Advanced Link Checks

By James Mahony

You should be able to find several indispensable facts about SEO in the following paragraphs. If there's at least one fact you didn't know before, imagine the difference it might make.

View the source of each and every page: is there JavaScript and CSS on the page? Remember that spiders may not index pages that have more than 10k or so of JavaScript or CSS embedded in them. Spiders don't enjoy getting tangled up in JavaScript. So as a general rule you should avoid putting out prompts and alerts using JavaScript every time that a page loads. Because of this rule, it is also wise to avoid link partners who do so on the pages that they link to you from. If anything looks fishy, it probably is.

CSS won't give you many problems. If you are going to use CSS, it is best to link to it from another source. Create a separate CSS page and use the tag to work it into the head of your HTML. This method will keep your file size down considerably, and since you will probably be using the same CSS on several pages, decrease your bandwidth usage. Normally a large quantity of CSS within the document isn't indicative of any suspicious behavior on the part of the linker. If you feel that you are, indeed, suffering from the fact that the site uses such an excessive proportion of CSS on the page itself, suggest to the webmaster that he/she may want to create an external CSS document and link to it in his/her header.

Check that you're still on the domain you clicked on a link to, and you haven't moved to another site or a subdomain. Some people will move you to another domain while telling that's their site and your link is there, relying on you not checking the address bar. This trick is all too common and happens to folks who are new to SEO every single day. This sad fact will continue until people begin to catch it every time.

If you don't have accurate details regarding SEO, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don't let that happen: keep reading.

If the domain has changed, delete your backlink to the site in question immediately and then email the webmaster with your complaint. If the webmaster does not fix the problem you may
even want to request that they remove the link as the site may wind up discredited as a link farm or some such thing that you do not want to be associated with for fear of being banned from many popular search engines with technology used to combat link farms.

On a related subject, when you check your back links, make sure that these links appear in legitimate places. If the site is completely dedicated to linking to other sites and doesn't seem to be a directory or something similar you will want to get your link removed as soon as possible. There is no time when one link is worth the risk of being permanently banned from any popular search engine. Aside from the traffic that you will lose from that one search engine, you may wind up "red flagged" so to speak. It seems to be common practice among search engines that
if one finds faulty activity the rest seem to find out soon afterwards.

Overall, if it seems dodgy, leave it alone. It's better to sacrifice one link in caution than to destroy your site's rankings by accepting one you're not sure of. There are hundreds of situations aside from link farms that can and will give you trouble. It would be impossible to list every scam as there are people who make their living (or seem to anyway) in creating and executing these scams. Whenever there is a new form of "SEO" technology that "can't fail," you should watch out because it is almost guaranteed to blow up in your face. The only truly powerful and guaranteed method of SEO is to make your site valuable to your visitors and then let it fall where it may in the realm of the search engine.

It is difficult, after you have optimized your pages and submitted them to search engines and directories, to sit back and wait, but there is not much that can be done aside from attempting to accumulate links from good, solid places. The work that you have done is bound to pay off sooner or later as long as you stay honest. When it comes to the world of SEO, honesty is, indeed, the best policy.

When word gets around about your command of SEO facts, others who need to know about SEO will start to actively seek you out.

About The Author:

James Mahony is the founder of http://www.searchmama.com - A site dedicated to Search Engine Optimization SEO Tips http://www.thedomaintycoons.com
http://www.articlesforwebsitecontent.com

Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us

By Nowshade Kabir

When you have launched your website, whether it is an eCommerce store or a corporate promotional site, you must have set certain goals regarding the quantity of traffic you are expecting to have on your site. If you did not pursue your goal with specific web promotional marketing strategies, chances are there you are not very happy with the results you have achieved so far. Although, there are numerous web promotional methods available to your
disposal, optimization of your webpages for search engines is the uncontested leader in this field. If you sell products or services through your website, it is even more so for you. Consider this. Out of various possibilities which include: going to a shop, calling a shop, etc. the prospective buyer decided to search for the product online. Then he or she used certain key-phrase to make a query on a search engine and then among other sites, he or she chose yours to click in. As a seller this is the kind of visitors you need for your site! Search engines have more than twice the e-commerce conversion rate of other traffic acquisition sources. You can get these results for your site with the help of search engine optimization.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is a set of actions carried out with a webpage to improve visibility of that webpage in search engines. The goal is to ensure top places in the search engine results for a specific query.

How important are the search engines? Data show 81 percent of Internet users find the sites they're looking for through search engines. Over 57% of Internet users search the Internet everyday. Up to 500 Million searches take place in a day. 55% of all Internet purchases originate at a search engine as oppose to 9 percent from banners. These statistics are pretty convincing, but surprisingly, according to StatMarket.com only 7 percent of websites are visible by search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can really bring amazing results. Our page http://trade-leads.rusbiz.com recently started to show on the first page of Google for the search phrase "trade leads". Within the last month we have noticed almost 30 percent increase of traffic to this page which is pretty much inline with the available statistics. If your optimization efforts started to bear fruits and you ended up on the second or third page of Google search, you can expect a dramatic increase of almost 5 times more traffic than before and after two months it can be over 9 times! An upward move from 2nd and 3rd pages to the much coveted first page will bring an increase of around 30 percent. Along with the traffic the conversion rate - the quantity of actual purchases - also goes up significantly.

Your position within the first page also makes a lot of difference. The top positioned web page in the sponsored - paid advertisement - receives 50 percent of all clicks and first three top ranked web pages garner 60 percent of all clicks.

Once you have decided to go for search engine optimization, your next step is to figure out for which search engine you should work on optimizing your site. After all there are so many search engines out there!

If you look at the latest statistics available for the month of November, 2005 compiled by Nielsen/NetRatings it, probably, won't be any surprise to you that Google at present has the most search market share. There were 5.1 billion searches done in November. Out of 60 search engines monitored, Google had a share of 46.3 percent,Yahoo - 23.4 percent, MSN - 11.4 percent, AOL - 6.9 percent, Ask Jeeves with its other affiliations MyWay, Teoma, Iwon and search sites of Excite Network has a combined share of around 6 percent, etc. This clearly shows that Google is the undisputed leader among search engines at this moment. That's why in your quest of getting more traffic to your site, you have to emphasize on Google. Other key indicators which favor Google as well are:

. Google is most favored by business people - 82.9 percent of all business users make their queries through Google.

. The Google users are more educated. They are more likely to have a college degree.

. The Google users are from higher income groups.

As mentioned earlier search engine optimization is a set of actions that you have to take regarding your web pages. Here are the key steps of the process:

Select keywords for search engine ranking
1. Make a list of keywords that you think buyers might use to search for products and services you sell.
2. Use a Thesaurus to check synonyms of the words and phrases that you have chosen. You may come up with additional keywords.
3. Eliminate all single words from the list!
4. Go to several of your competitors' websites and check out what keywords they are focusing on by viewing the HTML source of the pages.
5. Now go to Yahoo! pay per click search marketing site Overture, which has an excellent keyword selection tool. Google also has a similar tool located at
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox.
6. Get the search phrases or terms that are popular enough and fall into your criteria from above mentioned lists.
7. Check where you stand with these keywords or key phrases in main search engines. Find the needed tool for this here. http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm.
8. Now try to find whether you should use your keyword in singular or plural, or which one of the two similar search terms or phrases are more desirable by going to the following page:
http://www.onfocus.com/googlesmack/down.asp. Remember, studies show that conversion rate for plural words are in general higher than singular!
9. Now that you have a number of keywords, cluster two to three of them for one single page. Remember, every page of your site should be built surrounding one single theme and focused on
maximum two to three keywords.

Optimize the pages for keywords

Place keywords in Title tag, Meta description, Alt tags, Heading tags, Comment tags. Here is an example:

<title>Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us</title>
<meta name="description" content="Article about search engine ranking at ezine.rusbiz.com">
<meta name="keywords" content="search engine ranking, optimizing web pages for keywords, SEO steps">
<meta name="author" content="Nowshade Kabir">
<meta name="copyright" content="Nowshade Kabir">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Create content

Now develop informative content using these keywords. Use your key words in headlines and alt tag of the pictures. Make sure that you don't over do it! If you stuff keywords more than
necessary for a normal text, search engines can ban your site for keyword spamming. Here is a tool for checking density of keywords on a page: http://www.gorank.com/seotools/. Maximum
preferable density is 3-5 percent.

Submit to search tools

Effective promotion of a website starts with submission of the site to various search tools available on the Internet. There are two different types of search tools - search engines and
directories. Search engines index their listings based on the information retrieved by their spiders which crawl through the hyper links constantly looking for new websites. The directory
listings are compiled by human editors from the URLs submitted to the directory. If your website is listed in the directories you can be sure that the spiders of different search engines
sooner or later will index your site. That's why you should start submitting your website to the directories. The major directories are GMOZ, Yahoo!, LookSmart, etc.

Link popularity

The quantity of links in different websites pointing to your sites is called link popularity of your website. The more popular is your site the more links you get from other websites and vice
versa. Link popularity is one of the key factors that search engines consider in their search algorithm while indexing a website. What would be the rank of a website in a search result
depends on its link popularity in a very big way. Work on getting as many backward links as possible, preferably from the web pages with higher page ranking than yours.

Track ranking

Search engine optimization requires constant monitoring and updating. Don't forget that the competitors are working relentlessly on achieving high positions. The search algorithms are also constantly changing and improving. That's why every now and then you should check out how your site is doing.

Track traffic

If your work started to bring good results and you are getting more traffic, but the visitors are not taking expected actions, this means, you probably have selected wrong keywords. Start all
over again with keywords analysis.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing web pages for natural or organic - as they are also called - searches. Once you are certain that you have done everything possible to
achieve maximum results in this sphere, you should consider pay per click marketing with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Effective web promotion requires a combination of both of these two search engine marketing strategies.

About the author:

Nowshade Kabir is the CEO of Rusbiz.com, a global B2B Portal, which helps companies build web store, buy and sell products and services using eMarketplace, eCatalog and other features. Rusbiz also offers website development packages: http://www.rusbiz.com/design_package.html

Where Are Your Articles Being Published?

By Bill Platt

There are a few article directory software programs in the marketplace. Some are great, some are good, and some stink to high heaven, for the writer and for the website owners.

In an ideal world, all article management software would be easy- to-use for the webmaster. Also in an ideal world, the submission process would be fast and easy for the writer. But, this is not an ideal world.

In today's article hungry marketplace, there are literally hundreds of websites where you can submit your articles.

Three Types of Article Directories

There are three kinds of article directories:

* Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reprint
* Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reading
* Article Directories Inside of a Website, with Articles Available for Reading

With these different kinds of directories, you will find different categories of webmasters. This distinction is more important than you think.

* Corporate Owners
* Independent Online Business Webmasters
* Hobbyist Webmasters

Personally, I own two article directories. One has nearly 2500 articles in it, and the other has nearly 5000 articles in it.

Both of mine are of the first type, Stand-Alone Directories of Articles Available for Reprint. But, I am not a corporate owner.
I am an independent online business webmaster.

The reason why the type of owner is important is that the type of owner will determine where your articles will be published today AND tomorrow.

Corporate owners have a bottomless supply of web server space available to them. In the corporate category, these directories are the most important:

* http://www.ezinearticles.com/

* http://www.goarticles.com/

* http://www.ideamarketers.com/

* http://www.uniterra.com/

Directory Owner Budgets

Most new article directory owners have a small budget for web hosting, and therefore, they have a limited amount of web server hard drive space.

Most of these new directory owners have jumped into their website with both feet hoping to cash in on their Google Adsense revenue.

After a few months, the truth will crash them into the wall.

On http://www.articles4reprint.com/, I have more than 4500 articles live. I have another 1000 articles pending my approval. Generally, it takes 30 seconds to approve one article. So, the
articles currently pending on this site will require an investment of another 8.5 hours to bring up-to-date. One day a couple of weeks back, I spent 19 straight hours approving articles on this site. I am not going to stop taking submissions to this article directory site, but it does require a lot of my time to maintain.

Perhaps I am exceptional. I will spend the hours required to approve articles, but will the next person?

I started this site with a basic account. I have had to upgrade my web hosting package three times to be able to continue accepting articles to the site. Will the next person make this kind of commitment?

The payoff for operating a website like this one is the Adsense revenue developed from hosting such a wide range of content on the website. In the case of the http://www.articles4reprint.com/
website, I am currently generating only $40 per month on my Adsense account. Will the next person consider this a fair trade of time for money? Likely not.

I Know This Is My Business, But Don't Take My Word For It

At various times, I submit articles to various directories. The distinction of "at various times" is actually important. Websites that were accepting direct submissions from me six months ago are no longer accepting submissions from anyone.

Writers want to believe that they can just crank out hundreds of articles, generating hundreds of links back to their websites. Sometimes they can, and at other times, they cannot.

It comes down to this. Every website where I submit articles has a human moderator at the other end of the transaction, and they have the right to choose what materials they will use and what materials they will not use. Each webmaster can also consider whether the time required for the approval process will help their bottom line.

These big article directories no longer accept articles from anyone. Also shown is the last date an article was added to the site.

* http://www.article-emporium.com/ - December 2005
* http://www.articletime.com/ - December 2005
* http://www.learnthis.info/ - August 2005
* http://www.family-content.com/ - May 2005
* http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ - April 2003

Many smaller directories have also stopped taking articles. In most cases, the websites show that they accept articles, but you never realize that they are not printing your articles until you
look or until you hit the Submit button on the Submission Form. Or, you can continue submitting to them, never realizing that you are wasting your time, until you go to search the website for your articles.

http://www.articlefinders.com/ says that they have a monster backlog and they are not taking new articles until they get caught up.

http://www.marketingtroll.co.uk/ seems to indicate that they are still accepting articles, but they have not published a new article since May of 2005.

Folks, I could go on forever. I could literally show you hundreds of directories that seem to be accepting articles, but they have not published any new articles in months or years.

Generally, Mailing Lists on the Major List Servers Deliver Better Results

Article distribution email groups on Yahoo and Google generally provide good results, but they fall into disuse almost as frequently as web article directories.

Here, I will show the subscriber count of the Article Distribution Group, the last time an article was published through the list, and the URL for the list.

1003 - September 2003 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublisher/
560 - September 2001 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish
2002 - December 2000 -

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives
752 - June 2005 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreeWrites
474 - December 2000 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Article-Depot
465 - August 2003 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WriteQualityContent

The following article distribution group is active, but there is no moderator to review your posts:

1390 - June 2005 -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReprintArticles-Paradise

(the only people who can submit to this list are those who were not moderated at the time the list owner disappeared.)

In Conclusion...

If you are distributing your own articles to a house list, check back from time to time to make sure that they are actually using your articles. Always verify your results. Don't waste your time
submitting articles to people who will not even look at your articles.

About The Author :

Bill Platt is the owner of http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl

Get Traffic Jams With Referral Links On Your Website

By Anton Cheranev

Are you running an Internet business and looking for a way to boost the traffic to your website? Would you like to increase your opt-in subscribers, get more referrals, quality leads and receive valuable feedback? Well you can, through the fastest growing marketing tool available - referral links. Referral links may cause traffic jams on your website, but in a good way. Internet businesses need website traffic in order to be successful. The more referral links to your website, the more visitors stop in to look around. The math is simple. Referral links plus visitors equal purchase and profits.

According to a recent online study, over 50% of Internet users have visited websites through referral links. Referral links can bring the best website traffic jams when the referral is coming from a reliable source and can mean a world of difference when it comes to converting a website visitor to a customer. The whole purpose to having referral links is to drive visitors to your website and encourage them to stay long enough to see what products or services you have to offer them.Then it is up to you to convert that visitor into a valued customer.

Most business owners greatly depend on their website to generate a substantial part of their income. Some website business owners depend on the success of their website to supplement their income while some depend on their website for their entire income, whether it is making direct sales or by generating leads to spread interest in your website's services or products. As with many website businesses, visitors are more likely to zip through your website without reading your site or making any purchases. This happens most often when the website has no eye-catching images or information. This is a common problem among website business owners and can be very frustrating. So, the million-dollar question is this - How do you turn your visitors into customers? The answer to this question can have a tremendous affect on the success of your business website.

Turning your website visitors into customers is a "Conversion." When someone visits your website and does not provide any realbenefit, such as making a purchase, inquiry, or subscribing toyour newsletter or any other effects that may become a sales lead. You must convert these visitors into customers by offering them exceptional deals or incentives. Simply put, you must make them an offer they cannot refuse. After all, you have invested a great deal of time and money into getting your website up and running. Now you must invest the time and effort into getting your target audience to visit your website and opt-in to receive future specials and updates. You must think of every visitor as being a potential customer, it's up to you to convert them, drive them in, and keep them coming back.

Website business owners often measure their success in terms of conversions, not just increased website traffic. Converting a visitor into a customer that makes a purchase of products or services will create a profit. Businesses need to create profits in order to survive or else there would be no business. More customers are more relevant to business websites than mere
visitors are, although visitors may eventually become a customer. Not only should you, as a website owner, focus on driving more people to your website, but also you need to focus on getting the right people in there. You need to find your target audience and go after them with everything you have. Lure them to your website by showing them that you have what they are looking for, what they need.

You want those potential customers who will likely become sales leads and create a profit so you can have a great Return on Investment (ROI) for all your money, time and effort you have
invested into creating your website. This is why providing referral links on your website is so important. As a business website owner, you need to generate your own traffic and promote your website business to the best of your ability. Although referral links may only account for a small portion of website traffic, they do have a big conversion rate and they are a very wise investment of your time.

About The Author:

Don't pay a dime for any ebook, marketing course or software program until you've read this
groundbreaking document... Get everything you need to make money online including over 30 time-saving, profit-producing, influence-expanding tools and software programs absolutely *FREE*... Check Out :
http://www.myinstanthomebusiness.com/dotcomology.html

How To Take The Pain Out Of Publishing Your Ezine

By Silvia Hartmann

99% of all ezines are not "being a reporter" on current events; that is the first and most important thing to understand.

This means that you don't have to be publishing your ezine one day before the "deadline" of when you've decided you'll be sending it out, and going into a great tizzy over the whole thing.

Most ezines are highly topical and related to a business, a market or futher products and services of one kind or the other, and their function is to keep customers in touch, as well as to convert interested parties into customers.

This gives you a constantly "rolling" audience of old hands and newbies, and an ebb and flow of subscribers and unsubscribers.

There are certain evergreen topics in any context that you can always write about, and write about over and over again, from many different angles, and it will always be interesting and well received.

This is the key to successful ezine publishing.

It's not so much about "news", but about enjoyable content - and that can be as old as the hills, including a 2000 year old quote from a Roman senator; if it is interesting to your target audience, it is applicable, and it can become an ezine article.

With that understood, the production of an ezine can change, and it can become far more manageable.

Tip 1: Prepare a number of issues in advance so you have at least 3-6 in hand and ready to go, all the time. That's what columnists do so they don't go mad and explode from the stress of constantly trying to beat deadlines.

Tip 2: An ezine does NOT need more than ONE GOOD ARTICLE, tip, suggestion etc. In this day and age, people do not sit around with email as though it was the Times Magazine. Too long and too much content, and they'll put it aside for later, and later never comes as you well know with your own email.

Tip 3: As you're the publisher, you can have a flexible schedule. Base your ezine on something manageable, weekly, bi-monthly, but be flexible within this to suit yourself and take things like public holidays, major events in your market like the SuperBowl or the Olympics into consideration.

Tip 4: You can have a "news space" in your ezine which you can fill with news, or leave blank and just send out the prepared column you have already waiting to go. You don't always have to
have some amazing news item in every newsletter, that's way too stressful (and probably even too much for your audience!)

Tip 5: Make it as easy for yourself as possible! Don't go mad over mail merging or complicated html formatting if it's a challenge - it isn't necessary. There are people having fantastically successful newslists and ezines who stalwardly send in plain text, without any bells and whistles, but the content is good and it's appreciated all around.

Tip 6: Remember your floating audience and go back to basics every third newsletter. Advanced subscribers never mind going over the basics again, and it's essential for the new subscribers. So this may be YOUR ezine No. 266, but how many people were even there for the first 100?

Tip 7: If you are planning to have a commercial newsletter that carries advertisements, include advertisements right from the start and as a matter of course. It is the easiest thing to add a short advertisement for a book on http://amazon.com/ with your own affiliate link in the "ad space section", even if you have only 3 subscribers at present. Then, it is there, and later, when you have 3 million subscribers, you can rent out a space that already exists without disturbing your recipients or changing the format.

Tip 8: On that topic, pick a format and stick with it. That makes it MUCH easier to prepare and send newsletters on a regular basis and takes the stress right out of it. Something like: Personal greeting - Advert - Article - News - Advert, for example. That way, you just need to fill in each one and that's easy. Customers also LIKE a format they can trust and it relieves THEIR stress, just the same.

To sum up: Make it easy for yourself with pre-prepared, ready to go, ready formatted ezines that just need a "season's greeting" or a short topical comment to make them right up to date. Have a number of them in hand so you can take a holiday when you want to; keep it short and sweet and stick to a simple formula.

That's what the professionals do and if you do the same, you'll find having a top quality, interesting email newsletter or ezine that goes out on time, a breeze.

(c) Silvia Hartmann 2006

About The Author:

Silvia Hartmann is the author of MindMillion
and the creator of the amazing 60 Second Wealth Booster series
to increase intelligence, reduce stress and exercise the
wealthy brain. You can take part for FREE at
http://MindMillion.com/60/

15 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

By David Riewe

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to "Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts" by http://TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google's Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google's Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like "I agree." Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder "who wrote this?"

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted across the web. Sites like http://Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or "tags" that everyone interested in that tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog!

About The Author:

David Riewe - Internet Marketer and Publisher
http://www.free-online-course.com

Article Directory, Anyone?

By Gina Capatar

Yes, it's the hype of the century; everywhere you turn you'll see and hear of article directories sprouting like mushrooms. There's practically a new article directory site being introduced in the World Wide Web almost every second.

It is probably because of the usefulness of these kinds of sites to the general public, to the webmaster and to people/products needing exposure. An article directory has it all!

Talk about having free resource on almost any topic imaginable. Article directories hoard articles ranging from DIY's, Xbox launches, inspirational quotes, love and relationships advice, beauty tips, iPod's latest, personality quizzes, legal guidance, resource on divorce, gay and lesbian concerns and even on the extremes, issues concerning terrorism. It's like having a wiki of what everyone knows and thinks of.

The usefulness of article directories to the general public is outdone by its worth to a marketer. An article directory is a free and an inexpensive way for an internet marketer to promote his/her product or service by just writing helpful and useful articles and making use of the resource box to promote his/her goods. It can be done by any marketer in just a matter of hours or minutes for some. You don't have to be a whiz at writing, all you have to do is share what you know and that'll be effective enough. A word of caution though, don't waste your time writing Press Releases because your chance of reprint is 0-0.1%. Article directories don't like them and worst, readers of articles hate them.

What about the value of article directories to the people who own them, a.k.a the webmasters? Why are webmasters opting to shift from their usual projects to create an article directory?Simple! Article directories exemplify the best kind of website that Search Engines love the most. Article directories are teeming with fresh content everyday, and they are constantly updated. Not to mention, the keywords crammed into each article are simply divine especially when you are affiliated with Google Adsense. There is no other kind of website that can par with having an article directory.

I have seen and watched the ever increasing popularity of article directories; there was a time when there were just about 20 or 30 article directories found on the internet. Before, only a few took the time to diligently pursue the creation of these directories and only a few were brave enough to pay for hosting and domain services just to become repositories of what people have written about. They were among the first to recognize the benefits and advantages of having an article directory.

Among the first article directories were:

Ezinearticles.com
iSnare.com
GoArticles.com
ArticleCity.com

By now, most likely, they are handling hundreds or thousands of articles submitted everyday and reaping the rewards of being the firsts in the most promising field of article directories.

With all these and probably more, I'll say, "Article Directories, anyone?"

About The Author:

Gina Marie Capatar owns an article directory site containing articles for women http://allwomencentral.com. She has also been a part of http://www.isnare.com where she got ideas to build her own article directory.

How To Use Web Directories To Boost Traffic To Your Site

By Robert Burko

You just got your website online. Everything is setup and you're ready to go. Excitement is high and the time has come to open your virtual doors to the millions and millions of Internet users around the globe. You put out the cyber welcome mat and declare your site ready for action. But, instead of sitting and watching the users trample over one another to get to your site, you see little to no traffic.

Don't worry! This is something every webmaster goes through and is to be expected. (Well, webmasters in the late 90's expected to launch their site and be millionaires the next morning, but times have changed since those wonderful days!)

But there are some quick and easy things you can do to begin building your 'link network,' which will ultimately help drive traffic to your site. Since the Internet's conception, the notion has been that sites link to one another, while web surfers click from place to place. Thus, the challenge begins: Get your site linked to as many others as possible.

You can start contacting other websites offering to trade links (but be prepared to invest a lot of time); you can buy links (but be prepared to fork out some cash); you can join link-trading programs (but be prepared to get a lot of irrelevant sites linking to you); or you can start submitting your website to web directories.

What Is A Web Directory?
A web directory is a compilation of sites organized by category or topic. Most web directories have multiple levels of categories, progressing from general to highly specific. In addition, a web directory editor will likely have to approve your site, lending it at a certain degree of credibility. Being listed in a directory ensures that if a web surfer finds their way into a specific category, they don't just see your competitors, they see you! And, if they can see your link, they can click it, producing traffic to your site.

A Web Directory Listing Helps with SEO
If you have a website, you undoubtedly know the importance of ranking well in Google and other major search engines. These search engines count links from other sites as votes for your
site, which helps determine your ranking, or position in the search results. There are a lot of other parts of the algorithm and this brief explanation doesn't do it justice. However, it serves the point that links improve your ranking, and that's something every website owner needs to know.

A link in a directory that is spidered by Google (and a lot are) will count as a vote for your site. This improves your ranking, and yet again helps drive traffic to your site. It's important to note that not all directories help with SEO. Sometimes, a web directory will link to your site through a special URL that is often a programming CGI script. If the URL is not a direct link to your site, then the search engines don't count it as a vote. Therefore, it's best to pick directories that offer a direct one-way link to your site. (This way, you get more bang for your buck: traffic from the directory and improved search engine ranking.)

Relevancy Matters
If you trade links with random sites, then you are theoretically building your 'link network,' but you are sacrificing the quality of that network. Web searchers who are looking for information on a particular topic often use resources that link to a variety of sites related to what they seek. This makes web directories the perfect destination.

Since directories are categorized by topics, a person can arrive in the directory and have one-click access to a variety of resources. You definitely want to be one of those resources! Plus, when the other search engines pick up your link, it will count for more since it is surrounded by relevant content, which is most likely filled with your important keywords.

As you build your link network, you'll continue to see increased traffic. And if you use web directories as your vehicle, you are essentially paving more paths to your site. Several good submissions in popular directories will help get you rolling. The best part is that many directories are free, so this jump start won't even hurt your bottom line.

Good luck and happy submitting!

About The Author:

Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc (http://www.eliteweb.cc), an Internet portal featuring a best-of-the-web search engine and a comprehensive search-engine-friendly web directory (http://www.eliteweb.cc/directory/).

Five Common Myths About Search Engine Submission

By Donald Nelson

Search engine submission is a matter that often mystifies those who are new to the Internet. It is natural to scratch your head and wonder how you will get your website listed on the major
search engines. If you ask someone how to go about getting your site listed you are likely to hear many misconceptions about search engine submission. You may even be taken for a ride and end up needlessly parting with some hard earned cash. So, before this happens to you let's examine some of the most common myths surrounding search engine submission.

1. Search engine submission is a very important matter

It would indeed seem that you submitting your site to the search engines is of utmost importance. After all, if your site is not in the search engines then how will anybody find you?
Sure, you have to be included in the search engines but that doesn't necessarily mean that you will have to actively "submit" your site. This is because search engines use their "spiders", or robotic search programs to scour the Internet looking for new pages. If another site, that is already included in the search engines, links to yours, then when a search engine spider visits that site, it will follow the link to your site and gather your information.

So, if you are building a new site make sure that you get some links to your sites from already established sites. Ask your webmaster, your friends, other organizations and complementary
sites for links. This will be enough to get you listed in the major search engines. You may still want to submit your site to make sure, but consider the other points before you go ahead

2. There are thousands of search engines that you should be listed in

"Get listed in 300,000 search engines" read the headlines for some submission advertisements. If you look at the traffic logs of most websites you will see that the lion's share of traffic comes from a handful of search locations, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. There just aren't thousands of search sites on the Internet. So, don't pay money to be listed on these sites. Oftentimes, the sites referred to in these advertisements are seldom-visited free-for-all links pages. If you get listed on such a page you will not get much traffic, but you will get a lot of spam.

Concentrate on the major search engines and don't worry about the non-existent phantoms referred to in the advertisements.

3. Monthly submission to search engines is a must

In the early days of the Internet, the companies that handled search engine submission warned the public that sites can be easily lost from search engine indexes and that to prevent this from happening it is important to resubmit your site every months. They also said that this was a good way to let search engines know about new additions to your pages.

It is not very likely that your site will disappear from a search engine for no reason at all. If your site is "down" for a considerable amount of time then it might be possible for your site to be dropped from the listings, but otherwise this rarely happens.

Also, you don't have to resubmit your site to notify search engines about changes to your page or pages. The spiders of search engines regularly revisit pages that are already in the index. You can in fact create a "robots" meta tag and give instructions such as "revisit every 15 days" and this will accomplish the job better than a resubmission.

4. Automatic submissions are useless and you must submit manually

There is often a hot debate about whether manual submissions are better than automatic submissions. For Yahoo, MSN and Google it is now better to do it with a manual submission because all of these engines require you to fill in a code word that is displayed on the screen. These search engines instituted this procedure to block out automated spam submissions. So, for the giants of search, manual submission is the way to go.

What about the secondary sites? There are smaller search engines and directories. Some of them can be useful to you, especially if they represent a particular geographic area or business niche that you are aiming for. If the list of these secondary engines and directories becomes too large, then you may want to consider automated submission. There are some programs that do this or you can find submission services that are free or inexpensive, which brings us to the last myth.

5. You should be prepared to spend a lot of money to get proper submission

If you look at the first point you will see that you probably don't have to do any submission at all to get your site listed in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. These are the search engines that will provide you with 90% of your visitors. So, do you really want to spend a good amount of money to reach the last 5 or 10 per cent of your possible visitors? Look around for a free or inexpensive service to take care of the secondary search engines, and if there are smaller search engines that are very important to your business, then visit them yourself and submit your listing. Save your money for other important tasks.

About The Author:

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He is the director of A1 Optimization http://www.a1-optimization.com a firm providing low cost search engine optimization, submission and web promotion services. He is the principal editor at the A1-Article Directory, http://www.a1-articledirectory.com

Online Directories: The Real Direction Of The Internet

By Adrian Lawrence

Back in the early days of the Internet, there were only human-edited directories. These were found primarily in specialized browsers like the Archie or Veronica systems. Later, Yahoo! used the same basic idea to create a descriptive listing of websites. This was the birth of the first major online directory for the public World Wide Web.

Online directories have been around since the first days of the Internet, and without them and search engines we'd have no simple way of navigating through the sites. Today, there are thousands of directories online, which can make it very confusing to determine which are giving you the best quality information.

In fact, many online directories are no better than junk. Unfortunately, with Google's AdSense program, it has become very profitable in some cases to put together a directory just so you can run ads on it. These sites are automated and certainly no better than you might think.

The best directories are the ones edited by dedicated humans, not dedicated servers. That's because a human being knows what you really need to know, while a computer doesn't care. Examples of these are Yahoo!, which has a search engine component, but still maintains its directory content; and Dmoz, an open directory run by volunteers that also has pretty good
quality content. These directories, and the many quality paid directories that exist, will be around for a very long time.

Search Engines or Directories: What's The Difference?

To understand why directories may be the future of online searching, you should understand the difference between a search engine and a directory.

Search engines catalogue the full text of a web site. This text is stored in a database and made fully searchable. The nformation appearing next to a link is dependent upon the metatag information in the web page, or upon the section of the text where the search term first appears. There is no human intervention, and no guarantee of quality.

A directory is quite different. Human editors place each site in the directory. They've gone out and examined the sites in question, put data together to clarify what the site's really
about, and ranked it more fairly than a search engine could. And the new generation of directories includes wiki technologies and content that helps define a topic as well as show you where to go for further information.

What About Wikis?

Wikis are community-edited informational sites, and they're showing up all over the place. The first was Wikipedia, recently known for an act of vandalism that made up one person's background. This incident was heavily covered in the media, and may have coloured the opinions of many people. However, this incident was atypical of wikis. Nature magazine
and other science editors recently did a quick review of Wikipedia's science content, and determined that it was at least as accurate and up to date as the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Wikis are proving themselves to be both valuable and accurate. They are also a great place to go for directory-style and in-text links to sites to deepen your information. Pretty soon, a wiki is going to be a natural place to go to search for information on just about anything.

Paid Versus Unpaid Directories

There are both paid and unpaid directories as well. Some of these directories are basically clones of Dmoz and other popular directory sites; this means the owner licensed with the directory to duplicate it, and then sold advertising on it. The site owner gets directory content with little or no work on his part, as well as the advertising revenue.

Not all unpaid directories are like that, of course, but you do get what you pay for. A paid directory is both original and human edited. It can also afford to pay for extras like advertising and marketing, ensuring the directory is known by the public. Paid directories can also employ SEO experts who can work toward raising the search engine rating of the site, and traffic experts who can monitor and increase the traffic to the website.

In the long run, listing with all the unpaid directories is okay, but listing with paid directories gives you an edge. And in today's marketplace, you need every edge you can get.

About The Author:

Adrian Lawrence is the webmaster of Indexplex a leading web directory http://www.indexplex.com . Please feel free to republish this article provided this resource box remains together with a working hyperlink.

Choosing The Right Directory

By Adrian Lawrence

When you're looking for the right directory to list in or to use for research, it can be a nightmare. Everyone thinks of Yahoo!, of course, but there are quite literally thousands of other directories out there, many specialized, others not. How can you tell the difference?

By being educated on what you're looking for. When you're looking for the right directories to list in, use the following guidelines.

1. Everyone lists in free directories. Why not? You can list in as many as you want, and you're not losing anything by doing so. Free directories include Yahoo! and Dmoz, as well as hundreds of others who either use their own listings or license listings from Yahoo! and Dmoz. You shouldn't stop here, though, especially if you're running a commercial website.
2. The more directories you're listed in, the more inbound links to your website you've got. And the more inbound links your website has, the higher the search engines will rank your page. Make sure when you create your directory listing to use your keywords in the text; in some search engines, this will help your ranking as well.
3. Some of the free directories are not being listed well by Google and other standard search engines. This is not because of some nefarious competitive advantage, but because the free directories often look like search engine spam or because they don't optimize their sites well. The paid directories are careful to watch for this; after all, the more hits they get, the more they can charge for their services.
4. After listing in all the free directories - which you should, as it costs you nothing but a little time - you should start listing in the better paid directories. Even though you have to pay to get in them, they give you an edge that the free ones don't. For one thing, they're more exclusive, and customers won't be looking at your competitors as much. For another, as noted above, the directory will probably place higher in a search engine. And they tend to be specialized. If you sell medical equipment, listing in a medical equipment directory will almost certainly be a worthwhile investment.
5. If you list in really good and specific directories with proven traffic from customers you want to draw, you're investing your money in the right place. A few good quality links will draw the perfect customers for your business. Finding the right directory is hard, but search for directories that specialize in your industry and in industries that cross into yours; for instance, if you provide medical equipment, don't overlook listings for scientific and laboratory equipment.
6. The next generation of directories is here now. With sites like MSN's Small Business Directory, targeted searching for exactly what you want is easier than ever before. In addition,
   many of the newer directories offer you additional small business tools, more information, specialized content for your industry, and many other services. You'll only find these with paid directories.

About The Author:

Adrian Lawrence is the webmaster of Indexplex a leading web directory http://www.indexplex.com . Please feel free to republish this article provided this resource box remains together with a working hyperlink.

Getting The Best Links From Authority Sites

By Bruce Swedal

We all know back links are a big factor in ranking higher in search engines. It used to be simple to get links by submitting to every directory and your rankings would climb. It is quickly becoming more difficult to move up in search rankings. Directories are still important, but it is becoming more important to be discriminating when evaluating which ones to submit to. You need to be selective and in some cases willing to pay review fees.

The first source for an authority link is DMOZ. It is a free directory, but most that submit there do not get accepted. DMOZ is very strict on evaluating websites for submissions. They look for established sites with unique content and completely unique offerings when there are millions of competing websites is difficult to accomplish. Submit here and forget about it. It will be months before your site is evaluated and they will not inform you when it is.

The next best source for authority links would be a few web directories with authority. There are a few in this category that I would recommend. Those being JoeAnt.com, AuthorityDirectory.com, Abilogic.com and dir.yahoo.com. Quality paid directories such as these are wonderful resources, because they are kept updated, well categorized and promoted. The fees incurred are for the time involved in reviewing your site for admission. They can keep the spam out because with quality directories there is no guarantee of admission. So follow the guidelines when submitting.

I have always thought that one of the best place to look for links are by searching for the sites that link to your competition. If these hub sites are willing to link to your competitor, they are more than likely willing to link to you. It is a good idea to try getting links from these resources that have shown the willingness to link to sites like yours in the past.

The next place to look for authority links may be from authority blog sites. These can be a great source of excellent links. It can also backfire on you so be careful. Authority blog sites get a great deal of traffic so if you make comments that are considered off topic or spam just to get a link, many visitors will see it. This could get you a bad reputation and hurt your credibility, especially if the blog covers a related topic. Do not spam authority blogs and keep comments on topic.

Perhaps the last quality place to look for authority links would be school or government sites. Getting a link from these sources is not an easy task and generally requires that you know a friend or relative working there. Other ways to get these links are by offering a freebie to them in return, by volunteering as a speaker or making a donation.

If you try some of the tips outlined here you are assured of getting at least one authority link to your website which will help your website rank higher in the search engine results. Some of the tips are definitely more difficult than others so reflect on this. Are you a webmaster that gives up easily or one that will work to get your website ranked higher?

About The Author:

The Authority Directory (http://www.authoritydirectory.com/ ) is a valuable resource in every online-marketing campaign. Most comprehensive link building campaigns begin with the Authority Directory Submit (http://www.authoritydirectory.com/submit.php?c=20 )

The Get Links Guide

By Bruce Swedal

Links are basically online votes for your website. As you get more votes, your website is viewed more favorably by search engines and you enjoy higher rankings.

Each of those links can have more or less importance. If you get linked to from a very popular site more of that strength is passed on to your site. Just like campaigning for office in the real world. Getting that backing from a auto union is much more valuable than getting your next door neighbors vote.

So how do you get these links? There are many different ways and several different search engine specialists that will give you their particular take on it. I say make it simple. Get the links you want by asking for them.

Sending out a couple hundred thousand emails asking for a link would not only be considered spam. It would also be ignored by the webmasters that received the email.

A more effective way of getting links to your website is through directories. Quality directories categorize and review websites for a small fee. Then after a successful review the directory will list your website with a link. This is perhaps the easiest and quickest way to get links to your website. These are the best places to request links.

A different way to get inbound links is by writing articles and submitting them to online sites that publish articles. If the article is good quality and gets accepted you can get a link back to your website within the resource box.

Something that you should remember when working on links is many bad links don't equal one quality link. Remember that links carry different weights as we previously discussed.

Link building is also a mostly hands-on process. It takes time and is never truly complete. As long as you have a quality website that you want to remain popular, you will need to be working on building links to your site.

Think of these tips a starting point for a first-rate link building campaign. There are some other methods, but the ones listed here are very effective and where most focus.

About The Author:

The path to an web presence for your website begins at The http://www.authoritydirectory.com/submit.php Authority Directory Submissions page. Take a minute to look at The http://www.authoritydirectory.com/ Authority Directory.

Link Building - How To Get More Inbound Links For Your Website

By Trevor John

Link building is maybe one of the least glamorous yet most important things you can do for your website. Without links pointing to your site, it's unlikely that anyone will ever find you.

So how do you get inbound links?

Most of the time, by asking for them!

Who you ask and how you ask them will make all the difference. You can't just send out hundreds or thousands of emails asking for a link. Apart from these emails being classed as spam, the chances of an email out of the blue being acted on by another webmaster is close to zero.

One way to get inbound links is to search out the small directories that are lurking everywhere on the internet. They classify websites and give a comment or description of the site. Many of these directory sites will list you for free (or a small fee), although the largest of them, such as Yahoo, will charge quite a lot of money. But then if your site is good enough to be listed in Yahoo, that will be recognized by the search engine spiders and you'll likely get a boost in your page rankings.

Another way to get inbound links is by writing articles and submitting them to places like Ezine Articles. You'll get a link back to your website once your article is accepted and as other sites start using the articles you've submitted, you'll get links back from them. You don't need to have got a top grade in English at school. You just need to be able to talk clearly about your subject - much as if you were explaining it to a friend over a coffee.

You can also get links back to your site when you post in forums. Make your posts good quality and people will be happy to click the link in your signature if it's relevant to the forums topic.

About The Author:

Get your free link building report for lots more ideas and ways of getting inbound links to your website: http://replymagic.com/link-building.html

Google And Relevance Of Links

By David Andrew Smith

All the literature, articles, experts and e-zines devoted to Search Engine Optimisation inform us that links to websites are graded as to importance by the page rank of the linking site and the relevance of its content to the content on the other site. Reciprocal links are of no importance especially with regard to Google although they are not penalised. The higher the page rank of the linking site the better. So we are constantly berated to seek out these high ranking sites to get them to provide a backlink to our own sites. Often they also intimate how you can go about this but when reading on you are never given a definitive plan of for example how to convince the BBC to link to your own site.

I cannot give any ideas as to how to achieve this either. Even if you did manage to get a backlink from the BBC site to your own website, would the link be considered relevant unless the website also had some connection with news, tv, radio or sport? As apparently Google looks at the overall content and not just the small part where the link is situated. So I personally have stopped trying to achieve such links.

Running a website with a page rank of 4, I am personally inundated with requests from other webmasters to provide them with a reciprocal link. They always use the same standard argument ...'you will appreciate the importance of links to search engine positioning'... . Where have these people been the last two years? I always reply to them positively by refusing the reciprocal link but suggest that I will place a link to them if they can give me a good reasoned argument as to why I should. To date I have had not a single reply. Webmasters would be better off by simply asking for a backlink and not offering a worthless reciprocal link. I am quite happy to accommodate someone who asks nicely with a reasoned argument. So webmasters out there take note.

Returning to the idea of relevant backlinks. The majority of my own backlinks are achieved by writing articles which provide quite reasonable page rank and absolute relevance because I am writing about the content of my website. The only downside to article writing and having the articles widely distributed is the penalty of duplicate content. Google will only take one of the sources and count it as a relevant backlink whilst the majority of the other search engines will often count all the places where the article has been published. Despite this article writing is still the best and easiest way of getting good backlinks. It might however take anything up to six months before Google will recognise this as a backlink.

About the Author:

David Smith is the owner of a contract cleaning company Sparkle Cleaning Services UK Ltd to be found at http://www.wesparkle.co.uk . He has built and runs this site as well as organising the cleaning contracts generated from the website.

The Battle For Website Traffic.

By R. Martin

Building traffic to your site is getting harder by the week. Wouldn't it be easier to let other people build traffic for you? You are thinking "But, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE"!

Well, it IS possible.

It may be counterintuitive.

But, in fact, it's actually far EASIER than trying to fight it out for traffic peanuts.

What it boils down to is 1 simple FACT: They key to the success of all goods, services, websites, marketing, & traffic all lie in:

THE VALUE PROPOSITION.

In fact, this is they key to 90% of all OFFLINE businesses' success too. The best stuff rises to the top in ALL markets. People who are impressed by a purchase tell their friends. And they tell their friends. The chain continues. Let's take a look at the automobile market to show you an almost perfect example of this phenomenon.

Honda started importing cars to the United States in the 1970s. At first, the cars weren't as good as other models. But they kept at it, kept researching consumer tastes & preferences. And most importantly, kept improving their PRODUCT. Not with extra bells and whistles that only interest dorky engineers. But by offering real value that the consumer actually consumed.

People say Honda marketed better than the other car companies. I couldn't disagree more!

Why did Honda sell a TON of Accords last year? Because the cars rock. They sell for roughly the same price as their competitors. But, their QUALITY is off the charts!

Think about it:

Why would you pay $27,000 for a competitor's product that will break in 5 years, when you could instead, buy a new shiny Honda Accord that will last far beyond 120,000 miles. You will be happy, but, your social standing starts to take a hold.

You actually TELL other people how great your shiny new Accord is. How long it lasts, how nice it handles, & how much money you saved by buying a car that lasts twice as long as your last one.

You look better to your friends & they appreciate the information. This has been going on since the beginning of time.

The online world isn't THAT different than the offline world. Your website traffic is people. And links are made by other webmasters (who are people too!). If your content is awesome & there is a large volume of it on your site, people will LOVE to link to you. It's that simple.

Fact: People come out with sites in extremely established "competitive" categories that blow away the competition. Their Alexa rankings shoot to top 1000 in under a month. It happens all the time. Because their sites are awesome &amp; people can't wait to break the news to their friends of this cool new site they found. That's how it works.

So what should you do...

Really develop your website's content. If your site is about mortgages, make it the #1 looking #1 functioning & #1 value producing site in your market. Make it a true category killer.

Make it a site where people love to comeback to & feel good about passing on. Stuff it FULL of amazing content about mortgage brokers, refinancing, and projected payments.

Put a directory section on there, but only approve the bestlinks online about mortgages. Add the best links yourself. Same with your article section: add 75 kick-butt informative articles about "How to save $238/month on your next mortgage" and more.

Get in depth & offer great content.

You WILL get linked to by partners, competitors, college professors (.edu links!) & more.

Offer the best stuff you can get your hands on, or write it personally if necessary.

Post great content with high excellent value. Surf the site yourself. Ask: Would you surf this site? Fix it until you would. Make it your homepage and don't quit until you are getting 500,000 visitors a day.

About The Author:

Richard Martin writes for http://www.websitetuts.com/. You can learn more about website
building, online marketing tactics, & website traffic today by visiting:

Free Article Submission Directory, And Article Submission Software

By Peter Nisbet

A free article submission directory is your free pass to the stars. If you write or purchase articles for your own website only, then you will be losing out on what the whole world of article marketing can offer you. Article marketing is probably now the most widely used traffic generation strategy on the internet and if you are not using it you will likely fall behind your competitors.

Article marketing is a strategy involving the submission of articles to online article databases called Article Directories, and these too are growing by the day. However, not all article directories are equal: more on that later. For now, let's think on what gains are to be made by submitting your article to a directory. This might be a piece of work that has taken you days to compose, or you may even have paid for it. Why, then, should you submit to a directory so that everybody can read it for free.

What you have to consider is why you wrote it. Why did you write that article? Was it to sell and make money from it? Unlikely, since there are a lot of writers better than you are that fail to achieve that. Was it to provide content for your website, perhaps even devoting a specific page to it as I have done here? That is the main reason for people writing articles.

True, good writers write articles to submit to article directories, but that is not the major use for them. Statistics show that most articles are written as content for web pages. So why? Why only write for your own web page? Why NOT write for article directories, when your article will be published on a number of websites that article directories, in essence, are? In fact your article will be published on a lot more directories than you submit to due the relationship between various groups of directories that interchange articles.

Don't you realise that you get a one way back-link to a web page of your choice from every directory that accepts your article? Not only that, but if a reader likes what you wrote, they might copy your article to their website and provide you with another one-way link. If you know anything about Page Rank and link density, you will understand just how important and valuable a link to your site without any reciprocation is in internet marketing.

So far, we have discussed links and Page Rank: we haven't even thought of the benefits of the links to your page web pages that readers can physically click on to visit your page. The traffic that article submission can provide is immense.

Here is my Number One tip. Write an article, or purchase one from an article ghostwriter. Make a few changes to it, or even purchase two versions from the ghostwriter, one for submission and the other for your website. Then submit the article to as many article directories as possible, and create a web page for your own version of the same article (that should contain some extra information).

Direct readers to that web page, and not only make your offer on it, but provide an opt-in form so that visitors can register for your newsletter or whatever you are offering in exchange for their first name and email address. It might all sound simple, but it takes some work. Once done however, it can be effective.

About The Author:

Pete is an ackowledged expert on his subject and http://www.articleservices.com.articlesubmission.html provides further information on article directory submissions.

Link Building & Link Baiting Strategies For A Successful SEO Campaign

By Randy Zlobec

Link building refers to search engine optimization strategies in which one way back links to a website are created. By generating links from related and authoritative sites back to your own website you not only encourage extra web traffic, you increase your page rankings in search engine results pages. Some of the most successful link building techniques are article marketing, blogging, forum posting and paid advertising on related and high traffic websites.

The importance of one way links cannot be over emphasized. Reciprocal linking is now seen for what it is - a deceptive strategy. Also rapid, artificial development of one way links is suspect so it is far better to create your links gradually as one would expect of natural website and back link development. Organic SEO strategies will not trigger any alarms in the search engines and can be used in a focused and accelerated way to expedite the marketing advantages.

Article marketing is one of the most effective ways to build back links to your website. It is better to use a couple of high traffic article directories than to submit your articles to hundreds or even thousands of directories as this will create an enormous amount of duplicate content which is devalued by the search engine algorithms. It is also a mistake to put articles on your website that you have used for article marketing purposes because this would create duplicate content on your website. While you certainly want the benefit of back links to increase your search engine results page (SERP) rank you need to take into account other factors which can affect your SERP position such as duplicate content.

Blogging, forum posting and paid advertising on relevant websites can also provide excellent one way links to your website. You can write blog articles on your own blog as well as writing comments and articles on other people's blogs that link back to your website. Forums will generally not allow you to directly link to your website in the posting itself, however you can use a link to your site as a signature under your post which can be just as effective as an embedded back link. Placing paid ads on high traffic, related and authoritative sites can also provide one way links back to your website which is likely to both increase the number of visitors as well as your SERP position.

Link baiting is an indirect link building strategy in that you do not directly place the links but encourage others to link back to your site or, more specifically, a particular article or page on your site. Link baiting is achieved by writing interesting, informative, humorous or controversial articles that others are likely to link to from their websites or blogs. Ask yourself what information you can offer that will benefit others and tempt them to link back to the information. Controversy and disagreement are always popular, running an online contest is another link bait technique, so too is writing free how-to reports, providing free access to an online software program, or doing something new on the internet that is interesting or helpful and grabs attention. Writing or editing informational articles for online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia can also be an effective link bait technique.

Link building and link baiting are both effective search engine optimization strategies as well as traffic building techniques. If you strategically link one way from relevant websites back to your own, you will gradually improve your SERP rank as well as increase the number of visitors to your site and therefore your profitability. You cannot optimize your website effectively and ignore the importance of back links. It is becoming increasingly difficult to manipulate Google and other search engines by using artificial strategies so it is very important to create natural links in order to gain lasting benefits in terms of search engine results rank. Link building and link baiting are helpful and beneficial SEO strategies. If you use them wisely, they can significantly increase the positioning of your website on the search engines and consequently the ability of your site to be profitable and successful.

About The Author:

Link Building http://www.semgorilla.com & Link Baiting By Randy Zlobec a Search Engine Optimization Specialist and Author of Sem Gorilla

Build Website Linking Through Common Sense And Good Manners

By Gerald Brown

Good manners apply online as well as off. This is especially true when requesting website link exchanges.

Imagine you are at a social gathering where you have the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting executives connected to your line of business or work.

You are talking with a small group of like minded individuals and you are discussing a topic of common interest. Suddenly another guest joins the group and within seconds diverts the conversation to talking about himself, his company and why those in this group should work or do business with his company. The group soon breaks up disinterested at the aggressive individual.

The guy who selfishly butted in now looks for another little group to do the same again, with the same results - no one is interested, as he tries to dominate the conversation!

The better way for this executive would be to respect the others; by not being pushy; contribute to the conversation yet wrap his sales message within what he says. In other words, he is showing he is a good guy to get to know. This way he is building up credibility. The conversation continues and at the appropriate moment, name cards are willingly exchanged.

Requesting Link Exchanges

When you request a link exchange it is a bit like the above scenario -- most requests are similar to the aggressive guy, and just say: "link to my web site and you give me a link in return", without further explanation. That is Selfish.

Put yourself in the recipient's position as they ask themself:

* Do I know you and your site?

* Why should I exchange a link?

* Do we have common interest in our sites' subject matter so that we mutually benefit?

* Are we on equal footing - meaning, is your link page of the same Page Rank as mine? - This is important to know. Why? Because search engines (SE's) gives lesser credibility to links from a lower page rank, especially if the subject of the two pages are not related. On the other hand, SE's give greater weighting when page subjects are the same and highly focused.

All your link exchange requests should include:

- your site's main subject area

- your link page "page rank"

- be polite and cordial in your e-mail request (usually sent to the "webmaster" or as specified on their site, and

- that you have placed the reciprocal link already on your site first before making the request as a goodwill gesture (and remove it if the request is turned down).

About The Author:

Gerald Brown, a long time British expatriate and resident of Crete, heads up "Brits in Crete" -
http://www.britsincrete.net - a comprehensive resource with advice and targeted links for those expatriates who plan to relocate and live in Crete, Greece.

Article Promotion Tips And Traps

By Prakash Jain

A great way to get highly targeted traffic plus relevant one-way backlinks to your site is through writing and submitting unique articles. Submitting these articles to free article directories or other websites that accept article submission will reward your website with valuable visits and backlinks.

Your article submission will reap visitors, so make sure you keep your website content easy to read as well as relevant and useful to your viewers. When search engines decide who to give the highest ranks to, they look at and weigh a few different factors. These factors include links, but also content as well. Search engines have a tendency to place the websites with the best content at the top of the rankings list.

The whole reason to submit articles to directories in the first place is to generate a bunch of one way links pointing back to your site, which will in turn increase your daily traffic. Free article directories love your article submissions - if you give them an article/content they reward you with one-way links.

Make sure your articles are as effective as possible. Don't forget to put your name at the end, and take credit for your articles. Place the URL correctly in the resource box in order for it to get counted properly - you wouldn't want to be making all your submission efforts in vain.

Spend time when planning the short pitch that your resource box gives. Create a strong call to action so that people will want to click to visit your site - give them a good reason to click. If your resource box doesn't sell the idea of visiting your website or engaging in your offer effectively, some of the benefits of your article and article submission will be put to waste.

When writing the article itself, follow a few simple guidelines. Don't write in the third person narrative. Write the article as if you were directly talking to the reader. This makes it more personable, and will allow you to build a strong relationship with the reader. Give yourself credit when it's due, if you've accomplished something that is worth mentioning, do it. You'll want to create a positive image for yourself in the minds of the reader, you want their trust.

Always be sure to double check the links in your resource box. There's nothing worse than getting a great article out there only to find out that the HTML was coded wrong so the link is broken.

About The Author:

Prakash Jain Run a Articles Directory , You Can Also Find More Articles on http://www.articles-hub.com

Building Links To Your Site: Vital For Seo Success, Part 1

By Adrian Adams

With any online business, generating traffic to view the products or services you have to offer is essential. Since the World Wide Web is a huge arena, you can bet there is plenty of competition out there. It doesn't matter how great of an item you have to offer if people don't find out about it. To get your business the recognition it deserves, it is vital that you understand the various techniques for building links to your site.

If you want to rank well on the search engines, you have to have quality backlinks from other websites. Without quality backlinks to your site, you will not be able to rank well on the search engines. The good news is that there are lots of ways to build links to your site. Some of the ways to building these links are going to cost you money, but some of the most successful ways really won't cost you anything more than your time.

One of first places you want to start is with submitting your website to the various web directories. There are 100's of web directories that will give you a free listing for your website. The most important thing to do when submitting your site to web directories is to read the instructions. If you don't follow the instructions, your listing will likely be denied.

There are also many places on the internet where you can submit articles for free. The articles can be informational in nature but they can't be a direct advertisement for your business. However, at the bottom of the articles you can add a section that provides information about yourself and a link to your website if they want more information. Article marketing is one of the best ways to get quality one way links to your site.

About The Author:

Our SEO friendly directory helps increase site popularity: http://www.samoris.com/ Submit your site today!

One Way Links Are Given And Accepted With Love And Are For Ever.-Grab Them!

By Kanaga Siva

Unlike Reciprocal Links, One-Way Links also known as Inbound Links are obtained by you or in fact given to you with Love and for ever. Yes,they have come to stay. One-Way Link is a link pointing to your website from another site. You do not have to link back to that website. In other words you need not reciprocate. One-Way Links play a vital role in increasing your Link Popularity.

Link Popularity is a measure of the number of sites of quality and relevance that point to your website. The more number of such sites, the higher will your page rank be.

Search Engines consider One-Way Links superior to Reciprocal Links because the website that links to your site without getting a link back, endorses the fact that yours is a website of quality.

Webmasters are known to adopt various methods to artificially increase the Link Popularity of their websites, such as purchasing of high PR links. Search Engines have now become aware of this and hence major Search Engines appear to be devaluing sites that solely depend on reciprocal links.

Good Reciprocal Links are often obtained by begging and are in some instances not permanent due to unethical practices of some webmasters. On the other hand One-Way Links have a different story to tell.

1. If your website has good content and valuable information, other webmasters will link to your site, because they Love and appreciate the contents of your site. You thus get a permanent One-Way Link more often with the same theme as that of your website.

2. I have posted about 550 articles in my website written by other webmasters, because I Love those articles and would like my visitors too, to appreciate and benefit from these articles. Similarly several hundreds of webmasters have published my articles in their Directories, Ezines, Newsletters and Websites for the same reason.

Writing expert articles of quality, that are informative and educative, sincerely from your heart is appreciated by the audience. The result is that your articles are often sought after and published by webmasters. Thus you are given a permanent One-Way Link with Love.

3. Listing in Web Directories is another great way of securing One-Way Links. In addition to well known Directories such as Yahoo Directory (charges a fee for guaranteed listing), The Open Project Directory (DMOZ), and Joe Ant Directory, there are several other Secondary Directories that Love to list your website without requesting a link back. A list of these Directories can be obtained by going into the Search Engines. By submitting your website to the relevant category in these directories you are assured of a high quality relevant One-Way Link that will be there for ever.

Furthermore there are several high PR Directories who Love to list your website but charge a fee for listing. Get listed and you are again assured of a quality relevant One Way Link for ever.

4. If you have purchased a product and like the product, write a good testimonial about the product and send it across to the webmaster or vendor concerned with your URL in it. He would be thankful to you and would Love to publish your testimonial, thereby giving you a One-Way Link.

In addition to these methods there are additional ways in obtaining one way links by posting relevant comments in Forums, Blogs and submitting Press Releases etc.

To increase their link popularity, webmasters endeavor to acquire as many quality reciprocal links or one way links. For reasons already indicated Webmasters Love one-way links and Search Engines appear to Love them even more.

The manner in which One-Way Links are obtained can be viewed from a different perspective altogether.

Webmasters Love your website and link it to theirs. They love your articles and post it in theirs. They love your product and write a glowing testimony. Directories love your quality website and list it. You love them in return for giving you a One-Way Link for ever. On the other hand in reciprocal links exchange or link trade as some term it the whole approach revolves around begging and bargaining.

The more number of relevant one way links you obtain, the greater and faster your chances of increasing your link popularity and climbing up the Page Rank ladder. The benefits of a high page rank are numerous. So the earlier you start to capitalize on these On-Way Links that are given for ever with love, the happier you are going to be.

About The Author:

Copyright © 2006 Kanaga Siva. Kanaga Siva has a wealth of experience in Marketing and also running a Home Based Business. Visit his Website Business From Home http://www.business-fromhome.com for Articles, Resources, Ideas and Advise to start a Home Based Business

SEO: The Power Of The Inbound Link

By Scott Lindsay

Link building can be a difficult part of any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. It may even be harder trying to maintain a list of those who are linking to your site.

Did you know that search engines have made this a bit easier for online business to monitor?While the procedure for each search engine may be slightly different you can learn about many of the most successful inbound links you have to your website.

For the purpose of this article I will use the Google search engine. In order to check for inbound links I will use one of my websites www.highpowersites.com. I begin by typing the word link in the search window of the search engine followed by the website name. In the end it looks like this: link: www.highpowersites.com for your website it would look like link: www.yoursitename.com

In this search there were over 10,000 inbound links on the web. This tells me the site is doing well and it helps me see which sites that feature the link are the highest ranking. If you visit other search engines you can learn how to access information about site rankings by visiting a section typically called `Advance Search Options".

The affects of inbounds links shouldn't be minimized and the use of a free article directory can help spread the word about your site through inbound links. A diverse selection of expert articles is very helpful in improving SEO strategies.

Certainly there are a variety of SEO strategies to consider, but inbound links may provide a significant number of impressions and an improved number of site visitations, which can dramatically improve conversion rate with potential customers.

A great number of links to your website is often viewed by search engines as a means of gauging improved trust. Improved trust in your website will improve your site rankings.

When you have significant inbound links it means that search engine spiders comb through your site more often gaining new and valuable information that can help your overall site ranking.

Beyond free article directories a website owner might simply request affiliated websites to include a link to his/her website as a courtesy. This is not an uncommon practice and provides greater visibility for your website.

The use of a forum or blog can also provide positive inbound links for your website. This is accomplished by either posting information that may benefit readers followed by a link to a section of your website that deals with the issue or by simply placing a link in the signature box on your forum post.

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 HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

Turbocharge Your Links With Killer Anchor Text

By John Buchanan

These days, everyone knows that, to get top rankings in any of the engines, your site needs links. Not just any links, but links from quality sites and lots of them. One thing I have noticed is that for many webmasters that are newer to SEO, they often over look the importance of "anchor text" or "link text" as it is often called.

If you are unfamiliar with these terms, let me give you an example below.

This is Anchor Text

In the above example, the text "This is Anchor Text" is the anchor text. Anchor text is simply the text used as the clickable portion of a link. A while back (a few years now), the engines decided that, quite often, the text used as the anchor text of a link was a description of the target page. So, knowing this, they decided to start looking at the anchor text of links to a page an incorporating what those links "said" about the page into the algorithms used to rank pages.

To this day, Google still seems to give the most weight to anchor text, but all the engines use it to some extent.

It's also important to understand that the anchor text of an inbound link (at least today) still applies to that specific PAGE, not to the entire site.

What does this mean? Well, it means that, to get the absolute most bang for your buck out of each and every link pointed to your site, you should do your best to make sure that the anchor text used for each inbound link is relevant to the page that link is pointing to. This applies not only to external links (those from a different site pointing to a page within your site), but to internal links as well (those links pointing from one page of your site to another page on your site).

Internal anchor text is an area that a VERY large percentage of webmasters don't fully take advantage of. These are the links that you have full control over, so you should do everything you can to make sure that the anchor text for each and every internal link in your site best reflects the target keywords for the page it's pointing to.

The same goes for "homepage" links. What is your homepage about? I would bet that for 99% of the people reading this article, the topic of your homepage is NOT about "homes". So why is it that the vast majority of webmasters still utilize the anchor text "home" or "homepage" etc. when linking to their homepage? Don't you think it would make more sense for the anchor text of that link to be relevant to the page it's pointing to? After all, the homepage of most sites tends to target the most competitive phrases of that market don't they? So why wouldn't you want to get the most possible use of all those internal links pointing to your homepage by using some more appropriate and relevant link text?

Quite often I have seen the proper and improper use of anchor text be the difference between which page(s) make it to the top of the results and which ones end up on pages 2 and on. Where do you want to be?

See you at the top!

About The Author:

John Buchanan is a veteran search engine optimization specialist with over 9 years experience. For more information, visit his site at http://www.sesecrets.com or his newest site http://www.seovideoanalysis.com where he will provide you with a professional SEO Video Website Analysis of your site.