Google Who Is Information Used For Other Purposes

Article written by: Danny Wirken

Go Daddy's Patents

A recent trio of patents published last May 4, 2006 by Go Daddy has lead people to speculate on whether Google is using Who Is information for other purposes such as improving their ranking mechanism. The patents by Go Daddy all had the same description and in essence explored the possibility of adding additional information in the WhoIs database in which the additional information can be used to improve search engine results and help combat various forms of Internet abuse like spamming and phishing. The three patents, whose inventors are Warren Adelman and Michael Chadwick, are as follows:

. Publishing domain name related reputation in WhoIs records (US Patent Application 20060095459)
. Tracking domain name related reputation (US Patent Application 20060095586)
. Presenting search engine results based on domain name related reputation (US Patent Application 20060095404)

Google's Patents

Although Google has nothing to do with Go Daddy's patents, a patent of their own filed in December of 2003 and published last March 31, 2005 has raised some eyebrows and made people wonder whether they are indeed using WhoIs information in the way that Go Daddy's patents suggest they could. The patent Information retrieval based on historical data (US Patent Application 20050071741) stated that "systems and methods may score documents based, at least in part, on history data associated with the documents. This scoring may be used to improve search results generated in connection with a search query." The history data indicated in the Google's patent description just might be, according to speculation, the additional data or information that can be added to the WhoIs database that the Go Daddy's patent is speaking of. This makes sense since the use of both information or data is consistent
with each other in that the history data that will be used in scoring documents in turn would help improve relevancy of search engine results.

Issue of Privacy

The improved search results are of course not a problem for Google users since they will benefit from it. However it is not the improved results that are raising eyebrows, rather privacy matters is what's under question. People have always been concerned about their privacy and many see the additional data to be added to the WhoIs database as unnecessary and furthermore the use of such information to be a step towards invading their privacy. It is actually ironic that just recently an article appeared on CircleID which mentions that there is an emerging strong feeling among people that there should be less access to WhoIs information, and yet it is also around this time that the Go Daddy's patent on other possible uses of the WhoIs information was published and emerged.

GNSOs Definition of WhoIs Purpose

Discussions regarding the possible use of WhoIs information for other purposes by Google could, however, be pointless due to a recent vote made by ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council regarding the purpose of WhoIs and thus the use of WhoIs information as well.

To come up with a definition for the purpose of WhoIs a WhoIs Task Force was formed with the two primary responsibilities of defining the purpose of WhoIs service in context with ICANN's mission and relevant core values and to define the purpose of the Registered Name Holder, technical, and administrative contacts, in the context of the purpose of WhoIs, and the purpose for which the data was collected. The task force then developed the definition from July to November of 2006 and finally submitted two definitions of the purpose for WhoIs, which was put up for further discussion. The two definitions according to the Preliminary task force report on the purpose of WhoIs and of the WhoIs contacts were:

"The purpose of the gTLD WhoIs service is to provide information sufficient to contact a responsible party for a particular gTLD domain name who can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who can resolve, issues related to the configuration of the records associated with the domain name within a DNS nameserver." (Definition 1)

And

"The purpose of the gTLD WhoIs service is to provide information sufficient to contact a responsible party or parties for a particular gTLD domain name who can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who can resolve, technical, legal or other issues related to the registration or use of a domain name." (Definition 2)

After much discussion a majority vote of 2/3 of the GNSO Council finally voted on Definition 1 as the definition of the purpose for WhoIs. The definition was supported by was supported by the registries, registrars, the three Nomination Committee appointees, and the noncommercial users (NCUC) while the Business, Intellectual Property, and ISP constituencies did not agree.

The US Government expressed displeasure with the final decision unsurprisingly since the definition restricts their ability to use WhoIs information for other purposes as well. In the discussion NCUC even expressly stated that one of the excluded or invalid purposes of WhoIs is to "expand the surveillance powers given to law enforcement under law, or to bypass the protections and limitations imposed by sovereign governments to prevent the abuse and misuse of personal data, even by law enforcement."

It was not explicitly statements though against using WhoIs information for search engine results optimization and for combating Internet fraud. That is not to say though that it is in line with the defined purpose, since it is not. However, there might yet be hope that Google can continue such use of WhoIs information (if they are using it in that way) since the definition of purpose can eventually be expanded to fit that use if ICANN decides that it would still be in line with their core values. As the registry constituency said in their discussion regarding the purpose of WhoIs "The WhoIs function had one original purpose [but now] has additional purposes that have arisen from the change of character of the Internet." They acknowledge the change in purpose but the statement was said with illegal or criminal activities in mind and the need to change the WhoIs function to combat such activities and yet preserve the individual's privacy. Go Daddy's patent explicitly stated that WhoIs information could be used to combat such activities and since the use is noble and not aimed to divulge any information for the whole world to see then there could be hope for their proposed use of WhoIs information. As for Google, we just have to wait and see if improving ranking mechanisms will be seen by ICANN as a justifiable use of such information.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Opening Sentences That Close the Sale

Article by: Karon Thackston

Opening Sentences That Close the Sale

http://www.copywritingcourse.com

It's one of the best pieces of copywriting advice I've ever been
given. "As often as possible, start your paragraphs with
sentences that hook readers and drive them deeper into the
copy." Why? Because - after the headline - the first sentence
in any paragraph is what gets read most often. After that
point, customers usually skip to the next section unless they
feel compelled to keep reading. That means your job, as the
copywriter, is to entice them into each segment, so they will
consume as much of your copy as possible.

Take your cue from Reader's Digest. They crank out - issue
after issue - exceptional opening lines for their articles that
engage then hook readers. What happens next? The reader is
pulled into the story full force. Here are some examples.

It was a horrific display of irreverence.

By the way she dressed, you would have never guessed she was
only 14.

As he reached into the box, something inside it moved.

See? Those sentences boost your curiosity. They make you
wonder what happens next. They cause you to visualize a scene
that might be taking place. You can do the same thing from a
marketing perspective when you write your copy.

For instance, rather than starting the copy for an email to
Australian hotels like this:

You may be aware of www._______.com - we are an
Australian-owned and managed online hotel booking service.

Really capture their attention with an opening sentence that is
specific to them like this:

Now you have the opportunity to affordably position your hotel
in front of approximately 6,000 travellers every day that are
looking for accommodations exclusively in Australia.

For an Australian hotel that depends on the Internet to generate
reservations, that sentence gives them many reasons to keep
reading.

Here are some other before-and-after examples of opening
sentences.

==============

BEFORE: Hello and welcome to our website. If you are looking
for [enter product name here], you are at the right site. (In
this case, the example is from a wedding photographer's site.)

AFTER: We don't take pictures. We capture precious memories
that you can enjoy for a lifetime.

==============

BEFORE: Our site has been online since 2000, and this marks our
6th year online providing designer-inspired sunglasses.

AFTER: How do you get the latest designer-inspired looks
without paying outrageous prices?

==============

BEFORE: Our cruise website offers unbeatable rates and a
diverse array of travel services guaranteed to satisfy even the
most discriminating vacationer.

AFTER: Just imagine yourself on the white sand beaches of
Honolulu, hiking through the balmy rainforests of Belize or
whisking down a powdery, snow-covered mountain in Aspen. all at
up to 50% off!

==============

BEFORE: Thank you for shopping for your corporate gifts at
_________.com. We hope your shopping experience is delightful.

AFTER: When you truly impress your clients with distinctive
corporate gifts, they remember you longer, feel a closer
relationship and are more likely to reward you with increased
sales.

==============

See the difference? The "before" sentences are dull, average
and unflattering. The "after" sentences are intriguing,
imaginative and enticing.

Don't stop after you create inviting headlines. Keep the
momentum going by writing intriguing opening sentences, too.
When you do, you'll help convert more site visitors into paying
customers.

About the Author: Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online
copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out Karon's report "How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)" at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

How To Make Money With Google Adsense

Article written by: David Fishman

Websites are being created everyday, using this growing phenomenon to their advantage, Google created Google AdSense. Google AdSense is a tool that anyone who owns a website can
utilize. It is a simple process and the monetary reward can be limitless. With Google AdSense a company's money making possibilities can increase exponentially.

This program is ideal for any website owner and it is a great incentive for those who don't own a website to consider creating one. Whether a website enjoys the benefits of high traffic or a smaller scale viewing, utilizing Google AdSense does not cost the user a penny. It is simply an added money generating tool that can only benefit the user. There is no start-up fee, no hidden monthly costs, just a simple straightforward program that can help the user and Google make money!

Google AdSense is a great way to generate extra income even while you are away, for example, on vacation. You do not have to do anything more than set up a website and ensure that you have a steady flow of viewer traffic. This is why AdSense is ideal for blogging websites. A blogger can simply post a few articles and let the ads on the page generate a monetary return. And, the more a blogger posts, the more possible viewer traffic, you can imagine the great earning potential.

How does it work?

To utilize Google AdSense simply visit Google's website and create an AdSense account. Within a few days, you will be notified whether your account has been accepted or denied. If your account has been accepted, you can then utilize your "AdSense for content" publisher id number which looks something like this ca-pub-9187111800071908. This id number acts to populate your website with Google ads and every time a viewer of your page clicks on an ad, you receive a percentage of what Google earns.

Two things to be aware of when using Google AdSense

Though the benefits of using Google AdSense are limitless, Google does use discretion and does not give an AdSense account to all website users. If they do not approve of your website's company, subject matter, or services, for example your account request can be denied. Do not fret though! Create a new website. Google is looking to make money and they want to give their account access to websites they feel will generate a profitable return. It is also important to note that Google can track viewer traffic. If they find that ad clicks are being generating by the same website too often or the activity seems suspicious, i.e. you cannot click the ads on your own page your account will be closed. If this happens to you, getting your account access back can be close to impossible. Google does not tolerate the misuse of their program. Though it is a money making endeavor for both parties, the user and Google, it is still a privilege they are offering you, so be sure to respect their policies.

About The Author: David Marc Fishman is the owner of http://www.linknetics.com. Make Money with http://www.linknetics.com

Major Search Engine Submission: How To Get Listed In Google, Yahoo And MSN

Article written by: Rose DesRochers

Bloggers often ask how to get their blog listed in the major
search engines.

Here's how:

1. Submit Directly: Submit your blog via Google's free
submitting form. http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

2. Submit your sitemap to Google.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

3. Submit your site to DMOZ, the Open Directory Project. Keep
in mind that http://DMOZ.com is run by volunteers; therefore it
may take some time before you are listed and a submission does
not guarantee listing.

4. Get a Qualified Backlink: Get linked from a website that
search engines crawl regularly and add your link to forum
signatures. Google states, "Google's robots jump from page to
page on the web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to
your pages, the more likely it is that we'll find them
quickly."

5. If your blog isn't already listed in Google's Blog search
engine, you can submit it manually. Add your blog to Google's
Blog Search. http://blogsearch.google.com/ping

It usually takes a new website about a month before it's fully
indexed by Google. Google Blog Search indexes blogs by their
site feeds, so be sure that you publish a site feed.

Keep in mind that, while Google dominates the web, it isn't the
only search engine on the web.

Yahoo Search is one of the major search engines and directories
online as well, so you are going to want to submit your blog to
Yahoo's Directory. http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?17051064

It could take eight to ten weeks before you are listed in
Yahoo.

Yahoo Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages
indexed by Yahoo Search. http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Submit your blog to Yahoo Site Explorer.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

Submit Your Feed to the Yahoo! RSS Browse-by-Topic Directory.
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/my/cgi_rss_submission

Submit your Media RSS Feed to Yahoo! Search
-http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/submit?

You can submit your blog to Msn at
http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD

SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 +
Search engines.

If you don't already have a Technorati account, sign up for one
at http://Technorati.com and claim your blog at Technorati.
Technorati is a popular weblog search engine.

Bloggertalk.net offers a list of blog directories where you can
also submit your blog to increase your exposure online.
http://www.bloggertalk.net/blog_resources-cat-369.html

When submitting to directories, be sure to take the time to
read the submission guidelines provided by each blog directory.

Getting listed in the major search engines alone doesn't
guarantee traffic. Your blog content guarantees that. Update
regularly, provide interesting content and the visitors will
come, as will the spider bots.

About The Author: Rose DesRochers is the founder of Blogger
Talk Blog Community http://www.bloggertalk.net, a friendly fast
growing blogging portal, offering bloggers support, advice,
tools, tips and information about blogs and blogging. She is
also the administrator of Today's Woman Writing Community
http://www.todays-woman.net, a supportive online writing
community for men and women over 18.

Starting An Online Home Business Is Not Expensive.

Article written by: Larry Potter

Depending on the type of business you wish to start, your start-up costs can be as little as $50 or less, even close to free if you use companies like Bravenet

The fact is, most businesses do NOT need to incur expensive start-up costs... and most businesses should not invest a lot of start-up capital before they've tested their business and
their market online. That's where so many "dot bombs" made such a grave mistake in the past, and there's just no need to take that risk.

Only once you've tested your business idea on the Net and found it to be a viable opportunity should you start investing in the kind of software, web design, inventory (or whatever) that you'll need to grow your business. Then again, you may want to just do it all yourself every step of the way...

These days, you can keep your start-up costs down to approximately 50 bucks or less. And you can begin adding the other components of your online business once you've proven
that your business can be profitable.

And you do not need a product idea to start---and not only that: If you do start with a product idea... you'll be off to a bad start!

The reality is, most businesses that start off with what they think is a good product idea are destined for failure. Your product might be great, but if nobody wants it, your business isn't going to get very far!

That's why it makes so much more sense to look for your market first. If you can find a need in a market you can reach, then simply give them what they're asking for... your business is bound for success from day one.

For example, there is a man named Eric Weeks who doesn't really like trucks very much -- he's never owned one himself. But when he noticed that thousands of people search the Internet for
"truck accessories" every day, he knew there was a market just waiting for him to give them what they needed...

When his Truck-Bed-Covers site was only one year old, he was generating $800,000 annually in online sales!

Eric's advice is, "I sure as heck wouldn't consider building an e-commerce site on personal interests. So whether it's weight loss or travel, home business or truck bed covers... if enough people are interested in those subjects, then THERE is where you need to apply your efforts."

It pays to remember: Find your market FIRST. Then look for a product to give them.

About The Author:

Larry Potter is a recognized authority on the subject of starting a home business with little or no cash. His website provides a wealth of informative articles and free resources on everything you'll ever need to know about a service home business. More tips can be found here: http://www.urlcutter.com/WarpSpeedHomeBusines

Submit Your Website's Url To Chinese Search Engines

Article written by: David Carnes

It is certainly true that the Internet is dominated by the Englsih language - it has been estimated that 75% of all Internet pages worldwide are written in English. But surprise, surprise, the world's No. 1 language in terms of number of native speakers is also the most difficult to read - Chinese, with about three times as many native speakers (and readers) as
English. China has the second greatest number of Internet users in the world, behind only the United States, and its Internet market is one of the world's fastest-growing. Furthermore, its
buoyant economy is impossible to ignore. Every year millions are added to its relatively affluent middle class.

You'd be surprised at how many Chinese can read English - they are small in proportion to total population, but large in number. You might also be surprised at how many Chinese yuppies ("Chuppies") carry Visa and Mastercard.

Do you have a product that might sell well in China? That's a difficult question to answer, but as a one-sentence primer: affluent Chinese gravitate towards any product with name-brand appeal, snob appeal, or that is closely associated with the United States (sarcastically dubbed the "Mickey Mouse Syndrome" by envious economic rivals). If you are going global, you cannot
afford to ignore China. And if your business has a website, it should be searchable in China.

Following are the URLs for site submission to ten Chinese search engines. The sites are all written in Chinese, but if you can get past the language barrier, anything is possible.

Top 10 Chinese Search Engines

1. Baidu: http://baidu.com/search/url_submit.htm

2. Sina: http://iask.com/guest/add_url.php

3. Sohu: http://db.sohu.com/regurl/regform.asp?Step=REGFORM&class=

4. Yahoo China: http://cn.yahoo.com/docs/info/suggest.html

5. Google China: http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/add_url.html

6. Sobao: http://search.sobao.com/Computers_and_Internet/Personal/

7. Tianwang: http://home.tianwang.com/denglu.htm

8. China-Holiday: http://china-holiday.com/newterms/hall/it/sort.asp?sortid=259

9. Wangluobing: http://www.net7b.com/net7b_/denglu/index.asp o

10. Sunwukong: http://www.sunwukong.cn/add.php

The first six of the foregoing are major players, but the rest are marginal and may well be out of business by the time you read this (then again, you never know.).

Happy hunting!

About The Author:

David A. Carnes is a California attorney working for California Industrial City in Zhengzhou, China. His website, http://www.chinacompanystartupguide.com, offers free, step-by-step information on how to establish a business presence in China.

Completely Free Website Promotion Ideas

Article written by: Ryan Ginster

Most Internet based home businesses involve the building of a website because obviously your potential customers need a place on the internet to visit your virtual office. There are many
milestones before making a website public; you need to write some interesting content about your business, products and offers. You need to add promotional material to give an incentive to people who visit your website. After having done all that it often happens that the website is not generating the kind of profits that were expected. Why is this? Quite simply, lack of promotion. And this is very surprising because there are plenty of free website promotion options, you do not have to pay huge sums to promote your website.

Here are some ways in which you can do free website promotion.

The cheapest way is also the one that demands the biggest amount of patience from you. It is called persistence, just keep at it and eventually people will know about your business.

Free website promotion comes in many shapes and you have to decide which strategy (or multiple strategies) you are going to implement.

Search engines and business directories are one such option where you can list your business for free in order to get more traffic. There is a bit of technical skill involved in this because you need to work in a particular way to make sure that your page (or search) rank is high enough to make a difference.

Then there are the numerous link exchange websites that can result in a rise in your own traffic. Like link exchange, many free classified advertisement options can help you with free website promotion. And like classifieds, there are sites that offer banner advertising (the blocks of images that you often see on top of commerce websites). The cost of this service is very varied but if you spend some time looking around you will find banner exchange websites that can do free website promotion for you.

Having said that, please bear in mind that while free website promotion is a good idea, it should never become the only thing on which you rely on. Free website promotion must always be that
extra element that you include in your marketing strategy in order to complement you main efforts. After all, when you think realistically, if free website promotion could do all the work for an internet-based home business then commercial advertising would be dead.

So go ahead with free website promotion in the beginning and once things start rolling add in some paid advertising for really reaching the bulk of your target audience.

About The Author:

Ryan Ginster is the owner of http://www.onlinemoneyinf.info He makes his money with
PlugInProfitSite, you can grab one at: http://www.instantmoneyonline.info

How Web Crawlers Work

Article written by: Eran Aharonovich

A web crawler (also known as a web spider or web robot) is a program or automated script which browses the internet seeking for web pages to process.

Many applications mostly search engines, crawl websites everyday in order to find up-to-date data. Most of the web crawlers save a copy of the visited page so they could easily index it later and the rest crawl the pages for page search purposes only such as searching for emails (for SPAM ).

How does it work?

A crawler needs a starting point which would be a web address, a URL.

In order to browse the internet we use the HTTP network protocol which allows us to talk to web servers and download or upload data from and to it.

The crawler browses this URL and then seeks for hyperlinks (A tag in the HTML language).

Then the crawler browses those links and moves on the same way.

Up to here it was the basic idea. Now, how we move on it completely depends on the purpose of the software itself.

If we only want to grab emails then we would search the text on each web page (including hyperlinks) and look for email addresses. This is the easiest type of software to develop.

Search engines are much more difficult to develop.

When building a search engine we need to take care of a few other things.

1. Size - Some web sites are very large and contain many directories and files. It may consume a lot of time harvesting all of the data.

2. Change Frequency - A web site may change very often even a few times a day. Pages can be deleted and added each day. We need to decide when to revisit each site and each page per site.

3. How do we process the HTML output? If we build a search engine we would want to understand the text rather than just treat it as plain text. We must tell the difference between a caption and a simple sentence. We must look for bold or italic text, font colors, font size, paragraphs and tables. This means we must know HTML very good and we need to parse it first. What we need for this task is a tool called "HTML TO XML Converters". One can be found on my website. You can find it in the resource box or just go look for it in the Noviway website:
www.Noviway.com.

That's it for now. I hope you learned something.

About The Author:

Eran Aharonovich Software Programmer Home Page: http://www.Noviway.com Web Crawler Page: http://www.noviway.com/Code/Web-Crawler.aspx HTML To XML
Converter Page: http://www.noviway.com/Code/HTML-To-XML.aspx

Does Anybody Make Money On The Internet?

Article by Scott Michaels

There are many sites that will you that you can easily find ways of making money on the internet, but obviously most of these are scams. Of course, making money on the internet is possible, but not in the ways that you are likely to be told.

There is no get rich quick scheme that is guaranteed - if someone had thought of the secret to make hundreds of thousands of dollars over night, they would be using it for themselves, not selling it to you for thirty bucks. That is because the way most of these sites are making money on the internet is by profiting off of the dreams of the broke or gullible.

Nonetheless, it is possible to make money over the internet. Why, I do it myself as a freelance writer. The internet has several things going for it as opposed to working out there in the "real world". First of all, you can work from home, which is always very nice. Besides that, there are many other advantages to making money on the internet.

You can set your own hours, get money as soon as you complete your projects, and be your own boss. Besides this, if you are good at marketing yourself, the world wide web gives you unprecedented abilities to reach out to other people and make connections or sell your services quickly. However, there is no miracle solution. Just because you don't have to leave the house to make money on line, doesn't mean you don't have to hustle.

For me, I work mostly as a freelance writer, so I use several resources to meet potential employers for that work. I use craigslist a lot, because there are so many jobs offered every
day that you are bound to quickly discover business contacts that are useful to you. Of course, there are many better resources for making money on the internet, but most of them are connections.

You have to develop them yourselves through getting referrals from people you have worked for. Although you often never meet the people you work for face to face, when you make money over the internet, it is basically just like anywhere else in life: it is all about the connections. That being said, it is not hard to start making money on the internet, but it is hard to make your living on it and not just a supplementary income.

About The Author:

I went from zero-$12,000+ per month in 4 months flat ...and I want to Reveal to You how I did it - in step-by-step detailed instructions. http://www.articlehub.org/no_rich_jerk

Are You On The First Page In The Search Engines?

Article written by: Nikoletta Bócz

Probably not.You will be aware of your link popularity if it is
enough high for a real business or not.

You would like to make profit. Your ranking is deciding factor.

But why link popularity? Because this is one of the most
powerful tool in your hand and you can influence this factor.

If you learn how to measure and track this indicator, you will
be able to improve your link popularity! This is the good news.

For your high page rank you need a number of inbound links, not
just any links, links with high page rank and related topic as
your site.

It is called relevant one way links.

Let me introduce some free SEO tools, which will help us to
measure our own link popularity:

Link popularity check: this is a free and very useful software
(you can download from my site).

This program checks the link popularity status of your web site
on several search engines and compares it to other web sites on
the Internet (for example your competitors).

LPC gets the numbers from the search engines.

Googlerankings: with the help of this tool you will be able to
check your rankings in the main search engines (Google, Yahoo,
Msn) for your keywords (niche).

For example our keyword is the "perl necklace". This tool will
show us, that we are the 125. in Google and 13. in MSN.

You can make charts from the performance of your website.

Search Status: this is a small extension for Firefox browser.
If you installed, you can check easily your backlinks to your
site.

Conclusion: you need a lot of quality one way links, because
link building is the most powerful tool to place your site in a
good position in the search engines.

You should measure your results, because if you measure
something you will be able to improve it.

To your success.

About The Author: Get your free Link popularity Ebook and other
search engine positioning tool from here:
http://light-link-building.mybebo.net/ You are welcome to
reprint this article on your website or send to your mailing
list however all links must stay active.

Do Links Increase My Ranking On Search Engines?

Article written by: David Fishman

Increasing links as a method to get your serps increase is a positive thing. You can ask youself the question, though, is just but, links should you get so this can happen? Is it possible to have to many links? Link marketing is the use of links to boost traffic to your website as otherwise as to
develop it could be that your position on the se. You will need to do both to accomplish success. If you want to increase it could be that your search engine rank, accomplish on your links.

Is there a set number I should shoot for?

There is no real set integer. It's not having ten or twenty or getting a 100. It is definitely about having the right kind of links coming to the webpage. As an instance, you need to consider both reciprocal links as well as those that are the best type of link is a one way link. One way links create traffic to your site and not letting the customers get lured away with additional links on the webpage. Link exchanging, when placed correctly and applied in the correct way can help as well.

Beyond this, you will want to achieve with having good favorableness links. The links should be related in some way to your internet site. You will need to search for webmasters that offers similar, but should not have the same information as on your site.

If you are thinking about how many links you should allow pointing to your website, the correct denomination to go with is as much as you possibly can do. When getting them make sure they are of good quality, well researched links, not just a link that is not in the same theme. Make sure they provide for both reciprocal and links that are one way. Use them properly and your business really can improve from them.

About The Author:

David Marc Fishman is the owner of linknetics.com. The link marketing software that promotes http://www.linknetics.com and http://www.linknetics.com

Going International With Your Home Business

Article written by: Trevor Marshall

For those home business owners lucky enough to survive the first two years, at some point, you might be contacted by someone internationally who's heard about your business. Let's face it, once youve conquered your local area and done business by post or email with other areas of the country, dipping a toe into international markets seems like the next logical step.

1. Costs Increase

If you are considering exporting a physical product, you have to understand that your costs can significantly increase. Thus, your products should be made as light as possible for the purposes of international shipping. Check that youd be able to get the things youre selling to the place where you plan to sell them without it becoming prohibitively expensive. Next, check if there are any customs requirements. Sometimes even the most well planned international businesses flop because they fail to take into account local laws or customs.

2. Non Physibal Products

The best kind of product you can sell is a digital one, because the only cost of distribution is your bandwidth. Of course, you still need to worry about currency fluctuations. You therefore might want to price your products in the currency of your country. Non physical products are often called bits on a wire products.

3. Maintain A Niche For Your Business

Regardless of your product, be sure that it caters to a niche customer base. In other words, make sure there is a market for your product in the country before doing anything. Disney, for example, made the mistake of opening amusement parks in countries that held strong anti american sentiments. The parks performed extremely poorly. Fast food giant KFC fails horribly in China, where the general population never eats such huge meals and avoids eating anything with their hands and finds it offensive to be served food in buckets. If youre not sure, you could talk to a few local businesspeople about how they think your product would be perceived, and they may be able to suggest a suitable target market for you.

4. Produce Internationally As Well

If the cost of distributing overseas appears to be too expensive, you will want to investigate the possibility of producing your product on international soil to eliminate that cost. At the same time, if you do this, you may be able to take advantage of hiring international workers that will work for less, and purchase international materials that will also be cheaper.

About The Author:

For more great home business related articles and resources check out http://findbizopps.info

Using Bloggers For Pushing Products: A Good Idea?

Article written by: Danny Wirken

There is an interesting conversation in the blogosphere. The discussion centers on using bloggers to push products and getting compensated in return. Should bloggers accept monetary
payment or any form of remuneration for writing about certain products, services or events on their blogs?

Issues and Views

Now that blogging is spreading like wildfire, drawing large crowds of audience, business advertisers, sponsors and the like are one in advocating it as an effective means of advertising -
getting a company's message out. It is now everyday staple to see advertising on personal blogs. Leading companies like Microsoft, Nokia, and General Motors have even joined the "blogwagon'. Top management executives like Sun Microsystems president Jonathan Schwartz and Intel chief Paul Otellini now blog. It is a fact that word from a trusted source holds much water to consumers. Word of mouth is undoubtedly the most effective form of advertising. Marketing people put a lot of weight into pursuing free publicity. Aware of the massive growth of blogs and the increasing clout and its being a trusted medium, it isn't surprising that bloggers are being used to promote products, services or events. Blogs have the ability to disseminate information instantly to a widespread audience.

Everyday, more companies are paying bloggers in cash or in kind for promotional spaces on their blogs be it in the form of outright sponsorship or product reviews. Most bloggers keen to keep their blogs financially sustainable openly accept sponsorship and carry ads on their blogs.

A problem now looms. Blogging has no established code of ethics regarding bloggers accepting compensation for blog coverage. The immediate issue bloggers will have to address is whether bloggers can accept payment in any form for writing about specific topics. If yes, a subsequent issue is disclosure and transparency. Certain events have brought these issues into focus. These events have sparked engaging discussions and varied views on the appropriateness of all these going ons in the blogosphere.

Marqui, a Vancouver company that sells communication management services for automating websites announced its experimental program - paying bloggers to mention the company in their blogs. The aim is to increase brand awareness among the powerful members of the software developer community. Marqui signed up 20 bloggers. Under the program, bloggers are mandated to display Marqui icon and mention Marqui in their blog posts at least once a week. They are free to write anything positive or negative. They are at liberty to blog openly about Marqui products or pursue a different approach. In return, they will be paid $800 a month. In depth details of the program rules together with an FAQ section are posted online in Marqui's own blog. According to Stephen King, Marqui CEO, the program has been a success. Company mentions on Google skyrocketed. Marqui has been swamped with reader feedbacks on its products. Conversely, the program has drawn many criticisms.

Rob Greenlee of WebTalkRadio commented that it is unnatural to think that a paid blogger would post negative comments about a sponsor. Stowe Boyd, president of Corante's weblog network threatened that the Marqui program will turn the blogosphere into a graffiti-laden slum where the readers won't be able to distinguish if a blog posting is genuine or a paid message. In his response, King defended that if a reader comes across a blog and sees the part that is sponsored, certainly there will be skepticism. However, bloggers disclose their relationship with Marqui, write both positive and negative comments without fear of any deletion from Marqui. Another blogger feels that the Marqui program just needs some fine tuning. Disclosure of payment arrangement between Marqui and participating blogger should be mandatory. Contracts of bloggers should not be renewed based on positive write-ups they provided or whether they are amenable to writing product reviews, be it favorable or unfavorable.

Newsweek revealed that 100 influential members of the tech community, Silicon Valley, were periodically offered products or services in return for word of mouth endorsements (or not). BzzAgent, a Boston company enlisted volunteers to call up bookstores to generate buzz for a particular book, feigning ignorance. A recent service called Pay Per Post patterned after pay per click business model pays a blogger a commission for each completed (clicked) post that promotes the advertiser's product or service. All these different situations point to a need for some ethical standards bloggers should adhere to. Some basic guidelines have to be set.

Blog Ethics and Standards

Bloggers are known to be non-conformists. This distinct characteristic distinguishes them from the rest in the online world. They are typically beholden to no one. They are defiant in the face of authority. Bloggers comment and spread information according to their own unconventional standards. On the contrary, it is also this freedom that may jeopardize their integrity and thus their value.

At present there are no definite ethical standards that lay down a blogger's responsibilities and provide a clear code of conduct that will ensure his integrity. Bloggers have no definitive code of ethics but there are some general principles that are widely held. Transparency is the hallmark of blogging. It is one of the weblog's distinct characteristic and greatest strength. A blogger should be transparent with regards to his actions, motives and financial considerations. Since blogging is a trusted medium, it is to every blogger's advantage to disclose conflicts of interest(monetary or otherwise) when appropriate. A blogger who is given free access to a service he
is reviewing or receives a product for review should disclose said fact. Subsequently, there is an implicit understanding that the blogger will be objective and honest. Anyway, a company should not expect a positive review just because the product was provided for free. It will not do the company any good if a reviewer just sings praises. If there is a problem with the product, the company would surely like to be informed to make the necessary improvements. Readers will be properly informed and form their own judgments. A blogger should in all instances maintain independence and integrity. Lost trust is extremely hard to regain, in some instances, never regained. A very important tenet that any blogger knows by heart is to publish as fact only that which he strongly believes is true. He should be open about his sources, biases and actions.

In a nutshell, using bloggers to push products may be acceptable to some, but others may frown on it. As for bloggers, it is a matter of choice. A blogger may be open to accepting payments to help build buzz for a product on his blog or not. If he does choose to accept compensation, transparency and disclosure are of utmost importance. His reputation is stake.

About The Author:http://www.theinternetone.net/

Adsense Or Authority Site?

Article written by: Stephanie Foster

There was recently a clash of the gurus over whether or not
AdSense is dead. You probably got all the emails too. No, I
haven't bought anything from these emails; I just wanted to
comment on the idea that AdSense sites are dead.

First of all, you have to define what constitutes an AdSense
site. As I see it, there are several types. Some the search
engines are working on killing; others will continue to work
just fine.

Search engines are trying hard to drop the auto generated junk
sites, or scrapers. While they can get rankings for a short
time, they are very prone to being dropped completely. You can
make these and might even earn money off them, but you will
have to keep making more to keep up your income, and they are
likely to disappear faster and faster.

Premade AdSense sites are a mixed bag. The trouble is that many
people may buy and put up the same site. How the sites are made
can in part determine their success or failure.

Sites made exclusively with articles from article sites have
the advantage that every person will choose different articles
and the disadvantage that some articles will be on an amazing
number of sites.

Private label articles have similar advantages and
disadvantages, although grouped articles are more prone to all
being on individual sites, making entire sites more likely to
match.

However, private label articles also have the advantage that
you can modify the articles themselves freely. Anything from
changing a few words to adding or deleting sentences to
complete rewrites is acceptable.

Authority sites are built to be highly informative for the
visitor, in a format that is highly usable. They're dynamic, so
the search engines and your users always have something new to
read.

Honestly, I don't see authority sites as anything new - just a
repackaging of one way to build AdSense sites. They're simply a
reminder that no matter where you get your content, you need to
think of your users as well as the search engines in order for
your site to last a long time and earn good money.

What kinds of sites do I think will last? I don't care what
name you call them by, but sites that give visitors what they
want are always the best. This means you will probably need to
go dynamic at least a little, so that your information is more
up to date, and you will need to keep an eye on what brings in
the most visitors, so that you can make more interesting pages
for them.

Any site can survive, even if it is not dynamic, if it has what
your visitors want. That includes private label article sites
and sites built with articles from article sites. When you
build a site, stop to think about what will be useful and last
a long time, rather than just what will be fast to build.
You'll do a lot for your business if you plan for the long
term.

About The Author: Stephanie Foster runs
http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/ and tries to keep
realistic about what is and is not working for her home
business. You can read her blog at
http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/blog/ to see the kinds of
things she finds helpful to her home business.

How To Find An Affiliate Program

Article written by: Jonathan White

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate for a merchant
there are literally hundreds of opportunities for you to get
involved. The best way to link up with an affiliate program is
to locate an expansive affiliate directory. Affiliate
directories work a lot like a dictionary or phone book; it is a
listing of every legit affiliate program on the Internet. Many
of them contain links or specific information about each
affiliate program but it is up to you to do some research and
decide which may or may not be right for you.

Choosing the Affiliate Program for You
With so many affiliate programs to choose from you might feel
your head spinning as you try to choose which is right for you.
You can begin to look into affiliate programs by choosing those
that are relevant to your website. When you choose affiliate
programs that are relevant to your website, product, or service
you will find that your clientele are much more likely to click
on the links or purchase the products from the merchant,
allowing you to get paid. If the affiliate program is not at
all tied to your website or your service you will be hard
pressed to get people to click or buy regularly, making it
difficult to earn money with the affiliate program.

Look Into Payment Terms
You'll want to look into the payment terms associated with any
particular affiliate program. This is important because some
affiliate programs pay much better than others. Also, some just
require your clients to click on the links while others require
that someone actually clicks on the link and then purchases
product or becomes a serious lead. You will want to understand
the terms of your payment and ensure that it is something that
you can actually earn money with. If you don't feel as though
you can earn money or that the payment terms are fair than you
should continue to look for an affiliate program that will
better fit your needs.

Ask Questions
An affiliate network is much like a phone book, it gives you
the facts but you still have to determine which business is
right for you. If you find a handful of affiliate programs that
you think may work for you, ask them any lingering questions
that you may have about their business, how to become qualified
to be an affiliate, or about payment arrangements. Any questions
you have should be answered in a timely and professional
fashion, and if they aren't then you should definitely move on
and find other affiliate programs to work with.

Everyone can find a great affiliate program to work with. If
you find the right program you can not only earn quite a bit of
money but you can also make some great business contacts.
Remember to try to find affiliate programs that are relevant to
your website or service that you provide to your clients. If you
do your homework and you are sure to do business with a relevant
affiliate there is no limit to your earning potential now and in
the future. You ability to find the right program will directly
affect how much money you can make through any given affiliate
program, and isn't that the point? Get started searching for an
affiliate program that will work for you today.

About The Author: Jonathan White has been involved in affiliate
and other online marketing for over 4 years. He is the owner of
http://www.affiliateseeking.com &
http://articles.simplysearch4it.com

Mistakes Affiliates Make-help For Newbies

Article written by: Wy Williams

Mistakes affiliates make result generally from a lack of
knowledge. Yes, we know there are many ebooks showing
affiliates the way to go. But remember, even the gurus had a
learning curve. Gurus made mistakes too.

The key for affiliates today is to learn as much as they can
even as they join affiliate programs. The major portion of
affiliate sales are raked in by only 5% of the affiliates!
Please don't let that information discourage you.

Newbies especially, be encouraged. Here is the other side of
the coin! A research firm Forrester Research, indicates that we
affiliates will have $280 billion dollars/year to divide up
amongst ourselves by 2008. Walk don't run, take your time, and
learn the ropes. There is hope for us! But try to avoid the
following:

Affiliate Mistake #1

When you promote, be sure to promote the product. Nothing else,
just the product. Let the wealthy people who captured you into
their program be concerned about promoting the program. You
just focus on selling the product. That's what affiliates do.

While you're at it, endorse the product. You are your chief
weapon in your marketing arsenal. Did you know that? Well you
know it now. Tell them about the product. Let them know how it
has benefited you. Endorse, endorse and endorse some more!

Affiliate Mistake #2

Stay away from the heavy hitters. If your specialty in the
offline world was marketing that doesn't mean you're going to
be great in the online world. Swim in the waters where the
small grunts are first.

As you learn a few online tips and tricks, then you can wade
into deeper water. But don't go out too far! The deeper waters
of the Internet are known to be shark-infested.

Affiliate Mistake #3

Are you capturing names and addresses? No! You've gotta be
kidding me! You're letting money slip through your fingers.
Answer this? Would you rather buy from someone that you trust,
or someone that you don't trust? Yeah! I figured so.

Collect those emails and start to build some trust with your
very own list. Take your time with this. Don't rush them. Don't
bug them either. Work on that list immediately.

Affiliate Mistake #4

Keep track of the promotions you do. Some will be duds. There's
nothing worse than throwing money after an unprofitable
promotion. What makes it worse is that you may have a
profitable promotion that you aren't paying much attention to
but should be.

Affiliate Mistake #5

While you're working on your affiliate programs what's
happening with your own product? What was that? I didn't hear
you? No? Okay, what do you like to do? Quite frankly you may
not be able to pursue what you are passionate about.

But there must be something you can do? Everyone on the topside
has a gift. Is it plumbing? Gardening? You must have something
up your sleeve. If it's something you're passionate about, and
it works online, you may have arrived. But you won't know until
you take action.

Let's be realistic. You're going to make mistakes, you're
human. Allow me to encourage you with this; there is more money
out there than the mistakes you can make. You'll be an expert
one day. And when that happens you won't be able to get out of
the way of those affiliate commissions.

About The Author: Mistakes affiliates make should always be
learning experiences. Simply knowing what you've read in this
article isn't enough. Action is required in order to be
successful. To learn how you can do exactly that, and to learn
more about Wy Williams and his website, check this out.
http://www.wyclefinnovations.com/amb.html

What Is Article Marketing?

Article written by: Jonathan White

Article marketing is a new method that most claim you have to
subscribe to if you really want to fine-tune your search engine
optimization techniques. Article marketing is actually quite
easy and is something that most successful webmasters have been
onto for some time. While some have been focusing just on
creating good links within their websites, successful people
have been focusing on the fact that there has to be a balance
between good links and good content and this is where article
marketing comes into play.

The Basics

The bottom line is that those that focus on links alone for
good traffic to their website will likely not see the success
that they hope for. To get good traffic from search engines you
have to provide content for the search engines as well as the
people that visit your website. It is well known that search
engines place a lot of importance on back links but you'll also
find that most websites with good page ranks are always looking
for good content, and this is not a coincidence. Search engines
usually give more weight to sites that have high quality content
in addition to back links.

How Article Marketing Works

So, you're a webmaster and you are new to article marketing.
You know that you are not a good writer so you aren't sure
where to get the quality content that you need to work with
your back links to establish the page rank you are looking for.
What's next? Article marketing, that's what!

It's important to understand that true article marketing
involves several different parties. First, there is the author.
This is the person that actually writes an article on any given
subject, he or she displays their information in what is called
a resource box at the bottom or top of any given article. Next,
there is the article directory. This is basically a bank for
authors to submit their articles to. After some editing or an
approval process that is provided by the directory the article
will be posted on the directory for content hungry webmasters
to view.

The publisher is you, the webmaster, who is looking for high
quality content that will work along with their back links to
improve search engine optimization. Webmasters can peruse the
directories and choose articles that are relevant to their
subject, service, or product. The publisher can publish said
article on their website as long as they include the author
resource box as well as a link back to the author website and
the article directory. The links give you high quality links
from websites to your site and the content provides all that
you will need to get noticed by the search engines and increase
traffic.

It Works!

As you can see, article marketing works for the author as he or
she gets exposure, it works for the article directory as the
article is linked to them, and it works for the webmaster
because they get high quality content and links. Many
webmasters report that within 48 hours they are getting much
more traffic and their page rank is much better than before.
Article marketing really is the wave of the search engine
optimization future and will keep webmasters, article
directors, and content writers in business for a long, long
time.

About The Author: Jonathan White has been involved in article
and other online marketing for over 4 years. He is the owner of
http://articles.simplysearch4it.com &
http://articles.simplysearch4it.co.uk

How To Make Internet Marketing Paid Membership Sites Work For You

Article by: Michael Senoff

There was a time when setting up paid membership sites on the
Internet -- where you have a site only people who pay you an
ongoing fee can access -- was all the rage.

Lately it seems this isn't as popular as it was. Mostly because
so many of them fail. In fact, in many cases, it seems people
drop out of paid membership web sites as soon as they sign up.

Even so, there are a few smart Internet marketers who have been
able to make it work well.

And one of those ways to make paid membership sites work is to
simply offer content people simply cannot get anywhere else.

In other words, you're probably not going to get them to pay
you an ongoing fee to access your content unless you offer them
something that's just not possible to get online or offline
anywhere else but from you and your site.

Yes, that sounds simple, but that's really what it all boils
down to.

The whole key to making paid membership sites work is giving
people something unique, valuable, proprietary to you, and that
you, and only you, can provide.

For example, there is a marketer named Matt Furey. He has a
monthly membership site and he gives away a ton of material to
people who sign up for a year. Not material people can download
online somewhere else, but real, valuable books, CDs, and even
personal assistance with members' questions.

These are all things you can't get anywhere else but through
him and so his membership deal thrives and grows. You can do
the same thing.

It doesn't take a whole lot of sophistication or technological
savvy, either. Just follow the model above with what you're
selling and you will be fine.

Copyright 2006 Michael Senoff

About The Author: Michael is a sought-after Internet marketer,
interviewer and business coach with more than 50,000 students
on four continents. For a limited time he is giving away free
over 120 hours of in-depth audio interviews at his famous
website http://hardtofindseminars.com

How To Use Paid Url Inclusion To Increase Your Web Site Ranking

Article written by: Daniel Foreman

You have just completed your web site and submitted to as many
search engines as you could find. All you have to do is wait
for the weeks to pass and soon you will be indexed. What about
if you want to be indexed right now? Is there another option?

Paid URL Inclusion means that you pay the specific search
engine an annual fee for your web page to be included in their
index. There are many ways to promote your website and one of
the most efficient ways is to use search engines. Search
engines are the first stop for most people trying to find
information, services, and products online. Because of this, it
is essential that your website appears quickly in search
results.

Every search engine has an automated program commonly called a
"spider" that indexes all the web pages it locates online, and
it does this for free. So, whether you pay or not, your web
page will eventually be indexed by all Internet search engines,
as long as the spider can follow a link to your page. The major
issue is, then, how quickly your page is indexed.

Speed for a fee

The difference between the spider that indexes pages for free
and the spider that indexes only pages for a fee is speed. A
search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion uses an extra
spider that is programmed to index the particular pages that
have been paid for. If you have paid for inclusion, the
additional search engine spider will index your page
immediately.

The debate over paid URL inclusion centers around the annual
fee. Since the regular spider of these search engines would
eventually get around to indexing your web page anyway, why is
a renewal fee necessary? The fee is necessary to keep your
pages in the search engine's index. If you go the route of paid
inclusion, you should be aware that at the end of the pay
period, on some search engines, your page will be removed from
their index for a certain amount of time.

It's easy to get confused about whether you would benefit from
paid inclusion since the spider of any search engine will
eventually index your page without the additional cost. There
are both advantages and disadvantages to paid URL inclusion,
and it is only by weighing your pros and cons that you will be
able to decide whether to spring for the extra cash or not.

Advantages

The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and rapid
re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages will be
indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short
time after you have paid the fee. The time difference between
when the regular spider will index your pages and when the paid
spider will is a matter of months. The spider for paid inclusion
usually indexes your pages in a day or two. Be aware that if you
have no incoming links to your pages, the regular spider will
never locate them at all.

Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go back to your pages
often, sometimes even daily. The advantage of this is that you
can update your pages constantly to improve the ranking in
which they appear in search engines and the paid URL inclusion
spider will show that result in a matter of days.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage is the cost. For a ten page website, the
costs of paid URL inclusion range from $170 for Fast/Lycos to
$600 for AltaVista, and you have to pay each engine their
annual fee. How relevant the cost factor is will depend on your
home based business income opportunity.

Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the
limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The largest search
engines,Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL
inclusion. That means that the search engines you choose to pay
an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction of the traffic
to your site on a daily basis.

How can I make this work for me?

One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion is a good deal
for your home based business is to consider some common factors.
First, find out if search engines have already indexed your
pages. To do this, you may have to enter a number of different
keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to enter your URL
address in quotes. If your pages appear when you enter the URL
address but do not appear when you enter keywords, using paid
inclusion will not be beneficial. This is because your pages
have already been indexed and ranked by the regular spider. If
this is the case, your money would be better spent by updating
your pages to improve your ranking in search results. Once you
accomplish this,you can then consider using paid inclusion if
you want to speed up the time it will take for the regular
spider to revisit your pages.

Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from its search
engine, although these pages usually reappear in a few months.
There are a number of reasons why this can happen,but by using
paid URL inclusion, you will avoid the possibility. Paid URL
inclusion guarantees that your pages are indexed, and if they
are inadvertently dropped, the search engine will be on the
lookout to locate them immediately.

As you can see, there are numerous factors to consider when it
comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a valuable investment
depending on your situation. Evaluate your business needs and
your website to determine if paid URL inclusion is a wise
investment for your business opportunity from home.

About The Author: Daniel Foreman is the developer of the Online
Business Builder System (OBBS) and a FREE eight part course on
creating a successful e-book. Visit
http://www.homebasedbusiness-opp.com for more information.

A Simple 5 Step System For Starting A Home Base Business... The Right Way

Article written by: Cory Threlfall

Home Base Business and the dream of working from your own home,
by your own terms and hours is a dream shared by many, but the
unfortunate thing that happens, is they 'Fail' because they
started it for all the wrong reasons.

This almost happened to me. My dream of having my own home base
business was almost a distant memory until I was forced to make
one of the BIGGEST decisions of my life and that was to get a
Mentor.

I'm not saying you have to go out and get a mentor, I'm just
sharing with you what I did in order to make my dream a
reality.

And my mentor wasn't just any mentor either, he was and still
is the #1 Business Coach in North America who showed me and
thousands of others what we were doing wrong and what we needed
to do to make it right.

This was an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my
life and think about everyday.

Who was my mentor your probably wondering?

Well... his name is Raymond Aaron, and he is the founder of the
Monthly Mentor - http://www.monthlymentor.com

This man changed my life forever with his principles.

So with that said, what I'm about to share with you he taught
me and is a simple system that will only take you a few minutes
to do.

These few minutes will determine the right home base business
for you, whether it's online or offline, so YOU don't fall
victim to failure like many home base business start-ups do.

So... with that said, in these next few paragraphs I'm going to
show you how to pick the right business for you to start by
using a simple little system I was shown that takes only a few
minutes to do.

Believe me, this will not be as stressful as you think.

The first step...

Step #1. Get a pen/pencil and note pad.

This is the easy step. All you have to do Right Now is get a
pen/pencil and note pad to write on for the next step coming
up.

Do you have your pen/pencil and note pad yet?

Step #2. Write down your TOP 10.

This is where your going to have to use your brain a little bit
because this TOP 10 list your about to write down are the TOP 10
home base businesses you would like to start-up based on your
interests and passions.

Please... take a few minutes to do this. There's no need to
rush.

Step #3. Get rid of five of your TOP 10.

Okay, now it's time to make some cuts. This is where you have
to really think about the 10 home base business start-ups you
have written down infront of you.

Look at them good and hard.

Now it's time to get rid of the five you would MOST likely not
want to start.

Pick wisely.

Step #4. Now get rid of two more.

It's now time to break it down your list even more by getting
rid of two more of the five home base business start-ups you
have listed infront of you on your note pad.

Remember what we are trying to do here. We're trying to figure
out the best home base business for YOU.

After this step you should only be looking at three home base
business start-ups that you REALLY want to start.

Step #5. Your FINAL decision.

Now it's time for your FINAL decision.

It all comes down to this last step so make sure you make the
right choice for it is the one you're go run with to make your
entrepreneurial dreams come true.

Of the three you have left on the note pad infront of you
choose the ONE that you know you would excel at and are
passionate about doing Day In and Day Out.

This is a BIG decision.

Take a few minutes to REALLY think this through... okay.

Go for a walk if you have to or even sleep on it and decide in
the morning.

It's up to you.

That's all there is to it.

I know it seems simple from reading this article, and it is if
you know how to simplify the process and not make it more
difficult then it really has to be.

People always seem to take the hard route at these kinds of
decisions(I was one of them) when it really doesn't have to be,
so if you haven't already done so, go through the five steps
above and give them a try so you don't fall victim to becoming
one of those home base business failures, and become one of
those home base business "Successes" doing what it is you are
most passionate about and love doing everyday.

About The Author: Cory Threlfall is the Editor and Publisher of
a Online Business and Marketing publication called... The
Internet Wonders eZine - http://www.internetwondersezine.com -
and also has his own Blog called Strategic Online Business and
Marketing Tactics at ==> http://www.corythrelfall.com | Plus...
he owns and operates one of the nets #1 Info Product and
Software storefronts. Go NOW and check it out at ==>
http://www.bestinfoproductsonline.com

Ecommerce: Shopping For A Shopping Solution

Article written by: Scott Lindsay

The specifics of ecommerce can require a learning curve that
many are reluctant to tackle. Perhaps that's why many brick and
mortar stores have not entered the world of online marketing.

It is possible to look at ecommerce and consider the things you
might need and lose heart. You take a look at some of the items
you need such as site design, hosting, shopping cart,
autoresponders, search engine registration and a laundry list
of other services and you wonder how in the world you are going
to come up with a way to make it work. This is especially true
for those who are just happy if they can figure out how to open
their email account.

Because not everyone is adept at the specifics of ecommerce,
sites that customize a package for their customers are a boon
to many entering the world of ecommerce.

Don Fortner, a Direct Marketer describes a one-stop ecommerce
solution, "You can really have it all. I was quickly able to
build a fully functional commercial web site using the
easy-to-use templates with slide shows, image maps, fully
functional search engine, Pay Pal shopping cart and more!
Highly Recommended."

According to High Power Sites you can find a, "solution that
affordably allows anyone with even the lowest level of Internet
experience to make their own professional ecommerce website."

These solutions are feature-rich in design and function and
manage the very specific needs you may have in a user-friendly
interface. Those who use these one-stop ecommerce solutions
find they are able to successfully launch their website in a
very short period of time.

Many online marketers have found that the integration of
multiple technologies in one package provides a choice that
gives them time to learn the skills of optimization. For some
netrepreneurs this option becomes a long-term solution.

Dale McIntosh from AMJ Funding Group who uses an integrated
ecommerce solution said, "My website pages are as good or
better than some of my friends who are in the same type of
business."

When you follow the success stories of those who have added
ecommerce to their brick and mortar store you will notice a
growth pattern that is more than encouraging.

Perhaps the greatest advantage to an online store is it never
closes. Automated function in a solid website design allows for
transactions to occur at the discretion of your clients. The
fulfillment of the orders can be taken care of when you or your
staff is available. Those who utilize the web for purchases
enjoy the control they have in making online purchases at times
that are convenient to them. Ecommerce allows you to cater to
that desire.

About The Author: Scott Lindsay is a web developer and
entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many
other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest
do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website
online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

Internet Marketing Within A Budget

Article written by: Ryan Ginster

Internet marketing is not only very important but it is also
one of the least inexpensive of business promotion tools that
anyone can have. However, the Internet moves so fast that the
biggest factor that decides whether or not Internet marketing
within a budget is possible is time. The time that is spent on
advertising and the time that is spent waiting between renewed
advertising efforts.

This is a very simple cause-and-effect situation. The more time
you spend advertising the more is the market exposure, brand and
name recognition, and popularity that you gather. There is
nothing mysterious in this process. You could run an all-out
eCommerce website for your business or you could be the owner
of a blog that lists your products, whatever the case, people
are not going to keep coming to your website address unless
they know it is there in the first place and that leads you
back to marketing.

Every marketing strategy begins with one common point: the
target audience. Unless and until you know the group towards
which your marketing campaign is targeted, no internet
marketing strategy is going to work for you.

Once you have your target audience you can go ahead with
internet market strategies like article submission, posting in
messages forums and newsgroups, and the ever-popular online
classifieds. All these options are either free or they cost
very little.

The nature of classifieds is similar to the ones in other
media. Care should be taken when posting articles or messages
in forums. Do not be adamant or pushy. Stick to the details of
your business and products. Highlight the differences and
benefits and so on. Online communities are very friendly places
and rudeness is never welcomed there, so be polite and try to
establish a reputation for yourself as a regular poster and a
person who is always willing to help someone else. Do not give
anyone reason to feel displeasure upon reading your name in the
"From" field.

Once you have selected a type of Internet marketing within a
budget it is critical that you do not wait too long for results
to appear. This is where a lot of people go wrong. They keep
expecting things to change for way longer than is prudent. Of
course, there is always the chance that you do everything right
the first time and see the results that you expected, but in
case you do not, then it would be wise to reconsider your
marketing technique and strategy because it is obviously not
working. There is no sense in continuing with a marketing
strategy that fails to show any result for almost a month.

However, do not feel discourage in case of such a failure, as
it is quite normal. As you get more and more familiar with
Internet marketing, your response time will automatically
improve.

Internet marketing within a budget is quite possible; you just
need to get your basics right and a little practice.

About The Author: Ryan Ginster is the owner of
http://www.biznessonline.info He makes his money with
PlugInProfitSite, you can grab one at:
http://www.instantmoneyonline.info

Web Site Design Principles And Best Practices

Article written by: William Perkins

The key to designing an excellent website, and doing it in the
least amount of time, is planning. Internet web site design
follows a set of principles which you must incorporate into
your plan. Additionally, you'll want to use a good web building
tool to expedite the process.

Planning your web site on paper first is vitally important. I
don't mean planning every little detail, I just mean planning
the look and feel of your homepage, as well as the navigation
or flow chart of the various pages of your entire web site.

Think of your website as a pyramid with your homepage as the
pinnacle of the pyramid. Your visitors will navigate from your
homepage to your 2nd tier pages, and from there to the 3rd tier
pages. In the beginning, you will just want to build your home
page and the 2nd tier pages.

Here's a Fast Track Technique to make your job of designing and
building a website a lot easier:

All you really have to do is plan one page, your homepage, and
then clone all your other 2nd and 3rd level pages. Your goal
should be to make one perfect webpage, and then you'll simply
use this as your template and fill in the pages with different
content.

Let's look at the requirements of a successful webpage. A good
webpage must fill the needs of the visitor to your site, as
well as the needs of the search engines, and must also entice
the visitor to click-thru to the merchant page where s/he can
make a purchase.

But that's not all. A webpage should also capture the name and
email address of the visitor. There should be numerous places
and opportunities for the visitor to opt-in to your newsletter
or to get your freebie product. I recommend you put your opt-in
email capture form on every page of your website. Getting your
visitor's name and email address is actually more important
than selling a product to your visitor.

Optimizing your webpages for the search engines is especially
important to get free, targeted traffic to your site. Using
articles that you write about your business, combined with SEO
webpage design principles practically guarantees an avalanche
of targeted traffic to your website.

In addition to convincing your visitors to give you their name
and email address, and optimizing for the search engines, a top
notch webpage should also be designed to nudge the visitor along
a pre-defined path to get the visitor to take a particular
action. The action you usually desire the visitor to take is to
click on the link that leads to your merchant page where a
purchase can be made.

Here is where website navigation becomes vitally important. The
amount of clicks from the time your visitor arrives at your
website to the merchant page where the visitor is confronted
with an offer should ideally be not more than three clicks.

The navigation must also be designed so that the visitor is not
overwhelmed with choices. I see too many websites that offer a
plethora of choices to the customer. This is a Big Mistake. A
confused mind hesitates to make a purchase, or takes no action
at all and exits the website in search of a simpler solution.

Design your navigation so that no more than five choices are
offered at any one time. So your homepage might offer five
category links at the top of your page, each of which might
lead to five more 2nd tier links. This already adds up to 25
pages plus the homepage.

The navigation should also be placed in the same place on every
webpage to make your visitor's experience easy and pleasurable.
You do not want a frustrated customer. The happy mood is the
buying mood. What's more, a good experience at your website
ensures that your customer will return again and again to your
website.

Offer excellent, easy to find content at your website. Design
your webpages with simplicity in mind. Nothing fancy or
complicated. Use a white background and easy to read fonts. Do
not overdo the colors! Choose black type and one or two colored
fonts and that's it.

You need to convince your visitor that you are reliable,
trustworthy, honest, and credible. To do that your webpages
should be conservative, easy to navigate, and easy to read.
It's also important to include your email address prominently.

By following these webpage design guidelines, everybody wins.
The search engines do their job by delivering relevant content
to the visitor (because your webpage has been optimized for the
search engines). The visitor wins by effortlessly locating the
information and product that s/he was seeking. The merchant
wins by making a sale. And you win by collecting a commission
from the sale. You also acquire the customer's trust, as well
as their name and email address, so that you can market to them
again in the future.

About The Author: Big Willy writes about starting an online
business, affiliate marketing, and making money. He has
packaged much of what he knows into a re-brandable ebook
titled, "Fast Track To Internet Riches!" which you can get for
free at his website. http://www.BigWillySite.com

Gunning For Online Business Opportunities

Article written by: Nick P. Bentley

Whether you are an entrepreneur or an experienced business
owner, taking advantage of online business opportunities may
fit your needs perfectly. These businesses are typically home
based and requires very little to get started. The advantages
to owning a home based business are many, and all you really
need is a well equipped computer system, a high speed internet
connection, adequate work space, and commitment and dedication.

There is a lot more out there than stuffing envelopes and
joining online affiliate programs, not to say that people
cannot be successful in these ventures of course. Any type of
home based online business opportunity must be right for the
person who chooses to enter into the venture.

A huge investment isn't always required to take advantage of
online business opportunities. Those who are new to the
internet should do their research, and speak with people who
know something about what you want to do, before getting
involved with something that is nothing more than a fraud.
Reputable online business opportunities are listed in a number
of online publications that post reviews and ratings for
home-based businesses, and are a good place to get accurate
information and get started.

The Internet has opened up a whole new world for people who are
tired of the traditional Monday through Friday, nine to five
pace, and travelling through traffic each day. More people now
work from home than ever before thanks to these online business
opportunities, it truly is the World Wide Web in every sense of
the word. You would be surprised at the number of things people
can now do to make money in the privacy of their own home,
without the travel and headaches.

Online business opportunities may be what you've been looking
for, especially if you always wanted to run your own show, & to
not have to be somewhere by a certain time, and follow what
someone else told you to do. If you are motivated and have some
cash reserves to get going, then you are well on your way to
becoming an entrepreneur and possibly making more cash than you
could ever dream possible. Just be wise about the online
business opportunities you are seriously considering, and when
you choose the right one, don't hedge your bets.

About The Author: For the latest in news, reviews and articles on
http://articledirectoryzone.com/online-surveys/money-and-free-paid-online-surveys.html
and
http://articledirectoryzone.com/online-surveys/income-from-home-using-online-surveys.html

How Much Does Your Google Adsense Really Make

Article written by: Danny Wirken

Since its introduction in 2003, the Google Adsense program has
greatly help bloggers defray hosting charges and other costs
related to running blogs. Blogging can be very expensive
especially when you have high levels of traffic and numerous
pages. Many are turning to Google Adsense to generate some
revenue from their blogs and what's more, earn some extra on
the side.

What Google Adsense Is

Adsense is an advertising program run by Internet giant Google.
Google Adsense allows you (blog owner) to sell advertising space
on your blog. The program enables you to display relevant text
and banner ads on your blog's content pages. Banner ads are the
most common form of online advertising displayed at the top of
many blog pages. Google pays you a fee when the visitor clicks
on the ad.

When you join the Adsense program, you get access to Adsense
for content which places ads on your content pages. Because the
ads are targeted to what visitors are looking for on your blog
or they match the interests of the visitors your content
attracts, you earn and at the same time enhance your content
pages. Google uses its vast search technology resources to
serve ads based on blog content. In this regard, Adsense has
become a popular choice for placing advertisements on a blog
because the content of the ads is relevant to the blog. For
example, ads for kitchen utensils will appear on a blog post
about healthy cooking. Google has an extensive inventory of ads
for all categories, business, practically for all kinds of
content. If Google is unable to display targeted ads on your
blog page, you can display a default ad of your choice.

A companion to the Adsense for content is the Adsense for
search. It allows you to add a Google search box on your pages.
This keeps the visitors on your blog longer since they can
search from right on your blog. When a visitor searches the web
using the search box, Google shares any ad revenue it makes from
those searches with you and you shell nothing to participate.

Another recent addition is the Adsense for feeds. This runs on
RSS and Atom feeds. RSS and Atom feeds are standards for
publishing regular updates to blog-based content. Ads are
displayed in the most suitable feed articles. You are paid for
your blog's original content; visitors see appropriate
advertising and more relevant feeds to choose from.

How to Join

There is no rigid criteria to conform to for acceptance into
the Google Adsense program, unlike other online ad networks
that place minimum traffic requirement to be accepted. The only
real criterion is acceptable content. Of course, any ad program
wants to attract quality content blogs only. Assuming you
already have a blog on which you can include Adsense links, you
first need to be accepted into the program. The first step is to
go to http://www.google.com/adsense to sign up. Google will
review your blog to find out if you have the necessary traffic
and the content that would bring in sufficient clicks to make
your taking part in the program beneficial to Google and to
you.

Once you are accepted, all you need is a bit of javascript code
to incorporate the advertisements into the accepted blog site.
Google does the rest like providing appropriate ad links from
its inventory of clients to your blog. Targeted ads will start
showing up on your blog.

How It Works

There are two sides to Google advertising - one for advertisers
selling a product or service called Adwords and Adsense for blog
publishers. Advertisers pay Google to have their ads designed
using Adwords appear next to the search page results in Google
and a list of significant keywords for their offerings. Google
will display an ad only if the provided keywords conform to a
visitor search. An advertiser pays Google on a cost per click
(CPC) basis. This means an advertiser pays only for that ad if
the visitor clicks on the ad and visits the advertiser's site.
Advertisers compete with one another to buy search keywords
usually from five cents and above. Nevertheless, Google also
takes into consideration the search engine ranking of the
advertiser blog, so no one site can just buy keywords. For
example, a purchase of the keywords "digital camera" produces
ads next to Google search result in its home page. Said
purchase also shows Adsense ads for digital cameras on other
blogs where digital cameras are mentioned.

For their part, blog publishers using Adsense create relevant
pages. Google sends out Mediabots (digital robots) which use
special algorithms to crawl the host blog page and evaluate the
content to determine what keywords are relevant and report the
result to Google's ad server which then serves the appropriate
ads. Blog publishers get paid a percentage of the fee that
Google receives from the advertiser. This is done through a
combination of a pay per click (PPC) and pay per impression
basis. Impression is the number of times a specific ad has been
displayed. A blog publisher is reimbursed at a fixed rate per
thousand impressions. If a page isn't significant enough, a
blog publisher doesn't get paid as much. There is no charge for
the blog publisher to join Adsense. All costs are covered by the
advertiser who participates in Adwords.

How Much Money It Makes

The amount of money you (blog publisher) can expect from Google
Adsense depends upon several factors. If your blog draws tons of
traffic and you focus on a particular niche, Google will serve
ads that appeal to visitors of your site. For instance, if you
maintain a popular blog devoted to portable media player, you
can make a windfall because of the high level of competition
for related keywords. Rates for competitive keywords can exceed
$1 which impacts your blog's earning potential. Conversely, if
you are in a less competitive niche, you get occasional traffic
only, thus less visitors click on your ads which equates to less
money earned.

How much each advertisement pays per generated click is also
another important factor. Each Adsense ad is not worth the
same. An ad may give you ten cents while another may give you
$1 per click. It depends on the demand for that kind of ad. If
a number of advertisers are bidding for the same advertising
space, the advertiser offering the most per click will get
their ad displayed first.

Ad formats and placements influence revenue. Placing ads on the
right part of the blog page is significant so that visitors
looking at your page will see the ad, at the same time it will
be not be overly intrusive to put visitors off.

Fundamentally though, it is all about content. To make money
from Adsense, you have to know what your visitors are looking
for. It may be information on a topic, a product they want to
buy or a service they want to avail of and entertainment.
Offering visitors good content will generate highly relevant
ads which in turn will draw more clicks on the ads displayed.
To optimize content, the same basic rules for search engine
optimization apply.

Google doesn't publish the percentage it takes as a commission
and only displays what the blog owner receives in member
reports. However, you can make a rough estimate. The average
click through rate (CTR) for online advertising is generally
around 0.5 to 1%. CTR is the rate at which visitors click an
advertisement usually calculated as a percentage of ad
impressions (number of times a specific ad has been displayed).
What each click pays is dependent on the content and keywords
that are generating the ads being served.

Although Google doesn't release the amount it pays for
keywords, you can sign up as an advertiser on top of being a
participant in the Adsense program for $5 and see for yourself
how much advertisers are paying Google for various click
through. For example, a thousand page views with Google ads on
them per day, at 1% click through rate and 25 cents per click
will yield $2.50 per day. Not a lot but it can cover hosting
fees or service fees.

Google Adsense is not a get rich quick program. But there are
documented cases of bloggers earning as much as $5,000 a month
and more. In fact, Jason Calacanis sold his blog network,
Weblogs Inc. for a whopping $25 - $40 million on Google Adsense
revenues of $1 million yearly. There isn't any sense why a
blogger can't earn much from Google Adsense program.
Definitely, there are thousands of dollars worth of reasons to
make money from Google Adsense.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Google's Online Feed Reader Application

Article written by: Danny Wirken

Nothing is more frustrating than being inundated with
information from the blogging community when you are clueless
as how to manage all these content especially the ones you are
interested in. In this regard, Google's online feed reader
application, Google Reader, can be of great help. Google Reader
will keep track of all these fresh contents (feeds) making it
easier to keep up with your ever-increasing list of contents
from across the blogosphere.

Feeds, Feed Readers - Terms You Should Know

One way to manage blog updates is through the use of feeds.
Feeds are small files just like web pages. Blogs have links or
these orange buttons labeled XML, RSS or Atom. All these are
feed formats. They let you gather updates from a wide variety
of blogs and display these fresh updates all in one place as
they come in. This feature is referred to as syndication,
aggregation or simply subscribing. Most blog publishers use RSS
format which stands for Really Simple Syndication format.

The best way to subscribe to feeds is to use a feed reader. A
feed reader is sometimes called a news reader, news aggregator,
blog reader, RSS reader or RSS client. A feed reader is a type
of software or program that retrieves syndicated content
supplied in the form of feed published by blogs. A feed reader
maintains a list of blogs you are subscribed to, check them for
updates at your determined intervals and displays these contents
in a readable format. There are basically two types of feed
readers - application-based and web-based.

Application-based feed readers or installable desktop programs
are simple software applications that are installed on the
computer. Whenever you go online, they check the RSS feeds for
blogs you are subscribed to and display the new posts into the
reader on your computer. Feed Demon (Windows) and NetNewsWire
(Mac OS X) are popular application-based feed readers.

If you prefer to use an online service to track and manage your
feeds, then a web-based feed reader is the one for you. It works
in a web browser to collect all the blogs to which you are
subscribed to in one place online. Any upgrade or new features
are added automatically. What is more, you can check feeds from
any computer. Google Reader is one fine example of a web-based
feed reader.

Google Reader - Fresh Content at your Doorstep

As part of Google's grand vision to bring together personalized
web content to make information more relevant to users, it has
launched its online feed reader application, Google Reader
Beta. This brings Google closer to becoming a one-stop portal
for your e-mail, hand-picked news and other information.

Google Reader is a web-based feed reader which aggregates feeds
from blogs. It is capable of reading RSS and Atom feeds. It has
a clean and easy interface that allows you to manage which
content you have read, save them, organize them and categorize
them for future reference.

Instead of regularly visiting individual blogs for updates,
Google Reader will do the job for you. Google Reader will keep
you updated about all the online information you are interested
in. They can be news blogs or even your friends' blogs.

To avail of this service, you must have a Google account. If
you have a registered account with Gmail, you can use your
username and password to sign in to Google Reader. If you don't
have a Google Account, you can access the reader by logging on
to http://www.google.com/reader. To enjoy Google Reader's
amazing features, make sure you are using either one of these
browsers - IE 6. Firefox 1.0+, Safari 1.3+, Netscape 7.2+ and
1.7+.

Google Reader Cool Features - A Quick Run Down

Google Reader is a complete feed reader. It also adheres to
Google's trademark simple, easy-to-use design principle. The
neat layout of Google Reader makes it easy to search for and
scroll through feeds. Content is organized into four sections-
Home Page, Your Subscriptions, Read Items and Starred.

To search for feeds, you can use the search box at the upper
left top of the screen. Finding content is easy, just type a
specific publication, name, author, or topic and click "search
for new content" and Google Reader will retrieve up to ten
results. You can then subscribe by clicking the subscribe
button adjacent to each search result. Google Reader will
monitor the blog for updates and add them to your reading list.
Google Reader has two panes, the left displays the reading list
and the feeds you subscribe to and a preview pane on the right
that allows you to read the full feed content.

Content can be displayed by date or automatic sorting which
prioritizes content based on relevance to you. You can choose
whether or not you like content you've already read to remain
in your reading list. However, you can still view read items
not in your reading list by clicking on the "Read Items" button
at the top of the Home Page. Google Reader allows you to
retrieve a listing of read items. You might want to look
through the last 50 items to come up with trends or enable you
to complete a search.

As mentioned earlier, when you find content you want to read on
a regular basis, you can subscribe to it and Google Reader will
monitor that blog for updates and add them to your reading
list. You can also use the "Edit Subscriptions" link to edit or
add to your subscription list. The subscription link displays a
user's current, past and deleted subscriptions. It allows you
to view details such as dates and specific tags used. Current
subscriptions can be found in the reading list.

You may also add tags or labels to feeds you've read that are
somewhat connected. Feeds about computers may be tagged
"computers", "electronics", "information technology".
Similarly, you can also label an item with a star. These
starred items are presented as a list of entries with feed URL,
tags, published and updated periods included. Google Reader
treats starred items as a special type of tag. Moreover, if you
use the tagging/labeling feature of Google Reader, you can share
them.

Google Reader allows you to share what you read with friends.
You can send a list to your starred items in Google Reader.
Anyone who clicks on this link is taken to a public version of
Google Reader (no log-in required) that displays the content
with your shared label. If you have a Gmail account, you can
click the "Send Email" button to automatically compose an
e-mail to go with the link. Another way you can share is to put
a clip on your blog with fresh content from your reading list. A
clip is a condensed list of current headlines from contents with
a specific label that can be posted on a blog. Any visitor can
then view the latest headlines from a label you are sharing.

Another cool feature of Google Reader is the keyboard
shortcuts. They save time by helping you scan your reading list
without the hassle of moving your hand back and forth between
the keyboard and the mouse. Navigation becomes much easier.

Give the Google Reader a test drive and experience for yourself
how easy it is to manage content overload from the blogosphere.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Turning E-books Into Successful Business Opportunities From Home

Article written by: Daniel Foreman

If you have spent any time on the internet you have probably
come across the phrase "e-book" and you may have even
downloaded one. So just what the heck is an e-book and why in
the wide world of sports would you want to write one?

An e-book is simply a book whose contents are in an electronic
format. With the explosive growth of the internet, e-books have
carved out a niche for self-published writers. There are no
expensive production costs, no having to dig up a publishing
deal and NO REJECTION. You can write what you want and
distribute it on your website or someone else's.

That also means that you are responsible to deliver on the
success of your e-book. Your content, the topic(s) that you are
writing about should be relevant to something you are
knowledgeable about and already has an existing market. Another
option is looking for business opportunities in the marketplace
that bigger companies are overlooking. For example, the current
rage on the internet is online dating, but it is mostly targeted
towards young people, what about creating an e-book on
successful dating tips for seniors? You could tie in a dating
service and all kinds of extras.

The advantages of selling an e-book are hard to beat; no
shipping charges, instant download for the customer, instant
cash for you and most importantly a source of passive income
that works for you even while you sleep. Passive income simply
means earnings which you are not actively involved in. Once you
have developed your e-book and have a digital distribution
method for it, you are no longer actively involved in the
operation of it. You can just sit back and watch your bank
account get bigger. Go for a trip or on holidays, it doesn't
matter, this will still make money from you even when you are
not there.

Now that you have a general understanding of what an e-book is
and why creating one can help generate wealth for you and your
family, there are some options that you can use to distribute
it. You can sell it on a website, have it bundled as a bonus
for another product you are selling, or use it as a promotional
item like a free course to help build your subscriber list.

If you have a website and you are selling items on it already
(e-commerce) than you probably know all about Clickbank at
www.clickbank.com. If you do not have a sales mechanism in
place, ClickBank is the way to go. They take care of all the
credit card sales, they have an affiliate network and they have
an existing marketplace for you to add your product. All you
have to do is set an account with them and they will generate
the HTML code for you to place in your website that allows
people to order your product online. Once this is set-up, it is
an automatic process, customers order your e-book and ClickBank
sends you a cheque.

About The Author: Daniel Foreman is the developer of the Online
Business Builder System (OBBS) and a FREE eight part course on
creating a successful e-book. Visit
http://www.homebasedbusiness-opp.com for more information.

The Basics Of Web Hosting Services

Article written by: Gabriel Adams

The Internet is full of different web hosting companies these
days. There are many different choices to help you get your
site on the web. However all of these different web hosting
companies offer a variety of different services. How are you
ever going to choose which company is right for your web site?
The easiest way to choose between the different web hosting
companies is to look at the different services they offer and
choose which one is the best fit for your web site.

Most web hosting companies offer basically the same types of
services, but some companies offer better quality services than
others. One of the most important services to look for when
choosing a web hosting company is the amount of space they will
give you. If you plan on creating a very large web site, then
you need to make sure that the web hosting company you choose
gives plenty of storage so that your web site has room to grow.
Also many web hosting companies offer free email accounts when
you host your web site with them. This can be a great feature
if you plan on giving out email addresses on your web site, or
you need email addresses for employees in your company. However
if you do not need many email addresses, then this is not a
great service for you.

I believe one of the most important services that can set a web
hosting company apart from other companies is the ability to
create web sites that can use server-side code. Using
server-side code will allow you to communicate with a database
on their server, and dynamically make changes on the web site
depending on what information is in that database. In this new
age of Web 2.0, using server-side code to create a truly
dynamic user-driven web site is essential. However if you just
want to communicate your message to your audience, and you do
not need to have your users interact with your site, this
service might not be that important to you. No matter what kind
of web site you are creating there is a web hosting company out
there with the services that you need.

About The Author: Get help choosing the best Web Hosting at
http://www.webhost-advisor.com/

Will Longer Keyphrases Hinder the Effectiveness of Your Copy?

Article by: Karon Thackston

The length of search phrases continues to grow. Back when the

Internet was just an upstart, single keywords were the only
thing you needed. But in recent years we've seen the number of
words used in search phrases triple and quadruple. Rather than
a single keyword, searchers who live in countries where English
is the primary language are now using three- and four-word
phrases as a standard, according to Web analytics company,
OneStat.com.

While the worldwide average is two words per search phrase, the
USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all show that
searchers prefer the use of three- or four-word terms. What does
this mean from a copywriting standpoint? Writing with a single
keyword in mind is relatively easy. Using two-word terms is a
bit more of a challenge. But when you get to three- and
four-word phrases, your risk of sounding stiff and awkward
increases substantially.

Why Longer Phrases?

Longer search phrases are the natural progression of the
Internet population boom. As more and more information is
placed online, it becomes increasingly difficult to find exactly
what you're looking for. When there were only a few thousand
sites, entering the word "marketing" into a search engine would
bring up a handful of sites for you to choose from.

Now, however, you find hundreds of thousands of sites dealing
with everything from marketing plans to marketing jobs to
university curriculums for marketing degrees. The natural action
for copywriters is to follow the search trend of the target
audience and use the keyphrases that they use.

That leads us back to our original question. how?

Tips for Writing With Keyphrases

The biggest mistake I find search engine optimization (SEO)
copywriters making is attempting to substitute a generic term
for a specific keyphrase. For example:

At our Mexico cruise vacation site we offer the best rates on
Mexico cruise vacation packages to the most exciting Mexico
cruise vacation destinations. Visit our Mexico cruise vacation
specials page for deep discounts today!

Or

Welcome to our Chicago web design firm site. If you're looking
for innovative and creative Chicago web design firm, you've come
to the right place. No other Chicago web design firm has the
talent or technological skills to develop the type of high-end
sites we do. When you're ready for a truly professional Chicago
web design firm, contact us today.

Oh please! My 10-year-old nephew could write better copy than
that. When you substitute generic terms (in this case: site,
packages, vacation destinations, vacation specials, etc.) with
the specific search phrase, you get a bunch of repetitive,
awkward babble. The longer the keyphrases are, the more clunky
the copy will sound.

The best advice I can give is to break up some of the mentions
of longer keyphrases. Yes, you do need to keep the words of the
phrase in the same order most of the time. However by using
punctuation and other elements you can still make the phrase
appear less obtrusive.

For example, let's look at our Mexico cruise vacation site
again. Rather than using that bunch of fluff written above, try
this instead:

Long stretches of sunny beaches, delightful fiestas filled with
lively bands and some of the most delicious fresh seafood you've
ever tasted. Where can you find it? In Mexico! Cruise vacation
destinations from Cancun to Cozumel offer some of the most
exciting adventures and beautiful scenery found in Mexico.
Cruise vacation specials make these remarkable getaways even
more affordable than you might think - etc., etc.

Do you see what was done? Using punctuation, the phrase "Mexico
cruise vacation" was broken up between sentences. Because the
search engines all but ignore punctuation, they see the phrase
as one term. However, the site visitor doesn't. They don't
notice that the phrase is being repeated because it spans two
sentences.

If the trend continues as it has in the past, search phrases
will get even longer in the not-so-distant future. However,
when you get creative with keyphrase use in your copy, you'll
find longer search terms are not a problem to work with.

About the author: Be sure to also check out
Karon's report "How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without
Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)" at
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

SSL: Site Security And Privacy

Article written by: Scott Lindsay

Netscape began using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) in 1994 as a
means of sending sensitive data over the web. The newer edition
of the service is called Transport Layer Security (TLS),
although even this is routinely known by the SSL designation.

Before the introduction of SSL it was difficult to ensure
privacy over the web in online transactions. There was a
general distrust of the ability to conduct online transactions
and a fear that an individual's credit card information could
be picked up by a third party and used for unauthorized
purchases.

What makes SSL unique is an encryption technique that sends
credit card and other personal data through the web. This
encryption technique makes the information totally useless to
anyone who does not have decoding abilities. If a third party
were to intercept the information it would be useless to them.

The use of SSL Digital Certificates also provides a unique
level of trust because a certificate verifies the users
authenticity. This is an important step in instilling trust in
potential customers. Many savvy consumers will avoid an online
retailer entirely if they do not use SSL.

Without the proper use of SSL, information such as credit card
numbers, third parties with less than positive motivations
could obtain passwords and personal identification numbers.

A 128-bit key that is harder to break and typically protects
personal account information than the 40-bit key. If your name
and address is all that is being protected a 40-bit key may be
used; the higher bit the key, the greater level of encryption.
Most financial institutions only use 128-but keys for the
security of their client's data.

As an online marketer you will likely be asking your visitors
for personal data. Don't be surprised if your potential
customer determines their willingness to do business with you
based on the security of your website. Many customers will look
for the SSL symbol and will move along if the don't find it. SSL
use can also be recognized by a lock symbol in the lower right
hand corner of your browser window. If the symbol is unlocked
then SSL is not in use on the site.

SSL should be enacted on pages requiring a password or might
contain personal data most clients would like to keep private.
Some sites will place SSL on some pages and forget other pages
that are equally as sensitive. For the sake of your personal
experience with ecommerce you should implement SSL protocol.

About The Author: Scott Lindsay is a web developer and
entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many
other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest
do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website
online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

Working From Home

Article written by: Lisa Moore

Modern consumers have found the Internet to be a useful source
of information and purchasing tool. With recent advances in
technology, a simple click of a mouse can bring you to sites
where you can find almost any kind of products and services on
the web. In addition, the Internet provides you with a way to
shop for the best prices and values no matter what the time of
day. In terms of convenience, nothing beats working and
shopping online.

Now that everything is literally at the homeowners' fingertips,
you can take advantage of this evolution by looking into work at
home businesses. Today's market environment leaves the home
business owner something to be desired. Just as shoppers can
now browse from the comfort of their living rooms, you can
conduct your business in the convenience of your homes as well.

Why Consider a Work at Home Business?

Easy. Would you prefer to set your own working hours? Would you
appreciate spending less time commuting to work? Would you like
to enjoy the overall freedoms of working for yourself? If you
answered yes to any of those questions, the only question
that's left unanswered is: Why not?

Finding Your Niche Business

The primary factor you need to look into when you're
considering getting into work at home business is finding a
niche that works for you. A niche is a particular segment in
the market that you feel confident you can adopt with your
well-developed skills and talents. Once you have identified the
niche for your work at home business, you can then capitalize on
it.

Identifying your niche also means that you can look for a
particular spot in the market where you can stand out among the
competition. No modern business is truly unique. For example, if
you're thinking of having work at a home business selling books,
don't be shocked to find several other businesses selling
exactly the same items. If you do opt to sell books, you'll
find that the competition is quite extensive. However, if you
decide to sell books solely about history, then you might find
yourself facing less competition.

Therefore, when you do decide to start your own work at home
business, choose which part of the market sparks a particular
interest in you. That is what finding your niche is all about.

So now you know what a market niche is, here are few additional
questions you need to ask yourself to help you determine which
work at home business would best suit you:

Where is there a need not being fulfilled?
What would I enjoy doing most?
What do I excel at?

About The Author: Lisa Moore writes articles for several web
magazines, including http://pobod.com and http://tenip.com

Search And Web Analytics -- What You Don't Know

Article written by: Jerry Moyer

I'M THE NUMBERS GUY. IN an interactive agency full of creative,
vibrant, idea people, I'm the guy wearing the Coke-bottle
glasses and pocket protector who counts all of the traffic to
our clients' sites.

I analyze Web traffic, campaign data, and the like to describe
and explain users' behaviors and how those behaviors impact
business goals. Something not many people do or understand. And
when you've done what I do for as long as I've done it (about
seven years now), you tend to get a little full of yourself.
Well, at least I do. People in marketing are often anxious
about math and Microsoft Excel. I do what I can to foster that
angst in the name of job security.

However, being the results guy has led me to the often mistaken
conclusion that I can get the whole picture using the site data
at my disposal. I can tell you what users' needs are by where
they go on a site. I can tell you where users run into trouble
by where they leave a site, particularly if they leave in the
middle of a process. I can tell you about users' expectations
of the information architecture by the paths they take, the
paths they don't, and by which ones convert better.

But I've got to admit that Web traffic data can't tell you
everything. It can't tell you much about users' intent. It
can't tell you what users are really looking for or how they
would describe what they're looking for. Fortunately, that's
where my friends in the search engine marketing department come
in.

Of course I believed that I understood search for years. Yes, I
understood the difference between an organic and a sponsored
listing. I understood what paid inclusion was, how some engines
powered others, and why your search rankings may not improve
overnight. I even understood what meta tags were, why they were
so important in the past, and why they are now so marginalized,
poor things.

What I didn't see was the big picture. Understanding how users
search, what keywords and engines they use, and how they
respond to content within the context of their search peels
another layer off the onion of true understanding (I'm sorry
for that analogy, I really am). By looking at how users find
your site, you can learn so much more about intent and
perspective than you can by simply looking at a user's path out
of context.

A great example of this deeper understanding occurred while I
was working with our search marketing team to develop and
measure keyword categories. We took the keyword list we had
selected for optimization and created logical groups. By
looking at keyword groups, we were essentially building
customer segments that gave us greater insight into behavior.
We can now track the popularity of searches within keyword
groups to see the effect of business cycles, news, and
promotion on search behavior. We can also track conversion by
keyword group to better understand how our client's site meets
the needs of different audiences.

I will resist the temptation to say that after working with our
search marketing team, I now know all there is to know. What I
think I've learned is that I had better take the thick glasses
off before they ruin my vision. And hopefully what you've
learned is that there's a lot more to site traffic and search
marketing than meets the eye.

About The Author: Jerry Moyer writes about SEO, SEM and search
engine optimization, You can contact him through
http://www.albaengine.com

Paid Search Campaigns: What Makes The Heavy Lifting So Heavy?

Article written by: Erik Harbison

IT IS A CRITICAL COMPONENT of the day-to-day tasks that occur
behind the scenes of any paid search marketing campaign. It's
commonly experienced by those on the frontlines. It is a
necessary evil. It is something that does not need to be so
complex and cumbersome--but often is.

Simply put, it is customer service. But in this case it is the
engine's service of its customer--the agency.

It's only keywords and textlinks

On the surface, our clients are presented with only the end
product--neat, detailed, executive-level campaign summaries and
charts that indicate efficient search marketing performance tied
with strategic recommendations. Often these summaries validate
the need for an ongoing search marketing presence. Clients also
understand such top-level tactics as expanded keyword lists and
lowered bids for non-performing terms.

What remains hidden is the time-consuming back and forth with
each engine in order to ensure a perfect launch or retrieve
ongoing campaign updates. As much as we try to streamline our
interactions with the engines, there will always be a need for
constant conversations and confirmations. If you haven't
already today, please go thank your campaign managers for what
they frequently have to endure.

As mentioned by Gord Hotchkiss in a previous "Search Insider"
article, those not connected to our industry tend to simplify
what we do as nothing more than "typ[ing] phrases to drive ad
traffic." If only it were that simple.

The customer (agency) is always right...sometimes

Each engine has its own methodologies, terms and conditions,
processes and policies. During the course of a paid search
marketing campaign, you may very well experience one or some of
the following issues that contribute to the "heavy lifting,"
such as:

. Regardless of client pedigree and potential, you're required
to invest a monthly minimum spend threshold. Last time I
checked, there was more than one engine in the marketplace.

. The text creative that you initially submitted, following
several stakeholders' approval, has mysteriously been altered
based on what the engine "felt would perform better."

. When they were asked for explanations on what the effect of
certain engine guidelines (such as cosmetic changes in the way
a result would be listed) would mean for existing campaigns,
engine staffers simply stated that they "don't know" and they
"were not privy to that information from upper management." How
can we set our client expectations when the engines themselves
are unable to provide guidance?

. Without prior notification, your set daily spend caps are
exceeded above a normal percentage. The engine claims there was
an unforeseen "system error," and kindly apologizes for burning
through a large percent of your monthly budget.

. Somehow another advertiser is securing sponsored listings
against your client's brand name. You're aware of the engine's
policy and have taken action, yet the advertiser's listings
links to a page that is not compliant with the engine's
existing list of guidelines. Poor result relevancy is more
important than trademark infringement?

. Depending on your client's business, setting up a new
campaign requires coordination with several engine
representatives that in some way serve the same purpose or do
not effectively communicate. Remember the days of ONE engine
representative handling ALL of your paid search campaigns,
regardless of vertical?

While these issues have not affected our client's campaign
performances, because experience allows all of us to set
realistic turnaround times and expectations, they have cost us
all additional hours in dealing with the engines behind the
scenes. Maybe no one side is to blame. Maybe these are just
outcomes of our industry's tremendous growth spurt in the past
few years. Is there a fix?

Industry standards?

While all engines do their best to fix any unforeseen system
glitches, editorial oversights or overall lapses in customer
service, one question still remains--can standardization
minimize pain points and improve engine-to-agency customer
service?

Are these issues isolated incidents, or industry-wide? At a
recent conference, this was a recurring topic of discussion
among a few SEM enthusiasts. Feedback among the group was
mixed. There was no unanimous engine winner or loser. For every
account of an engine that did something great, there was a
horror story worse than any in the aforementioned list.

Thankfully, it appears that the engines are heading in a
direction of standardizing some of their offerings, including
text creative character limitations, soon-to-be-special
algorithms for determining a sponsored ad's rank, and
dayparting capabilities. This will at least allow for a common
level of expectations around process and procedures. How long
before standardized back-end financial systems, electronic
insertion orders, trademark policies and agency relationship
models follow?

Will things get worse before they get better?

We're in this together

Every day brings another announcement about an engine's new
technology, acquisition or ad management component. So, nothing
indicates that our jobs will get easier. I'm sure we can all say
that the various engines' customer service has improved over the
past few years, but it is not ideal. Agencies will continue to
offer solutions on how this can be improved. Engines will
continue to make minor improvements here and there. Our
industry will continue to evolve.

At the end of the day, our interests should be aligned with
delivering value to our clients and making the heavy lifting a
little lighter.

About The Author: Erik Harbison writes about SEO, SEM and
search engine optimization, You can contact him through
http://www.albaengine.com

Brands And Search Engines - How Do They Mix?

Article written by: Linda Delp

How important are search engines when it comes to brand
marketing? 73% of the adult population report they are using
the internet today and the number increases every day. Of those
people, 87% are using search engines as their primary method of
finding websites. My point - ignoring search engines in your
brand marketing plan is a major mistake.

Is your brand really affected by search engines?

ClickZ performed a study in April of 2006, which stated 15% of
brand searches strayed from the actual brand being clicked on.
This means the typical brand lost 15% of visitors. Wouldn't you
like to see an increase of 15% in visitors seeing your message?

A survey conducted by The Dieringer Research Group found 45% of
adults say their brand opinions have changed as a result of
advertising and other product information found online.

These are just a couple of studies which show that brand is
affected by search engines. With the number of sites on the
internet increasing dramatically, more and more sites are
appearing in the top results for brand searches other than the
brand itself. Many times it could be negative messages about
your brand. Most companies out there have detractors on the
internet?whether it is news about a lawsuit, disgruntled
employees or just unsatisfied customers.

Have you looked at what the internet is saying about your
company? How good is your visibility in search engines compared
to your competitors and detractors? The good news is there are
ways to counteract these messages. How? By increasing the talk
in favor of your brand on the internet. The more positive
images and messages you have online, the better it is for your
brand. Also, you will be diluting your competitors' and
detractors' messages.

Increase your Brand Presence Online

Organic Search Listings for your Website
Your website is a great marketing and PR tool for your brand.
When customers are directly searching for your brand, you need
to make sure they can find you. Type in your company's name in
Google. Ideally, you should be number one since it is your
company's name and most likely your domain. If you are not
number one, then your website needs to be optimized for search
engines.

Aside from your company name, what keywords do you want people
to associate with your brand? What's your position for these
keywords? If your results are not satisfactory, you need to
explore a search engine optimization program.

Paid Sponsored Listings
Now look at the sponsored listings; do you have a presence
there? You may ask "Should my company be listed in paid if we
are already high in organic listings?"

The answer is almost always yes. You may be thinking why should
I pay for an ad on my company's name when my company is already
showing up first in the non-paid (organic searches)? This is a
very common question. According to recent research, websites
listed at the top of the organic search results and the paid
listings will triple their click-thru ratio.

The fact is everyone views things differently and search
results are no exception. Different users click in different
areas. If someone is researching a product, they are more
likely to look at the organic listings. If they are set on
buying a product, they might look at paid to see if there are
any deals. In eye tracking studies, regardless of reason, some
people are more drawn to organic search listings, while others
are attracted to sponsored results.

Another reason you should be listed in both is your competition
could be showing up in paid search. Therefore, you could be
losing traffic directly to your competition. Policies on
trademark infringement in search engines vary and are difficult
to enforce. Aside from your trademarked terms, your competitors
are bidding on keyword terms that are optimal for your brand.

Another reason for having visibility in both paid and organic
is that it improves the credibility of your message. The more
impressions a visitor sees, the more they think you are a major
player. Aside from increased credibility is increased name
recognition of your brand. Even if you don't receive clicks,
your presence makes an impression on your potential customer. A
study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and
Nielsen/NetRatings shows that sponsored search ads do improve
brand recognition. Brands with an ad at the top position of a
search engine rose by an average of 14% across six industries
in brand metrics. The brand metrics definitely decrease with
position although it is still higher than no position at all.

Press Releases
Every press release you publish should be optimized for search
engines. Your title, keywords, meta description and content
should all be evaluated when publishing a release. Also, if it
is newsworthy, submitting to the news sites, like Google News,
Yahoo News and any industry news sites will increase the scope.
A search engine-friendly press release increases the chances of
your release being picked up on the search engines.

Blogging
Many corporations have started blogs in an effort to control,
as much as possible, what is being said about your brand. Blogs
are increasingly being indexed and rewarded with high positions,
making them another instrument you can use to get and control
your message online.

Articles and news
Adding news or articles based on your expertise is a great way
to enhance your presence in search engines. Find out what your
target audience is searching for. If you are an e-commerce
site, are users searching for informational articles before
they are purchasing? Generating content about your industry is
a great way to get exposure in the engines.

The bottom line is this, if you are not shaping the messages of
your brand on search engines, someone else is already or will
soon do it for you.

About The Author: Linda Delp writes about SEO, SEM and search
engine optimization, You can contact her through
http://www.albaengine.com

Successful Affiliate Marketing: Running A Profitable Program

Article written by: By Chris Malta & Robin Cowie

Affiliate marketing presents a tremendous opportunity for small
business owners to gain traffic and create a good buzz around
their product(s). To have a successful program, you need to
keep up with your current associates and aggressively recruit
new ones.

Size Matters

Some merchants tout smaller programs because they allow you to
maintain greater control and have more direct contact with your
affiliates. According to Dave Delisle, of
http://ThePartnerMaker.com, "The problem with that idea is it
puts a large reliance on a small group of people." It's better
to have a larger group of affiliates all driving a little bit
of traffic to your site. Advises Delisle, "Rather than having
fewer partners, try focusing on improving communications with
the affiliates you have."

Managing Your Program

Starting and managing an affiliate program requires a lot from
you, as a small business owner-there's more to it than just
purchasing tracking and contact-management software:

. You have to be adaptable to change. The affiliate marketing
realm is subject to constant changes; and changes in other
industries, such as SEO, that have repercussions that affect
the affiliate industry.

. You need to cope with multiple tasks simultaneously. It's
become increasingly difficult to set your program on autopilot
and expect to succeed with a handful of super-affiliates.

. You need to communicate with your potential affiliate
partners to make sure they understand clearly what you do and
do not allow, and what your policies are regarding things like
coupon sites and trademark bidding. Once you begin a business
relationship with them, you don't want any confusion about
what's acceptable and how they can actively market your
program.

Finding Partners to Promote You

You'll find affiliates spread all across the spectrum. There
are numerous ways to locate the good partners you need to grow
a solid program:

. Type relevant, popular keywords into the search engines, and
see who's sitting on the keywords your business is built
around.

. Join a large network, like KowaBunga or Commission Junction.
It's a great way to get out in front of a large group of
affiliates and have them approach you. But be careful not to
completely rely on the network, and just passively wait for
affiliates to come to you. You need to be actively recruiting
the right partners.

. Attend conferences and affiliate summits. Enthuses Delisle,
"They're a great way to get involved in the industry."

Affiliate marketing is a growing field. Even big players, like
MySpace, allow users to promote and recommend products and
artists, and earn a cut of the profits made from their
referrals. By taking the steps necessary to build a winning
program, you can really increase your business' exposure, and
ultimately, your sales.

About The Author: Chris Malta and Robin Cowie of
WorldwideBrands.com are the Writers and Hosts of The
Entrepreneur Magazine EBiz and Product Sourcing Radio Shows.
http://www.worldwidebrands.com/EMRinfo for more FREE eBiz info
from Entrepreneur Magazine Radio!

Blog Marketing Miracles: How To Bring Sales To Your Business Through A Weblog

Article written by: Danny Wirken

An increasing number of business entities are actively using blogs as part of their marketing strategy. Why? Blogging is providing them the ability to connect with their audience thus encouraging goodwill which in turn helps bring sales.

Marketing through Blogging

It is nothing you have not heard for quite some time now. Blogging has caused quite a stir. It has, in fact, continued to proliferate rapidly. In early days, a blog is just a personal online diary. It is a place to publish one's thoughts, to collect and share things that one finds interesting. It is a venue to express one's rants, raves and musings. Today, professional and amateur journalists, political pundits, business honchos, entertainers, everybody seems to be blogging. Blogs are now being used to promote a business, run a political campaign, elicit publicity, among others.

A blog or weblog is an online diary of events arranged in reverse chronological order. The author of a blog is known as a blogger and writing or maintaining a blog is referred to as blogging. An individual entry or article is called a post and is available in the form of a blog page for the public to read. A blog may have a commentary box for readers to leave comments or opinions. These comments act as stimulus for further conversations. A business or corporate blog is simply a blog about a specific business. It is an effective medium for communicating with current and potential customers to share knowledge and expertise and foster relationships.

A company that employs a well-planned blogging strategy can spur significant market gains and sales earnings. Marketing is not just promoting a product or service. More importantly, it is about understanding the needs and wants of customers and developing products or services that satisfy these needs and wants effectively.

A blog enables a company to reach out to current and potential customers, in a more personal way. A blog builds connection and links between the company and its key audience which helps the company use this network over time to improve overall business. A business blog especially if regularly updated can inform readers about a company product or service, information, industry news, tips, tutorials or company developments. Links to industry-related stories can also be found in a blog. The way the targeted audience responds to these information or content is important to any company.

A blog is a good venue for customers to air issues, concerns and give comments. Through a blog, customers can give their own inputs. A company can hear directly from customers and understand what they desire to get from a product or service. Sometimes, the most well intentioned product under perform because of lack of customer feedback. With blogging, a company can ask for feedbacks, albeit not the whole world, but at least the blogging community. Once a company has insights into what a large community thinks of the product or service, the company can then further improve the product or service to meet customer requirements. After all, customer satisfaction is of utmost importance.

A company who listens and responds to customer feedbacks conveys the message that there is somebody who listens behind an otherwise faceless company. Because a blog is conversational, it gives the company a human voice.

This assures customers that there is a "real" person who will take care of their needs. Customers will feel an affinity with the company. Regular visits brought about by regular updates thru fresh blog entries will familiarize the customers with the company and make them feel that they personally know the company. In due time, trust and loyalty is built and relationships fostered. As we all know people generally buy products or avail the services of people they know and trust. Rest assure that return visits to the blog, maybe for more information will transpire even after a purchase has been made. As they say, customer loyalty is the end-all-be-all of marketing.

A company that utilizes customer ideas, feedbacks, and opinions can further satisfy customer needs and wants and thus facilitates goodwill in the blogging community. It is standard practice in blogging to provide a link to a thought originator which is important because backlinks are a method for search engines to rank a blog. Search engine ranking is very important. Google and Yahoo are two of the most popular search engines.

A blog is typically written daily thus the blog post is new. The search engines index the new post more often than the regular website. The result is a high rank compared to a website. If a company has a product to promote and publishes blog posts about the product regularly, chances are one of the blog posts will be found by readers who may be looking for information about the product. Hopefully, after reading the blog post, the potential customer will visit the company website and make a purchase online or buy the product in a "brick and mortar" store. Marketers acknowledge that potential customers can be customers once they find the information they want about a product from the company's blog.

Another feature of a blog why search engines love it is a blog's high number of incoming links. Bloggers link to other blogs, articles and websites. The reading audience is exposed to a plethora of information. Bloggers, thus, create and retain a loyal following of readers. PageRanks for blogs are usually very strong too. As you and I know, high search engine ranking translates to high traffic and more sales leads.

Generating Sales from Blogging

The way to get the most from blogging is by building a strong brand. A brand is simply value for the customer. It is good customer service and products or services that will satisfy customer needs and wants. A blog can help a company demonstrates its expertise in its industry or field. Blogs do create buzz about a company's authority in its niche. A blog connects a company to its target audience and peers and starts a more dynamic conversation with the marketplace. A blog helps to show a company's value, its online brand on the web. Once a company has built a strong brand, sales will just follow.

Publishing a blog will not automatically generate higher sales. However, it is an efficient way to communicate with customers and prospects. A blog in itself is an excellent tool to support a business, provide value, build relationships and establish brand and image. The ultimate purpose of a blog is to brand, to communicate and to connect. Increased sales should only be viewed as a positive indirect effect of a successful blog.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

SEO. Getting Websites Indexed And Keeping Them Indexed.

Article written by: J. Halliwell

Many web publishers, both new and seasoned alike, are in the
dark about getting their sites indexed in the search engines
and keeping them there. While in the past webmasters were able
to throw up sites with no real value and manipulate the system
to get them ranked, today's landscape is vastly different.

The same "tricks" that previously worked will now get you
banned faster than you can say "banned". But, now even trying
to work within the misty guidelines set out by the search
engines themselves can also leave you penalized and scratching
your head. Over-optimization can cause your site to drop in the
rankings and even disappear altogether. Look no further than
Google's "sandbox" for proof of a deliberate effort to punish
publishers for trying to make an end run around them with SEO
work.

Incoming links were long considered a measure of a site's
popularity, and the search engines regarded them as such as
well. But, as publishers with dubious intentions began
instituting links pages with the sole purpose of raising their
site's popularity and ranking, these same links can now have a
negative impact. Reciprocal links MUST have relevant sources.
If your site is one that deals with pizza, links from gambling
sites will only hurt you.

Some of those nefarious aforementioned "tricks" that are NOT
preferred and mostly likely will get you banned:

Cloaking - Showing a version of a web page to users, and a
different one to search engines with the intention of getting
ranked.

Hidden Text - Repeating keywords to improve ranking in the
search engines, and having those keywords be the same color as
the background.

Duplicate Content - Creating multiple pages with the same
content to draw in more visitors.

Doorway Pages - Pages not created for visitors but for search
engines.

Redirects - Getting a web page listed under a search query that
is not relevant, by redirect.

The SEO Golden Rule of one search engine: "If you attempt to
get a web page ranked ... for a search query that is not
related to the topic of the web page then you run a high risk
of having that page banned."

The one lesson in all of this is to stop relying on tactics and
tricks. Return to the days of informative well-written content.
Your site is there to provide some service, remember that and
focus on it. As far as we are concerned, the one Golden Rule
should be this: "Keep Users In Mind."

About The Author: J. Halliwell is a long-time expert in the
fields of SEO, web publishing, web hosting, and web marketing.
You can see some of his expert opinions on web hosting at
Brilliant Web Hosting - http://www.brilliantwebhosting.com

Solving The Adwords Puzzle

Article written by: Andrew Leone

There are many different ways to market on the Internet these
days, but this article is going to primarily focus on using the
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) method with Google's AdWords.

Using PPC has become more and more of a challenge as additional
people have found their way into Internet marketing. So how do
we beat all the competition out there? Well, for starters, we
need to focus on using Google AdWords simply because it has a
higher amount of search results. So lets log on to Google and
get started.

The first thing that we need to do is create a PPC campaign.
The best way to write a quality ad is to view other ads that
get a lot of search results. So we need to go to Google and do
a search for the same type of ad we are going to be placing.
For example, if we were going to write an ad for a work at home
business we would simple type "work at home" into a Google
search. To make our search pull up the best ads possible we
need to add a keyword to our search that doesn't make sense
i.e. "work at home pizza" By doing this, only the best ads will
show up for the "work at home" keywords. Now all we need to do
is simply write two ads similar to these and we will be ready
for the next step.

Next, we need to find the best keywords related to our
advertisement, the more keywords the better. There are many
different tools out there on the Internet that can be used to
help generate a list of keywords. Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)
has a great keyword tool that we can use to help build our
list. All we need to do is enter a keyword or a phrase such as
"work at home" and a list will come up with the most popular
searches related to our keyword. We then need to take these
related keywords and use them to help build our list. We can
also take the plural forms of our keywords to help build our
list as well as switch some of our keyword phrases around. For
example, change "work at home" to "home at work" or "business
opportunity" to "business opportunities."

Now that we have our list of keywords we need to put a good
pricing strategy in place. If we go to YSM there is a tool that
can be used to see the different bid prices for given keywords.
We simple need to look up the bid prices other people are using
to find a competitive price for our keywords, though we need to
make sure this makes sense when it comes to the return on our
investment.

We are now finally ready to run our ad. Take the two ads we
have written and start the campaign. After a few weeks of
running the ads we will be able to see which ad is being more
effective. Then we will write another ad in place of the bad
one to continue to develop the best ad. Now we are finally
ready to drive some serious traffic to our business.

To our success!
Andrew Leone

About The Author: Andrew Leone is an active network-marketer
training and developing the skills of entrepreneurs all over
the net. Find out how to take charge of your own financial
freedom by taking his FREE tour. =>
http://LeoneGroupMarketing.com This article is currently
available for free reprint.

Importance Of W3 Standards

Article written by: Dave Davis

When the Internet first began its boom, the technologies used in design were forgiving. W3-Compliance wasn't as necessary because there were fewer browsers, fewer users, and overall fewer technologies in use. With the burgeoning popularity of the internet, new developmental tools are created daily. With these tools come new challenges - marketing, design, cross-browser transitions, etc. All of these can be a daunting task for those web gurus who aren't well versed in the W3 Standards. W3 (http://w3schools.com) is a resource for webmasters and programmers who want the most for their viewing public. There are numerous technologies used by programmers (ASP, PHP, and Javascript to name a few), but this article will focus solely on XHTML and CSS. W3 has a set of standards for both of these technologies, and making a website W3-compliant ensures that most all viewers will see the site exactly the same way (no matter what browser they're using). Validation also helps with Search Engine Optimization(SEO) because clean code means easier search-engine spidering.

Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, is a technology often used in sites with many pages to make aesthetic changes easier. The style sheet is an exterior file that runs interdependently with the HTML (or outputted HTML) of a site. The style sheet serves as a template for the entire site's color and font schemes, while also controlling borders, sizes, and more. Being able to edit a single file, instead of 100s of changes in many files saves time and precious web design dollars. Validation is imperative to get the most out of a website. That is, a user can upload or copy-and paste their CSS file to the W3 site, and they'll be given a list of any errors it contains.

Another of the technologies becoming more popular is Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, or XHTML. XHTML is an extension of HTML 4.0, and, while in its infancy, has become quite prevalent. XHTML conforms to standards moreso than HTML. As such, it is more search engine and user-friendly:

XHTML documents conform to XML. XML Tools can double as XHTML tools.

XHTML is an extension of HTML 4.0. It is more user-friendly and streamlined than HTML.

XHTML is a combination of HTML and XML in that it can run scripts and applets that use both the HTML and XML DOM (Document Object Model)

As XHTML grows, XHTML 1.0 documents will be able to interoperate among other XHTML documents making it a more browser transitional language.

To conclude, using the standards of web development lined out by the W3 is imperative for users to get the most out of a site. Often, making a webpage W3-compliant is the first step of SEO, a marketing tool to get the most out of your advertising dollar. Validation is easy, and can be completed if a user has a basic knowledge of HTML-editing and FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Using these tools, coupled with the set of W3 standards can save a lot of money and help the site's overall functionality.

About The Author:

David Davis, is the lead developer and project manager of RedflyStudios LTD. - Web Design Ireland. For more information visit http://www.redflystudios.com © 2006 David Davis.

5 Top Secret Techniques To Make Your Adsense Website Stick

Article By: Alan Cheng

Without a doubt you need traffic to your Adsense website since your income from Google depends on it.

It's the problem which most people have problems with. If you can make your visitors stick to your website then the traffic you create should accumulate - problem solved.

Making that traffic return is the major challenge and one of the so called "secrets" of build a successful Adsense website.

What is better than having visitors continuing to return to your website, without any effort on your part? You definitely need to make your Adsense website sticky and below are my 5 tips to achieve this.

1. Have good, interesting content. This is the one of the main reasons why I favour blogs advertising Adsense. You can easily write content and update it on your website.

It's much easier updating a blog than a website. Unless of course, your website has a content management system (CMS) like a blog.

People browse on the internet to read content. So if the information provided by you is good and it is updated on a regular basis, the user will bookmark your site and will return. Even possibly a few times a week to read your content.

2. Having a newsletter subscription or a mini course sign up form on the front of your website. Once visitors sign up to your form, they are on your email list.

You can use an autoresponder to follow up with them and also email to notify them that your content is updated.

Having your visitors go on your email list will remind them of your existence so that they visit you again. However, you have to make sure that your mini-course provides good content so they will read it.

You can see how I do this with my 7 part mini-course by sending a blank mail to my autoresponder at ne-mini@onlinemoneymachine.com This is my step-by-step mini-course on making money with Adsense.

3. Having a forum on your website. With good content you will attract interested visitors to your website. These visitors love to share and discuss what they are passionate about.

A forum will act as a regular gathering place for them which means repeated visits and also increase in Adsense clicks.

4. Announcing upcoming events. In your content, you should always specify what is coming up in the next few days. Such as updated report on your particular niche.

This will increase the visitor's awareness of your website and they will remember to visit your website again sometime in the future to check out what you mentioned before.

This is a very powerful technique to build repeat visitors and it only requires a mention of what is coming in the next few days.

5. The last technique to ensure repeat visitors is to have a schedule of the updates to your website and stick to it. If your blog advertising Google Adsense is rarely updated, the chances of the visitor coming back is near zero.

People love reading good content but if they return and find that your content is the same they will rarely return. The reason is because they have a lot of other choices. The web is so clickable, you've got to get their attention.

If you stick to having updates on regular basis such as once in 2 days, then the visitor will return to read the latest on your website.

This concludes the 5 ways to having a sticky Adsense website. The best thing is to implement all 5 techniques to your website. Getting traffic is not an easy thing so make sure the traffic is your regular customer. A regular customer gives you business which in this case is Adsense income.

About the Author:

Alan Cheng is the author of Adsense Blogger http://www.adsense-blogger.com/?5 where his views, findings and tips on Adsense are discussed and shared with his loyal readers.

Making Adsense Work In The Smart Pricing Era

Article written by: Jean-Philippe Schoeffel

Smart pricing has changed Adsense. Publishers are seeing lower per click payouts and are lamenting the inability of their old methods and systems to produce a profit under the current
circumstances. The old guard of Adsense gurus, meanwhile, continues to hold tight to a perspective born before smart pricing became a reality. They continue to encourage new publishers to follow their methods for Adsense success. Others have overreacted, announcing that Adsense is no longer a viable moneymaking opportunity. Some have even argued that smart pricing killed Adsense.

The old guard gurus are merely protecting their own best interests. As long as they can pretend nothing meaningful has changed, the longer they can continue selling their systems and software. Those tolling death bells for Adsense are stirring up controversy for the sake of promoting click-flipping and other wealth-production strategies. The only people who seem to have it right are those publishers who have noticed that the old Adsense gravy train has run out of steam and who have discovered that the future of Adsense lies in treating it differently than before.

Instead of proclaiming the death of Adsense, savvy users are taking a different approach to the changed environment. Adsense still has a place and can still be a valuable part of a successful overall strategy. However, the previously embraced strategies that were premised on constructing lower-quality sites en masse and monetizing them exclusively with Adsense are no longer tenable.

Instead, Adsense can be used as one of a multiplicity of revenue-producing tactics on smart sites designed to provide visitors with real value. Earlier Adsense techniques were based on sending mass traffic to a site and collecting ad clicks exclusively. In many cases, the sites were actually designed in a way that aimed to make people want to leave rapidly, using Adsense ad blocks as an "escape route."

Smart pricing has decreased the per click payout of such prices by such a substantial margin that one cannot hope to profit from those strategies in any meaningful way. Instead, smart
publishers will create better sites that really interact with visitors in a meaningful way. Relevant contextual advertising fills the role of one many services offered to visitors. Instead of being the "only way" to make a dime, Adsense can be used as part of a full roster of moneymaking opportunities.

Not only does this strategy allow webmasters to effectively tap into to other revenue sources (some of which are more valuable than Adsense ever was in its heyday), it also comports with
Adsense's own recommendations for improving per click values in a smart pricing environment. There are more ways to make money and one can make more money with Adsense at the same time. Regardless of what some might be announcing, there is no reason to give up on Adsense. You just need to use it differently.

Adsense did not change in a vacuum. While it lumbered toward smart pricing, web access, technology and user expectations were also in a state of flux. Today, the old methods of top-down site design premised on the old publication model is outmoded. The arrival of what many are terming "Web 2.0" reflects the convergence of several different trends. Those who will successfully use Adsense as a monetization strategy today and in the future are aware of those trends and how to approach them to effectively generate a substantial income.

Adsense has changed. Do not believe those who tell you that "business as usual" will still work like a charm. Adsense is not, however, dead. It is still a strong and vibrant means by which to earn. The old Adsense business models are dead. They just do not do the trick anymore. You can make money with Adsense, but it will require the use of strategies that merge appropriately with the current environment and trends. Sites that seek to provide real value to visitors can make use of multiple revenue earning strategies including Adsense and will succeed regardless of smart pricing adjustments.

About The Author:

JP Schoeffel (http://www.nichesinabox.com)has created a "site building system" unlike any in the world, focusing on multiple income streams and interactions with visitors. He now runs a membership delivering a complete business each and every month : http://www.nichesinabox.com

Corporate Blogging: Do's And Don'ts

Article written by: Danny Wirken

The blogging phenomenon has started to make companies view the potential benefits of corporate blogging. They all agree that blogs achieve a mass media effect through the high level of networking in the blogosphere wherein news disseminates very rapidly. The blogosphere (online community of blogs and their writings) has heralded a new communication tool that can
influence public opinion of a company. However, companies are slow to react to the growing credibility of corporate blogs as communication channels.

A recent list of Fortune 500 company blogs shows that only 5% of the United States' corporations have joined the blogging arena. Companies are treading this still unfamiliar territory with caution and skepticism. Company executives, public relations people and legal experts are just starting to figure out how they can utilize the potential of business blogs without subjecting themselves especially their companies to possible complications. Indeed, some companies are hesitant to plunge into the "scary" world of blogging for fear of encountering legal and business risks inherent in blogging such as libel, slander, lawsuits and disclosure of confidential and proprietary information.

Despite the fear, some industry leaders like Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems and General Motors, to name a few, have dived headlong into corporate blogging. These companies recognize that a blog is an immensely effective yet low cost way to boost corporate communications and marketing objectives and at the same time connect with customers and prospects.

Basically, a blog (short for weblog) is published with easy to use software that enables a blogger (blog author) to create and update blog pages from which he can express his thoughts on a
particular subject. Written article on a blog is called a "post" and can be linked to other blogs, websites, news features, photo images and audio files. Links added to the text of blog posts allow blog content to be indexed and accessed by popular search engines such as Technorati and then disseminated in the web.

A corporate blog makes it easy for readers, be they customers or prospects, to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services. It can help achieve customer familiarity with the company products or services. Through the corporate blog, a company can converse directly with customers and prospects. Two-way communication creates trust and builds customer relationships. A corporate blog is the perfect choice for interacting with existing and potential clients. Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. A corporate blog allows a company to closely track where and under what condition its products or services are being discussed online. Through the corporate blog, a company can keep an ear to the ground to hear what is being said about the company and speaking up when the situation calls for it. A more personal or understated benefit of a corporate blog is that it gives a human face to a perceived faceless and detached business entity. A corporate blog conjures images of people who are passionate about their products or services and are eager to engage customers and prospects.

It is a risky world out there and the blogosphere is no exception. For companies who are contemplating on setting out into the world of corporate blogging, it is in your best interests to have knowledge of some basic dos and don'ts of corporate blogging.

First on the agenda is do determine whether your company needs a corporate blog. A blog might be inappropriate for your company. Not all corporate cultures can tolerate the open, direct communication inherent to make a corporate blog successful. There are instances where blogs could not be reconciled with business practices and regulations. Clearly, there are risks to consider. Risks lie mainly in the content and the character or tone of comments which admittedly can only be censored to a limited degree.

If a corporate blog can fit your company culture, selecting the individual or employee who will write your blog is doubtless to say the most important decision. An ideal corporate blogger is one who is an expert in his field. He should also write with passion and sincerity. The object of your blog is to engage your customers and prospects in conversation and the most effective way to start a conversation is to be sincere and honest in your blog while writing about topics that are important to your company. He should have good writing skills. More importantly, he should be one who is respected by his peers and reacts calmly to outbursts. Blogging is an intense medium. The individuals who will blog for your company should be the ones who can keep their cool despite critical comments. Most likely, the ideal individual is not your CEO. Corporate speak won't thrive in the blogosphere.

In corporate blogging, goals/missions are of prime importance. For a blog to yield value, it has to be created with specific goals in mind. Some of these goals may be to increase company credibility, enhance customer service and interaction, and give customers a peek of the behind the-scenes "feel" of the corporate culture, showcase new products or services and more. The important thing is to be clear about your goals. You have to be sure about what you are trying to get done and stick to them. As with any corporate undertaking, you also need to periodically evaluate how well you are meeting these goals. If blogging is proving to be futile, then make changes. If it still does not work, then discontinue blogging.

Do take time to know your customers or prospects. Find out what your audience care about, what they are interested in. You have to identify what their needs are and what service you can perform for them. To get their attention, work out a way to participate in a conversation credibly. To be credible, come up with worthwhile content - ideas, insights, news and information. Content need not be long but should be interesting. Corporate blogs should not veer away from its chosen categories or topics. This is not to say you cannot be personal in your blog posts because you should, but the audience you are trying to connect with do not want to read through your blog if it is injected with a litany of personal rumblings.

Do engage your audience in lively and substantial conversations. Take into account what they say and reply to their comments. Respond in a professional and businesslike manner whether the comment is positive or negative. Allowing comments from your audience will definitely mean some complaints and criticisms. Don't take them personally. Respond honestly and your company credibility will rise. Allowing audience to make comments is a distinct characteristic of blogs. Openness is important for successful blogging. That said, use a feedback filter or comment moderation to monitor and control comments and delete comment spam (useless comments).

For a blog to accomplish its mission, do update regularly. Post frequently and consistently, daily or weekly, at least. Do be generous with your links. Linking is one reason why blogging has become a popular online communication medium. The best corporate blogs, more often than not, have lots of links in each blog post.

Do draw up a set of corporate blogging policies. Set limits on what information can be made public. Make clear what is allowed and what is not. Legal issues crop up in blogging. It is better to have some safety nets. In drafting blogging policies, it is advisable to do some research on it and publish proposed policies to get some feedback.

As for what not to do, do not close down existing employee blogs. More often than not, an employee is already writing a blog. It might be full of grievances about the recent spate of oil increases or it could be snapshots of a relaxing vacation in the Maldives. Maybe this employee is singing praises of the company's new product. Why not engage this employee blogger in
a dialogue about what your corporate blog aims to achieve. Don't wait for a crisis to break out before creating a corporate blog. It takes time to see potential results of blogging. Don't keep your corporate bloggers anonymous or hidden behind some make-believe characters. The audience will know and it will have detrimental effects.

Lastly, a blog is not a miracle cure. It will not single-handedly turn your distressed company around. Corporate blogging should be incorporated with other marketing and communication tools to achieve desired results.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

How To Find The Best Affiliate Program

Article written by: Robert Michael

So you have a business and a website. You are now looking to increase your website traffic with the hopes that the website can increase sales or the use of your services. You just want to know how to best increase the number of hits your website receives. One of the best resources in e-commerce and web communications is the use of affiliate programs. So what is an affiliate program? Read on.

What is and Affiliate Program and Why do I Need One?

Affiliate programs have been defined in many ways. In Front Webworks describes affiliate programs a way to monitor and pay incentives to other websites that send customers and leads your way, or receive pay incentives for the customers that you send to other websites. Direct NIC explains that affiliate programs allow you to earn money by linking your site to other sites on the web. Some of the affiliates you link to pay per click or per percentage of profit.

Still there is another reason to consider joining an affiliate program: Search engine popularity. Search engine popularity is an examination of where your website pops up when entered into
a search engine. When people are interested in pretty much anything, from real estate to pieces of art, they will likely search the internet for great deals and advice. Have you ever wondered how the websites that pop up in the top ten of a search got there? There are several ways to do this and some of them are highly expensive. One inexpensive way is through linking your websites to others and having other websites link back to yours. Getting your websites name and URL out there increases search engine popularity, causing it to come up higher in the search engines.

Find the Best Affiliate Program.

Now that you know what an affiliate program is, you may be asking "How do I find one?" As affiliate programs are web based to begin with, you should not start your search in the yellow pages. Affiliate Guide is one of the best ways to find affiliate programs online.

One of the first things to look at is what kind of business you are running and what types of website you have. Are you a real estate agent? Do you own a floral shop? There are different types of affiliate programs within different areas of expertise.

Shop. Shop. Shop. Different affiliate programs can offer different incentives to join with them. Some may be able to pay more, so pay attention to all small print and do the math!

How Do I Sign Up for An Affiliate Program?

The basic process starts with setting up an account with the affiliate at hand. You then place a banner on your website that can be clicked on to enter your affiliate's website. The affiliate will then pay you per click or pay you by percentage of income that they get from the link that is on your website.

About The Author:

Robert Michael is a writer for DR Affiliates which is an excellent place to find affiliates links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.draffiliates.com

Article Marketing Snowballs Into A Mess

Article by Bonnie Davis

Have you fallen for the article marketing trap? Sending out second rate articles, worrying too much about word count and ignoring all the things that would make your effort more successful?

Article marketing has swept through the internet like an avalanche. Virtually everyone knows about the technique but very few are doing it well.

As an article newsgroup moderator and article marketing expert I am in the trenches everyday. More and more often I hear complaints from publishers that the articles submitted to them
are pure crap. Many of these publishers complain that article submission software is to blame. I have to disagree. Here is what I think is causing the majority of problems:

* Private label articles flooding the market.
* Plaigarism and copyright violations.
* Lousy articles with no redeeming values.
* Off topic articles driving publishers crazy.

Can you connect the dots to find out where the article marketing problems lie? With the article marketer. The article marketer, like myself, loves the technique but is often strapped for time.
Instead of writing unique articles or hiring a ghostwriter to write for them they get lazy.

I believe that laziness is the root of all evil in the article marketing world. Any type of marketing with not work unless effort is expended. If you can't make the effort then don't use the technique.

Article marketing done badly is far more damaging then not using the technique at all. It only works when you put forth the effort and create quality work. Don't blame the publishers for
your shoddy articles and don't spend hours on forums complaining that the technique doesn't work. It does work. It has worked for me and for many others but it won't work for you if you insist on being lazy.

Make a commitment today to write well, submit only on topic articles and to hire help if you need it. Your best efforts will be the catalyst to better results and will support the growth of the article marketing community.

How To Make Visitors Bookmark Your Site

Article Written by: Cheryl Miller

When visitors bookmark your site it is a sign that you have built a great website and are pleasing them. Visitors think highly enough of your site to want to return and possibly tell others about it. You are not only increasing traffic from your existing clientele you are encouraging new traffic by means of viral marketing.

What exactly is book marking? It is when a visitor to your site decides that they like your site enough to place it in their favorites so that they may return and look over it some more.

How to make book marking easy for your visitors: You can place a small script http://www.jscode.com/js_auto_bookmark.shtml from this website. It is free. Or you can look on Google for other book marking scripts (free book marking script). Internet Explorer already has an option for this called "favorites."

Ways to encourage visitors to bookmark your site:

1. Your content: make it high quality and interesting. You can write articles about:

* Your products or service- reviews are always popular
* Informative articles- about product, service or your industry
* Stories and anecdotes- about your industry
* News stories and top trends
* Original content

2. Always add new content on a regular basis-keeps visitors returning. Always let visitors know that your site is updated on a regular basis

3. Make your site professional looking

4. Make it user friendly with simple navigation

5. If your site is large you may want to make a table of contents with clickable links

6. Have links to different sites that are good resources. Add these on a regular basis

7. Quizzes and trivia questions relating to your industry-the answers will be found on one of your important pages

Of course there are obvious things that will discourage book marking:

1. A boring site with no real content or resources

2. Inaccurate information or rehashed information

3. Poor web design-just appears tacky and looks like it was written by a kindergartener

4. Slow loading-visitors will not wait longer than 2 seconds.

5. Hype-this is very unprofessional and visitors get annoyed by this and leave

Visitor duration and page selection: A useful piece of information about your site is checking traffic and how long your visitors are staying on any given page. You can see this by looking at your log files. This can be done by a Cpanel or whatever your web host has set up. You can view things like:

1. The amount of visitors that have come to your site- monthly weekly or daily

2. How many bots are visiting

3. Your most popular pages

4. How many error 404 pages you had

5. How long visitors are staying at each page

This is all valuable information and will give you a good idea of what is interesting your visitors and allows you to work on the areas that are attracting them.

Business owners often overlook book marking but when you pay attention to what is useful and attractive to your visitors you will encourage book marking and many return visitors. Once visitors are in the habit of returning they will familiarize themselves with your website and be much more likely to buy. Don't you buy more from your favorite store?

About the Author:

Cheryl Miller is an entrepreneur specializing in niche markets. For more information about magnetic badges and how they can help you promote your business, please visit http://www.badgemags.com Cheryl is also the publisher of the Magnetic Marketer Newsletter http://www.badgemags.com/magnetic_marketer_subscribe.htm

Using Forums And Business Networks To Market Your Business

Article by: Constantin Chersin

Forums are a very important part of your business that many people overlook. They are good sources of knowledge. A place where you can show your expertise and yes there are ways to market your business without blatant advertising.

Common Reasons Why People Do Not Get Involved In Forums

1. No time: This is a common excuse, but you only need 1 hour at the most to spend on your favorite forums and you are done. Do not visit too many but try to visit a couple daily

2. Do not allow advertising so what is the point? Soft sell is the key. You will add your small signature and website URL to every post. Plus you sell yourself as an expert when you answer questions

3. Posts are not related to my market and business. Find the right Forum that your market will visit

4. I just do not like voicing my opinion to strangers! Business success depends on partnering and being sociable. A stranger today can be your loyal customer tomorrow.

Why You Should And Must Get Involved With Forums And The Business Community

1. No man or women is an island. This includes your business. Go out there and make contact, because you never know where you customer might be lurking.

2. Learning experience. You will get answers to your questions. Knowledge is power and you will develop your business more effectively.

3. You will get targeted visitors and even links to your site -with your sig and website URL after every post. Make interesting and informative answers to questions and people will follow your link, and visit your site.

4. You will keep up with the trends and hot topics in your business field. This is very important for your business to progress and develop. You will be able to stay ahead of your competition this way.

5. Get known as an expert in your field-answer questions

6. Get ideas for your next newsletter article. Originality will keep your readership up and unsubscribe rates low. Readers love info articles on the latest trends and market fads.

7. Website Sales Copy evaluation- do not do this too often but it can be quite an eye-opener.

8. It does not cost you a penny!

Some Things Not To Do On Forums

1. Blatant advertising. This is a big no on forums you can do just as well promoting with your signature and website URL at the bottom of your post

2. Voicing controversial opinions: This will lead to lengthy and time-consuming discussions, you cannot afford the time. You will also risk making unnecessary enemies, not something to do in business.

3. Getting involved in lengthy discussions

4. Getting off topic. Keep on topic do not ramble or tell lengthy stories. Short stories to illustrate points are good.

5. Posting to topics that will not benefit your business. do not waste your time always have the nd in mind, which is to alert more people to your website

6. Not targeting your forum. make sure the forum addresses topics related to your business and market.

Things That You Should Do On Forums

1. Answer questions that you know about-help others and prove your expertise in your field.

2. Use your signature and website address at the end of every post-this will encourage people to visit your site.

3. Limit your time to just 1 hour a day so that you do not get carried away and spend too much time on the forums. Remember in business time is money.

Forums are a fun way to promote yourself and your business. When you follow these simple rules you will be able to have fun and develop your business into a profitable enterprise.

About the Author:

Constantin Chersin is an entrepreneur specializing in software and web development. For more information about his services and how he can help you promote your business, please visit http://www.itprovision.net/ Constantin is also the publisher of the free marketing newsletter "IT Pro Vision."

SEO And Meta Tags: No More Foolin'

Article written by: Scott Lindsay

When an online marketer is designing and setting up web pages they may use a Meta information to allow search engines to gain an understanding of what their website or web page is designed to do for visitors.

Once upon a time in the land of Cyber it was believed that a Meta Tag could be the silver bullet that allowed you to gain high rankings in search engines. The fairy tale has gone away, but the Meta Tag Fable remains.

What is a Meta Tag?

A Meta Tag is invisible to your visitors, but along with other Meta information may be useful to search engines to derive a brief description of your website. This information is what you will find if you do a search of your own website through a popular search engine. The Meta tag is added through the use of html language.

In a time not so far removed a Meta Tag was often loaded with keywords or phrases associated with your website. These jam-packed Meta Tags would allow for a meteoric rise in the search engines, however the mechanism for ranking search engines began to alter when search engines discovered that the Meta Tag didn't provide the most pristine picture of the sites they were ranking.

The companies operating search engines saw that the Meta Tag was being abused so they began to develop sophisticated new ways to rank websites that did not rely on Meta Tags.

It is possible that you could find marketing data that indicates an approach that includes keyword stuffing on Meta Tags, please understand this is either based on outdated information or the person writing the article hasn't really researched their subject very well. The last search engine to use Meta Tags was Alta Vista and they ceased using this ranking method in 2002.

Search engines do use Meta Title information, but do not use Meta Tags for search engine rankings. Goggle has never used Meta Tags.

Meta information can still be useful for your website, but using Meta Tags is now something that is ignored and vilified in less than polite company.

The growth of Search Engine Optimized (SEO) articles is a healthy direction because is helps provide legitimacy to your website and it also provides a positive reputation online. This reputation is now a part of many search engine rankings.

A reputable online marketing consultant can provide content rich ideas that will enhance the long-term performance of your website.

About The Author:

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

Simple Seo Tactics To Drive Customers To Your Website Now!

Article written by: Ross M. Goldberg

Driving traffic to your website can be difficult. You know that your products are the best available and your website is gorgeous, but having your customers find it is very important. The first thing to do is to think about where your potential customers go online. That is the best place for you to establish an internet presence. Let your potential customers see that you know what your product is and how to help them find it (your website!). Being resourceful is the heart of internet marketing. You can't just sit and wait for the search engines to figure out yourwebsite is there. Here are some simple tactics that will gain you instant visibility:

Blogging: You absolutely must have a blog. Blogs are the heart of driving free traffic to your website. On your blog, you should be posting valuable information that your customers will find valuable. This will lead to higher search engine rankings and automatic traffic to your website. The best part about a blog is that it always has an RSS feed. RSS feeds are quick link generators for you. Make sure you submit your RSS feed to as many directories as possible.

Forums: You need to find forums that cater to your niche and join them. Provide valid information and help as many people as you can. Include a simple link to your site in your signature and watch as the traffic rolls in.

Myspace: You need to join myspace and find like minded people in your industry. I recommend joining under your actual name. Add some content to your page and find some friends! Post a link to your website in your friend's comments and you'll gain traffic to your website immediately.

Squidoo: Squidoo is a site that specializes in creating portals of information for your buyers. Create the most valuable lens possible and people will naturally end up at your website looking for more of that great information!

Craigslist: Place a simple ad on your local craigslist website. This will not only generate traffic, but it will be from local customers. Wouldn't it be nice to save on shipping costs and have customers come and hand you cash?

These methods are great for generating traffic for new sites, but why sit back after the search engines find you? Market your website in as many areas as possible and you will watch your income soar. Be smart about internet marketing and use the tools you have available. Your customers will thank you for it!

About The Author:

Ross Goldberg created the SEO Diamond Course to provide answers to frustrated internet marketers that had to buy 40 different product to understand how to rank well in the search engines. If the information in this article helped you, then you need the SEO Diamond Course. http://www.seodiamond.com

Two Sides of the Sandbox - Getting Stuck and Unstuck on Google

Article by: Jim Hedger

The mysterious "Google Sandbox" has been a hot discussion topic for search engine optimizers since the phenomena was first noted and named in late April 2004 (http://forums.seochat.com/t9919/s.html). Since then, ideas on the function, scope and even existence of the sandbox have been a mainstay in SEO and Google related forums, chats and articles.

The term, "sandbox" describes a process of Google's ranking formulas that appear to slow the debut of new sites in the Top10 listings. Whether or not the sandbox exists tends to depend on the side of the black hat / white hat debate one comes from. SEOs dedicated to "pure", non spammy SEO tend to downplay the effects of the sandbox while those who use dark-art tactics know from personal experience that the effects are very real.

In a November 2005 interview (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002809.html) with WebmasterWorld's Brett Tabke, Google chief engineer Matt Cutts appeared to acknowledge it saying, "How many feel there is no such thing as a sandbox? SEOs normally split down the line. There are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn't apply to all industries."

While Matt's comments did not exactly confirm or deny the existence of a sandbox, they did leave the barn door open wide enough for a great deal of discussion. Between November 2005 and September 2006, well over 300 credible articles, forum threads and blog posts have addressed the topic.

For some, such as Search Engine Guide editor Jennifer Laycock, the Google sandbox is an expression of importance and credibility imbued upon sites that have established themselves over time in Google's index. In a June 2006 article (http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/007705.html), Jennifer wrote, "... there is no Google sandbox! It simply doesn't exist."

When new sites are spidered and brought into the index, Google compares them with similar sites already in its index and makes a judgment on the relevance of that site against the others. "After all," she wrote, "how many mortgage application sites does Google really need to list?Why should they think that your brand new mortgage site is any more worthy of a ranking than the 1.5 million (yes, MILLION) sites that are already indexed for the phrase 'mortgage application.'"

Jennifer wrote her piece in agreement with a post Sheri Thurow from Grantastic Design made to LED Digest (issue 2177) where Sheri proclaimed, "There is no such thing as a Google Sandbox. It's one of those terms that self-proclaimed search engine "experts" came up with to explain why their methodologies don't work."

Sheri's post generated a great deal of controversy, partially because it was perceived by readers as a rant. She explained her point by writing, "A search-friendly Web site is built on a solid foundation of keyword-focused text and giving spiders a means of accessing that text. Then, objective 3rd parties should basically confirm what you say about your own content. It has been this way for years. For that reason, no Google Sandbox. If your site doesn't have the foundation, its pages won't appear in search engine results."

What Jennifer and Sheri are saying is Google is not going to automatically give a first page listing to a new site, no matter how well optimized that site might be. There might be thousands or even millions of competing websites being compared against a site that has not had time to establish itself as a peer-referenced site.

Peer referencing is an important cornerstone of Google's overall ranking formula. Originally, Google built its search results based on the number of links directed to a specific document from other web documents. As technology progressed, the creation and maintenance of web documents became infinitely easier, especially with the deployment of blogs. Driving the creation of millions of fresh documents, sites and blogs was the popularization of Google's paid search advertising distribution program AdSense. Suddenly, a direct profit motive existed for some in the SEO sector to use their knowledge and immense talents to game Google's SERPs six ways to Sunday.

Links, which have long been like gold for search savvy webmasters, became increasingly important following the series of algorithm upgrades that started with Hilltop in the summer of 2004. Since that time, Google has raced to keep up with a myriad of methods devised to game its ranking methods. The implementation of a critical measure of how a site, or a document originating at a specific domain, has established itself along side similar sites and/or documents, is accepted by most SEOs as a long leg in Google's race against manipulation of their search results.

Google has consistently moved to limit link-based exploits of its link-based organic ranking system. Starting this time last year, it implemented a series of measurements examining a wide assortment of data about documents in its index, along with data derived from linking documents known as the Jagger update.

It is safe to say that for the past two years, the majority of research and advancement in the field of search engine optimization comes from the study and analysis of link structures. When it comes to getting a strong ranking on Google and to a lesser degree, on Yahoo, link partners are as well scrutinized as the specific page or domain being indexed.

One of the newer clichés being thrown around SEO circles is the phrase "Link Baiting". Links from well-established, relevant sites is good at Google. Getting good quality links is getting harder every day. Link baiting describes a tactic to entice others to link to your site by presenting enticing content.

One of the best-known and well-respected link analysts, Andy Hagans wrote a strong piece earlier this week titled, "Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 REVEALED: The Ultimate Guide". (http://www.linkbuildingblog.com/2006/09/secrets_to_beat.html) Though the title is in itself a fine example of link-bait (as noted -http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006245.html - by RustyBrick), the content of the piece is extremely thorough and well written.

In his opinion, the Google Sandbox definitely exists. "The sandbox/Trustbox is a set of filters in Google's search algorithm that together prevent new sites from ranking well until they gain trust." Andy redefines the debate by suggesting "Trustbox" as a far better name than "sandbox". It is certainly more descriptive.

Andy's "Ultimate Guide" opens with a concise tutorial on what the "sandbox" is, how it affects sites, and methods he uses to dig through it. As with most pieces by Andy, he clearly delineates tactics that might be considered black-hat from those that are simply smart work on the part of webmasters.

Though I earlier noted that those who believe in the sandbox tend to fall on the dark-arts side of the SEO sector, I don't intend to suggest all discussion about the phenomenon comes from black-hat SEOs or to imply that all those who find themselves playing in the sandbox are spammers. Due to their need for rapid placement and their propensity of burning domains, the function of a Google Sandbox affects black-hat (or, more appropriately, self-servicing)practitioners far more directly than it does in-house or agency focused SEOs.

I don't mean to disagree with Sheri or Jennifer either, not exactly anyway. I suspect that for them the existence of a sandbox is irrelevant and therefore far off their radar screens. It is not in Jennifer or Sheri's interest to spend time delving into the dark-arts of SEO as neither practice black-hat techniques.

Something resembling the Google Sandbox, or as Andy calls it, Trustbox does exist for new websites. Jennifer Laycock actually summed it up best herself, speaking in a session about small business at SES San Jose, in which she used the opening of a new restaurant to describe the non-existence of "sandbox effect".

In the analogy, Jennifer explained that she was a fan of Chinese and Ethiopian cuisine. In her mid-west city, there are hundreds of Chinese restaurants, several of which she has eaten at or regularly frequents. The opening of a new Chinese restaurant might register on her radar screen but would not likely cause her to race out to try it. If a number of friends recommended the new restaurant, she would be more likely to try it out. Chinese restaurants are ubiquitous in North American cities. If a new Ethiopian eatery opened in that same large mid-west city, she would be very likely to go out of her way to eat there, with or without recommendations from trusted friends, simply because there are very few restaurants specializing in Ethiopian food.

In other words, Jennifer's observation brings us back full circle to Matt Cutts' original affirmation, "There are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn't apply to all industries."

About the author:

Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He is currently Senior Editor for the Jayde Online news sources SEO-News (http://www.seonews.com) and SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com). You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Jim at the SiteProNews blog (http://www.blog.sitepronews.com/).

Is Having Back Links Important To Your Website?

Article written by: David Fishman

Using links as a practice to get your websites search engine position increased, is a positive thing. Many people ask the same question, how many links will you need to have this happen?Can you have too many? Link promotion is the use of links to build traffic to your internet site as well as to develop your search engine position. This goes together. You want to increase your position on the search engines and your links.

Links, How many do I need?

That there is no actual set amount. It's not having ten or twenty or trying to get to a 100. Its about having the correct type of links coming to your internet site. As an example, you will need to understand about both reciprocal links and the best type of link which is one way links. One way links create traffic to your site without having the visitors click away from your site with additional links on your internet site. Link exchanging, when performed correctly and applied in the right overall manner can help as well.

Beyond this, you will want to accomplish this by having good types links. The links should be related in some way to your website. This mean you will nee to find webmasters that offer similar, but should not have the same information that appears your site.

The amount of links you should have pointing to the site, the accurate count to go with this is as many as possible. Try to be sure that they are good, well researched links, so they are not poor links. Make sure they offer both reciprocal and one way links. Use them the right way and your business will really improve from using them.

So if you use reciprocal link exchange and one way links in your link market portfolio and have patients your website will get the search engine rankings you desire.

About The Author:

David Marc Fishman created linknetics to help people with websites create and manage their link marketing portfolio using http://www.linknetics.com and http://www.linknetics.com

Autoresponders: Laying The Groundwork

Article written by: Scott Lindsay

Autoresponder software has become a meaningful tool in plowing fertile soil for a marketing harvest. The whole notion of autoresponders has grown beyond a simple means of connecting with anyone who seeks to get in touch by email.

One area of autoresponder growth that may be worth mentioning is a web-page autoresponder. In this scenario a webpage is developed that will list various free informational products you have available. Your visitor can check the appropriate box and begin receiving the timely delivery of informational items that can inform and create a level of trust between the visitor and your online company.

Some of the autoresponder information you may wish to make available to your visitors may include informational articles that have a good track record with your customers, an e-course on your product or service, an e-book, and a listing of your RSS feeds. You might also consider a welcome message through autoresponders that provides general information about you and your company.

Autoresponder software can allow you to send your message in plain text or html. Autoresponders can also allow you to place photographs or logos within the body of the message and they do so in a way that allows for meaningful follow-up with limited personal oversight.

Some of today's best autoresponder software is priced under fifty dollars and there are multiple business options available. While the use of autoresponder software may not be essential to the delivery of autoresponder messages these resources can help you keep track of recipients in a more comprehensive way.

Probably the most intense work involved in the marvel of autoresponders is setting it up and developing a series of informative articles for your visitors. The last thing you want to do is simply throw something together and hope it connects with your clients.

You should spend quality time in the development of whitepages, articles, e-courses or ebooks. These can be a valuable tool for your company, but not if they are riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes or if they are composed in a way that is more hard sell and less informational.

Many companies have benefited greatly from autoresponders, but care needs to be taken up front to ensure their long-term usability.

If you are not a writer it is in your best interest to locate a freelance writer to develop the autoresponder information you believe to be most important to your company's growth. Many of these professionals can create an e-course or even an e-book that has the potential of providing significant ROI.

About The Author:

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

A Quick Look At MSN Optimization

Article written by: Danny Wirken

Each time you key in keywords or terms in search fields, whether it is in Google, Yahoo or MSN, you will be presented with the so-called pages of results. These pages have undergone a process called "SEO" and have earned their respective page rankings.

What is SEO, you ask? SEO or search engine optimization refers to the process of increasing the number of visitor that a website gets by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. Ranking high in the results of a search increases a website's chance of being visited by a user.

How so? Well, it is common knowledge that most Internet users tend to simply visit the first website in the results instead of browsing through pages and pages of search results. Therefore, it is same to conclude that where a site ranks in a search is crucial in garnering more traffic for the site.

Most people assume that SEO is a very complicated process that is simply too much to comprehend. Meanwhile, others believed that ranking high at the search engine is simply a matter of luck. Both statements are fallacies.

Ranking high at search engines has nothing to do with luck nor is it impossible to understand. All you need is a couple of simple things in order for your web pages to do well at the search engines.

Search engine rankings play a significant role in Internet marketing campaign, which is why it is important that you understand the basics in SEO. Good search engine ranking is not an overnight phenomenon, therefore you must be patient.

There are a lot of search engines out there; some even offers specialized categories that utilize multiple search engine results to compile an outline of listed results, rather than taking results from its own databases.

However, if your main goal is to be successful on the net, then optimization for MSN search engine is a must. MSN is definitely one of the leading search engines on the net today. What separates it from other search engine giants? Well, MSN place great importance in using page optimization techniques, whereas Google and Yahoo concentrates on incoming link anchor text alone. What this means for you is that MSN indexes more pages than other search engines, consequently allowing your pages to rank higher and faster.

Moreover, the search engine giant has recently undergone a major change. What kind of change, you ask? MSN Search has incorporated "neural networks" into its search engine algorithm, or what is now referred to as "RankNet." This monumental change took place last June. This algorithm is indeed a breakthrough, and is fast becoming a matter of great consideration among search optimizers.

Just what is RankNet and how does it work? Basically, RankNet is a "learning machine" which considers the patterns of human searches and then learns from them thus, providing a more relevant result not only on the current searches but for future searches as well.

Since SEO is not a matter of chance but of strategy, there are certain steps that you could undertake in order for your pages or site to have good rankings at MSN. MSN Search highly advised that you remember two important things. One is to use well-formed HTML code and the other is not to have any broken links in your pages.

There are other steps that you might also consider. For starters, it might be a good idea to use a robots.txt file to control how MSNBot indexes your site. This is also vital for other crawlers.

Keep in mind that MSN is all about content. So, what do you do? Limit all pages to a reasonable size and drop pictures that are lower than 150 KB. Adding a site map would also be beneficial since, it will allow MSNBot to locate all of your pages without difficulty. Remember also to pick one topic for each page.

Avoid putting words that are not relevant just to increase a page's keyword density. Hidden text or links are also a bad idea, this usually indicates spam, and thus, MSN may remove you from their index.

Another thing you can do is place a descriptive content at the top of each web page. Make sure that each page has a clear topic and purpose. You can also add a website description at the Description meta tag. Now, if you ever you change your content, make sure that you update your website description.

One of the most important factors in page optimization, particularly RankNet is the keywords. Placing keywords in a strong paragraph at the beginning, in link text, and repeating it near the end of a page might not be new ideas. As a matter of fact, this has been part of good optimization practice for quite a while now. Moreover, it also makes logical sense when it comes to providing solid information for website users. It is the importance on these elements in the new MSN search engine that is interesting.

Remember that MSN is quite a very content and keyword sensitive search engine. If you give extra care with the use and placing of your keywords as well as great consideration on your content, then you can be assure that all your efforts will not go to waste because MSN Search will reward your site with good search engine rankings.

MSN offers various features and services; MSN Search is just one of them. Optimization for this search engine can very well mean success on the web, what's more is that it can be accomplished quite easily (provided that your site features a lot of original content). Page optimization is important not only at MSN Search but for other search engines as well. Good optimization of your page will certainly improve your ranking not only at MSN but in other search engines as well.

So what are you waiting for? Why not try it out and see for yourself if you can pull your pages up and do well not only in the MSN search engine but in others as well.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Get Top Google Ranking Websites | Organic Search Engine Traffic

Article by: Rebecca Welch

Every internet marketer knows that to create the most traffic potential and the most profit opportunities, you must get your website to the first page of the Google Search engine. Google is the "top dog" of search engine and can greatly increase you profits if you know what to do. The real question remains. How do you get top Google ranking websites?

The more search engine friendly your web pages are, the better your chances of rising to the top of the search engines. A properly optimized and search engine friendly web page can easily show up on the first page of most any search engine. This is called organic search engine traffic. But how do you make your web pages search engine friendly?

In order to get top Google ranking websites, what you need is a plan for search engine optimization, or SEO. Proper search engine optimization will result in organic search engine traffic for your website. Organic search engine traffic is what you want because it's advertising for your website that doesn't cost you a penny! One of the easiest ways to get organic search engine traffic is with a good piece of website generating software.

If you can program in multiple computer languages, you probably don't need website generating software. But, for the rest of us, website generating software can cut both the learning curve and the frustration level associated with building websites for internet marketing. So how do you cut through the hype and find a good program that will generate a properly optimized website?

A good website generating software program should meet the following criteria. It should be easy to use. It should enable you to be indexed in all the major search engines. It should properly optimize your web pages for MSN, Yahoo and Google. It should allow you to get on the first or second page of most of the search engines within 30 days or less. It should allow you to test and tweak your webpages in order to get optimal results. A really great software program will also allow you to see what your competition is doing and let you manipulate your web pages in order to get ahead of them.

There are many good website generating software programs on the market and many of them work well enough to get top ranking Google websites. Consistency and testing are the keys to making the most of your website generating software programs. Never be afraid to test your theories, you might just happen across the next big thing in internet marketing!

About The Author:

Can you afford to have your website stuck on page 10? Get top Google Ranking Websites with http://www.usfreeads.com/594362-cls.html and receive a FREE Website Traffic Course just for visiting.

Site Development: Extreme Online Marketing

Article by: Scott Lindsay

The key component to the web's best sites is 'content'. These
netrepreneurs understand the need to provide a professional
site that is well developed, informational and error-free. For
top websites quality content is essential.

If you have a pit in your stomach as you try to come to terms
with how you might develop content for your site there may be a
solution.

In the world of online marketing you have to consider the end
goal. Once the goal is established, you can either learn the
skills to help you reach the goal or bring others alongside to
assist you in reaching the goal.

There are certainly plenty of webmasters that can assist in
building your website to provide proper function and design.
These professionals can provide instruction on how to integrate
software applications that may be useful in attaining your goal.

A secondary area of consideration is the development of
content. This is increasingly outsourced to the freelance
writing community.

What a freelance writer can do for you . . .

1) Listen to you to help gain a clear understanding of what you
want your website to achieve.
2) Provide ideas that may help you reach those goals.
3) Integrate content to compliment the overall site.
4) Provide informational articles that are optimized for search
engines while still allowing the articles to connect with your
visitors.
5) Work with you to develop meaningful product descriptions for
your site.
6) Work to provide a comprehensive site tutorial for clients if
needed.
7) Work to develop an e-course or e-book that helps inspire a
level of trust and interest in your products or services.
8) Develop a series of articles for an ezine or autoresponder.
9) Can provide press releases for developing additional
interest in your site.
10) Can provide visitors with the vision for your website
through either a 'history' section or an 'about us' section.

A website is a terrible thing to waste. The time and attention
you might expend on a business plan is no more important than
the execution of your online business.

If you are in need of content for your site and you lack the
budget for original material, the use of a free-to-use article
service is another means of gaining quality content from
experts in your field of interest. There are stipulations for
use and more than one person can use the article, but this can
be an additional means of providing relevant information to
your visitors on a subject of mutual interest.

About The Author: Scott Lindsay is a web developer and
entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many
other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest
do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website
online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

Be A Smarter Online Advertiser With Google's Secure Conversion Tracking

By: Danny Wirken

Pay-per-click ads are the latest craze in cyber world today, particularly with website owners. This is mainly due to the fact that it's cheaper than any form of advertising found online, since you will not be charge for your ad until a visitor clicks on it. Now, is it any wonder why Google is so keen on improving AdWords? Rumor has it that Google's new secure conversion tracking mechanism will revolutionized the face of pay per click ads.

Just what is conversion tracking you ask? In paid search advertising, their main goal is to lead visitors to the right web sites through clicking a certain ad. After which the visitor is compel to perform some action that meets the goal of the site owner. This normally entails either a purchase, membership sign up for websites and newsletter, page view or lead. Once these goals are met then a conversion occurs.

Conversions can be considered as the lifeblood of a business and Google has found a way for you to track them efficiently. But most importantly, the mechanism is said to be secured. This breakthrough hopes to help you identify whether or not your AdWords ads and keywords are effective.

How so? Google's secure conversion tracking entails putting a cookie on a user's computer once he or she clicks on an ad. Once the user clicks on your ad that reaches one of your conversion pages the user's browser will then send the cookie to a Google server. After which a tiny conversion tracking icon will immediately be displayed at your site. Once the process is completed Google will then record a successful conversion for you. This information will be included in the Campaign Summary section of the "Campaign Management" tab of your AdWords account. Actually, this conversion-tracking mechanism works the same way as the program that Google utilizes in placing contextual ads on websites. This program is popularly known as Google's Adsense.

Going back on Google's secure conversion tracking mechanism, there might be CTR or click through rate that helps determine whether your keywords are effective. However, remember that it is only good for measuring the relevancy of your keywords. It might tell you that users searching for that keyword are interested enough in your ad to visit your site, but it cannot determine what happens once the user gets to your site. Therefore, it offers little help in determining whether your ads and keywords are effective. This is where Google's secure conversion tracking comes in handy.

With Google's secure conversion tracking; you will be able to see which clicks actually lead to purchases. This is a vital factor in deciding which of your keywords are worth investing in and which are not. What's more Google is offering this secure conversion tracking mechanism entirely free of charge.

What do you need to get started? To start your secure conversion tracking all you need to do is simply place a few lines of code. This means that you must be familiar with HTML and other web tools, if you want to place the conversion tracking code snippet without hitch. Otherwise, you will need a webmaster to deal with the codes. Also, you will need to have access to your website's code and of course your Google AdWords account.

Google have provided an online documentation that will guide you through the code snippet insertion instructions. To avoid problems, it might be a good idea to read and understand these setup instructions before you began the actual installation process. The documentation also offers specific snippet insertion instructions for various web programming languages, such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Sun Java Server Pages (JSP), PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Macromedia Dream Weaver and Microsoft FrontPage.

Once your code snippet are properly installed, you can now access your conversion tracking reports from the Campaign Summary page and Reports Center at least an hour after the first conversion from your AdWords account. You will also be able to see conversion reports down to the keyword level.

Google's secure conversion tracking offers great flexibility when it comes to setting up your tracking preferences. If you want to immediate begin tracking aggregate data then you can simply use the initial code snippet that Google provided. Now if you prefer a more detailed conversion statistics then use the advanced tracking settings. It's all up to you!

Another unique feature of Google's secure conversion tracking is the tracking notification. This feature is making quite a controversy. Part of the Google's new secure conversion tracking is that it notifies users that they are being tracked. This notification is created by the Google supplied code that you add to the results page. Then the tracked user will see a message titled Google Site Stats, which includes a "send feedback" link once the results page is opened.

According to Google they prefer to be upfront with their actions and insist that the send feedback link will give the consumer the chance to understand Google's privacy policies, and even reject the Google tracking cookie. This can very well be a double edge sword. On the positive side, users might appreciate the honesty and the fact that they are given option whether to proceed or not. However, most users tend to become extra wary once they realized that their actions are being tracked.

Google's AdWords also include a cross-channel conversion tracking feature. This feature allows you to do conversion traffic coming in to your web properties even if it is from other advertising networks. This will prove to be advantageous particularly if you are sending out ads across multiple advertising ventures. How so? Well, you will be able to use the powerful AdWords reporting facilities to gather all information regarding conversions all in one place.

The search giant that they are indeed a fore to be reckon with. With Google's secure conversion tracking you can now have access to conversion data in your reports which can help you make smarter decisions when it comes to online advertising, for instance about which ads or keywords to invest in. Moreover, armed with a more accurate and efficient data, you can now better gauge your overall return on investment (ROI) for your AdWords campaigns.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

4 Things You Should Know Before Starting An Ebiz

By: Chris Malta & Robin Cowie

Advice from an Auction Genius

Renowned eBiz author Sydney Johnson created the now-famous Auction Genius courses (http://www.auctiongenius.com) to aid people wanting to create their own e-businesses. She shares some important tips for anyone looking to learn the online retail industry:

Tip 1-Start Small.

Many of Johnson's students are eager to dive in head first, ready to invest all their savings into overseas imports or shopping network returns. But Johnson discourages such risky moves for two reasons.

. They haven't considered all the costs-the enormous minimum quantities they'll have to buy to get the discounted prices or the tremendous costs of shipping imports.

. They have little experience and, therefore, no way of knowing all that these transactions entail. Says Johnson, "You're going to make mistakes.The way to minimize any kind of horrible error is to go very small." Don't invest a lot to start with-learn with inexpensive items. Start with a minimum investment; and as you begin to make a profit, put that money back into your business rather than buying new golf clubs or tennis shoes.

Tip 2-Research the Market and Test your Results.

As you go, you'll learn which products sell well and where you're actually making a profit. Johnson has a "funnel theory" on finding your product niche: "You start really broad.you have huge categories. And then you learn how to do your market research and you funnel down and get smaller and smaller until out the other end of the funnel comes a handful of products that you can really do well with."

Tip 3-Start on eBay

EBay is a great tool for beginners just learning about online retail. There are several reasons why it's a smart place to start:

. It's quick, easy, and inexpensive.

. The traffic is built in, and the people that are seeing your listings are seeing them because they're searching for your type of product.

. It's a good way to get exposed to the ins and outs of the business.

Tip 4-There's No Such Thing as "Get Rich Quick!"

Starting an e-business is just like starting any other business-it takes patience and persistence. Don't expect to be magically rolling in money overnight. And don't just jump at every "opportunity" that comes along for fear of missing out. Research it first-if it sounds too good to be true well, you know... If you take the time to understand what you're doing, there's plenty of room in the e-commerce industry for you to make money.

About The Author:

Chris Malta and Robin Cowie of WorldwideBrands.com are the Writers and Hosts of The Entrepreneur Magazine EBiz and Product Sourcing Radio Shows. Click Here http://www.worldwidebrands.com/EMRinfo for more FREE eBiz info from Entrepreneur Magazine Radio!

Podcasting Search Engines - The Good And The Not So Good

By: Danny Wirken

It is much easier for search engines to index text blogs than podcasts or videoblogs. At present, search engines are using link text and the text surrounding the links to podcasts and videoblogs as a means to index their contents. The situation is admittedly a far cry from the ideal but the great strides being seen in the development of technologies towards the indexing of these mediacasts are very encouraging.

Podcasting in Relation to Search Engines

Podcasting is the method of distributing multi-media files over the Internet using either the RSS or atom-syndication formats, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. This may include, but is not limited to, audio programs and music videos. Podcast can mean both the content and method of delivery while a podcaster is the host or author of a podcast.

The websites of podcasters may offer direct download or streaming of their files. A podcast usually features a single type of show with new episodes introduced regularly or sporadically, although there are podcast networks that feature multiple shows on the same feed. It can be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading RSS or atom feeds.

The term podcasting is technically a misnomer as it combines two words: iPod and broadcasting. It does not require an iPod or over-the-air broadcasting. The "pod" name association stemmed from the popularity of the iPod digital audio player during the time that podcasting began. A lot of other terms have been suggested for use but the term stuck and remained as such.

Like any other regular websites that aim to be found by searchers, search engines have much to contribute towards this end including podcasts. Podcast optimization can be achieved by promoting only one feed. Many podcasters commit the mistake of creating a podcast and then moving over to a different management system which entails promoting a new RSS feed. This usually results to a lot of different feeds for every podcast which may be disadvantageous in the long run.

Another way to get the most out of podcasts is by optimizing the audio file. The findability gap should be closed since a lot of people listen to a podcast on their computers as well as their MP3 players. A landing page can be optimized for each episode of the show as well as the category page. Subscription information that is very visible on the landing page is highly recommended.

Podcasters should also look into building correct and valid feeds with feed validation tools. Since iTunes do not redistribute, a separate feed must be built for it. Doing three separate feeds - a 2.0 feed, a media feed and an iTunes feed is ideal.

The inclusion of a transcript or summary depending on the podcast's time span is needed. A landing page usually requires just a summary which is a well optimized page covering the podcast's high points. Some search engines use speech-recognition to determine the relevancy of the podcast.

Quality podcasts may not be easy to find. This is especially true if the desired site is one that has already done the lifting for its searchers including podcast search engines, directories and round up sites. A huge variety of podcasts are available in a wide variety of genres.

The Podcasting Search Engines

Generally, major search engines are not indexing podcasts in a format that is easy to find. However, some podcast-specific search engines seem to have solved some of the problems. Podscope searches for the spoken words within the podcasts themselves. Yahoo! Podcasts is very user friendly and is one of the more consistent and useful in finding good podcasts. Singing Fish provides a whole ream of results by just typing in podcast or bring back audio results only when specified with the use of drop-down menus on the top left. Other worthy research engines includes Podzinger, Blinkx, BlogDigger and Lycos Audio Search.

Aside from search engines, podcast directories are virtual goldmines for finding good podcasts. The Podcast http://www.alley.com/ includes the very useful Top Ten Podcasts of the Month as voted by listeners. The NPR Podcast Directory contains quality podcasts in a subject directory format. The http://www.podcast.net/ categorizes podcasts of various subjects by tags which are available for free download. Podcast Bunker is likewise one of the best places to find quality podcasts on the web.

Search engines have become very useful especially to those who don't particularly enjoy the search process. http://www.podzinger.com/ allows the user to search podcasts in the same way as searching for anything else in the web. A word or phrase typed in will find relevant broadcasts and highlights the segment of the audio in which they occurred. It is not perfect but it serves the user's need at this time. It works with a speech-recognition software which transforms audio into words. http://www.podscope.com/ and Blinkx are sites that work in a similar way.

Podzinger and Blinkx are search engines that scour audio content for keywords by translating the audio into text and creating an index for quick searching. This is a step ahead of traditional search engines that can only identify keywords in a podcast's Meta data such as the headline and introductory notes which describes the audio file's general content.

Podzinger has officially ended its beta and lets users jump to the spot in a podcast where their search term appears. This is a welcome option to being forced to scan an entire program for pertinent parts such as with Blinkx. The design results to an uncluttered search page similar to those of Google. Podcasters can also link to a searchable index of their content in order to sell sponsored links to text in the index provided by Podzinger.

Both Podzinger and Blinkx include information about the source of the podcast as well as excerpts of text translated from the podcast. This comes with the added convenience of having relevant search terms highlighted. In this regard, Podzinger's information is more extensive while allowing users to hear excerpts and determine its relevancy before downloading the entire podcast.

Podscope searches podcasts but scans only for sounds of syllable rather than full words. It has operated a keyword search engine for video and radio broadcast since 1999. By far, the Blinkx service is a bit more extensive as it scours thousands of podcast and offers search for 1 million hours of TV news video and the content of academic lectures.

The problem at hand for podcast search is the difficulty in finding what is really needed in podcasts. Relevant results cannot be attained without words thus the heavy reliance on speech recognition software that would help the public search for on-line video and radio content. Podcasts are a priority at this time due to popularity boom it is currently experiencing. The aim is to make the spoken word as searchable as the printed word.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net/

How To Make Your Blog Marketing Budget Work

By: Danny Wirken

Maintaining a blog costs money. A blog owner has to contend with hosting service fees and other incremental expenses associated with publishing a blog. However, there are several techniques a blogger can employ to make his tight blog marketing budget work. Foremost of these ploys is implementing painstaking search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. SEO helps lessen the costs of marketing a blog.

Search Engine Optimization - Some Key Points

How do you get readers to visit your blog when you are competing with thousands of blogs around the blogosphere and the typical web surfer seldom reads beyond the first few results of a search query? This s the biggest challenge any blogger has to face. Search engine optimization is the answer. Search engine optimization is often described as the art and science of improving the rankings of one's blog within search engine results. SEO is the best way to drive traffic to your blog. Maximizing the benefits of a well-optimized blog will yield earnings that will greatly help to cover the costs of blogging.

There are certain things to remember when preparing to optimize your blog. Your blog has to be attractive not only to your visitors but to the search engine crawlers as well. If your blog gets a good ranking in the search engine results pages (SERP), it will mean better chances of getting visitors but it will be up to the blog to keep them there and hopefully encourages them to buy your product or avail of your service or whatever purpose the blog is for.

Optimizing a blog is similar to optimizing a website. But depending on the blogging tool you use, the results may vary. A blogging software is a specific type of content management system (software that provides a way for managing blogs). Blogging software such as WordPress and MovableType have rich sets of built-in optimization features that can make a blog more search engine friendly. A blogging software provides a web standard compliant interface that makes adding new blog posts and integrating them into the blog's navigational structure quite easy. After making sure that your blog software is set up in such a way that it takes full advantage of all the optimization features, keyword rich content comes next.

A blog that provides detailed information about its area of expertise will rank well in search engines for keywords contained in the content. Content may take the form of articles, news stories, guides and tips, industry trends and company developments, to name a few. To come up with the right keywords, always consider how you want your readers to find your blog post in search engines and what will they type if they want information on the topic you are writing. These will provide you with hints on what words will be repeated all throughout the article. Keywords can be used in the URL of a blog post and post title. URLs and title tags are good places for including your keywords since search engines are likely to give these areas more weight when indexing blog pages.

Content per post should be about one specific topic as the more focused the theme of a blog post the better when search engines come to rank it. Adding fresh new posts on a regular basis is highly recommended. The more you update, the more the search engine robots will index the blog posts. Choose catchy domain names for your blog that visitors will recall easily.

For the search engines to find you, submit your blog to them. Submit your blog URL to be included in the index. This might take time. A quicker way is to get linked by a blog already indexed by the search engines.

There are also certain external factors that affect a blog's search engine ranking. The most important of these factors are the inbound links. It is a widely accepted consensus that links pointing to your blog or posts make it for possible for your blog to rank higher in the search engine result pages. Every link to your blog is interpreted by the search engines as recognition bestowed on your blog. The best method to get these much sought after links is to post relevant content that visitors will want to read. After you publish a quality post on a subject you know will be of interest to another blogger, you may notify him through a short e-mail. If he does link, that will be additional traffic and subsequently helps build your own page rank in the search engines.

Another way to generate inbound links is to submit your blog on RSS feeds to blog directories as well as other sites that will list your blog. This is a very effective strategy. In fact, bloggers usually submit their new blogs to different directories. They submit links to important blog pages with relevant keywords in the links. There are quite a number of blog directories -http://www.DMOZ.org, Yahoo Directory and the Best of the Web Blog Directory. These are the more prominent ones. They offer free submissions.

Many blogs of the same nature exchange links with one another and form interlink networks. The bloggers enjoy the benefits of multiple sites and like-minded writers working together. Another way to generate quality inbound links is to swap links with other bloggers. Someone links to you so you link back. But in most cases links are formally arranged between bloggers. You can also generate inbound or backlinks to your blog by leaving legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs. You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. Trackback is a method of informing another blogger that you wrote a post related to what he had posted on his blog.

The above techniques will help your blog perform well and at the same time lessen the costs of marketing your blog. Search engine optimization is important but your readers come first. So, it all comes back to quality content. If you are publishing relevant content updated periodically, rest assure that great sites will more likely link to your blog. As a blog publisher, you definitely would like to be in good company.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

How Business Weblogs Really Affect The Marketplace

By: Danny Wirken

Over the years, the Internet has become a hub for people to discover and invent new ways to share relevant information in just a blink of an eye. A compelling worldwide conversation has begun. This conversation has become the new market. The members of this market communicate in a more open, natural honest, direct and at times authoritative way. They are talking, explaining, complaining, and sharing information in an unmistakably human voice.

As business continues to be increasingly connected, communication among these players in the new marketplace will prove to be vital. If the market talks about a company and its products, the concerned company should assess and understand all the information to better respond to such information. As information increases within the business world, proper distribution and management of this information should be a prime concern of the company. The blog is a very effective tool that allows a company to gain, to store and to disseminate information all at the same time. For a business to succeed, connectivity with the market and community are a must. A blog can accomplish this. The business weblog can affect the market place.

A blog or weblog is simply a journal posted on the Internet. It is updated regularly and may contain entries or posts on news, opinions, ideas plus links to other blogs, websites and sources of information. A blog has become a way to engage readers and prospective customers of businesses. They have emerged as a tool to boost business. Blogs invite readers to comment or post feedback on what they see around them. It can be about sports, entertainment, health, politics, economy, commerce to the most mundane of things like rants about school work. A blog can accomplish certain vital business goals. It can give much-needed exposure to new or little known product or service. Since many potential clients know a little only about a certain product or service, blogging is a good channel to lay out the specifics of the product or service. Readers are always hungry for information about companies and how to interact with them. Blogging can lead to more informed clients as it supplants the company as an information source.

Blogging allows a company to touch base with prospects. Any company that has exposure in the Internet is well aware that hits via the search engines especially the top three - Google, Yahoo and MSN can bring in sizeable leads. Blogs can add further leverage to the number of times with which search engines identify a company especially if the blog is updated regularly and allows readers to leave feedbacks. A well-executed blog can contribute positively to the ranking of a company's site within search engine results. A blog that allows comments, post new entries equate to additional blog pages to be crawled by the search engine robots.

Blogging is also an effective tool to establish a company as an expert in its industry or niche. Blogging sends positive buzz about the company credentials through the marketplace. It builds credibility and generates leads and inquiries. Blogging has evolved into a legitimate source of news that has greatly influence public opinion. Some blogs even hold much sway on the public as compared to larger and established media brands. Through a blog, a company can openly engage customers and peers in a discussion. This conversation transpires via reader comments. Comments or feedbacks allow a company to know what it is doing right and what needs to be improved. Customers and potential clients can be a company's mirror to determine whether its products or services are what the market wants to buy or avail of. In this regard, a blog affects the marketing scenario. A new trend in the marketplace has emerged - a customer-centric market.

The current competitive environment is a challenge for many businesses. The Internet and globalization have immensely affected how businesses conduct business. The marketplace has become a tough place for sellers. Customers and prospects have become more demanding. They want to be heard and have a say on the products and services that will satisfy their needs and wants. In today's marketplace, the prevailing credo is "love and hear thy customer". Customers, nowadays, expect that companies will always take them into consideration. If they have issues, companies should communicate that they understand what the issues are from the customers' points of view. Perception is very important thus companies should ask for feedbacks from customers and listen to gain insight or how to satisfy customer needs and wants.

Traditionally, a company develops a product or service and then work out a marketing plan. The marketing plan is crucial in applying company resources in the most cost-efficient way to sell to potential customers. The marketing plan usually includes the product, price, publicity or advertising and place or target area. This marketing approach is product-driven or company centric. A company makes a product and then find ways to get customers to buy the product.

The alternative to a product driven approach is the customer-centric approach. The latter focuses on the customers. The company first selects a particular group of customers. The company then does research on the proposed product or service. It is the customers who have the final say whether the particular product is what they want to buy. Only then will production commences.

A typical example is the La Fraise t-shirts. It all started with a French guy who passionately blogs about t-shirts. Through blogging, he built a community of loyal readers who share the same interest. He posted samples of t-shirt designs and the readers gladly send him feedbacks. This gave him an idea to put up a gallery of t-shirt designs. He encouraged his readers to vote on each design. The design that gets the highest vote goes into production and he sells them through his blog. What is nice is that the t-shirts are pre-sold already. He has no worries about inventory. It has become a full- fledged business. It is customer-centric. The customer decides which product to produce and then buys it. Credit should go to the guy because he is fully aware of the magic of comments - they can spur great ideas that can be converted to a business and one that works both ways for the customers and the business entrepreneur. This story perfectly shows how blogging can empower customers to be in the center in any business undertaking. Blogging truly affects the marketplace in more ways than one.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Online Personalization 2.0: This Time It's Personal

By: John Black

After the flame-out of early business models focused on online personalization - for instance Firefly - it was easy to dismiss this as another over-hyped casualty of the dot-com boom. But there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the technology or the concept. It was primarily ahead of its time. Now personalization is an integral part of leading e-commerce sites such as iTunes, Amazon and NetFlix, and a contributing factor to their success. However, beyond this top tier, use of personalization is not yet widespread online.

All of the macro trends - expanded product selection, consumer-generated content and information overload - suggest that personalization is poised to come back in a big way. What's needed for mass adoption is a new business model rather than new technology.

Trends

First, let's look at the trends that build the needs and the opportunities for personalization Product selection. The "Long Tail" phenomenon was first coined by Wired in 2004 to describe how, removed from the constraints of the physical world, the economics of retailing and the behavior of consumers have changed radically. Where a traditional retail store could only dedicate shelf space to high volume products, an e-commerce site can stock literally millions of products.

Consumer-generated content: Partly in response to distrust of marketers and professional critics, partly in response to the ease of personal publishing/blogging, consumers are posting their views, profiles and opinions online en masse. An estimated 33 million Americans have rated or reviewed products online. Social networks like MySpace and Facebook have become a cultural phenomenon. The combined voice of consumers is a powerful force. Study after study shows that word of mouth by far carries the most influence on purchase decisions.

Information Overload: Unfortunately, consumer-generated content is often lacking in relevance. A consumer reading conflicting reviews of the same product is often left asking: what do people like me think of this? Was the one-star book review from an English professor, or from a high school dropout? Further, it is often difficult to separate objective feedback from self-promotion.

While online retailing offers consumers unlimited choice, this choice can be paralyzing. While word of mouth often provides objective peer opinions, just as often it creates more confusion without any filter on relevance.

Existing Solutions

New online services and technologies are starting to emerge to solve these problems. The site Trendwatching.com has coined the term "Twinsumer" to describe matching consumers up with "their taste twins; fellow consumers somewhere in the world who think, react, enjoy and consume the way they do." These solutions address real and growing consumer concerns:

* Tell me what's right for me
* Help me explore beyond the mainstream, or in the words of Wired, push people down the long tail

Personalized recommendations are typically driven by statistics, in the form of "collaborative filtering", or by the user's own network of contact. In collaborative filtering, "like users" (or "like items") are matched based on their statistical similarity. So it Bob and James liked 10 of the same books, the 11th book that James rated 5-stars would be recommended to Bob. Or if customers who buy the Godfather Part 1 also buy the Godfather Part 2,... well you get the idea.

In the social network approach, recommendations are driven by your friends, or by people you have chosen to bring into your online circle of trust. This operates more like traditional word of mouth, but on a much larger scale.

These personalization solutions tend to be tied to either e-commerce or affiliate marketing business models:

* e-commerce merchants: iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix, eMusic
* online communities: listal.com, nextfavorite.com, librarything.com. ratingzone.com
* music applications: Pandora.com, last.fm, MusicIP. Yahoo Music

In most cases, personalized recommendations have focused on product categories with a) broad selection and b) subjective tastes. Hence, books, music and movies.

Challenges

With all of the promise of personalization to increase sales and improve customer loyalty, you'd think its use would be more widespread. However, every personalization application faces the dual, and opposing, challenges of critical mass and data quality. The best recommender technology is worthless without enough data to populate the recommendations. In categories with a broad selection, such as books, recommendations are not very effective beyond the most mainstream titles until the number of ratings/purchases reach the hundreds of thousands.

So how to get hundreds of thousands of data points from customers before you can offer effective recommendations? Most e-commerce sites use observed customer behavior - clicks, searches, carted items and purchases - to infer product feedback. While this is the quicker and easier path to critical mass, it sacrifices data quality. Just because a user clicked on or even bought an item does not mean they liked it. Often the customer purchased a gift, did not enjoy the product, or had a one-off need for the product. I suspect other people have a similar mish-mash of recommendations at Amazon as I do: from gardening tools to lullaby CDs to Accounting books.

These data challenges - not technology limitations - have kept personalized product recommendations out of all but the very largest, most sophisticated e-commerce sites. And let's not forgot about traditional brick and mortar retailing, which still accounts for 90%+ of book and music sales. When was the last time you got "personalized" service at a big box retailer or chain
store?

A New Approach

There's no good reason why every retailer shouldn't be able to implement personalization as well or better than Amazon or iTunes. At least in books, music, movies, video games and probably consumer electronics and travel. In this new world of ASPs, Web 2.0, APIs and web services, the technical barriers have been all but removed.

Which leaves the data. A new business model that can successfully aggregate anonymous customer data and product reviews across multiple retailers could be far larger, and more predictive, than any database within a single merchant. And literally any retailer, down to a single-store independent bookseller, could tap into the benefits by also contributing to this uber-database. If this sounds farfetched, note that Abacus Direct grew a similar cooperative database model into a $100 million business in the offline catalog market.

The benefits are clear for those sites who have successfully implemented personalized product recommendations: dramatic improvements in sales, conversion rates and customer loyalty.

About the Author:

John Black has a long experience with personalization and predictive modeling. John was the product manager for the first one-to-one online banner ad targeting product at DoubleClick, and managed market research and new product development at Abacus, the leading predictive modeling company in the catalog market. John is currently the founder and CEO of NextFavorite.com (http://www.nextfavorite.com), a personalization service provider.

Wordpress And Content Management System: How To Make It Work

By: Danny Wirken

Since the release of WordPress, web users have customized this blogging software to suit their own needs. On of the most established needs in today's computing world is the need for content management, particularly, a Content Management System (CMS). With its rich set of features and flexibility, WordPress can be customized into a major CMS.

Content Management System

Content management can be described as the process of creating, managing and publishing online content sans any programming or technical skills. If used properly, content management saves time and money. An effective content management can be attained by utilizing a content management system.

A content management system is a web-based application connected to a database that allows users to update a website without having to know any HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, standard language with which all web pages are built). It is software used to manage websites and web content. A CMS facilitates the maintenance of content but not the design on a website.

Without CMS, updating a website say, posting a new article would involve manually changing the home page and archives and creating a new page from scratch for the article itself. Coupled with this, if a user wants other pages to link to the article like a list of current articles in the sidebar of pages, he has to change all these manually as well.

With CMS, a user just logs in and adds the article heading to a specific category. He then enters the content and ends by selecting some tags to describe the article. The CMS will automatically put the title, date and the first paragraph on the home page. He then constructs a new page for the article and adds the article to an archive by date and category.

As can be gleamed, CMS does away with inconvenient manual tasks and streamlines the updating process. A CMS manages content efficiently from the time of creation to publication. A content management system establishes a definitive approach to effectively publish, store and organize content for the users.

Content management systems offered by different vendors have varied benefits and functions that a user can select from according to his needs. A CMS can be expensive or absolutely free like WordPress. It really depends on how complex the site is and what needs to be done.

Most blogging software programs are considered a particular type of CMS. They have CMS features for creating and maintaining a blog. They make publishing on the Internet as easy as writing an article, giving it a title and setting it up under one or more categories. Basic blogging software provides an interface where a user can work in an intuitive manner while the blogging software handles the presentation and publication. A blogger gets to concentrate on writing and the blogging tool functioning as a content management system takes care of the rest of the site operation. WordPress is an example of blogging software.

WordPress - An Overview

WordPress is a well-structured personal publishing system written in PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor, a popular open source server-side scripting language constructed specially for integration with HTML available in Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and backed by MySQL(open source Structured Query Language database implementation). WordPress is licensed under General Public License (GPL) and is available for free. WordPress started in 2001. Since then, it has grown to be the biggest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, utilized on a multitude of sites. WordPress focuses on ease of use, speed and a wonderful user experience. It is an open source program. Hundreds of people all over the globe are working on it. It offers a service in http://www.WordPress.com that lets a user get started with a free WordPress-based blog in seconds.

WordPress is an advanced blogging software program that provides a sophisticated set of features. Via its administration panels, a user can set options for the presentation of his blog and be published on the Internet instantly. WordPress focuses on aesthetics, web standards and usability.

WordPress as a Content Management System

A distinct characteristic of a CMS is that it singles out content from presentation. Content consists of text, images or other information shared in posts. This is separate from the structural design of a site which provides the foundation into which the content is inserted and the presentation of a site which involves graphic design. Content is stored in a database. A user can change the look of a site with a few changes to style sheets such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and other layout features that define the font styles and sizes, colors, backgrounds and positions. In like manner, WordPress stores content in a database and the WordPress Theme(layout/design) controls the look of how the content is displayed.

A CMS has control over what content shows up and where ads, related posts, comments and other interactive elements appear on a web page. But with the plug-ins and add-ons available in
WordPresss, a user can also add these features to his blog. A user can turn WordPress into a full-fledged CMS with the many options, customizations and controls accessible to him.

There are a number of options a user can use to make WordPress works like a CMS. Most CMS sites control what articles appear on the front page. In WordPress, a user can make use of the Semiologic Opt-in FrontPage Plug-in that lets him choose which post will appear on his front page. Podcasting, videoblogging, adding music and images are possible with WordPress. There are plenty of elements that a user can add to WordPress to enhance connectivity and functions. Signing up for mailing lists, newsletters and other information to be disseminated can be done with WordPress. A user can even set up e-commerce with WordPress. Adding ads to a WordPress site is as simple as placing the ad information into the proper template file. Forums and bulletin boards are integrated with WordPress. Every WordPress user has a role that determines his rights within the application. This is particularly useful to control the flow of certain content. Another valuable feature of WordPress is its built-in moderation feature. This allows the user to approve messages before they get posted. The WP-ShortStart Plug-in renders Statistic monitoring. Lastly, a user's CMS site won't be complete without a way to handle external and internal links. WordPress has a number of plug-ins that can be used for this purpose.

Simply put, WordPress has sophisticated features that make it a powerful content management system.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

You Don't Need More Traffic To Make More Money

By: Adam McFarland

Every website owner has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with driving more traffic to their site. We all want more traffic, if for nothing else to be able to brag to others how many unique visitors we've received. Competition among web owners aside, actually doing something with that traffic is equally as important as getting it. Yet for some reason, most site owners make the mistake of focusing most of their time on getting more traffic and rarely, if ever, focus on improving their conversion rate.

What is a conversion?

A conversion happens whenever a visitor to your site performs a desired action. It might be purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, signing up for an account, or even clicking on an advertisement (although I'd advise against making the goal of your site to have someone click away from it). One way or another, if you have a site, you've got a desired action that you want the user to perform.

How big of a difference can it make?

Consider Company A and Company B. Both sell online subscriptions to their news services for a one-time fee of $100. They each attract 1000 unique visitors per day. Company A converts 2%of their visitors whereas Company B converts 5%. Big deal right? How much does 3% really matter? Well, Company A sells 20 subscriptions per day, or 7,300 per year for $730,000 of revenue. Not bad. But Company B sells 50 subscriptions per day, or 18,250 per year for $1,825,000 of revenue!

Without any variation in traffic, you can improve conversion rate on your site and drastically increase revenue. Now, is increasing from 2% to 5% going be a challenge? Certainly, but it is by no means impossible and in most cases is probably easier than you think.

What's a good conversion rate?

Some people will tell you that an "average" conversion rate is 2%-5% and an "amazing" conversion rate is 10%-15%. To me, that's a broad statement. I'm not saying that you should completely ignore those numbers, just that you should understand where they are coming from. Those numbers tend to apply to e-commerce sites selling to consumers. They also don't factor in where traffic is coming from, product pricing, and about a hundred other potential factors that could affect your conversion rate.

There are times when a 2% conversion rate is phenomenal. For example, if you are selling software licenses for $20,000, converting 1 in 50 visitors is pretty exemplary. On the flip side, if your goal is to have people sign up for a football newsletter and all of your traffic is coming from an ad you placed on NFL.com, 15% might be considered really poor.

My answer to "what's a good conversion rate" is any conversion rate that's better than your current one.

Start by doing a self-evaluation and set a baseline

Before you can even think about trying to increase your conversion rate, you need to have a system in place to track your current conversions. In its simplest form, conversion rate can be calculated by dividing the number of conversions into the number of visitors to your site for a specified time period. Most site owners will want more in depth statistics (such as what page visitors came from and what pages potential customers left their site from) so I would recommend a web analytics program like the free Google Analytics that provides in-depth reporting and can calculate your conversion rates for you.

How will I know if my changes worked?

In my mind, the only way to think about conversion rate is to start at your current rate and start striving to convert 100% of the visitors to your site. Is that ever going to happen?Probably not, but as Les Brown said - "shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Shoot for 100% conversion rate and even if you don't get there, in attempting to do so you'll be instilling the necessary qualities for amazing improvements.

With that in mind, you should begin the process of trying to improve your conversion rate from your baseline. The bad news when it comes to increasing conversion rate is that there is no "one thing" that every site owner can do to increase it. The good news is that there are literally thousands of things that you can try that might increase it. Each one of those things might help, or each might hurt.

And therein lies the key to success in increasing conversion rate - testing, evaluating, and then testing and evaluating some more. Each time you should be striving to "beat your previous best." If you went from 2% to 2.2%, keep the change and try for 2.5% with your next change. If you went from 2% to 1.5%, undo the change and try to get back over 2% with your next change. In general, you should give a sufficient amount of time to evaluate a change - I generally use one month as a rule of thumb, but you should factor in how much traffic you get and how large the change is when determining how long collect data for before evaluating a change.

What type of changes should I make?

As I mentioned before, there are thousands of things that you can change that can affect conversion rates. So where should you start? Start by walking in the shoes of your customer. Using the example of an e-commerce site, there are several types of customers that find your site. For the customer looking to buy immediately, is it easy to find the "buy" button or do you have to look around for it? For the customer wanting more information (product info, shipping info, or info about your business), is that easy to find? And for customers just browsing, do you have a way to entice them to buy, or at least entice them to sign up for a newsletter so that you can try to convert them at a later time?

Asking yourself those questions should result in several subtle changes and probably a few not so-subtle changes that you can make. In addition, ask yourself whether or not the design of your site - logo, layout, colors, and font - appeal to senses and make it easy for people to find what they're looking for.

You should also seriously consider the content of your text. Is it possible that some people don't understand what your product or service does? Could international users interpret your phrases differently than domestic users, and if so, is there a way you could re-word your copy to avoid confusion? Ad copy is a funny thing - a subtle word change can often drastically affect conversion rates. The only way to know is to test.

Remember, you should only make one change at a time to be able to properly evaluate it. Each change will help point you in the right direction of the next change. Much like SEO, increasing conversion rate is not a one time event, it is an improvement process that you facilitate over the life of your site. That said, it is not an extremely difficult process, and when used in conjunction with sound SEO it can bring results to your site that you could have never imagined.

About The Author:

Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize (http://www.iPrioritize.com) - simple to-do lists that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. Email, print, check from your mobile phone, subscribe via RSS, and share with others.

Inviting People to Read Your Website Articles

By: Diana Barnum

There are many good resources available on the web for creating website articles. Major websites are moving towards designs which are simple and fast loading rather than having a website which is filled with flashy graphics and dynamic html. Because most often, it is the content and the articles on these websites that are the main appeal to Internet surfers. So a goal is to convert the casual web surfer into a reader at your site.

Reader Friendly Articles

The content and articles on a website should be presented in such a way that readers are attracted to them. Everything needs to be of top quality to persuade readers to keep on reading, using the following points as general guidelines with your content and article presentation:

* Articles need to be written with a good flowing format: opening paragraph, details, closing paragraph with contact info for more information. Don't bounce around with your content presentation.

* Proper grammar and spelling are absolutely necessary.

* Use eye-catching headlines, font colors and font sizes to attract attention, but don't overdo it by using too many different ones. For example, begin by choosing only two complimentary fonts, two different font sizes (one for headlines, one for main body text) and two different font colors (bold and regular black text).

* Sentences should neither be too long nor too short. Include a good mix throughout your article by adding short sentences after long ones, to help pace readers.

* Keep content informative. People want news, entertainment, Something to learn something.

* Add audio / video links and digital photos and banners where you can to jazz up your content presentation.

Using these basic guidelines will result in a good website content and articles. For help, here are some handy resources:

Resources

- Check out Jack Humphrey's Content Desk and Content Propulsion Lab, for "Do It Yourself" companies who would love the benefits of easy step-by-step content site building, monetizing and promoting systems for the best ROI, and high-end Public Relations firms with low-end budgets, online at http://www.ContentLabInfo.com and http://www.ContentDeskInfo.com

* For a super profit system, head to SEO (search engine optimization) expert Keith Baxter's Easy Net Marketing (EAN) Profit System at http://www.bplansite.com. The program has only about a one- to two-hour learning curve to get all set up and going. Articles, content and more -all-in-one.

* Learn how to write with good correspondence courses like those offered by the American Writers & Artists Institute; many are described here: http://www.presssuccess.com/specialty.html

So consider the importance of your content and articles in the marketplace. The more people stick around for awhile to read through your information, the more who will want to return and share your site with others.

About the Author: Diana Barnum, president of http://www.movingaheadcommunications.com
at: (614) 529-9459 (EST).

5 Reasons That eBooks Are Effective Communication Tools

By: Jim Estill

Ebooks are effective means of communicating. They allow you to express your ideas in a unique way that will reach many people. I have recently become an ebook convert, and I want to share with you the reasons that ebooks are the latest successful communication trend.

1. As Technology Advances, Communication Advances.

We live in a digital age. The popularity of blogs shows the influence that the internet has had on our communications. Communication theorists have argued that communication has developed from one-to-one (with pre-printing letters and books), to one-to-many (with the advent of the printing press) to many-to-many (with the internet). You no longer have to be a Harvard professor or famous novelist to reach many people: you can write an ebook and share it with many people. This democratization of knowledge is a step forward in the evolution of communication.

2. Convenience.

Because of the technology behind ebooks, they are immensely convenient. They can be accessed from anywhere. They can be stored, shared, or deleted as you want. You can browse through an ebook while you are at your desk to see if you want to read the book. You can even use the find or search function to find pertinent parts of the book.

Ebooks often contain hyperlinks that direct you to the sources of their information. This is like having interactive footnotes in a book. The hyperlinks in ebooks also make it easier for you find information that is cross-referenced within each volume.

Another convenient aspect of ebooks is their size. Frequently, ebooks are shorter than published hard-copy books. This means that the information is distilled, and easier to access than if you had to search through a printed book.

3. Empowering the Author.

If you were to try to publish a book, or even an article, through traditional publishing modes, you would have to deal with rejections, editors, and restrictions that each press has. With an ebook, you are free to make your choices about how you want to publish your material, and what material gets published. This kind of artistic integrity has all but vanished from the print-publishing industry.

Ebooks allow authors to self-publish without investing too much capital. If you choose to self publish a printed book, you will have many costs to consider in your overhead. Publishing an e-book can be a relatively inexpensive experience.

4. The Environment.

Gutenberg's printing press revolutionized written communication. Gutenberg's invention, however, was not environmentally friendly. Ebooks, as electronic forms of communications, help to conserve our planet's natural resources. You can write as much as you want and not worry about the forests that are being cut down to share your ideas when you choose to write an e book.

5. Your Readership.

This article lists many reasons that ebooks are convenient and effective for you, the author. The affordable cost, the artistic integrity, and the powerful new technologies are exciting things for you as an author. However, your readers will also thank you when you choose an ebook. The convenience of access is easier than with a hard-copy book, and as discussed earlier, the information within the book is easier to access.

So, the next time you are considering writing, consider writing an ebook. The next time you want something to read, consider reading an ebook. There is an entire market of books out there waiting to be written, and waiting to be read. Are you ready to join the frontiers of communication?

About The Author:

Jim Estill is the CEO of SYNNEX Canada. Jim's CEO Blog, at http://www.jimestill.com, has information about ordering his time management audiobook and ebook: Time Leadership.

Copywriting With Google's Dynamic Keyword Insertion Tool

By: Karon Thackston

Automation is an odd creature. It usually seems, at first glance, that automating a process can make things easier, simpler and faster. But oftentimes, once an automated process is in place, trouble spots pop up. This is sometimes the case when looking at the copywriting aspect of Google's dynamic keyword insertion tool.

In case you're unfamiliar with dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), it's a feature of Google's AdWords program. It is often used for large campaigns in order to automatically insert the keyword into the headline of an ad. Truly, it's a lifesaver for many pay-per-click (PPC) ad managers who have to stay on top of thousands of ads every day. It's all done with a simple syntax command: {keyword:_______}.

From a timesaving standpoint, this is a wonder tool that has rescued PPC managers from the mind-numbing chore of typing the same keywords over and over. From an economic point-of view, DKI *can* (not always) perform well enough to make it a viable option for larger campaigns. But what happens with regard to copywriting and eye tracking?

See It and Click It

The human eye is normally drawn to things that are unusual. Things that look out of place or different get noticed far more than things that blend in. For instance, on a page full of black text and black & white photographs, a small red square in the bottom corner will get focused on almost immediately. Why? Because it is completely different than everything else around it.

This same principle applies when considering your copywriting strategy for AdWords. When using DKI, you'll want to keep your eye on the results pages. Why? We've all heard that using the keyphrase in the headline pulls better. It does. most of the time. There is an exception, however. This exception is what you'll be watching.

In fact, a study done last year by Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools tracked users' interactions with the Google search results page. It found that surfers normally reviewed the page in an F formation. They would scan vertically down the left side of the page and then over to the right(where paid ads are) *IF* something caught their attention. That's the point we'll explore in this article.

In order to get clicks, you first have to get seen. If your ad looks and reads like all the rest, you've completely lost your originality advantage.

See For Yourself

Copywriting using DKI is a balancing act. You have to consider several factors, including the character count of your longest keyphrase, your ability to add text to the keyword-rich headline and how the ad looks on the page. Take a look at some examples below. Remember that AdWords results show differently at various points throughout the day (and in relation to individual account parameters), so you may not see exactly what I saw when doing this research. I'm sure it will be close enough for you to get the idea.

Go to Google and type in the phrase "cruise vacation center" (without using the quote marks). See how all the ads look different? They don't all have the same words bolded. They don't all use the same copy. The bold words stand out because they are different. In this case, your eye will usually go first to the ads with bolded words in the headline.

You see ads offering a 6-night cruise for $xx.xx and other ads promoting X% off on a cruise vacation, etc. There is diversity and that's a good thing.

Now, what if you type in "home improvement"? (Again, without the quotes.) If your results page looks like mine, practically every ad has the exact same headline: home improvement. Not only do most of the ads look the same, the headlines read the same. Your eye doesn't know where to go because everything seems identical. But wait! About four or five ads down, something catches your eye. It's an ad that has no bold in the headline. That stands out because it's different! As you scroll further down the page, more ads with no bold in the headlines pop out at you. In this case, because everyone else has opted for the DKI feature, their headlines are all very similar, making them less noticeable. But the ones who wrote custom headlines won out, thanks to diversity.

Tips for Writing With DKI

If you want or need to write using the DKI option, consider these tips:

1. Use a descriptive word along with your keyphrase. Instead of just inserting the phrase "airline tickets," place the word "discount" or "cheap" before your keyphrase to help it stand out.

2. For keyphrases that will take the entire 25-character limit, consider using one word of the keyphrase in the headline, instead of the entire phrase. Rather than "home improvement," try inserting just "home" or "improvement" along with other text you write yourself.

3. Keep it applicable. Your headline still has to convey a strong message about what the customer can expect at your site.

4. Test & Track! Everything in advertising is subject to change. Smart marketers always test and track to get the best results.

With a little forethought, you can develop a combination of DKI and custom-written AdWords ads that drive qualified visitors to your site.

About the Author:

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out
Karon's report "How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)" at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

Keyword Density

By: Scott Lindsay

Keywords. always keywords! It's amazing how much of a headache they can be. You spend hours and hours researching, planning, making lists, and calculating keyword density, for what? To be successful online, to reach those high SERPs all webmasters and online entrepreneurs dream about: to be number one.

You are ready to pay the price; you are ready to choose a company that promises you top ten results guaranteed. Guess what? There are no warranties; there is no keyword secret formula. You want to be number one? That's hard to achieve, but not impossible. You can do it on your own. You'll need to learn a lot, to work day and night, to invest your time in this effort. But you will succeed.

So here you go: choose your keywords wisely. Use them even wiser.

To use keywords means to introduce them into the content of your web pages in a natural manner: not too many, not too few.

Is there a keyword density secret formula? Nope.

There are, however, some guidelines.

No keywords = no placement in the SERPs (search engine result pages). No placement in the SERPs = no traffic. No traffic = no revenue. No revenue = you don't have a business. So invest time and effort in choosing and using keywords.

It is important that your keywords appear in the META tags (page title, meta title, meta description, meta keywords) and the content of the page. However, too many keywords could get your site penalized for spamming. Too few. bring no results.

Each search engine places different importance on keyword density. Google requires a maximum of 3%, Yahoo! needs a 5-6%. Is it safe to go beyond Google's guidelines? Not really. Then what? Place importance on the keyword modifications: bold, italic, type size, underline, highlight, hyperlink. Take care where on page you place the main keywords: the heading, at the beginning of your first paragraph, at the end of the last sentence of your text, in subheadings, in hyperlinks and so on. You do this in a natural, readable manner and you cannot fail.

So don't target too many keywords or keywords phrases: one or two will do. You could even target three if you have a lot of content on one page, but not more. Don't optimize your page for fast results, but for lasting results. Pay attention: if you want to be competitive, focus on one keyword per page and keep its page density to the minimum.

You have a public relations website. Then "public relations" is your keyword phrase. Start optimizing for it. Create sub pages to support the home page optimize those for keyword variations and some related low competitive keywords. Keep your content simple, relevant, useful.and don't stuff it with keywords. That's all you need to know about keyword density.

Not convinced? How about this: Google will change its algorithms soon. Why don't you run a keyword density checker on your website and have a chat with your SEO team or expert? You wouldn't like Google to ban you for keyword stuffing, would you?

About The Author:

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of http://www.HighPowerSites.com and many other web projects. Get your own website online in
just 5 minutes at http://www.HighPowerSites.com

Yahoo! Beta Testing Blog Search Application Sites

By: Danny Wirken

In the recent past, a news story came out that Yahoo! has begun testing a blog search application in its Korean blog site. Yahoo!, a leading global Internet company offers a range of features making it a one-stop shop for all the popular activities of the Internet. These features include Yahoo! Mail (a web-based e-mail service), Yahoo! Messenger (instant messaging client), online gaming, chat, news and information portals, online shopping and online auction facilities. Add to this array of features, the Blog Search. Yahoo! seems to be ready to challenge industry leader blog search site, Technorati.

The blog search technology is designed to let bloggers sign up to publish their weblogs. The technology boasts of various search tools that will enable blog visitors to retrieve content and images within weblogs, latest blog postings or pages marked as favorites.

Blogs are currently the rage in the Internet. Anybody with an Internet connection can publish a blog for the worldwide audience to see. At the beginning of 1999, there were only an estimated two or three dozen blogs in existence. As of July 2006, Technorati counted more than 50 million and still growing. In fact, 75 000 new blogs are created everyday.

A blog, short for weblog, is an interactive, personalized web journal for posting articles or anything one wants to share with the general public or a select few. Articles or posts are arranged in reverse chronological order, that is, recent addition is at the top of the page. A blog is updated regularly and contains links to other articles (posts), blogs or websites. Posting comments is another feature. Many blogs focus on a specific topic such as politics, sports, technology, health, news, etc. Others are more like personal diaries detailing the author's (blogger) rants, raves and musings.

Because of the rapid growth of blogs, keeping on top of them is quite challenging. Industry players like Yahoo! is well aware of the increasing power of blogs and their ability to provide a wealth of information online. Yet, there are only a few blog-specific search tools to go through all the information in real time.

Two months after Yahoo! began testing the blog search feature on its Korean blog site; it has finally unveiled its blog search tool. The launch came at a time when the United States was still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. During that time, millions of people logged in to Yahoo! News for in-depth and accurate information. Simultaneously, bloggers were posting first-hand accounts, pictures, opinions, personal experiences. But due to lack of mainstream exposure, much relevant information was not disseminated. This further highlights the role that a blog search tool can play - a channel to bring information to the public in the shortest time possible.

Instead of launching a stand alone feature, Yahoo! has integrated blogs in Yahoo! News Search. When a user conducts a search in Yahoo! News, blog results as well as news from trusted news sites will be displayed simultaneously. Yahoo! acknowledges that the opinions, stories and experiences published on blogs make a great complement to mainstream news people read everyday. Blogs have proven to be an effective medium for anyone who wants to be heard in the public forum. A lot of times bloggers have even beaten mainstream media to newsworthy stories.

Traditional media recognize that they do not have the time and resources to cover all the events and happenings in the world. By incorporating the blog search into Yahoo! News, Yahoo! desires to offer an alternative perspective on news aside from what mainstream media can offer. Yahoo! wishes to bring professional journalism and amateur or citizen journalism together to provide the users with a wider array of information. Yahoo assures the users and the general public as well that there will be enough distinction where the information is coming from.

Yahoo! aims to learn from users and publishers. The expanded news search gives users more chances to find relevant information that matters to them from leading news stories, commentaries, citizen first-hand reports, pictures and images that mainstream media may not have covered. It will be to the utmost benefit of the millions of people who wants to be informed of what is going on around the world if Yahoo! News can bring mainstream and personal or grassroots media together. The people are then assured of greater variety of sources and viewpoints from all corners of the world.

When a user conducts a search on Yahoo! News, results from mainstream media partners of Yahoo! will be displayed on the left side of the page. On the right side, in a side-bar type area will be relevant blog search results. When the user clicks on "all blog results", the user will receive Flickr (Yahoo!'s photo sharing service) photo thumbnails related to his search on the right hand side of the search results page. By integrating global grassroots media into the News Search results, users can enjoy analysis or opinions thru blogs but also related photos from the Flickr community that will provide a visual context to content as reported by the citizens. In addition, My Web links will also be displayed on the right hand side of the search results page together with Flickr. My Web is Yahoo!'s social search engine that utilizes the combined knowledge of the My Web community. My Web provides important links to information related to the user's search topic.

As to which search results to display in its blog column, Yahoo! does not give specifics but suffice it to say that blog search results are based in part on the popularity of the blogs within My Yahoo!, as measured by a computer algorithm. At first, only blogs registered with the My Yahoo! RSS directory will be included in the search but will eventually scan the millions of blogs outside the My Yahoo! sphere.

Yahoo!'s Blog Search will complement Yahoo! 360, its social networking and blog publishing service and Yahoo!'s recently launched advertising service for small publishers.

Whether you are looking for political commentary on the Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, Superman movie reviews, iMac G5 specs, sumptuous Vietnamese recipes, Louis Vuitton's latest bag collection, or anything else, Yahoo! Blog Search will help you find out what people are saying on these subjects of your choice.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

All About Content Management Systems

By: Richard D S Hill

There has been more and more talk about Content Management
Systems as organizations decide that they need direct control
of their websites.

Once they have this, many soon learn that the technology also
allows them to change and improve their internal workflow,
processes and procedures for acquiring, filtering, organizing,
and controlling access to information and create an intranet
and / or extranet too.

Creating an intranet and / or extranet thus giving staff,
suppliers etc secure, remote, 24/7 access to information has
been shown to increase turnover, reduce costs and improve
profits because the right data is communicated to the right
people at the right time.

After all what is an intranet or extranet other than a
restricted-access network that works like the Web, but isn't on
it?

An intranet and / or extranet enables a company to share its
resources with its employees, customers, suppliers etc without
confidential information being made available to everyone with
Internet access, it can share organization policies and
procedures, announcements or information about new products -
anything that can be held in electronic form.

What is a CMS?

So what is Content Management (CM) and what are Content
Management Systems (CMS)?

A CMS is a system used to manage the content of a Web site.
Typically, a CMS consists of two elements:

- Content Management Application (CMA)

- Content Delivery Application (CDA)

The CMA allows anyone without HTML skills to manage the
creation, modification, and removal of content from a Web site.
The CDA automatically uses and compiles that information to
update the Web site. The features of a CMS system vary, but
most include

Web publishing. Page templates and other aids help authors to
produce high quality pages and documents that can automatically
be reused and co-ordinated.

Format management. In many authors can publish automatically in
a format suitable for Web publishing such as HTML or PDF.

Version & revision control. Multiple authors can update files
and yet the changes traced to individuals for security
purposes.

Index, search & retrieval. For data to be valuable, it must be
relevant, accessible and timely. Web content being electronic
is easy to index search and retrieve.

CMS benefits

The benefits of a CMS can be dramatic; for example amongst
others:

- You are in control. No longer do you need your web designer
just to put on new pages. You can spend that money on mire
important things such as search engine optimization and pay per
click marketing.

- Customers can find what they need - you are in control so you
also can control the navigation so that it continues to make
sense as a site grows and changes. Design and layout is
templated properly so all pages fit your brand image.

- The site is kept up to date easily and therefore quickly.
Whether a price list, a product description or a photo needs
updating you don't have to rely on IT or your web designer;
just about anyone can do it.

- Version and revision control makes it easy to roll-back the
site or a document to the 'correct' version.

- Database driven - products, articles and news may all be
separate but CMS' have databases that can allow for
associations between various content elements on a site.

- Controlled access. You can control where files are and who
gets access to them. So content can be tailored to the specific
groups with different access such as staff, suppliers etc

- Approvals and authorities. Good CMS provide the ability for
content managers to approve and validate content before it goes
live. They can also control the time a content element goes
live, the day and time is it removed from the site, and the
locations on the site that the content element appears.

Specifying your CMS

You need to consider a number of factors when you decide to
invest in a CMS. They range from "corporate solutions" that
have everything and cost an arm and a leg to free 'Open Source'
tools you can set up and maintain yourself.

- Do a requirements specification. State your business needs
don't try to design the CMS. Do not get wrapped up in too much
detail, if you and an 'outsider' can understand it your
requirements specification is there.

- Do not expect a CMS to meet every single one of your
requirements perfectly, you'll never find one or spend huge
amounts of money on customization.

- Think about changing the way you work to match the way the
CMS does it. Many CMS have sensible, well-established workflow
systems. If you're working differently from most people perhaps
you should look at why that is.

- Consider your entire organization and all its systems
(infrastructure, other applications, range of your electronic
data, etc.) when you determine the requirements for your CMS.
It's not going to be working in isolation, so it ought not to
be defined in isolation.

- Don't buy what you don't need but do buy something that gives
you room to change and expand.

- Finalize your requirements. If you change requirements during
the project your chance of failure increases exponentially. You
can make changes, but understand that every change is going to
result in higher costs and a longer schedule.

Buying a CMS

So, now that you have a good idea of what you need what next?

- Ask friends, colleagues and a man in the pub what they think
might work?

- Check competitors. Find out what systems competitors use.

- Pick one with a pin. This might work, but it is difficult to
justify to your boss or bank manager.

- Hire a consultant. This can work. OR..... [more likely]

- Contact us on + 44 (0) 1 225 840 490 or ... if you have the
time ...

- DIY!

To DIY:

Start with a long list and compare offered solutions to your
requirements; remove the 90 percent you can see aren't going to
work by checking Web sites, reading reviews and using your
intuition.

Look at the remaining systems. Download product information
sheets and whatever else is available. Take a longer look at
how these systems' features compare to your requirements.

Contact potential suppliers. Sending them your requirements
specification and any other information you think might be
important. You need to be confident that the CMS will meet most
of your important needs. Ask for demos, in-house presentations,
or whatever it takes to be sure their solution meets your
requirements.

Check for government grants.

Just one minor caution, having CM and a CMS does not solve
everything overnight with no hassles. You also need training
staff and develop different processes and procedures for how
you handle web based content whether that be on the internet,
intranet or extranet.

But, once you have one, you will never look back.

About The Author: Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions
and has spent many years in senior direct and interactive
marketing roles. E-CRM [http://www.e-crm.co.uk ] is involved
in ECommerce and Emarketing and helps you to grow by getting
you more customers that stay with you longer. We provide
practical solutions that pay for themselves.

An SEO Tale

By: Scott Lindsay

Once upon a time, the search engines relied on META tags: keywords (especially keywords), titles and descriptions. There was no need to optimize a website, there was no need to hire professional content writers to create valuable web content, no one cared about keyword density on pages.

Once upon a time, being on the Web was not so costly. There was no such thing as "valid html"; no one tried to impress you with a Flash site. It was all simply the Web's Stone Age. Oh, the good old days! It used to be so easy to influence the search engines and get high placements in their result pages! And no one really cared about web standards, design techniques, or patterns. The prehistoric search engines were nothing more than word matching filters. All that, no longer than fifteen years ago!

From the very beginning of the search engine era, webmasters understood the importance of high rankings and some started using "black magic" approaches: keyword stuffing, doorway pages, adding text with the same color as the background and other unethical techniques.

Let's Talk Dinosaurs

The first search engines, now extinct, were Archie and Gopher. As a matter of fact they were not really search engines, but tools used to collect data from the web. For example Gopher was indexing text documents. A new Web era began with the birth of Wandex (now extinct) and Aliweb. Aliweb is really the Web's oldest search engine. However, neither Wandex, nor Aliweb influenced the Web as much as WebCrawler. This was the first full text crawler based search engine ever.

WebCrawler set the standards for the modern search engines. Since 1994 (the year WebCrawler was born) creating web content, search engine friendly websites and being number one in the search engine results, transformed the Internet.

Yahoo! and Google, the present Giants, are also very old: Yahoo was born in 1995 and Google one year later. As you see, it's not always the first born that takes over and leads the family business. Google and Yahoo have always been competing. While Yahoo! was more of a directory than a search engine, Google (once called "BackRub") based its rankings on link popularity to determine the importance of a website.

The Modern SEO Challenge

In 1994 it was easy to get good rankings in the search engine results. This could be done by simply submitting websites into web directories and search engines. Today however there is no such a thing as overnight success. Now the Web is all about challenge, competition, web analysis, web stats, search engine algorithms, online branding, online public relations, new media, blogging, getting the best SEO software, the best SEO tools, and much-much more. This is all for achieving web supremacy: high rankings in the SERPs.

GoTo.com introduced Pay Per Click in 1997 and is now called Overture. The technology had a simple idea: human edited search engine submissions. It worked because the results were definitely better than the automated process. GoTo.com started selling traffic, and other web Giants soon copied the PPC model: Google AdWords, Yahoo, etc.

Yes, things have changed over the past 15 years but with hard work and dedication, high search engine ranking can still be achieved.

About The Author:

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with http://www.HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com

SEO For Your Site Utilizing A Blog Effectively

By: George Christdodolou

Many people use Blogs as a way to advertise there site. Blogs are a great way to get links to your site as well as creating great easy to upload content that is seen by both people and search engines. So what steps can you take to make sure that you are keeping that blog up to date and including all your major key words?

The task of creating a blog that is easy to keep up and that effectively works to increase your sites standings with search engines can be very time consuming and difficult.

The most important aspect of the blog is the amount of posts you are writing. Make sure that you are not writing too often because you might be looked at as a spammer if you are using blogger or wordpress and they might close your account. To make sure that you are not spamming, just choose a time or 2 every day that you can choose to write in your blog. If you write in at a regular basis, you will have an advantage with search engines since they check sites at a regular basis.

Key words are another important part of writing in a blog. This is important because you can make the search engines think that your site is related to those key words. This is important because everyone knows that having your keywords in the articles that you write change your standings with search engines.

The next step is to make sure that you are pinging your blog. This is important for getting your site in front of peoples faces. It also allows your blog to be seen by search engines. The more links to your site the better. This is a major advantage if your blog is going to be on your site. It optimized the blog and allows people to see it in search engines increasing traffic to the blog. From your blog, visitors will then click on the link to the rest of the site.

Search engines can see how people move around your site and where your traffic is coming from when they consider your site.

There is a lot of work that has to do with blogs and I hope you are up to the task.

About The Author:

If You Are Having Trouble With SEO Or you Do Not Have The Time, Please Consider Our
http://internetbusiness-tips.com, And Our Blogging Service Which Are Both Part of One Service That Uses Tactics That Will Astound You.

Keywords - A Guide To Discover A Profitable Web Site Within You

By: Vishy Dadsetan

These series of articles address 33 ways you can use these keywords to the best of your advantage.

The use of keywords are ordered to begin with you and your interests, then your Web site html source codes and tags, then creating highly optimized Web page and targeted content for higher search engine ranking and ends with marketing of Web pages based on your keywords and phrases.

The first use of keywords that I have rarely seen done is to correlate your passions and expertise with marketable products, services and niche Web sites.

Let's begin there and in the future article address the other 32 uses of keywords and phrases.

* Single Most Important Web site Ingredient

What is the single most important ingredient of a successful Web site? Is it Web Design? Web content? Products and prices?

You cannot find the answer in any of those.

The answer is you. You bring life, vibrancy and success to your Web site and not the other way around. Show me any successful Web site and I will show you dozens of failures just like it with better design, more content and cheaper products.

What makes one Web site successful and an identical one a failure? It is the owner, her creativity, hard work, diligence and passion.

That is why the single most important contribution of keywords is to help you explore your experiences and discover your marketable niche.

When we hear that doctors and lawyers are making a ton of money, we don't pretend to be one, do we? Why not? Besides the legal issues, everyone knows it takes 6-10 years of intense study after high school and to become a doctor or a lawyer and don't forget the cost and competition.

Only after all this enormous expenditure of resources, these individuals will be able to help anyone with their health or legal matters. Sometimes even years of training is not enough if the fire of healing is not burning in a doctor's heart or thirst for justice in not in a lawyer's mind. I have to admit that today's society has changed drastically from Dr. Marcus Welby to Nip/Tuck. As a consumer which type of doctor do you prefer?

Keep your answer in mind when you read the next segment.

When it comes to the Internet, as soon as a catchy advertising is shown or a persuasive email is received with couple of snap shots of huge income earned, many jump aboard. They start a Web site and begin the attempt of selling these "wonderful" products or services they really know nothing about.

Their Web sites reflect this lack of knowledge and passion. Consumers deserve our best if we want them as our clients. And with the tremendous exposure they have to thousands of Web sites they are highly educated in what they want. But they are also overwhelmed and they are looking for something that stands out.

We as Web site owners need to understand the same challenges that a brick and mortar business faces and a large part of that is understanding consumers and really taking care of them. If we don't, we are left with the question of what went wrong? Where are the fortunes promised?

Nothing went wrong and the fortunes are there. The harsh reality is that in most cases we chose the products and services to sell without a single thought to our qualification to sell them or our passion to sustain our efforts to make a Web site a success.

*Use Keywords To Qualify Yourself And Serve Your Customers

Let's go back to the role of Keywords in this process.

I believe you should begin by qualifying yourself, discover your expertise and uncover your marketable experiences. The process takes a little time but it is fairly simple and it will serve you as the unique corner stone of your success, which no one else can imitate. This is about finding your path, your keyword and your niche.

To begin, write down your educational experience, your hobbies and most important what you are passionate about.

Then, write down what you have done in the last ten years.

Can you condense what you have done in each of the last ten years in one line? This is not to diminish the value of each year but it is to crystallize the lessons learned.

One line for each year for a total of ten lines. Then take the first line and write down what you had done each month, one line per month for a total of twelve months. Don't worry if you don't remember every little detail. You want to keep it general.

Remember that you are not writing a resume and you are not trying to convince anyone that what you had done is valuable. You as a spiritual being, have an intrinsic value beyond your activities and relationships. This is a process of self-exploration to look at the past and find seeds of success that lay there dormant.

Once the list is done, expand each line to include details of the experience. You will soon find out you have expertise in so many areas you did not even think about. Most people tend to neglect their expertise in an area simply because they have done it so long that it is second nature to them and they do not put value on it.

To help you get started let me give you an example from my own list a few years ago.

Short Version - November 2003 - Replaced the old lawn.

Expanded Version - I live on about an acre of land and this process, replacing the old lawn, took about a month and I hired five people to do the job. My main function was research, since by nature, I needed to know how things worked and I wanted to make sure that I received high quality workmanship.

Over the course of the month, I spent over 40 hours in hands-on training. Many people don't know that a regular college course on a quarterly system is ten weeks and three hours per week for a total of 30 hours and it is not hands-on. Remember that anytime you complete a project that requires more than 40 hours to complete, it is equivalent to taking a college course.

For me, definition of a project is something that you plan, research, act upon and complete.

By the time we were done, I had both more knowledge and practical experience than most people about soil condition, types of lawn, self repairing lawn, over-seeding lawns, the proper irrigation distance, correct drop angle for drainage, trenching equipment, lawn lighting and a dozen other things.

Now that I had my "one liners", let's look at the words I used to describe the action. In this case the most common word was "lawn." So I check the demand for that keyword and this is what I found.

The marketable demand for many of these items is huge. For example, just the keyword lawn has the following consumer keywords and related demands, 27467 lawn care, 4709 lawn ornament, 4456 lawn equipment, 3685 Christmas decoration lawn, 3455 lawn maintenance, 2488 lawn sprinkler, 2046 lawn decoration, 1583 lawn fertilizer, 1372 lawn aerator, 1000 lawn mowing, 952 lawn sprinkler system, 757 lawn irrigation, 666 lawn roller.

Now, because of my personal experience, I could provide real help and practical advice for most people with their problems in many of these areas and I have for my friends. I could write content, start a blog, point to solutions and products. In simple terms, I am now partially qualified to sell products related to the above terms. But by the same token, I still don't know anything about lawn mowers, or lawn tractors and I am not qualified to offer advice about these.

When looking at keywords, I ask myself, am I really qualified to help anyone by giving them advise about lawn tractors or lawn mowers. If the answer is no, then I move to the next keyword or if I am passionate about it I spend the time to acquire the expertise.

* No Heart - No Web site

Will I now rush to create a lawn Web site? Of course not. That is not my passion. I am not even remotely interested in the subject. I may at some point write an article about Bermuda grass and lawn fungus that has cost me more money and effort than any other thing related to lawns. I just mentioned this so that you know each experience has a tangible marketable value if you really look at it.

When you plan to spend a few hours a day on a Web site, you should do something that you are passionate about. I emphasize passion because expertise can be obtained but passion has to be there.

Above was an example of what is possible when you can really look at one experience from a marketing point of view and I hope it can help you crystallize the past and begin harvesting the fruits that it has brought you.

When I look at my list, writing in all its variations is a huge part of my activities. Every month I spend money on books to read, books on how to write, books on grammar, dictation, origin of words. Writing and writing related activities occupy a third of my daily activities and of course it shows up on every list I make for every month of the year going back more years than I like to count.

Now, if you were me and had to choose between a Web site that has to do with lawns and a Web site that has to do with writing, which will you start?

Alas, I am still far from the writer I want to be so I do not even pretend to be a writer or give advice on it. Instead I use my passion for writing to create content for Web sites. I have found my niche and I hope these ideas can help you find your niche as well.

I want to leave you with a quote from Malcolm S. Forbes who once said, "The biggest mistake people make in life is not making a living at doing what they most enjoy."

To see real life examples on how others have turned their passion into profitable Internet business, check out http://www.askdomain.com/web-hosting/business-web-hosting.html

About The Author: For additional information visit:
http://www.just-search-engines.com,
http://www.just-web-marketing.com, and
http://www.askdomain.com.

4 Strategies To Help You To Make Money From Your Website

By: Trey Pennewell

People always seem to be looking for new ways to make money online. There is nothing wrong with being innovative and trying new methods to make money online. The problem comes up when people, seeking new methods, forget to pay attention to the proven methods of making money online.

What has worked in the past for successful webmasters is still working today, and will likely continue to work into the foreseeable future. There are 4 primary areas that a webmaster must focus on to be successful. These four areas are important regardless of the type of website you run or the product or service that you sell.

Conversions

Conversions are critical. You can get a million visitors to your site, but that means nothing if none of them make a purchase at your site. Conversions are calculated as the percentage of people that make a purchase at your site, compared to the number of total visitors.

The higher your conversion rate, the less traffic that you need to your site. Many webmasters struggle with getting that all-important traffic to their site. So instead of exclusively chasing traffic, also work on increasing the amount of traffic that you can convert into sales. There are a number of ways that you can do this with your online business.

Many webmasters understand that having a compelling sales letter, or sales pitch, is crucial. If you do not have the best possible sales letter, then you are losing potential customers. If you do not feel comfortable writing your own sales letter, consider hiring a copywriter to do it for you. You could also ask the copywriter to develop a few sales letters for your business, and you can do a comparitive analysis to see which ones bring the best conversion results for your business.

You can also improve your conversion ratio by paying attention to the layout of your web pages. There are a lot of different opinions on the best layouts for selling your products or services. For me there are a couple of easy ways to determine web page layouts.

The first thing that I consider is what I like and dislike about other websites. Is it hard to find the product on the page? Is the price hidden? Is a description of the product easy to find? Is the ordering information easy to find?

The other factor that I look at is what successful webmasters before me have done with their layout. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Instead of spending weeks trying to develop my own perfect layout, I will start with a template similar to those that are known for making high conversions.

Linking For Traffic

Now that we have covered conversions, we can talk about linking for traffic. While your conversions may be very good, it will never be 100%. So what this means is that the more of that precious traffic you get (at whatever conversion rate you are getting) will result in more sales and more money. It is known that the more links you have to your website, the more traffic that you will get. The links to your site are critical in driving traffic.

First of all, people click those links. I value a link from a high traffic website as much or more than a link from a high PageRank site, because actual humans are likely to be clicking the link to my website. I also place a very high value on having articles published in ezines and newsletters, because it always results in a nice boost in my website's traffic. The amount of traffic that comes as a result of having an article published in an ezine or newsletter will of course vary depending on the number of subscribers on the list.

A certain percentage of readers will always click the links that I have in a webpage or an ezine. And, a certain percentage of those who visit my website will convert to sales. Having my link appear in some ezines or newsletters can literally translate to thousands or tens of thousands of visitors to my website in a single day!

If you utilize article distributions, you can often get your articles published on a variety of websites and ezines. These articles will have your link in the author box, and you will also have the opportunity to discuss your web site and the products or services that you offer in your author box. This being said, the more effort you put into writing a good article and author box, the more likely you are to get some traffic as a result.

Linking Popularity

Building links for search engine placement purposes is just as important as linking for traffic. The more relevant back links that you have coming into your site, the higher your website will rank in the major search engines for your keywords. Back links are one of the best ways that you can get your online business to rank near the top of the search engines for your niche.

Be sure to use an anchor text on those links that is the same or similar to the keywords that you are targeting. Also, try to get those back links from relevant sites as much as possible. By this, I mean try to get those links from sites and webpages that have something in common with your site. A link from a webpage about bird watching will have little in common with your website about automobiles.

To illustrate the importance of back links, look at Digg.com (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3ahttp%3a%2f%2fdigg%2ecom). They have a whopping 131,000 back links, which is why they are one of the most popular social book marking sites on the Internet.

Link Baiting

Link baiting is a great way to get those important back links, both for traffic and for link popularity. But, what is link baiting? It is when you have something so interesting / amusing / informative / useful that people will want to link to you, without you asking them to do so. Having something on your site that people will blog about, tell their friends about, or to send emails to their contacts about, is what constitutes link baiting. Your bait is so powerful that the fish will basically jump into the boat, without you ever needing to ask!

What kind of things work as link bait? This will depend a lot on the audience that you are trying to reach. In the SEO world, good link bait is placing free webmaster tools on your site. This means that people will bookmark the site; refer to it on forums, and possibly blog about what they learned by using your free webmaster tools.

If you are able to grow a reputation among your niche market as an expert, people will cite you and your website because of the quality information that you offer. If you run a humor site, people will forward the URL to their friends and tell them to check out a certain page.

Link baiting is also why the social book marking is exploding in popularity. If you have an article that gets onto the front page of Digg.com via link baiting, you will have an explosion in traffic. The same can be said for all of the major social bookmarking sites.

Link baiting is all about offering something unique that people will want to tell their friends about and that they will want to talk about. Spend some serious time thinking about what you can offer to your customer base that will result in successful link baiting for your website.

In Conclusion...

If you spend your time focusing on these 4 ways to make money with your online business, you are sure to be well ahead of most of your competitors. Optimize your site for conversions, build links for traffic, create links for popularity, and dangle some link bait for others to share, and you will find your customer base beginning to grow, and you will see your sales will start to improve.

About the Author:

Trey Pennewell and his team specialize in the design and implementation of linking strategies to help their online business clients improve their inbound link building efforts. LinksAndTraffic.com, owned by Bill Platt, works with their clients to determine what keyword phrases they should target to bring targeted prospects and search traffic to their client's website. Then Trey and Bill work closely together to bring the link building plan to fruition. Reach Bill at 405-780-7327, 9am-6pm, Mon-Fri, or visit http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

See Your Website Through Your Visitor's Eyes

By: Kim Roach

Every time a visitor comes to your site, they take a particular path. Their eyes move in quick motion, hopping from one hotspot to the next. If you don't know how your visitors are traveling, your conversion rates will suffer dramatically. Fortunately, there is a company who has performed in-depth testing for you, revealing t