply asking for your readers to buy your book will increase your sales.

2. Create a "fan list" you can send messages to.

   On your home page, and on every page of your website, create a newsletter subscription form for your readers to join. You don't need to send something out every day, or even every week. Once a month, send out a new "flash fiction" or microfiction story, or a new essay. Keep in touch with your readers. Send out a special notice of a discount for your subscribers. But in each communication with them, provide a link back to your sales page and ask them to buy. Don't worry they subscribed because they like your work and are open to buying it!

3. Write some articles or short stories and give them away.

   You can give these away from your website as a gift for joining your newsletter group, or you can give them away from other people's sites as a way to get more awareness of your work. Do a search for "article sites" and you'll find many sites you can submit your work to. These are great for two reasons-

   1) More people will be exposed to your writing (which means more potential buyers); and

   2) Others may take your article or story and run it in their newsletter, giving you even more exposure.

   Writing and distributing articles or stories is a great way to build traffic to your site and confidence in your writing.

Follow these three steps and you'll notice an increase in sales of your books.

About the Author:

Go to Jeremy's site http://jhooverwebcopy.com/bookmarketing.htm to see how he can help you.

4 Big Reasons Your E-Books Should be PDFs

By Jennifer Tribe

Last week, someone asked me to recommend a good e-book compiler. It's a question I get a lot. And I told him what I tell everyone: forget e-book compilers. Instead, create your e-books and other print documents in PDF format.

Why choose PDF over a special e-book format?

Familiarity and Ease of Use

Nearly everyone with a computer has Adobe's free reader on their machine and knows how to use it. The same cannot be said for the proprietary e-book formats. E-book files create a learning curve for your customer as they try to familiarize themselves with document set-up, navigation and functionality that they may never have encountered before. That's work. Who wants to do extra work to use a product?

Trust Factor

E-book formats may require that customers install new files on their machine to read the book. Some e-book files are delivered as .exe files, which are notorious for their ability to carry nasty viruses. Your file may not be an .exe and it might be clean as a whistle, but customers may be reluctant to install the files anyway. The PDF format is well-known and trusted. No mysterious installations, no viruses.

Readable by Anyone

PDF is a universal format that can be read on any type of computer. Most e-book generators create files that can only be read on PCs, leaving your Mac and Linux customers out in the cold.

File Stability

PDF documents have a far smaller chance of containing technical glitches. An e-book I once downloaded wouldn't forward through the chapters properly. Sometimes I'd click on a chapter title and get a blank page, or only the first page. The problems only got worse over time. I've never had such problems with a PDF document and the files remain stable over time.

What About Security?

What about security and preventing file theft, you say? This is a common concern among e-book publishers and often the reason they go searching for an e-book generator in the first place.

To those people I say: piracy happens. No matter what format you create your e-book in, if someone is intent on stealing it, they will find a way to do so.

Publishers focused on tightly locking up their material often end up creating barriers between themselves and legitimate paying customers. For example, you might decide to lock the print function so that people can't print and photocopy your content. Then a paying customer who doesn't want to read the whole thing on screen tries to print it out and can't. They get frustrated. Frustrations don't lead to more sales or good customer relations.

I'm not saying you turn a blind eye to large-scale theft. To maintain your copyright, you do need to pursue people who are trying to pass off your content as theirs, reproduce
whole pieces of your work in their work without permission, sell your materials without permission, or give them away on a large scale (say, as a free public download from their web site). But if someone wants to share their e-book with their sister, it will happen anyway. In my opinion, trying to track down and stop these pass-alongs will cause you more time, money and grief than it's worth.

If you really want to use security functions such as password protection or locking the print function, they're available in PDF anyway. Just be aware of the compromises you might be making in your ability to truly serve your paying customers.

About the Author:

C 2004 Juiced Consulting Turn your expertise into money-making information products like books, special reports and teleclasses! Juiced Consulting shows you how. For a free e-zine and other resources, visit www.juicedconsulting.com

The What, How, And Why Of Keyword Densities

By Matthew Rotterman

Keyword density is an important concept for website owners to understand. Keyword density, in today's Internet, is what will ultimately improve your search engine optimization (SEO)ranking. The importance of having a high SEO rating is absolutely critical if you wish to have high volumes of traffic to your website.

Let's talk first about SEO and what it does. If you type a search into google, yahoo, MSN, or any other major search engine there are likely to be thousands to hundreds of thousands of results come up on the search engine. So let us imagine that you sell ceramic dolls on your website. Now someone types "ceramic dolls" into a search engine, where in those thousands of website results does your website fall? Does your website rank on the first page? If you are like most websites, your ranking is probably somewhere in the depths of the results ranking well over number 1,000. Imagine a customer seeking what you sell, but not being able to find your business. Do you really think that someone is going to sift through the first 1,000 results to find yours?

Search engine optimization (SEO) simply means that you are going to employ methods that will move your website up in the search engines results for "ceramic dolls" or your own personal keywords. Research and common sense tells us that if a potential website visitor/customer does not find your website within the first 20 results, he or she will move on and try a new search or simply use one of the first 20 websites that he or she has found. This is where keyword density comes into play.

In years past I can remember finding web pages that had hundreds of words listed at the bottom of the page, this was a common practice. The reason for this was so that the search engines would place this website on the results page if a web surfer typed in any of those hundreds of words. Times have changed and so have search engines. Today the search engines are much more sophisticated in how they locate websites to list in their results.

Keyword articles (adhering to certain keyword densities) dramatically improve a websites SEO ranking. Going back to our ceramic dolls example, this site would want a keyword article
written with the keywords "ceramic dolls" inside the article. This way when a web surfer types in "ceramic dolls," the site will come up much higher in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP's).

The search engines use certain algorithms that "read" these keywords for the surfer. If you go and type in any phrase into a search engine you will notice that the results show those keywords highlighted in bold. They show you how the keywords are listed in those web pages. Placing articles on your website that contain the keywords your customers are looking for will help your search engine ranking for these specific keywords.

Now, you cannot simply type the "ceramic dolls" over and over again on the same web page. With the sophistication of today's search engines, doing that would actually harm your search engine ranking. You need to provide articles that not only contain the keywords, but articles that also contain some relevant information as well.

There is great debate over what density to use in a keyword article. Suppose you want a 500-word article written on ceramic dolls. What percentage of the time (density) should the phrase "ceramic dolls" be used? Should it be in there 4% (20 times) of the time, 7%, or 12%? You must be careful because using the keywords too often hurts your rankings, while using too little doesn't improve your ranking enough. So what is the answer? The answer is that only those that develop the algorithms for the search engine companies actually know.........and they aren't talking. Most people use anywhere from 3%- 15% keyword densities.

Some people believe that having the keyword phrase in the title and as the first word of every paragraph helps. Some believe that using "dolls that are ceramic" 18 times and "ceramic dolls" 2 times in a 500-word article with 4% density will work.

Here is what everyone does know, if you are not utilizing keyword rich articles on your website (regardless of the density you choose) you will not be very highly ranked in any of the search engines. Keyword rich articles are one of the best ways to advertise your site. If you want more visitors to your website, who translate into more customers, you must utilize keyword articles to improve your search engine rankings so that people can find your website.

About the Author:

Matthew Rotterman is a writer and editor at: KeywordText.com. "Keyword Text" managed to bring together several writers and editors to provide a few low-cost writing services for those who are working hard to become more profitable. They offer Content Creation Services which include: Exclusive WebPage Content, Reprint Articles, and Newsletter Creation and Development services. Volume Discounts. Compare us to our competition, you will be surprised. http://keywordtext.com/dir.pl/ktc/index.html

Is My Search Engine Optimization Working?

By John Krycek

You've just built a website and can't wait to start popping up in the top listings of search engines. After all, you've paid this company even more money to create "optimized, search engine friendly pages, start building links and add lots of fresh content." If it takes weeks and months for the search engines to notice me, do I have to wait that long to see if the money was worth it?

No! It's true that it takes time, weeks, even months to build up your web presence, but there are ways to follow your progress. It's important to note that if you already have an established Internet presence and wish to further optimize your site, it usually happens much faster than a site that is brand new with a brand new domain.

If you are already listed in various directories and your existing website has been up and running long enough the search engines have probably already indexed your site and those linking to it. (to see if your site is indexed with a particular engine, in the search field type 'site:www.yourdomain.com'). As you modify your pages and add new content the process of moving up in search rank is much swifter than starting from a brand new, un-indexed site. ? The ranking process has an inherent unchangeable variable of time. Sponsored search listings are one of a few ways around this hurdle to get you to the top instantly while the search spiders dig through your new site. But for the long haul, while you wait for that big chuck of cash you just paid your SEO to start returning, here are some ways to tell if he or she did you justice.

Ways to keep tabs on your progress:

Monitor Search Engine Positions

If you're a brand new domain name the first step is to watch for yourself to be indexed. Chances are that your optimizer submitted your site to the most prominent search engines at the very least. While the search crawlers will ultimately find you on their own, there is some merit in submitting your site manually. It may take some weeks before a check of site:www.yourdomain.com reveals any activity though. Take care not to be over anxious and resubmit your site. That will only hurt your efforts.

Once you find yourself being listed by particular keywords in a search engine, monitor how your rank moves every week or so. (Frequently, the more you add fresh content, the sooner the crawlers will return to your site.) Change the preference settings in search engines to speed up your research efforts.

Google will display up to 100 results per page, MSN up to 50 in 'advanced search'. This makes it much easier to find yourself if you're down in the 300th position. Don't be discouraged though! Being listed even at 300 is an accomplishment. And as you optimize you will see your listing move up in the ranks.

Visitor Tracking

The best, and easiest way to see who is reaching your site by search engine and particular keyword phrase is to implement some sort visitor tracking system. These are not complicated and can cost only a few dollars a month. Take a look at a company like www.webstat.com for example.

A small piece of code is placed on each page you want to track. When you log into the online service, you can tell the exact word and phrase someone used to reach you and from what search engine... not to mention scores of other useful data about your site traffic. This quickly gives you a snapshot of which keyword phrases are most successful and in which engines. This data is invaluable to further optimize your pages.

Are your top search engine rankings on par with the industry percentages?

Again using visitor tracking you can see if the people reaching you by Google are close to the percentage of people that use Google compared to MSN or AOL. If the industry shows that overall 25% of searchers are using MSN and 5% Lycos, your results should be similar. If they're not, it's a sign that some modifications might be in order.

Monitoring these processes will show you that there's actually quite a lot of activity. And there's nothing more exciting than watching that 300th position search climb to the first page!

About the Author:

John Krycek is the owner and creative director of theMouseworks.ca. Read more articles on the insights and secrets of website development and search engine optimization in easy, non-technical, up front English!

Are You Hung-Up On Page Rank And Back Links?

By Tony Simpson

It's unfortunate that many website owners are so hung-up on Page Rank, they'll rarely if ever, link to a site with a page rank lower than their own.

I'm frequently approached by other website owners who it's clear want to exchange links with one of my websites for no other reason than its Page Rank and so they can get more back links to their own website.

That's my experience with quite a few of my own websites. It's not until you get around a Page Rank 4 do back links come without you having to go and find them.

Back link requests tend to come more from sites with Low Page Rank wanting to improve search engine ranking by getting back links from higher ranking websites. They're also frequently from websites that offer no relevant content to your visitors and are from totally unrelated areas.

Many website owners have read a little about why and how to gain back links, then set about gaining as many as possible from any site that will give them one in return. They know it's important to gain back links, but what they forget or never knew, is it serves little purpose if they're of poor quality.

Poor Quality Back Links are from Unrelated Websites with Low Link Value.

I was reminded recently of the Google Page Rank obsession by one of my linking partners. I had advised them that because of some necessary changes to my website I had moved their back link to another page.

The website owner quickly emailed to tell me they had checked the page rank on the new page and finding it to be lower, advised me there was little point in them continuing to have a back link to my site.

Although we had been linking for over a year, it only served to prove they were not linking to my site because of its great content or because of its value to their visitors, but just for the Page Rank. When I advised them that their Page Rank check must have been in error because the page was the same PR as the previous one, they retained the back link to my site.

The obsession with Page Rank and how many back links a website has, led Google to put limits on this information.

For those of you obsessed with back linking by Page Rank you probably know that it only gets updated about every 3 months. Google also no longer reveals the true number of back links to a web site. Limiting information about back links is also something other search engines are starting to do.

An article of mine published on over 17,000 Websites Gained only 4 back links in any of the major search engines.

I recently proved the limits placed on information about back links and the discounting of back links, after one of my articles got taken up on over 17,000 websites. Since the article has a back link to my website, in theory that should mean 17,000 back links to my website.

A popular tool for checking back links among other things was a software tool called Optilink. Its popularity became such a problem for Google that they set about trying to detect its electronic signature and then blocking it when people used it.

It looks as if in the past months, that Google have been successful, because Optilink has been disabled by the developer from conducting queries on Google for back links. It's also no longer able to do queries on back links with MSN or Yahoo and the only one left now is the minor search engine Hotbot.

I'm only telling you all this, because it proves how obsessed many website owners have become about checking for back links to their websites and checking Google Page Rank of potential and existing link partners.

But are these web site owners right to be hung-up about Page Rank and Back Links and are you one of them?

What if I could prove to you that the value of back links from another website is not just about Page Rank. That in fact back links from Low PR sites could be of more value to you than back links from High PR sites. Would you believe me?

No, well if you want the proof you'll need to read another article called: "How Low PR Web Sites Can Improve Search Engine Ranking" by Andy Theekson who advises on Search Engine Optimization.

The article shows how the value of back links from other websites is not just about Page Rank but also how many other outbound links there are from the same page.

It was possible to show how a back link from a PR 2 web page can be of equal or greater value than a back link from a web page with a PR 7, 8, 9 or even 10.

The article should be read by anyone who only looks for back links from High PR sites.

It's often said that people don't value what they get for free and only value what they have to pay for. This may also be true of back links since the website owners who value them the most will often buy links.

Many website owners who have the cash will buy links, or to be more correct with terminology, buy text links from websites with High PR pages. Some people would argue this is cheating and trying to buy links to improve search engine ranking.

The cost to buy text links varies widely from $5 to $30 per month for a PR 4 link up to $50/mnth for a PR 5 text link. They become progressively more expensive up to PR 8, when in some cases, you can expect to pay several $100's per month.

So why would people pay these prices to buy text links on high PR pages?

Is it for the traffic they expect to get by being on a high ranking and assumed high traffic page, or is it to gain from an improved search engine ranking for their own website?

If they want traffic there are cheaper ways, even if you include Pay Per Click where even at 50 cents per click your $1000 would give you 2,000 targeted visitors per month.

When you buy text links there are no guarantees you'll get traffic and you're paying for the text link not by the click but by the month, regardless of what traffic you get.

So I would suggest that someone who is going to buy text links obviously believes they're going to improve search engine ranking for their website.

But are people who buy text links getting value for money?

For the answer to that question you'll need to read the continuing part of this article: "Can You Buy Text Links And Get Value for Money?"

About The Author:

Tony Simpson, Advises on Website Design, Promotion and Optimization. The continuing part of this article is at: http://www.webpageaddons.com/stp/buytextlinks1 - "Can You Buy Text Links And Get Value for Money?"

Winning the Google AdSense War

By Willie Crawford

Some owners of content sites are earning four and even five-figure incomes per month selling "nothing." They're doing this by selling their targeted traffic to other websites through Google's AdSense program.

If you're not familiar with AdSense, it's where Google pays website owners ("publishers") to run ads on their sites. Google accepts paid ads from advertisers, and then shares this revenue with the publishers who allow these ads to be displayed on their sites. They pay based upon clicks generated from the publishers' sites.

Many publishers have discovered that running Google AdSense ads is more lucrative, and less trouble, than marketing their own products or services. So an entire industry has sprang up around monetizing websites using AdSense and other pay-per-click programs.

The "industry" is mature enough that seminars are even held that teach how to best monetize your content sites. I'll be attending a seminar, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 9th -11th, that has this very focus. You can read more about it at: http://WillieCrawford.com/new-orleans-seminar.html

Since MOST people I've communicated with aren't earning four or five-figure incomes per month, let's examine how you increase your chances of earning these amounts.

First of all, your website has to be on a topic (a niche) where people are spending lots of money. There are niches where advertisers often spend $40 - $50 per click... just to get visitors to their websites. Obviously, these visitors buy "things" on these websites that make it worthwhile to pay that much for the traffic.

In case you're wondering what keywords any "sane" marketer would spend $50 on a single click for, read on...

Certain visitors to websites, that later convert to customers, could literally be worth thousands, even millions, to marketers. These marketers know the lifetime value of their visitors, and have the conversion rates calculated! Markets where customers can be this lucrative include legal/lawsuits, medical, higher education, real estate, new and used vehicles, investments, travel, and products offering residual income. There are many others.

I actually have a list of over 9000 keywords that I consult when building a new site, or optimizing an existing site. Doesn't it makes perfect sense to create sites that attract visitors with a high value-per-visitor?

You can grab a copy of my list along with a few personal notes on how to monetize these high value keywords at: http://9000TopPayingKeywords.com

The keywords on the list above range from 93 cents to $108 per click. There ARE higher priced keywords but you probably don't want to focus on them since the competition can be incredibly cutthroat. There are niches where your competitors will actually sabotage your efforts. Money does that to some people :-)

It makes economic sense to build a site around topics where people are actually spending money already.

It makes sense to target a market where people have money to spend - and they expect to spend it on products similar to yours. In that sense, you can even set up site designed to generate traffic for governmental agencies, foundations, charities, etc. It's all about getting in front of the traffic and then re-directing that traffic to those willing to pay for it.

When setting up content sites, it's important that you not violate the terms-of-service at the pay-per-click management firm that you plan on using. For example, Google actually tells you that you should not build sites just for their AdSense program. Yet, they need sites to display their customers' ads in order for their program to work.

It's a delicate balancing act. Google wants to deliver relevant clicks to their customers. They know that traffic coming from "junky" or "spammy" sites may not convert as well for their customers. This would lower their customers ROI, and lead to many unhappy customers. This would drive Google's customers to their ever-growing competitors.

Google wants webmasters that have quality, targeted traffic to run AdSense Ads. When you set up a free blog on Google's Blogger.com they even have the AdSense invitation "programmed" into the signup process.

So how DO you win the Google AdSense War and get your share of that multi-billion dollar advertisers' revenue stream? You build high-quality content sites that focus on niches where people are spending money. It's as simple as that. You let those already doing it teach you what works best - it's a easy as that!

About the Author:

Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing techniques to thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs since late-1996. Grab a free copy of his comprehensive, 20 Lesson Internet Marketing Success Course now at: http://WillieCrawford.com

Why is Affiliate Marketing Popular with Home Based Business Entrepreneurs?

By Kanaga Siva

The great strides made in the development of the Internet in the recent past has enabled information to be transmitted thousands of miles away with such ease and clarity that time and space are hardly of any consequence to the Internet Marketer today.

Marketing Programs have literally taken over the Internet and riding high, is Affiliate Marketing.

According to the Computer Industry Almanac "The world-wide Internet population for 2004 was 934 million and the projection for 2006 is 1.21 billion."

Sean Michael Kerner in an article in Click Z News quoting a spokesman for eBay states "According to eBay their largest affiliate earned over $1.3 million dollars in January commission, the largest amount yet in their affiliate program's history. Their top 25 affiliates averaged over $100,000 per month each and the top 100 affiliates earn almost $25,000 each per month."

With this sort of statistics around, is it any surprise that thousands of entrepreneurs especially those Home Based Business entrepreneurs with very small marketing budgets are jumping on to the Affiliate Marketing band-wagon!

Given below are some of the Popular reasons for this desire and urge to do Affiliate Marketing:

1. Cost Factor:
Most Entrepreneurs refrain from starting a brick and mortar business or for that matter a Home Based Business (non internet) because of the investment required. In Affiliate Marketing the set-up cost is negligible with most programs being free to join and the merchant even providing you with the tools, tips and websites.

2. Pick and Choose Products:
With dozens of Affiliate Program providers and thousands of merchants having their own affiliate programs, there are several thousands of products to choose from. You name it they have it! In fact there are even Fortune 500 companies to choose from. The idea is to pick and choose your niche products and promote them.

3. No need for an Inventory.
The hassle of purchasing, stocking of items and storing of finished items (in a production unit)and dispatching them are not there. There is no need to maintain an inventory. It is all handled by the merchant.

4. No need for Employees.
In any business the wages of the employees is one of the major expenditures to contend with. Here the problem does not arise since the marketer himself will operate his home business and probably get the assistance of a family member to help him.

5. Necessity for Customer Service does not arise.
Customer service plays a major role in the success or failure of a business. The advantage here is that there is no direct dealing with the customers. The website will automatically direct the customers to the merchants.

6. Two Tier Affiliate Marketing:
An attractive feature of certain affiliate programs is that they have a Two tier system, whereby affiliates can sign up as sub-affiliates below them. When the sub-affiliate earns a commission, the affiliate above him too earns a commission.

7. Income without a limit.
In a paid job the salary structure has a vice-like grip over your monthly income. Here the possibilities are limitless. Though it is not every marketer who earns a big income, the fact remains that avenues are all there for the enterprising marketer to make it to the big time.

8. Global Market Place.
You no longer need to restrict your market to your home town or country. With your well chosen niche product you can sit in the comfort of your home and target the Global Market.

9. Low Risk Factor.
The risk factor in Affiliate Marketing is so small that it has become one of the major attractions for many Home Based Business entrepreneurs especially for those with low marketing budgets.

10. Business works Right Round the Clock.
One major asset of Internet marketing is that your Website, or in other words, your Home Based Business never sleeps. It works right round the clock (24/7) making money from home for you.

Having indicated the above reasons for the popularity of Affiliate Marketing, it has to be mentioned that statistics indicate that only 5% of the marketers do make big money. It is presumed that there are of course several thousands of marketers who make some money, thus giving them an additional income.

As long as the top marketers in the 5% slab, continue to make their millions and the latter continue to make reasonable amounts of money and have the urge to emulate the top marketers, Affiliate Marketing will continue to draw the attention and be popular with Home Based Business Entrepreneurs.

Copyright © 2005 Kanaga Siva

About the Author:

Kanaga Siva has been a Marketing Manager and Business Manager and has a wealth of experience in Marketing. He now operates his own Home Based Business. For Articles, Resources, Tips and Ideas to start a Home Based Business from anywhere in the World and for other recommended Programs to make money from home, visit his website, http://www.business-fromhome.com

How Do You Increase Your Conversion By Over 70% Instantly?

By Jeff Smith

At times, marketing your business online can seem incredibly complicated. On any given day, you may see 20 different tips being thrown at you for improving your marketing.

In all this noise, you can lose perspective on this one very important, basic fact -

The More Visitors You Convert Into Subscribers and Customers - The More Money You Will Make

I'm as guilty of ignoring this advice as anyone else. At times in my business I have spent 99% of my marketing effort on getting more traffic, and ignoring techniques to turn more of those visitors into customers.

Now, my sites consistently convert over 1.5% of visitors into customers, sometimes more, but rarely less.

Now that seems pretty good - but what if I could get that to be 2%, 2.5% or more on a consistent basis.

With over 15,000 visitors per month on just one of my sites, that could mean a very major increase in customers and revenue!

In fact, logic would dictate I should be spending more time focused on conversion than generating traffic - so thats what I'm doing.

Which Site Do You Think Converts Better

Ok - here's a test.

Here are two sites I am split testing (fancy term for software that equally splits traffic going to two or more pages, without the visitor knowing and ensuring any future visits, they will be taken back to that same page):

http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ebook/index1.html

and

http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ebook/index2.html

The purpose of these pages are to capture contact information, marketing a very successful minicourse we created using the formula explained in "Automated Income Streams"
(http://www.create-e-mini-course.com)

One of these two pages outperformed the other by over 70% - care to take a guess?

It was the first one.

The only change between the two pages is the main headline.

So now, I have a scientifically proven headline I KNOW outperforms alternatives by a significant amount.

Will I start to use this in future emails, ads, signatures, sales letters, press releases and more...?

Absolutely.

Testing may seem boring, useless, a waste of time and even painful - but the reward is incredible. When you can increase your conversion, you will not only instantly see higher revenues, but you will have more leverage to create major joint venture deals that can really increase your profits.

Oh, by the way, the software I used to run the split test is a simple, yet effective script from:

http://www.splitruntest.com/

Don't get caught up with the software - there are many scripts out there, most important is to just get one of them and get started.

Article Resource Box:

Become An Online Information Entrepreneur, Turning Your Knowledge and Experience Into High-Demand Info products That Sell Like Wildfire! Fast Track Formula Tells You How: http://www.infoproductcreator.com

10 Adsense Tips For Maximum Click-Through Rates

By Christos Varsamis

1. You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially for Banners - they have a less of 0.5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.


2. Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.


3. No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them, again, having the same color with your website's background.
4. No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.


5. Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.


6. Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay-per-click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways are link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because the search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.


7. Do not rely on one website. Yes, you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.


8. Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is
   http://www.articleequalizer.com/. You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!


9. Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps


10. Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find a relevant ad in your page, he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.
i. First the file must be saved with the appropriate name. For example: Golf-Secrets.html if your article is about golf. So the webpage will be: http://www.yoursitesname.com/Golf-Secrets.html

ii. Second thing you must change is your title tag. For example: Golf-Secrets article.

iii. Third is the heading. The first sentence must have this heading: 12 Golf secrets.

About The Author:

Christos Varsamis is a Business writer, creator and owner of the http://www.settinglifegoals.com/ & http://www.fastprofitbiz.com/. Sign for your 7 day FREE e-course " How to TRACE a Legitimate business Opportunity."

RSS: The Wave Of The Future For Ezine Publishing

By Ken Hill

A powerful innovation, known as RSS or really simple syndication, is destined to revolutionize the way ezines are delivered to their subscribers.

In fact, Microsoft's plans to add RSS to the new version of their Internet Explorer and Longhorn operating system means that RSS will become mainstream very soon.

How can publishing your ezine in RSS profit you?

By using RSS to publish your ezine, you'll be able to completely bypass the email filters that cause many ezines to lose their profitability.

You'll also be able to have complete control over your ezine's content, making your messages much more effective because you won't have to worry about your ezine getting blocked.

In addition, you'll never lose subscribers due to them changing email addresses.

As long as your readers continue to subscribe to your feed, they'll continue to get your RSS ezine, regardless of which email they use.

Now, the key to creating a successful RSS ezine is providing your readers with valuable content.

First and foremost, your readers are going to want useful, informative content from you, and by giving them what they want, you'll be on your way to:

a) more sales of your products
b) more commissions when you recommend your affiliate programs, and
c) more repeat ad sales, because you'll have a very responsive subscriber base.

An excellent way for you to add your own winning content to your ezine is to write articles on the topic your ezine covers.

Through your articles you'll be able to:

- build up your reader's trust in you.
- increase your status as an expert in your field.
- add your own unique voice and style to your ezine.
- successfully promote your business through your resource box at the end of all your articles.

In addition to writing your own articles, you can ask your readers to send you their articles, or you could publish "free to reprint" articles in your ezine.

Some article writers also make their articles available to their affiliates to earn commissions.

You simply join their affiliate program and then publish their articles with your affiliate link in the resource box.

By doing this, you'll be able to easily increase your commissions.

And if you have an affiliate program, you can also use this strategy to get more new affiliates that will successfully promote your products and add to your bottom line.

About the Author:

Ken's articles on ezine publishing have been published in numerous ezines and web sites all over the net. For more articles and resources that will help you to get started publishing your own successful ezine, visit Ken today at: http://www.ezinepublishers.net

Reciprocal Link Building That Works

By Shawn Pringle

We all know the value of getting links to our site. Links bring you traffic from related sites and boost your search engine rank, which brings you, umm, more traffic. So, basically, links = traffic.

However, gone are the days of simply asking for a link (in exchange for a link from your site) and actually getting one. These days, bland reciprocal link requests such as these almost never yield any benefit because they are simply ignored. Think about this old-school approach from the email recipient's point of view to understand why your link requests are ignored.

Webmasters of quality sites, the ones you want to get links from, are constantly dealing with link requests. 9 times out of 10 the webmaster simply sees "Link Exchange" and deletes the email. I know I do. I have more important things to do than to entertain requests that are most likely for sites that are not even relevant to mine.

And like most webmasters, I don't give the link requester the chance to even prove if it is relevant (meaning, I don't read the email). I've seen so many of these emails that they seem to hit the "Deleted Items" folder as fast as the Viagra spam emails.

So, this is the first hurdle, getting your email read. If your subject line resembles a link request at all, busy webmasters will see it as such and simply delete it. You have to put yourselves in their shoes. What would get you to read the email?

Well, how about starting off by telling them what YOU can do for THEM, instead of the other way around. This simple tactic works much better. Which one would you open:

A) Subject: "Exchange links with xyz.com"
B) Subject: "Love your site! As my way of saying thanks."

In the body of the email you can introduce yourself and your site, and explain what you are trying to accomplish with your site.

Now, the following method varies slightly depending on what type of site you have that you are trying to get links for. Most sites fall into 2 categories: content sites and e-commerce sites. Is your site offering valuable content to your visitors (such as information on the best local golf courses), or is your site selling something (software or an ebook or something)? Your site will be one of these types.

If it's a content site then the process of acquiring links is much easier, because you simply have to convince the potential link partner that your site would be of value to them and their visitors. You could use an email such as:

"Hi there,

I just saw your site at _______ and think it's a great resource for our new _____ site. Our _____ site is unique because ______(here is where you would stress the value of your site)_________. Check it out at _________. Since our ____ site is like nothing else on the net, and we are quickly becoming the favorite resource for ____.

I am going to add your link to my site in a prominent location (with few outbounds on your link page) and was wondering if you would do the same.

The traffic we can send each other will be highly targeted and both of our visitors would appreciate and benefit from this link swap.

Again my site is at _________. Check it out!

Let me know if you would like me to add your link to the site.

Thanks!

____ (name)"

This type of email works well, and should net you a bunch of links if your content site truly is of value to the email recipient and his/her visitors.

Now, if your site falls under the second category, an e-commerce site, you need to put a little more work into your requests using the following approach. The body of the email would go on to explain that, as your way of saying thanks for a great site, you would like to offer them a complimentary copy of your ebook.or a copy of your software.or provide a service to them (copywriting, ebook design, graphic design).whatever.in exchange for a link from their site. If they link to your site, you will provide them with something in return, other than simply a link back from your site.

And it doesn't have to be your main product either. You can put together a valuable little bonus for link partners, or you can acquire master resell rights to something that you think would be of interest to them and offer them this. The key is to be creative. If you think about it just a little bit, I'm sure you can come up with something to give away in exchange for some highly valuable links.

I have used this tactic successfully several times and it always works beautifully. People love this because there's actually something in it for them, unlike the dozen other boring reciprocal link requests they simply deleted. Trust me, it works.

But the key is that you have to approach the right sites - RELEVANT SITES. I can't stress this enough. You cannot simply use this tactic as a blanket approach and send out as many emails as you can. If you do that, there goes the personalization and credibility you are hoping comes across in your email. You have to find only relevant sites that are truly valuable to you as a link partner.

And if your goal is simply to get top search engine rankings and not just the desire to have a ton of links pointing to your site, you don't have to send out hundreds of these requests - if they are properly targeted. This is especially true if you are in a relatively untapped niche market, because only a handful of the right links will get you top search engine rankings. After you get these links you will get listed at the top of MSN in a couple days, Yahoo in a couple weeks, and Google in a couple months. They all index and rank pages differently, but they share a common trait in that they all place an extremely high value on relevant backlinks. More so than any other SEO tactic out there, in fact.

So, how do you find relevant sites? Well, ideally these sites would not only be relevant but also would have a decent Page Rank as well as few outbound links on the page you would like to be linked from. As a rule of thumb, the higher the Page Rank and the fewer the outbound links the better. The PR Prowler program does exactly this. It allows you to enter in the keywords that relate to your site and specify a minimum Page Rank for your potential link partners, then it returns a list of highly valuable and, more importantly, relevant link partners for you and shows you the value of each one as a link partner. It can also email these sites from within the program(and customize each email), so you just have to craft your message and click "Send".

Bottom line: You have to be smart when you approach sites these days. With all the spam laws and email regulations in place, not to mention the resource drain on all those involved, you must only contact relevant sites to get links back to you. And by doing this in a creative fashion whereby the email recipient actually gets something of value in return for a simple link on their site you increase your chances of landing these valuable links tenfold. Not only does this boost your link popularity and search engine rank, but these relevant links are great traffic generators in and of themselves. It's a double-whammy, and an internet marketing tactic you should not take lightly.

Put some work into your link requests, and it will pay off in the end.

About the Author:

Shawn Pringle is the owner and founder of TopNet Solutions and he has been promoting various web sites online for over 5 years using a variety of clever tactics. His PR Prowler software is used by hundreds of savvy webmasters to find highly relevant link partners.

10 Mistakes To Avoid When Setting Up A Link Directory

By Tony Simpson

When adding a link directory to a web site there are a few important guidelines to observe. Ignore them and it could affect your ability to build traffic through reciprocal links and ranking with the search engines. I know, because I made some of these mistakes and didn't have anyone to offer any advice or tell me what I'm about to tell you.

1. Don't create a directory page with all your links on one page.

You should have no more than 30 - 40 links to a page. The reason is that some sites will not link to you if a page you put their link on has too many links, because it dilutes the value of the link to them. To understand why, you need to know about Google Page Rank and how it's passed to another site from your link page. That's a subject too lengthy for this topic.

2. Plan your link directory on paper first.

Decide what names you are going to give each category in your link directory. Make the names fit with the theme of your site and try to avoid adding categories which are nothing to do with
what your site is about.

For example if your site is about Making Candles and Candle Accessories, don't have link categories for Computers & Games, or Search Engine Optimization etc. The reason is that if you
want your site to achieve a good ranking with the search engines your site should be built tightly around your theme, in this example Candles.

3. Only link to web sites that relate to your site theme.

Make sure other sites have something to offer your visitors. This refers to item 2. If you don't have categories for unrelated topics, you'll be less tempted to link to them because you don't have a category to put them in.

4. Choose names for link categories that you want to use now and in the future.

This is because you can't easily change them later on. Once the pages are created by your link manager software, it will use the category names you give it. So if you have a category called
"Candle Power" it will create an html page called Candle-Power.html or something similar, using your category name. Once this page is found and indexed by the search engines, in time it will gain Page Rank.

If later, you change the category name to "Candle Lights" the link manager software will create a new page called Candle-Lights.html and you will lose the page rank you had gained for the earlier page. If your link partners linked to you because the page you put them on had a good page rank, renaming the page will cause this page rank to fall to zero. As a result your link partners may drop the link they have back to you, which is not what you ever want to happen.

5. Avoid having sub-categories or sub sub-categories in your directory.

The reason for this is again to do with how search engines will rank your directory pages. If your directory pages are more than two levels or two clicks away from your main index or home page they will either not be indexed by some search engines, or if they are indexed they will achieve a lower ranking. Some web sites will not link to you if the page you are to put the link on is more than 2 clicks away from your home page because these webmasters know what I've just told you.

6. Ensure each page of your link directory has a link back to your home page.

Once again the reason for this is to do with how search engines will rank your directory pages, so make sure these links are in place.

7. Don't be obsessed at linking only to websites with a good search engine ranking.

Look first at whether the site has anything to offer your visitors. If it has poor or unrelated content don't link to it. If it has good related content that compliments your own content but has zero or low page rank, consider linking to it. Later on you may be glad you provided a link, when it's page rank improves.

8. Don't use link directory software that doesn't automatically check links.

Link directory software must be able to check links to your web site are still present on other sites. Doing link checking manually can be tedious and you have to remember to do it. Software that you can set a schedule to check links and automatically send out emails to webmasters when links are not found will save you a lot of time. Link management software that will automatically suspend links and delete them if they are repeatedly not found is an added bonus.

9. Don't use standard templates that come with any link manager.

Link directory management software comes with standard templates that you must modify to match the look and design of your own web site. This requires you know something about editing a web page using an HTML editor. Also don't use the standard email templates, personalize them in some way, even if it's only to add your name.

10. Don't assume you're finished once you've set up your link directory.

Once you've done all the things I've suggested, you must test and retest every aspect to ensure everything is working properly, before visitors arrive.

This means making an add a link request, as if you were a visitor to your own web site. Setting up test links and making sure these links are being checked by the software so it detects when links are removed or defective. Making sure it sends out email notices correctly and check the formatting is correct when they are received. You should also check you can make backups of your link directory database and be able to restore it in the event of a problem.

About The Author:

Tony Simpson is a Web Designer and Search Engine Optimizer who brings a touch of reality to building a Web Business. It's a No-Hype, No B.S approach from his own 5 years of experience. He provides advice, product reviews and products at Web Page Add Ons, Making Automation of Your Web Site Work for You.

A Process For Selecting Your Work At Home Business Opportunity

By Kirk Bannerman

It was back in 2001 when I started looking for viable work at home opportunities. It was a time consuming process, but in retrospect, I give myself a pat on the back every month when I cash the check from my home based business.

The primary purpose of this article is to perhaps help others make their selection with a little less time and effort than I had to expend.

Having spent many years running traditional "bricks and mortar" type businesses, I didn't buy for one second the numerous heavily hyped, or worse yet, scam operations that touted the instant and fantastic riches that could be achieved (often with little or no effort required). While doing my research as to which business I would eventually pursue, this type of claim became an instant trigger for me to move on to check out some other "opportunity".

I mean, give me a break, if those claims were close to being true, why would they share their "secret" with anyone else? They would just execute their "magic system" and in short order would have made all the money that exists in the world...yeah, right!

In the course of my investigations, a few other natural filters surfaced to help me narrow down the realistic and legitimate opportunities from among the far too numerous unfounded offers.
Early on, I determined that the "get in on the ground floor" offers were essentially smoke. After all, if I wanted to take a chance on the lottery, I would have purchased a ticket. Because of my business management experience, it soon became clear to me that three of the primary factors that would influence my choice would be:

• Successful longevity (how long has this particular company been successfully doing business?)
• Reasonable income expectations touted by the top management of the company offering the opportunity.
• Support systems and training resources available to help the participants succeed.

One thing that really struck home with me was a statement made by the founder of the company that I eventually selected for my home based business. It went something like the following:

"Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear from an affiliate questioning why he or she is not seeing a big check yet. More times than not, the person asking hasn't even been involved for more than 90 days and is only barely beginning to even understand how the whole system works. And frankly, even if the number was six months, it's still much too early to be expecting a significant income stream to have developed.

I always say that if you're not willing to give a business at least a year, don't even bother getting involved. You need to understand that it takes time to get to know all the nuances of the compensation plan. It takes time to determine which products you want to lead with. It takes time to develop a game plan. It takes time to figure out what marketing activities deliver the biggest bang for the buck. Anything worthwhile takes sustained effort. If you're not thinking long term, you've set yourself up for failure."

To sum it up, the selection process should focus on reality (there is no "magic" in home based businesses) and reject any so-called "opportunities" that seem too good to be true.

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.

Write Benefits in Your Headlines to Deliver the Dream!

By George Dodge

When you create headlines, do you put benefits into your headlines to deliver the dream? Do you create headlines that draw your reader deeper into the rest of copy?

Let me ask you a simple question. "Why do people read any printed material beyond the headline?"

The answer, because there was something in the headline that attracted their attention, raised their interest and curiosity, or contained a perceived benefit for the reader. At that moment in time, the headline was an irresistible headline to your reader.

How to Write a Headline to be an Irresistible Headline.

If you are writing material to sell a product, what is it that your target audience is seeking? Of course, it's the benefits that your product offers them (your product does have benefits for your target audience, doesn't it?).

They are looking for a beneficial means of solving their problems. They want to know "what's in it for them." They seek solutions to problems and new options that save time, money, and effort. If your product can do all three, you'll have a winner if you can convincingly convey those benefits to your reader.

But, no matter how good the product is and how well it matches their wants and desires, if you don't create headlines that present the benefits to your readers, then you certainly will not have a headline that makes you rich.

The purpose of this headline writing technique is to present your solution as the solution to your target market's most base wants and desires.

However, in order to render the ideal solution when you create your headline, you must understand what your target market wants... their likes and dislikes... their disappointments and frustrations with other competing alternatives. What is it that bothers your target market most concerning your niche?

Once you understand the wants, desires, or dreams of your target market, you can "enter into the conversation inside your customer's mind" as the famous copywriter Robert Collier once taught. Copywriter Maria Veloso refers to this as Frame-of-Mind marketing.

Supplied with this important knowledge, it's not too difficult to determine what it would take to create a more beneficial solution. But, you don't want to be content with being a little better than the other options available. If possible, you want to be the ultimate alternative to your target market's problem. What would your target population really desire to have, to be, or to achieve, that their current alternatives fail to provide? What is the right alternative--the best answer to the problem?

So, now it's time to become the master copywriter. Put on your thinking cap. Think of how to write a headline that conveys the benefits of your product or service as the solution to the wants and desires of your target market. When creating your headline, try to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience mentally and think of how to give your audience the "perfect alternative"--the biggest benefit they genuinely desire.

Create the Irresistible Headline.

When writing your headline, your mission is to span the gap between where your target market is and where they want to be. Try to imagine what would be the perfect end state. Then, using picture words, create a mental vision that meets the fundamental dreams and desires that members of your target market harbor inside their own minds. Finally, portray your message as the perfect solution--the dream option.

Create an irresistible headline.

I'm sure that you have heard the old saying that in order to get rich, you need to find a need and fill it. But that is really not the answer. Many sales people will tell you that that course of action is a sure way to the poor house. People don't buy what the need, they buy what they want. If you need transportation, a Yugo will do, but many people want and buy Mercedes, BMWs, and other expensive cars because they want or desire them, not because they need them.

Creating headlines that target needs will result in weak headlines with little results. Create headlines that make you rich by targeting your reader's wants, dreams, and desires. Purchases are made on emotion and then afterwards justified with logic. Sell the dream, not the need.

So, find out what your target audience wants, desires, or dreams about and fulfill that want or desire with your miracle product. Then put the strongest benefit(s) in your headline.

What might a headline look like that puts a strong benefit right in the headline? How about this example from Jimmy D. Brown: "How to Sell 300% More of Your Product in 72 Hours Than You Did All Month." If you sell products, would you like to do that? Could you resist reading at least a little further on to find out how that might be done? For a product seller, that headline is most likely an irresistible headline.

Or how about some of these famous headlines:

Headline #1:
"How A New Discovery Made A Plain Girl Beautiful" (If you thought you were a plain girl, would this headline interest you? Would you continue to read on past the headline?)

Headline: #2
"Hands That Look Lovelier In 24 Hours - Or Your Money Back" (If you were a woman that thought your dishpan hands were ugly, might you be interested in reading past this headline?)

Headline #3:
"Free Book - Tells You 12 Secrets Of Better Lawn Care" (If you wanted a better lawn to win the garden club's yard of the month award, would you order this Free book?)

Want your sales to skyrocket? Create headlines that deliver the dream!

About the Author:

George Dodge is owner of the http://www.Headline-Creator-Pro.com website where you can download software that saves you time and effort by allowing you to quickly and easily create headlines with push button ease. While there be sure to subscribe to his Weekly
Headline Tips - you'll be glad you did.

Professional SEO: Hand Off to Bob or Outsource the Job

By Scott Buresh

We are often asked if professional SEO (search engine optimization) can be done effectively utilizing in-house talent. Despite our obvious self-interests on the subject, our answer is always a qualified "yes"- you can achieve professional SEO results using existing talent. However, for every company we have known that has met with great in-house SEO success, we know of many more that have seen their in-house efforts fail. We have also discovered the companies that have succeeded share some common traits.

If your company is considering doing SEO in-house, there are some critical questions that you should address before you proceed.

1. Do I have the proper resources at my disposal to achieve professional SEO results?

Search engine optimization takes time, and your internal SEO expert will need to have a great deal of it at his or her disposal - especially at the project's outset when target audiences, keyphrases, and optimization schemes are first being established. Even after the initial optimization effort, the nature of SEO will require this person to spend ample time keeping up with industry trends, monitoring campaign progress, performing A/B testing, and expanding the campaign as new product and service areas are added.

Perhaps even more important than time, achieving professional SEO results requires a unique set of aptitudes. The person responsible for your internal SEO initiative must possess the ability to learn quickly and to look at your website from a macro-perspective, marrying together the needs of sales, marketing, and IT. He or she cannot be an aggressive risk taker, as this is often a surefire way to get your website penalized and potentially removed from the major search engines. These gifted people exist in many companies, but given the unique attributes that these individuals possess, their time is often already spent in other crucial areas of the business.

Without enough time to invest in the project or the right type of person to execute it, an internal SEO initiative is likely doomed to fail.

2. Do I know which departments of my company should be involved, and will they work with an insider?

As mentioned above, professional SEO, by necessity, involves marketing, sales, and IT. The SEO expert must work with marketing to find out what types of offers and initiatives are working offline to help translate them effectively online. He or she must work with sales to identify the types of leads that are most valuable so that you can target the right people in the keyphrase selection process.

And, finally, your SEO expert will need to work with IT to determine any technical limitations to the SEO recommendations, learn of any past initiatives based on a technical approach, and get the final optimization schemes implemented on the website.

Sadly, in many businesses, these departments have a somewhat adversarial relationship. However, it is the duty of the SEO expert to act as a project manager and coordinate the efforts of all three departments if you are going to get the most out of your campaign. No professional SEO project can be completed in a vacuum. For whatever reason, it is often easier for an outsider to get adversarial departments on the same page, in the same way that a marriage counselor might convince a woman of her undying love for her husband while the husband is still grimacing from a well-placed knee in the parking lot.

3. Will someone be held accountable for the results?

This may seem like a small consideration, but it can have a tremendous impact on the success of the campaign. If you have added this responsibility to some poor soul's job description with the direction that he or she should "do the best you can," you'll be lucky to make any headway at all (especially if the person is not enthusiastic about SEO). Whether SEO is done in-house or outsourced, someone will have to take responsibility for showing progress, explaining setbacks, and continually improving results. Without this accountability, it is very common to see an initiative fade as the buck is passed.

4. Can I afford delayed results based on a learning curve?

It's a reality - professional SEO expertise has a steep learning curve. While the information on how to perform the basics of optimization are freely available on the web, much of the information out there is also contradictory, and some of it is actually dangerous. It takes time for someone unfamiliar with the discipline to sort the SEO wheat from the SEO chaff (on a side note, a "quoted" search of Google reveals that this may actually mark the first occasion in human history that the phrase "SEO chaff" has been used - we're betting it's also the last). Simply put, if the person you are putting on the job has no experience, it will take longer to
get results. This may not be a consideration if you aren't counting on new business from SEO any time soon. However, if you are losing business to your competition due to their professional SEO initiatives, time might be a larger factor.

5. Will it cost me less to do it in house than it would to choose a professional SEO firm?

Often, companies will attempt this specialized discipline in-house in order to save money, and sometimes this works out as intended. However, accurate calculations of the cost of in-house labor that would be involved versus the price of the firm you would otherwise hire should be performed to make an accurate comparison. When making this calculation, also factor in the opportunity cost of the resource - the tasks that your in-house people are not able to perform because they are involved in SEO.

In addition, if worse comes to worst and your in-house SEO expert is led astray by some of the more dangerous "how-to" guides available, it can cost even more to repair the damage than it would have to hire a professional SEO firm to perform the optimization from the outset. And an internal SEO campaign gone wrong can cost even more than the stated fee - websites that violate the terms of service of the major search engines (whether intentional or not) can be severely penalized or even removed, costing you a lot of lost revenue when potential customers can not find your website for a period of time.

6. Do I believe that the end result I'll get in-house will be equal to or greater than the results I would have gotten from a professional SEO firm?

Search engine optimization can create huge sales opportunities, and slight increases in overall exposure can have not-so-slight increases in your bottom-line revenue. If you believe that your talented in-house resource will, given enough time, achieve results equal to or greater than those that could have been achieved by the professional SEO firm you might have chosen, it may make sense to do it internally.

However, in addition to a better knowledge of industry trends, one clear advantage that search engine optimization firms have is the benefit of the experience and macro-perspective that comes from managing many different websites over time. Professional SEO firms can watch a wide range of sites on a continual basis to see what trends are working, what trends aren't, and what formerly recommended tactics are now actually hurting results.

This macro-perspective allows professional SEO firms to test new tactics as they appear on a case-by-case basis and apply those results across a wide range of clients to determine what the benefit is. It is harder for an individual with access to only one site to perform enough testing and research to achieve optimum results all the time, something that should also factor into the equation.

7. Do I have at least a slight tolerance for risk?

Neophytes to SEO can make mistakes that can lead to search engine penalization or removal. This happens most commonly when they have an IT background and treat SEO as a strictly technical exercise. We are often called in to assist companies who have had an internal initiative backfire, leaving them in a worse position than the one they were in before they started. The simple truth is that you cannot perform effective SEO without marrying your efforts to the visitor experience, but this is not something that is intuitively understood when people approach SEO for the first time.

However, professional SEO firms are not perfect either. Some firms use those same optimization methods that violate the search engines' terms of service and can get your site penalized. So, if you do decide to outsource, educate yourself on SEO and do some research on
the firm. Know the basics of the business, find out who the firm's clients are and how long they've been in business, and ask for professional references - just like you would do with any major business purchase.

If you have considered all of the above questions, and your answers to all seven are "yes," your company may be uniquely equipped to achieve professional SEO results in-house. If you answered "no" to any of the first three questions but "yes" to the rest, it does not necessarily mean that you can't perform SEO in-house - just that you may not be in a position to do so at this time. Taking the actions required to get you in the right position to answer in the affirmative might be worth your while. However, if you answered "no" to any of the last four questions, you may want to consider outsourcing the project to a professional SEO firm.

A professional SEO firm has the resources, the time, the expertise, and, most importantly, the experience, to launch an SEO initiative for your website that will have a positive effect on your bottom line. Whichever option you choose, it is important that you fully embrace the channel. A half-hearted initiative, whether done internally or outsourced, can be as ineffective as taking no action at all.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing. He has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SEO Today, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.

Medium Blue, an Atlanta search engine optimization company, serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DuPont, and Georgia-Pacific. To receive internet marketing articles and search engine news in your email box each month, register for Medium Blue's newsletter, Out of the Blue, at www.mediumblue.com.

Adsense, Boost Your Payout by 400% - No Really!

By Darren Yates

How?

Dead easy.

I implemented this tactic myself recently on one of my sites and my CTR has gone up 300% and it hasn't been 24hrs yet. Needless to say I'll be spending sometime making changes to my Adsense ads across my network of sites.

What is it? Sorry, can't resist a little intrigue.

It's very simple.

Using the Adsense Leaderboard banner 728 x 90 I added small images/photos above each ad at 140 x 100.

These photos are broadly related to the ads and draw the eye of the visitor to the ad. Which the ad alone maybe would not do. Once the eye is drawn your visitor will be much more likely to read the ad text below the image and in turn they'll be more inclined to click.

Google already knows of this tactic and I know a number of people have approached them via email before implementing the images. Obviously nobody wants their account suspended. The good news is Google are fine with it, for now at least. Although a few warnings have gone out with regard to animated images not being appropriate. So no Flash or animated gifs!

You can view this in action on one of my sites - http://www.how-to-make-money-online.info

You can't fail to see it at the top of the page.

Now I hope this is new information to you. If so I know it's going to be damn useful :). And most of all profitable!

The benefit of this over Google's own Adsense 'image ads' is that you choose the image for one and the basic text ad appeals for another. As I'm sure you are aware text ads work better than image ads. Combining them together in this way seems to work better than either one of them would alone.

There's also a major boost in the fact that you are able to select the most relevant image for your site content and current adsense ads.

About the Author:

Darren Yates is the owner of http://www.how-to-make-money-online.info a site about Making Money Online and Internet Marketing. Packed with news, tips, resources and thousands of Internet marketing articles.

A Three Day Marketing Plan for Better Google Rankings

By Melissa Brewer

If you're reading this article, you've probably discovered that simply building a website is not enough to ensure success with your small business. Competition on the web is fierce. Rising to the top of the search engines is often a combination of web-savvy marketing, link trading, and understanding the intricacies of complex ranking algorithms for search engines. You may have already spent a great deal of time optimizing your pages, creating content, and building your email lists. It's easy to get overwhelmed in your web marketing endeavors, especially if you're a small business or a business moving online from a brick-and-mortar location.

Don't worry - the marketing tools that you're about to work with will enhance your search engine rankings AND attract more visitors, and they don't require any extra coding or hard core marketing. You can accomplish a lot in three days - maybe enough to take the rest of the week off!

Day #1: Use Craig's List: http://www.CraigsList.org

This is a simple, but rarely used, tool for those that are not so tech-savvy. If you're not familiar with Craig's List, here is a bit of information: it is one of the most highly-trafficked websites for
thirty-something's and twenty-something's on the web. CraigsList announced last year that they were currently serving over 75 million page views per month. The site is ranked among the world's 125 busiest websites (Alexa). Almost all ads are free (only employers pay to post "help wanted" ads in some areas), and highly trafficked in major cities such as San Francisco, New York, and DC. Craig's List adds instant link popularity - a friend of mine started a literary website and found himself with over 800 hits a day from several well-constructed CraigsList ads that were "googled".

How to Do It:

Step 1: Write the ad first. 50-100 keyword-rich words work best, along with a link using your target keywords. Craig's List accepts html tags and allows you to upload images. If you are an online retailer, consider advertising one product as a test with a link to your website's entrance.

Step 2: Decide which region you are posting in. If you are a national company, try out a major metropolitan area. If you are regional, stick to the area you service.

Step 3: Find the appropriate category for your ad. Don't spam the forums, the Craig's List Counter Culture will resent you! If your website advertises a massage business, choose "therapeutic services". If you offer classes, choose "lessons". If you don't fit into a specific category, choose "small business ads".

Step 4: Write a specific, keyword-minded headline - don't try to be too vague or clever. If you offer freebies or coupons, mention this in your ad.

Step 5: Post! And make sure you check your email to confirm the ad. (You can always tweak the ad as long as you keep the email.)

If you have time, create an additional ads. You'll have to change most of the content. CraigsList's software is intelligent with recognizing duplicate content. If you are compelled to place a second, third, or 30th ad, change up your keywords and rewrite the ad. Craig's List erases ads after 30-60 days, so be prepared to post again in a month or so. It's worth the effort - if not for the direct response, then at least for the link popularity. Craig's List is one of the first websites in line for the infamous "Google dance."

Day #2: Become a Vendor

Okay, you're probably thinking, I already AM a vendor. My question to you is, "Why aren't you listed as one?" I'm not talking about the internet directories or link exchange websites that list thousands of vendors under the term "resource directory". What I'm referring to, specifically, is what associations, trade publications, and commerce websites term as a "vendor list". (Sometimes also called a "vendor directory".)

Vendor lists and directories are great tools to market your website, services and products to a specific niche. The best part is that most of these places don't require a link-back and your listing is permanent. The resources listed are provided as a service to their members. In fact, many of these companies will also send out a yearly print version of their vendor list. Your link popularity will be affected as well, since associations and other professional organizations are typically linked to by their members.(making them a "popular site" in the eyes of the search engines.) It really doesn't matter what you're selling - a quick Google search will turn up links to a plethora of vendor lists in various industries and niches.

How to Do It:

Step 1: Using your keywords, prepare your descriptions ahead of time. If you've worked with link exchanges, you'll probably already have a few descriptions in mind. The link title should contain your primary keywords. (Not necessarily your website or company name!) for example, if you sell magic supplies, you'll probably want to use the word "magic supplies" in the title.

Step 2: Find the directories. Keep in mind, a lot of government website use these terms as well, which is great if you have a service or products to sell to the government - you can print out the paperwork to do later. Otherwise, ignore the .Use Google (of course!) to find specific niches. The following terms will help you find what you need. Substitute your market or service for the word "keyword" to find the directories you need.

- "vendor list" keyword
- "keyword" vendor list
- "keyword" supplier list
- "supplier list" keyword
- "vendor directory" keyword
- "keyword" vendor directory
- "supplier directory" keyword
- "keyword" supplier directory

Some of the website will require you to email the information, while others simply have a form to fill out and wait for approval. It may seem a bit tedious, but if you turn on "auto fill" through your browser, you'll find it easier to fill out a lot of forms in little time. Remember, a permanent link from a respected authority is a powerful thing!

Day 3: Get Froogled: http://www.froogle.com

If you sell a service or information product, it's time to try out Google's newest feature: Froogle. Froogle allows you to upload images, product descriptions, and physical store information to its search engine within 24 hours. And remember, as a Google product, your website unofficially has a chance of increased ratings - after all, Google googles Froogle! (say that ten times fast!)

How to Do It:

You can find all of the step-by-step information on using Froogle at its respective homepage.

If you don't sell specific items, however, Google isn't going to approve your listing. If you're a service provider, you MAY be allowed to create listings. For example, you can't list vague graphic design services but you may be allowed to use a "logo design package". You may also be able to publish a report or eBook and market it alongside its print competition.

If Google doesn't accept your product feed, it may be worth it to open up an eBay store. Ebay stores are automatically added to Google's feeds, and although they cost a little extra money a month, it may be worth it considering the sheer numbers of searches Froogle is already claiming.

Once you've put these powerful tools into motion, keep an eye on your rankings and your website statistics to see what's working and what isn't. Take a breath before you get back to your enormous to-do list. Congratulate yourself for being ahead of the game. After all, up to 70 percent of small businesses are still without a web presence. Take some pride in building your business in a global market.

And get back to your weekend, instead of your work. :- )

About the Author:

Melissa Brewer is a freelance copywriter specializing in original web site content. Her articles have appeared across the web and she is available for hire through her website eLance.com.

Search Engines Are Going to Love You for This

By Ron Hutton

What's the most potent free traffic source on the web?

Search Engines!

Surprised? Of course not. Why do so many people concern themselves so deeply with search engine optimization, positioning and ranking?

In the United States, the following FOUR search engines handle (*) 94% of all search inquiries each and every day.

Google = 35%
Yahoo = 28%
AOL (powered by Google) = 16%
MSN = 15%
* Source: comScore Media Metrix

Given this information and the fact that 100's of millions of searches are performed every day; wouldn't you want to have your website ranked high enough that it was one of the first sites listed by Google or Yahoo or AOL or MSN? Imagine the exposure that you'll receive!

One undisputed fact is that search engines love websites that offer focused content.

If you're publishing a newsletter online, there are a number of things that you can do with the articles and content that you create. This article will discuss search engines and their affinity for focused and relative content.

I want to show you a free tool that will help you take articles that you write or other people's articles (with their permission, of course) and very quickly and easily incorporate it into your website.

STEP 1: Find articles that tie in closely with the theme of your website or any particular page on your site. For testing purposes you can use this newsletter to play around with.

STEP 2: Go Here:

http://snipurl.com/texttohtml

STEP 3: About mid-page on the right-hand side you'll see a short paragraph with the title "Free Text to HTML Converter". Click on the title. This is a CGI script that I installed at Internet Marketing Power Tools for your use.

STEP 4: Copy the text that you want to convert to HTML code, and paste it in the open text box that you see when this page opens.

STEP 5: Scroll down the page and choose the options that will give you the output that best suits your needs.

STEP 6: Click the "Convert to HTML" button at the bottom of the page.

STEP 7: Click the "Select All" button to copy and paste the now-HTML-formatted text into your webpage.

That's all there is to it.

By including meaningful content on your website, you should receive more favorable rankings in the major search engines. This is only one aspect of what search engines are looking for, but it's an important component and will put you on the right track to getting ranked higher and increasing traffic to your site.

About the Author:

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to GoThrive Online, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools.

Anatomy Of An Article Submission

By Bonnie Jo Davis

Writing and submitting articles to publishers in order to promote your business, services and products is a wise choice for any entrepreneur. The only cost for this kind of marketing project is your time and, if you want the maximum benefits, the amount you pay your proofreader/editor. Many people are overwhelmed by the submission process and don't know where to begin. I have outlined below the ten steps I take with each article submission project. Having a process in place makes organizing submissions so much easier and removes the confusion of where of what to do first.

1. Start by having your article proofread and then add it to your website. Make sure you have a catchy title and a by-line that compels readers to take action.
2. Use a text to html tool to format your by-line so that your URL will appear live when your article is posted on a site. I recommend you use the tool at http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl.
3. Collect the information you'll need for most submission sites including: title, author name, address, phone number, e-mail, website URL, topic, two line summary of the article, word count, line count, article URL, auto responder address (if available), document file names and 10-15 keywords.
4. Make a list of the type of submission sites appropriate for your article. I use EzineAnnouncer to collect and keep track of my submission list and I always write down the categories that are a match for my article. My latest submission qualified for more than 400 sites but your success depends upon your article topic.
5. Begin submitting to sites that accept articles by e-mail. Never send an attachment unless asked. Incorporate the entire article into the e-mail and include an option for the recipient to opt-out of your list.
6. Your next step should be to sign-up for all new submission sites on your list that require registration. Typically, you have to wait for a confirmation e-mail before submitting. You can move on to the next step while you wait.
7. Submit to all sites you have registered for and to all sites not needing registration but offering a submission form.
8. Check your e-mail, confirm your new accounts and visit those sites to add your article. Keep track of your login and password for each site.
9. Update your submission list by removing or correcting bounced e-mail addresses and URL errors. You will also need to add your new submission sites to your list.
10. Create a report to keep on your computer with the name and URL of the sites you used for submission. Update this list when you submit your older articles to newly discovered sites.

Create your own submission process by building on the steps I have provided and you will find your submissions taking less time while helping you to become more organized.

(c) 2005. Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights reserved.

About the Author:

Bonnie Jo Davis is an experienced writer and publications co-ordinator with over ten years of experience submitting articles online and in print. Read her blog and join her no-cost
monthly e-zine.

Build Killer Link Popularity with Syndicated Articles

By Scott Hawksworth

There are many schools of thought on how to build strong backlinks to a Web site. Some webmasters build reciprocal links, while others register their site in many directories. Still others do both of those, and rent links as well!

But one method used by a growing number of webmasters is that of building link popularity through the syndication of original articles. Syndicated articles are becoming increasingly popular because article syndication builds permanent links from many different, topically related, keyword rich pages. There are several steps one can take in order to ensure that an article is syndicated as much as possible, and that the links from those syndications are of the highest quality.

1) Write High Quality Articles

The amount of syndication an article receives is directly proportional to the demand for that type of article. Higher quality articles will prove more valuable to webmasters looking to reprint articles. Perfect spelling and grammar are requisite in order to ensure the widest syndication possible. Webmasters will be more inclined to reprint well-researched and well-written articles. Most articles are not of the highest quality, so a higher quality article will stand out significantly.

Articles should be more than simply a place to put a link in a resource box. The goal of article writing should be to make the article itself interesting. An interesting article can be syndicated on websites with high traffic and PageRank. Increasing article syndication will cause the link in the resource box to be copied by many Web sites.

In addition to building more links with higher quality articles, webmasters will find that quality content articles will result in an immediate traffic increase to a site. An article that is appealing to readers will naturally attract a large readership. The more readers an article has, the more likely those readers are to click on the link in the resource box.

2) Manually Submit to Related Sites

Another technique used by many webmasters to increase an article's syndication is to submit articles to related sites. The best syndications and links come from quality sites in a specific niche, not simply article banks. For example, there are many Web sites that will only accept business-related articles. Any webmaster of a business-related website looking to build link popularity should write an article concerning business and submit it to these sites. Potentially, other business sites could take note of a high quality business article and syndicate it on their sites (which are all related under the unique subject of business). Doing this will build topically related links which can improve a Web site's search engine rankings dramatically.

3) Write a Compelling Title

Articles have to be interesting in order to get the readers to scroll down to the resource box, or inspire webmasters to reprint the article on their Web site. The best way to draw a wide variety of readers is to have a compelling title. Catchy titles and sometimes even controversial titles can draw more readers. Coupling a compelling title with a high quality article is an excellent way to attract readers specifically looking for articles to syndicate.

Article topics should also be interesting. If a website is focused on a specific subject, an article about an interesting element of that subject will be syndicated more than a general article. For example, there may be hundreds of available articles about mortgage refinancing, but how many articles focus on ways financial advisors will try to manipulate someone seeking to refinance?

4) Stay Organized

Time should be taken when finding article sites to submit to. There are many Web sites that have large lists of article sites that accept submissions. A good technique is to submit articles to all of the article sites in a list and check later to see if those articles have been syndicated. Searching for the title of the article submitted in quotations on Google will show where exactly it has been reprinted. Backlink searches on MSN and Yahoo! can also be helpful. Building a solid list of verified article sites can help maximize article syndication and also time efficiency.

Some article sites only accept submissions via e-mail. Some SEOs shy away from e-mailing articles because it is more time consuming and often involves the creation of a biography and picture submission. E-mail submission article sites however are often more inclined to only reprint articles of high quality, and thus these types of sites' articles are often widely syndicated.

5) Write a Killer Resource Box

The heart and soul of a syndicated article is its resource box. The anchor text and link destination of the links in the articles should be varied. Varying anchor text will help avoid penalties in search engine rankings and create higher-value links. Often changing the resource box after submitting to each site proves beneficial. An article about dogs with the anchor text "dogs" should be varied with anchor text like "puppies" for the other article submissions. Using technology such as latent semantic analysis, search engines will notice "dog" and "puppy" as related words, but will not penalize the site for having unnatural links (e.g., if all of the links used "dog" as anchor text). This same effect can be achieved by varying the link target. Linking the first half of the article submissions to page A, and the second half to page B will avoid penalties from search engines like Google. Articles are a proven way to get links, but if a new site suddenly acquires 100 links to the same place in a short time, search engines might penalize it.

Article submission is a great way to get high quality links from topically related sites. The more effort and care given to an article that is submitted, the more syndication potential an article has. Compelling titles, high-quality content, and interesting topics will all improve the syndication of an article. Varying backlink text and destinations can also help avoid heavy penalties from search engines. Some SEOs believe that only traditional directory submissions and link swapping are effective methods of building links. I, however, am a firm believer in the power of a well-written article to deliver a large number of topically related links to any fledgling site.

About the Author:

Scott Hawksworth works for Andy Hagans Link Building as a link popularity building campaign manager. See http://www.andyhagans.com for more information.

A New Way To Learn: Online

By Samuel Murray

Many of the most universities in the country are realizing that no everyone can attend regular classes to obtain a college education. As a result almost all of them offer distance learning programs that allow students from anywhere in the country to get a university education and even get an online degree.

There are many barriers to overcome in order to get a college education. They range from cost to motivation to accessibility. Many young people and their families simply cannot afford to pay the tens of thousands of dollars that is necessary in a regular degree program. Others live in remote areas of the country that make it impossible to attend college without major support and subsidies.

Distance learning allows them to overcome many of these challenges by connecting to the school of their choice through the Internet and enrolling in online degree granting programs in their field of choice. They can get a college education and still help out on the farm at home or they can work to support themselves during the day and take online classes at night.

These types of programs have transformed the higher education landscape almost overnight. Many millions of American kids will follow their college dreams right after high school, but they are now being joined in the academic world by military veterans, housewives, and thousands of other people who want a second chance at living out their dream.

Distance learning has democratized the higher education system in this country and it doesn't matter now how much money your family has or what stage of life you choose to continue your education. An online degree from a reputable and accredited program is worth just as much as if you went to that school for four years right after high school.

If you could picture an online classroom you would see a wide range of ages and life experiences sitting at their home computer, engaged in the pursuit of an online degree. Their enthusiasm to learn is just as great as those who sit in a regular classroom or lecture hall at the university. But what may strike you the most is that these people who are studying for an online degree have a zeal for learning and a motivation to get ahead that any university professor would love to see in his much younger class. These people desperately want to get their college education and distance learning will help them get there.

About The Author:

This article courtesy of http://www.schoolguideusa.com

Simple Tricks to Maximize the Reach of Your Marketing Message

By Chris Ellington

Jim was working hard to grow his business. Long hours networking his rolodex, producing high quality products, and delivering exceptional service to his customers, but he was always just a little short at the end of the month. He needed more customers, and he needed them quickly.

Are you in this situation? Would you like more customers? Here are some very simple things you can do to get your message out to a larger number of potential customers.

Write A Message That Works

Stop trying to get customers one at a time - start getting them ten at a time. Reach a larger number of your potential customers by talking to them about topics they like, in a language they understand. No, I'm not suggesting you take up Spanish or Swahili, I mean that your marketing must use terminology that makes sense to the average, uninformed customer. Don't fill your marketing messages with buzzwords that only industry insiders can understand.

Become An Article Marketer

Write a few short (500-1000 word) articles on topics that capture the interest of your potential customers. Provide relevant and meaningful advice. Fill your article with substance, not advertising. Read it over and make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors. Don't fill it with hype and hyperbole. Pretend your article is going to be in Time Magazine or the business section of a major metropolitan newspaper.

Once you have your interesting and helpful article written, start submitting it around the web. Newsletter editors and publishers are always looking for content to fill their pages. As an article marketer, you can provide that content. In exchange, you get high-quality links to your site and a resource box to make an offer to the readers.

Stop begging webmasters for link exchanges. Quit submitting your URL to FFA sites. If you want better Google search positioning and Page Rank, start writing short, interesting articles.

But there's a trick. Many publishers won't accept articles filled with HTML tags. On the other
hand, *every* publisher will accept text-based articles, so submit your articles without HTML tags and you instantly extend your reach.

There's a Google trick too. Everyone knows that Google loves content. Articles are spidered very quickly and can be found on Google in just a few days. Your article (with your link) on a popular page can drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website. Submitting your article to many publishers can create dozens (even hundreds) of links to your page - all counted by Google as good, quality links.

What many authors fail to consider is the fact that Google penalizes identical, keyword rich "anchor text" links. Their rationale is that "natural" links put up on sites will not be worded identically from site to site. With link manipulation comes Google penalties. Authors have complained that their links disappear from Google after a few weeks, even though the articles are still posted everywhere. This is something you want to avoid and there's an easy way around it.

Google DOES NOT penalize identical hyperlinks when that hyperlink text is a URL. They do not consider it link manipulation, because it's the web standard reference to an actual page.

So combine these two simple tricks and watch as your links are published on multiple websites and not punished by Google.

Increase the Number of Sites You Reach

Article submission is a tedious task. Finding the sites that want your article, creating a user account, logging in, copying and pasting your article according to each publisher's guidelines - it can take between 3-5 minutes per site. If you want your article to go out to 50 sites, be prepared to spend several long and boring hours in front of your computer.

But there's an easier way. Article submission can be automated. There is software you can buy and there are services to do the work for you. In my opinion, a service is the way to go.

With software, you have to manage the submission work based on a list in the product, which may or may not be updated occasionally. Article submission services such as www.articlemarketer.com are constantly interacting with publishers and editors online, and the list is constantly kept up to date.

The Article Marketer service also allows you to post your articles for distribution over time. You can post several articles at once and direct them to be distributed over the next several days or weeks. With software you have to physically sit at your computer and submit your articles on the day you want them distributed.

Software is expensive. Article Marketer offers free distribution, as well as a subscription that allows you to submit as many articles as you like for a very low price. For the price of some software, you can get many years worth of completely automated article distribution.

To recap:

Start talking to your prospects in their language.
Create interesting informative articles.
Use text based articles and URL hyperlinks to increase your Google exposure.
Sign up with an article distribution service to automate the tedious drudgework.
Get more customers - make more money.

About the Author:

Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Simplified Selling program has been a hit with business owners and salespeople around the world. Get your free marketing tips at www.SimplifiedSelling.com

5 Internet Business Myths That Keep Success At Bay

By Louis Allport

Interested in making a full time income running an internet business?

Well, one of the first things you need to do is forget a lot of the "myths" that keep being repeated online. Let's go through five of them here:

Myth 1: "Running a successful online business is easy".

No it isn't. No business success comes easy.

If money was really that easy to make, word would spread and everyone would jump on it, including investors!

Business doesn't work like that - it's competitive, and because of this requires hard work and vigilance.

If you treat your internet business like a job, and always do your very best for your boss (you), then you're off to a great start.

That said - if you're only looking to make $200 extra a month, or even $500 extra a month, that IS easy. Just sell some odds and ends on eBay. A part time income is not particularly difficult to achieve online with online auctions and other outlets like Amazon Marketplace.

But - if you're looking for a full time income, you need to work at it. There is no "secret formula", never was and never will be.

Myth 2: "Running an internet business costs next to nothing".

Well, somewhat true, but it misses the point.

You can run an online business very cheaply (my basic running costs are around $150 a month - hosting, autoresponders...etc) but if you want your business to grow at very low cost, you'll have to do all the promotions for free.

Free online marketing tactics generally take time to work, and require a lot of elbow-grease: writing articles to distribute, writing pages to get search engine traffic, creating products, building up an affiliate program, getting links in to your sites...

Alternatively - if you want to speed things up, you can advertise. And depending on how well your site converts visitors into customers, and how targeted your advertising is, you can grow very quickly that way.

If you're interested in putting a few hundred dollars aside into an "advertising fund" and trying to build your business quickly that way, pay-per-click advertising would probably be the best way to start.

Focus on Google Adwords & Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) for starters since they have the most traffic, as well as the most responsive traffic.

But before diving in headfirst and potentially throwing good money after bad on inefficient advertising, it's strongly recommended you fully understand the subject, or get the advice of a professional.

Either consult with one (if you can find a reputable one), or devour eBooks on the subject.

Recommended eBooks are anything by Andrew Goodman or Perry Marshall. Make sure the information is up to date though as the pay-per-click field changes incredibly quickly. Twelve months is a lifetime when it comes to the search engines.

Also recommended is spending time absorbing the Google Adwords training site and also the Yahoo Search Marketing training site.

Both these companies want you to succeed with your advertising (since you'll advertise with them for longer) and so have a lot of great information to help you get started and build a successful advertising campaign.

Myth 3: "All traffic is the same".

This myth often presents itself as "Buy 10,000 visitors from us for $9.95 and you'll make lots of sales!" (or something along those lines).

Ignore such sales pitches - they're complete rubbish. And here's why:

Bulk traffic like this is completely untargeted and a complete waste of your time and money.

Just think - if you were selling a book through direct mail on "How To Get Rich In Real Estate" and you had to choose a mailing list to promote to, would you rather:

1) Mail your offer to a list of people who had already expressed an interest in the subject by purchasing similar products?

2) Or would you feel it was better to instead pick names at random out of the phone book and make that list the offer?

Silly question, right?

Well, it's the same online - all traffic is not identical. People surfing have different interests and motivations, just like they do offline.

To maximize your chances of making money, you want to target the visitors most likely to convert to customers for you and get them to your site.

Myth 4: "Opt-in email doesn't work anymore".

>From my own personal experience:

Opt-in mail does work, but not as well as it used it. Many spam and email filters are over-zealous these days and delete mail people have asked to receive (opt-in mail) at the same time as unsolicited email (spam).

Plus - people are very worried about phishing emails these days (emails that try to fool you into typing in your private details) and often delete emails out of fear if they don't recognize who sent it.

But these points aside, opt in email can still work - so don't discount it before you try it.

Myth 5: "You don't need any technical skills"

Let's be frank - without technical skills you're going to struggle big time.

If you're going to run an internet business, for starters you want to be comfortable with computers and familiar with the internet.

And you really want to get to grips with HTML and FTP. Those seven letters are the building blocks of creating any kind of website and getting it live online. If you don't know them, get to know them. There's plenty of great tutorials online.

Or even just for starters - you can easily create web pages visually (without messing around with HTML code) by using a visual web page editor. There's plenty to be found by searching download.com.

So put these internet business myths out of your mind and get cracking on building your business into a success.

About The Author:

Louis Allport is an online product developer and marketer. He recently revealed a system that can help you create best-selling products practically on demand: http://www.createoffers.com

Yahoo Search Marketing: Is An Effective Online Marketing Tool.

By Matt Bacak

Yahoo! manages to utilize its huge network of websites and portals to provide Yahoo! Search Marketing services which provides you an opportunity to advertise your business in a number of methods. The methods are sub-divided in the following categories:

Sponsored Search: Display your ad prominently in leading search engines such as Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista, CNN and Infospace

Product Submit: Get your product listed in Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Buyers Guide and be found by millions of users

Travel Submit: Get your travel product or service listed in Travel Deals marketplace or Travel Deals listings and allow easy access of information to potential travelers

Directory Submit: Powered by the powerful Yahoo! Search, submit your business information in Yahoo! Directory.

Each category is defined to meet the requirement of a certain type of advertiser and you would need to first decide your category before proceeding further. Once you have decided which category suits your requirements best, you can proceed to set up your marketing campaign at Yahoo!.

Other than the above categories of advertising Yahoo! also provides the option for providing Local Advertising and Search Submit. Local Advertising is again split into two sub-categories of Local Sponsored Search and Local Listings. This is very beneficial for businesses having local presence and they can catch users who are searching for a particular service or product in a locality and the costs of advertising in this section is probably one of the most affordable for an online campaign.

Search Submit on the other hand provides Search Submit Express and Search Submit Pro both of which are purely related to getting your site put on the search results of a group of top search engines.

If you are confused with the various types of products being offered with Yahoo! Search Marketing, you can use their online tool to help you determine which product suits you the best. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and the wizard will recommend the products which suit your requirement best. All products of Yahoo! Search Marketing provide detailed analysis of traffic coming to your website which helps you make further decisions on your online marketing campaign.

Should you have a budget of over $10,000 per month for online advertising, you can contact Yahoo! sales team for a customized package that better suit your business.

Though Yahoo! Search Marketing programme sounds a bit complicated, it has some excellent Marketing Tools to help you go through the entire programme with ease. The two components are a Marketing Console which tracks how effective your various campaigns are and provides you with detailed information on them. This is definitely a time-saving application as you can see the end results of your campaigns in a jiffy. The other application is Search Optimizer which helps you get the maximum return of investment out of a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) campaign.

The sign up process requires you to create an account and deposit funds in the account via a credit card and choose one of the many marketing products described above.

About The Author:

Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine's e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com

Juggling Career, Family, Consider Online Education

By Hana Lee

Finding the time to do it all - career, family, continue education? Having trouble jugging? Some problems in this area that people face are very similar to those of the beginning juggler. According to The Instant Jugglers' Manual, (c)1993 Infinite Illusions/Lofty Pursuits, four common problems are handling two areas of focus at the same time, moving forward while you try to juggle instead of standing still, not being able to juggle in a third area of focus, and keeping all three areas from bumping into each other or overlapping. So let's take a look at some solutions to these problems.

Two at Once

To juggle two objects, you first toss one into the air to about eye level, then toss number two. The same with life. Pick any two areas of focus, and only try to tackle one at a time to establish goals and a system for it in your life. Then work in the second area. And just as juggling wouldn't work if the wrist puts too much or too little force into the toss, causing one or both objects to go too high or too low, the same can happen in life. If established goals are too high or low, not compatible with one another and your lifestyle, that juggling act doesn't stand much chance.

For instance, if fictitious person, John Wentworth, wants to complete a doctoral program, yet only earns minimum wage, he may need financial assistance with his continued education to
balance the act. Otherwise, John could have to work over time and take on a second job to fill gaps and pay bills. He may miss out on valuable family time with his wife and young son and become stressed out and exhausted. Not to mention his grades could take a dive! Student loans, grants and work-study could be some possible solutions in this case.

Where is juggling help? Instead of The Instant Jugglers' Manual, there are many resources available to help with juggling career, family and education. Local colleges are a good place to start.

Not Being Able To Juggle In A Third

Ready to add a third factor into the equation? Concentrate on throwing ball number #3 and do not even try to catch ball #2, advises The Instant Jugglers' Manual. Or once you have two areas of focus pretty much underway, say your career and family, add the third - education.

Get help planning your education into the mix with resources. Head to your local educational center or public libraries for help. Don't get left dropping - or not juggling - the ball!

About The Author: This article courtesy of http://www.university-phoenix.com

Paid directory submission - what you should know

By Lakhya Phukan

Every online business needs traffic, which comes with increased visibility on the web. One great way to get noticed is to get listed in the major directories. Links from good directories increases your site's visibility many fold.

There are thousands of web directories on the net and selecting the good ones to submit your site can be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories and paid directories. You need to submit to both types of directories.

The following checklist is for paid directory submission only. This checklist will help you choose the best and worthwhile paid directories on the net.

Submission Check List:

1. Check out if the directory is indexed in major search engines.
2. Check the robots.txt file. Make sure that search engine bots are allowed to crawl the pages where you intend to put your listing. Check the Meta tags to make sure that search engine spiders are not prevented from following links in it. A Meta tag with noindex/nofollow will not be indexed or spidered and links in that page are not followed by bots.
3. Check if the directory is being maintained regularly. Visit the directory from time to time to see if errors are getting corrected, site information is getting updated and the like. In short, look for positive activity on the directory.
4. Check if the listings in category pages match in theme and content or not. Directories with tight focus on relevant grouping of web sites are useful for visitors and tend to show up frequently in SERPs for keyword searches.
5. Check out the age of the directory. Do a whois search http://www.whois.net to get this information. Many new directories vanish after a few months due to lack of maintenance and promotion. With older directories you can at least be sure that you listing will remain visible for a reasonable period.
6. Check if the directory consists of too many empty categories - it is not useful for visitors and also does not send a too good signal to the SEs about the directory. Think twice before submitting to such directories.
7. Check if the contact information is available on the site. Proper businesses will provide you with some kind of contact information.
8. Check the Alexa rank of the directory - it is not accurate, yet you can get an idea of traffic the directory receives. Look for directories with decreasing Alexa Rank as it indicates that the directory is getting popular.
9. Check if the directory provides SE friendly urls. No JavaScript link or redirection. Also watch out for dynamic urls. Sometimes search engines find it difficult indexing or recognizing dynamic urls with parameters like http://www.<examplesite>.com/index.html?cat=1&p=12... An example of SE friendly URL is http://www.hedir.com/business.html
10. Check whether category pages have too many outgoing links. If your link is one of 100 links on a page, visitors will find it difficult to locate your site.

About the Author

Lakhya Phukan is the webmaster of Hedir Web Directory.