SuperGirl Blog

19 Essential Techniques and Tips Of SEO

2010-01-25T18:35:00.000-08:00

This time i want to sharing with newbies, if you all can implementing this 19 tips, i guarantee you will success to get traffic to their website or blog. Dont forget learn, learn, learn and learn is the best way to get success.

Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long term outlook and commitment.
Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.
Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.
Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.
Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.
Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.
Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.
Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.
Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.
Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.
Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.
Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.
Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.
Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.
Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.
Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.
Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.
Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.
Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.

5 Important Qualities You Need for Success in Affiliate Marketing

2010-01-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

There are two types of people. Those who like to take charge, who want to lead and command, and who are willing to take responsibility for their actions. Then, there are those who are a little more timid, and a lot more reluctant to blaze their own path; they’re happy following the crowd.

The idea of being mere passengers on a ship meant to sail to the farthest points does not appeal to people who like to put their destiny into their own hands. Such are the kinds of people who are destined to excel in a home based business such as Affiliate Marketing. Even if they don’t already possess the five “must have” traits to become hugely successful as affiliates, they’re predisposed to being able to acquire these traits more easily than the average Joe.

They have the desire to maneuver the ship themselves, of being able to be the ones to take it anywhere they want to. Being aboard a ship on its way to a particularly great destination is something each and every one of them dreams of, and the knowledge that they have the power to steer it themselves is what makes them actually want to do it.

Maybe this is the reason why more and more people are turning to one of the most popular businesses around, affiliate marketing. It’s because in this business, there are no bosses cracking their whip to order the employees around.

There are no deadlines to meet and no piles of work to be finished by day’s end. In order to succeed in this fantasy-like perfect business, you need only be armed with the necessary tools.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing?

What kind of drive must you have within yourself to be able to do well in this industry?

There is a lot of competition in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm and get propelled forward, you have to be equipped with just the ‘right stuff’.

There are five essential things you can’t do without if you want to achieve glory in this business. Let’s have a look at each of them in detail.

THE QUALITY OF OPTIMISM

The first quality you must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes, whether your own or someone else’s, should never discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing his/herdreams in order to make life better for himself, and for everyone else who matters to him/her.

Your attitude toward the business should always be proactive, because you have to realize that you’re the captain of your own ship and the master of your destiny.

The ingredients that lead to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing anyone needs to make it big lies in yourself alone.

It’s that very desire which burns in your heart that’s the fuel which will keep the engine going.

Affiliate marketing is all about putting your fate into your own hands. The right attitude is the key to being able to steer your ship into that part of the ocean where serenity and smooth sailing can be found at last.

A DESIRE TO LEARN

You must possess is the desire to learn, along with the willingness to be trained.

Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff, if you’re lacking in what I like to simply call the proper equipment. This is a combination of the right mindset, the appropriate attitude, mixed with a pinch of a strong work ethic.

As a beginner, you have to be willing to keep your eyes and ears open, using the experience of others to learn the tricks of the trade as you go along.

One of the best ways to do this is by frequenting Forums that specialize in Affiliate Marketing, reading others members’ posts and asking questions yourself. Devour everything that pertains to getting ahead in this business; the equivalent of an MBA degree is available to you in these Forums - and, at just the right price. There’s no substitute for this kind of hands-on-learning.

INVEST TIME AND EFFORT

The Third quality one must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort in growing your business, even if direct results don’t seem readily apparent. Although weeks may pass by without good news, it’s important for anyone who has his/her foot in the business to hold on and wait.

Resist throwing in the towel prematurely. This is the core quality that will help keep you on course despite any discouraging setbacks you may run into.

UNWAVERING DETERMINATION

The Forth quality you must possess is an unblinking determination. If you want to conquer the affiliate marketing world, you must have the ability to push yourself ahead. The ability to motivate yourself into scaling greater and greater heights will determine the kind of future you create.

Never knowing when to quit is an attribute that each and every beginning Affiliate Marketer needs to have in bunches. In fact, in any endeavor, this persistence that screams to the world “No, I won’t budge!” is what distinguishes the winners from the also-rans.

YOU MUST BE DISCIPLINED

The fifth quality you must have is self discipline. If you teach yourself to work everyday with all the energy your heart can muster, then you’re closer to achieving whatever goals your mind can conceive.

Once you start to slack off, the whole house of cards you’re building begins to shake just before it crumbles. There’s no room for ‘goofing off’ when you’re running a home based business.

Promotion (Mix Strategy)

2010-01-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

Strategic decision in the area of promotion concerns the allocation of effort among the three different methods of promotion. Advertising refers to nonpersonal communication transmitted through the mass media (radio, television, print, outdoors, and mail). The communication is identified with a sponsor who compensates the media for the transmission. Personal selling refers to face-toface interaction with the customer. Unlike advertising, personal selling involves communication in both directions, from the source to the destination and back. All other forms of communication with the customer other than those included in advertising and personal selling constitute sales promotion. Thus, coupons, samples, demonstrations, exhibits, premiums, sweepstakes, trade allowances, sales and dealer incentives, cents-off packs, rebates, and point-of-purchase material are all sales promotion devices. A variety of new ways have been developed to communicate with customers. These include telemarketing (i.e., telephone selling) and demonstration centers (i.e., specially designed showrooms to allow customers to observe and try out complex industrial equipment).

The discussion in this article will be limited to the three traditional methods of promotion. In some cases, the three types of promotion may be largely interchangeable; however, they should be blended judiciously to complement each other for a balanced promotional perspective. Illustrated below is the manner in which a chemical company mixed advertising with personal selling and sales promotion to achieve optimum promotional performance: An advertising campaign aimed at customer industries, employees, and plant communities carried the theme, “The little chemical giant.” It appeared in Adhesive Age, American Paint & Coating Journal, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemical Marketing Reporter, Chemical Purchasing, Chemical Week, Modern Plastics, and Plastics World. Sales promotion and personal selling were supported by publicity. Editorial tours of the company’s new plants, programs to develop employee understanding and involvement in the expansion, and briefings for local people in towns and cities where USIC [the company] had facilities provided a catalyst for publicity. Personal selling was aggressive and provided direct communication about the firm’s continued service. USIC reassured producers of ethyl alcohol, vinyl acetate monomer, and polyethylene that “we will not lose personal touch with our customers.”

Development of an optimum promotion mix is by no means easy. Companies often use haphazard, seat-of-the-pants procedures to determine the respective roles of advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion in a product/market situation. Decisions about the promotional mix are often diffused among many decision makers, impeding the formation of a unified promotion strategy. Personal selling plans are sometimes divorced from the planning of advertising and sales promotion. Frequently, decision makers are not adequately aware of the objectives and broad strategies of the overall product program that the promotion plan is designed to implement. Sales and market share goals tend to be constant, regardless of decreases or increases in promotional expenditures. Thus they are unrealistic as guides and directives for planning, as criteria for promotional effectiveness, or even as a fair basis for application of the judgment of decision makers. Briefly, the present state of the art in the administration of the promotion function is such that cause-and-effect relationships as well as other basic insights are not sufficiently understood to permit knowledgeable forecasts of what to expect from alternate courses of action. Even identifying feasible alternatives can prove difficult.

Product Factors. Factors in this category relate principally to the way in which a product is bought, consumed, and perceived by the customer. For industrial goods, especially technical products, personal selling is more significant than advertising because these goods usually need to be inspected and compared before being bought. Salespeople can explain the workings of a product and provide on-the-spot answers to customer queries. For customer goods such as cosmetics and processed foods, advertising is of primary importance. In addition, advertising plays a dominant role for products that provide an opportunity for differentiation and for those being purchased with emotional motives. The perceived risk of a purchase decision is another variable here. Generally speaking, the more risk a buyer perceives to be associated with buying a particular product, the higher the importance of personal selling over advertising. A buyer generally desires specific information on a product when the perceived risk is high. This necessitates an emphasis on personal selling. Durable goods are bought less frequently than nondurables and usually require a heavy commitment of resources. These characteristics make personal selling of greater significance for durable goods than advertising. However, because many durable goods are sold through franchised dealerships, the influence of each type of promotion should be determined in light of the additional push it would provide in moving the product. Finally, products purchased in small quantities are presumably purchased frequently and require routine decision making. For these products, advertising should be preferable to personal selling. Such products are often of low value; therefore, a profitable business in these products can only be conducted on volume. This underlines the importance of advertising in this case.

Market Factors. The first market factor is the position of a product in its life cycle. The creation of primary demand, hitherto nonexistent, is the primary task during the introductory stage; therefore, a great promotion effort is needed to explain a new product to potential customers. For consumer goods in the introductory stage, the major thrust is on heavy advertising supported by missionary selling to help distributors move the product. In addition, different devices of sales promotion (e.g., sampling, couponing, free demonstrations) are employed to entice the customer to try the product. In the case of industrial products, personal selling alone is useful during this period. During the growth phase, there is increasing demand, which means enough business for all competitors. In the case of consumer goods, however, the promotional effort shifts to reliance on advertising. Industrial goods, on the other hand, begin to be advertised as the market broadens. However, they continue to require a personal selling effort. In the maturity phase, competition becomes intense, and advertising, along with sales promotion, is required to differentiate the product (a consumer good) from competitive brands and to provide an incentive to the customer to buy a particular product. Industrial goods during maturity call for intensive personal selling. During the decline phase, the promotional effort does not vary much initially from that during the maturity phase except that the intensity of promotion declines. Later, as price competition becomes keen and demand continues to decline, overall promotional perspectives are reduced. For a given product class, if market share is high, both advertising and personal selling are used. If the market share is low, the emphasis is placed on either personal selling or advertising. This is because high market share seems to indicate that the company does business in more than one segment and uses multiple channels of distribution. Thus, both personal selling and advertising are used to promote the product. Where market share is low, the perspectives of the business are limited, and either advertising or personal selling will suffice, depending on the nature of the product. If the industry is concentrated among a few firms, advertising has additional significance for two reasons: (a) heavy advertising may help discourage other firms from entering the field, and (b) heavy advertising sustains a desired position for the product in the market. Heavy advertising constitutes an implied warranty of product performance and perhaps decreases the uncertainty consumers associate with new products. In this way, new competition is discouraged and existing positions are reinforced. Intensity of competition tends to affect promotional blending in the same way that market share does. When competition is keen, all three types of promotion are needed to sustain a product’s position in the market. This is because promotion is needed to inform, remind, and persuade customers to buy the product.

On the other hand, if competitive activity is limited, the major function of promotion is to inform and perhaps remind customers about the product. Thus, either advertising or personal selling is emphasized. Hypothetically, advertising is more suited for products that have relatively latent demand. This is because advertising investment should open up new opportunities in the long run, and if the carryover effect is counted, expenditure per sales dollar would be more beneficial. If demand is limited and new demand is not expected to be created, advertising outlay would be uneconomical. Thus, future potential becomes a significant factor in determining the role of advertising.

Customer Factors. One of the major dimensions used to differentiate businesses is whether products are marketed for household consumption or for organizational use. There are several significant differences in the way products are marketed to these two customer groups, and these differences exert considerable influence on the type of promotion that should be used. In the case of household customers, it is relatively easy to identify the decision maker for a particular product; therefore, advertising is more desirable. Also, the self-service nature of many consumer-product sales makes personal selling relatively unimportant. Finally, household customers do not ordinarily go through a formal buying process using objective criteria as organizational customers do. This again makes advertising more useful for reaching household customers. Essentially the same reasons make personal selling more relevant in promoting a product among organizational customers. The number of customers and their geographic concentration also influence promotional blending. For a small customer base, especially if it is geographically concentrated, advertising does not make as much sense as it does in cases where customers are widely scattered and represent a significant mass. Caution is needed here because some advertising may always be necessary for consumer goods, no matter what the market perspectives are. Thus, these statements provide only a conceptual framework and should not be interpreted as exact yes/no criteria. Budget Factors. Ideally, the budget should be based on the promotional tasks to be performed. However, intuitively and traditionally, companies place an upper limit on the amount that they spend on promotion. Such limits may influence the type of promotion that may be undertaken in two ways. First, a financially weak company is constrained in undertaking certain types of promotion. For example, television advertising necessitates a heavy commitment of resources. Second, in many companies the advertising budget is, by tradition, linked to revenues as a percentage. This method of allocation continues to be used so that expected revenues indicate how much may be spent on advertising in the future. The allocated funds, then, automatically determine the role of advertising.

Web Startup Guide For Newbies

2010-01-17T15:45:00.001-08:00

There are literally thousands of people out there right now who want to start their own online business. The problem is where to begin and how to get started.

Oh sure, they know they can buy a domain and a web hosting account, but that is not the problem. The hold up is that they don't know what to sell on their websites that will allow them to make a nice income to supplement the income from their regular jobs.

Day and night, people browse the World Wide Web looking for a hint or an insight that will point them in the direction of the next big thing on the internet.

Let's be honest. Most people who want to start an online business are only looking for enough extra income to pay an extra car payment or to buy some clothes for their kids. Not everyone is looking to get rich online.

Looking For Something To Sell

Most people online who are looking for an opportunity to make money look first to common themes of products they already buy.

If you go to Google and type in "flowers" for your search, you will find 339 million pages found. If you take the same search to Yahoo, you will still find 202 million results. With that kind of competition, why would anyone want to try to break into that industry as an online entrepreneur?

Suppose the next thought takes the aspiring entrepreneur to "jewelry"? A Google search will turn up 551 million to Yahoo's 261 million pages. Again, why would someone try to tackle such an overcrowded marketplace?

On top of that, as part-time entrepreneurs looking for some extra money, they don't have the time or resources to try to knock heads with these major corporations who run the competing websites in these markets.

Add to that the need to handle actual products and product fulfillment, and your part-time start-up entrepreneur really starts to lose interest. People tend to shy away from product fulfillment related industries. Their homes are already crowded enough without adding retail products to their space.

Something To Sell That Does Not Require A Warehouse or a Huge Investment

It is at about this time the opportunity search changes gears. There are many forks in the road, and the road you choose can be as hard or as easy as you make it for yourself.

Where to go from here:

1. Digital products - E-books and Software

2. Product Drop-Shipping

3. Affiliate programs

4. On-site Advertising

Let's look at each one of these individually:

Digital Products - E-Books and Software

We all have some kind of knowledge to share. If you determine that you have some kind of knowledge that you can share, then there is likely someone out there in the world who would be willing to pay you to obtain that same knowledge.

E-books are an ideal way to disseminate this information. With the e-book format, there are no printing costs, since your book is stored as a digital file. Self-publishing a digital ebook is not nearly as hard as you might think it would be.

Software is a similar beast. Since it is a digital product, you don't have to cover the costs of packaging and distribution. You can sell your software online, cutting out the middleman, keeping the extra profits for yourself.

Product Drop-Shipping

Some wholesale companies will allow you to buy products from them on a piecemeal basis. Of course, the cost is a bit higher than what it would be if you bought products a pallet at a time, but the convenience to you more than makes up for the additional cost.

The "drop-shippers" allow you to sell a product to your customers, and then you can take the money you collected from your customer to the drop-shipper. The drop-shipper will ship the product directly to your customer.

In some cases, the drop shipper will even put your own custom label on the outside of the container, making the fact that you used a drop-shipper completely unseen by your customer.

Affiliate programs

With an Affiliate program, you can register with a seller, and the seller will give you a unique URL that you can use to promote their products or services. When someone uses "your affiliate URL" to visit the seller's website, the seller will track that person until the visitor leaves the site. (Some Affiliate sellers will drop a cookie on the computer of the visitor, and if that person returns to the seller's website within one year, then you will get credit for that visitor returning to the seller's website.) If the visitor buys a product or service from the seller, then your account will be credited for bringing a buyer to the website. This will result in your earning a commission for bringing the buyer and seller together.

On-Site Advertising

Both Google and Yahoo's Overture services offer an option to webmasters to carry their advertising on your website. When someone clicks a link on your website and visits the advertiser's website, then you would get paid a small payment for having connected the potential buyer to the seller's website.

This is a type of advertising that pays you when someone visits the seller's website. Contrast that with the Affiliate program, which pays you when someone buys a product from the seller's website, and then you can see the fine line difference between the two types of advertising.

How Much Can You Make Utilizing On-Site Advertising?

Truth be told, there are a lot of people on the internet who makes tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars per month --- yes, I said, "per month" --- using only Google's on-site advertising program, called Adsense. The rest of us make hundreds or thousands per month.

The truth is that with Google's contextual advertising program called Adsense, your income is based on what the advertisers are willing to pay for your traffic and how much traffic you can generate.

The Profit and Loss Factor for the Advertiser

It is a matter of profit-and-loss for the advertiser. If the advertiser pays one dollar for a visitor, and every 35th visitor buys what the advertiser is selling, then the advertiser is getting one buyer for every $35 spent. If the advertiser's profit margin is enough to afford spending $35 to acquire one customer, then the advertiser will feel his advertising is worthwhile, and he will keep on coming back for more advertising.

If on the other hand, the advertiser is only earning a gross profit of $20 per transaction, then he or she will have a hard time justifying the $35 advertising expenditure.

This is why you will find that most Google and Yahoo advertisers are only willing to spend 25 or 50 cents to get one visitor to their website.

And then depending on a number of factors, you will only earn 30-50% of the gross revenue that Google or Yahoo earned for that visitor.

Taking the lowest case denominator approach, 30% of 25 cents is roughly eight cents that you will be paid for each visitor that you send to an advertiser.

Some of these guys who are knocking down ten thousand dollars a month are actually doing so at eight cents per click! What is their secret to success? They are getting thousands of people to visit their website everyday.

The Profit and Loss Factor for the Affiliate Seller

On the flip side, let us take a look at the same scenario for the Affiliate seller. Instead of paying for visitors, advertisers are paying for actual sales.

The Affiliate seller knows his or her margin well enough to know that they can afford to pay anywhere from 2-50% of the actual transaction amount to the person who referred the buyer to their website.

The Affiliate seller is not paying for advertising on a gamble, instead, they are paying for advertising on a sure thing.

It is not unheard of to earn $20, $50 or $200 on a single Affiliate sale transaction.

If you are able to convert one person in thirty-five to buyers of an affiliate product or service, you could conceivably make more money with less traffic, than the guys knocking down the big bucks with Adsense.

Mix-and-Match For The Greatest Success

This is really important to your bottom line. If you fail to heed my advice, your website may fail to survive.

Unless you are the owner of a product or service sales website, then you will be relying on the various advertising opportunities to survive.

You are best to mix-and-match your offers for the greatest success. Yes, do set up Google Adsense on your site, but also set up Affiliate programs on your site.

You may sell a few products each week, and the sale from those products might make a good income for you. But, for the people who arrived on your site who are not interested in your main offering, give them another advertisement to click on before they leave. This way, you can get the Pay-Per-Click advertising revenue from those people who chose not to buy the products and services that you are selling through the Affiliate programs.

Diversification Is Your Key To Success

Don't let yourself be fooled by the idea that you can be profitable with only one product or service offering or advertising revenue generator. Many people have entered this medium with a Made For Adsense (MFA) site, and many of those people have gone out of business in just a few months.

Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Or else, when you fall, you will have nothing to show for all of your hard work.

Two Most Important Google Ranking Factors

2010-01-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

The two most important ranking factors used by Google in my opinion:

1. PageRank
2. Incoming Text Link Keywords

I'll explain each in more detail and what you MUST do to maximize the effectiveness of each element.

1. PageRank

PageRank is determined by the number and quality of links to a page. Both the quantity and quality of text links are important. Always try to get links from web pages with a PageRank rating of at least four.

Concentrate on getting as many different quality sites as possible to link to one page on your site, usually your home page. Do not spread the links to different pages. This will maximize the PageRank of your main page, plus those of the subpages.

2. Incoming Text Link Keywords

ALWAYS provide text links for linking to your site. Avoid image links.

Google does index image links, but without any text for it to index, it won't help your link popularity rating for your important keywords.

In addition:

Include the most important keyword phrase in the text link, using the EXACT spelling.
Do not pluralize the keyword phrase, if people usually search the singular version of the phrase. And vice versa.
Avoid excess words, where possible.
The linked to page MUST have the text link keywords in the body of the page, otherwise Google will discount the page.
Include the text link keywords within the title tag of the linked to page. It is possible for a page without the text link keywords in the title tag to get top rankings. But I have discovered that around 80% of top 10 rankings have the text link keywords in the title tag, so always include it.

Well, there you have it. Those are what I consider the two most important ranking factors used by Google. Other factors are considered by Google, but their importance pales in comparison to the two I have discussed in this article.

Follow these tips whenever you optimize your web pages and they will quickly shoot up the Google rankings.

Marketing Objectives as Important Part

2010-01-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

We all as internet marketer or website owner must have an objective . With objectives to help overcome your main online challenges you can work smarter, not harder.

Think of your Web site objective as the "big picture". It is the basis for a marketing plan and, in general terms, answers the questions:

1. "How can I use the site to overcome my business's main Internet related challenge?" and/or
2. "What is the purpose of my site?" When setting marketing objectives, keep your site's business model and customers' decision-making stages in mind.

Business Models

The business model defines how your Web site fits into your business - how it will help your company grow. Direct revenue is a popular Web site business model, but it is not the only one. Some business models include:
Direct Revenue / e-Commerce

Some of the most known Web site objectives relate to e-commerce or other types of direct revenue from the site. That is, the objective is to establish a direct source of revenue from orders or advertising space.
Build Brand Image

A long-term marketing objective for your site could be to improve sales by building an image for your product, brand, and/or company. Increasingly, this is an explicit goal for large companies with ample budgets.

Small-budget companies can follow suit on a more affordable scale by building an image during the natural course of marketing. You can do this by consistently presenting similar design elements and "personality" at each point of contact with the world - whether that contact be virtual or physical.
Enhance Customer Service

Your site can increase revenue indirectly by improving customer service. When customers are more satisfied, they tend to spread the word about your products as well as buy more often themselves.

Customers often do product research on a Web site then later place orders via catalogue, telephone, sales representatives, a physical retail store, mail, and/or fax. In all of these cases, a Web site indirectly contributes to building the business.
Lower Operating Costs

A Web site can help your business by lowering costs. Automated customer service functions - Web-based FAQ, order status reports, product specifications, etc. - can lower the number of customer service calls, reducing customer service labor costs.

A Web presence can also lower operating costs by streamlining communication with your business partners. Business-to-business companies can create secure Web space to communicate and collaborate with customers.

It is even possible to have individual, private sites for major clients. A central "meeting place" that archives communications and other customer-specific information can cut down on administrative costs related to "phone tag", inquiries, and/or the need to consciously keep all players "in the loop".

On the supply side, you could reduce costly business disruptions by giving key vendors Web-based access to your inventory or other real-time information.
Customer Stages: Awareness, Interest, Trial, and Repeat

When setting your marketing objectives, it may help to think in terms of awareness, interest, trial, and repeat. These concepts are often used in marketing to explain the stages a new customer (or site visitor, in this case) goes through on the path to becoming loyal to your business.

The potential visitor must first become aware of your site. Once aware, you must spark an interest with the potential visitor, motivating her/him to trial, or respond to a call to action on your site. After (s)he visits your site, that person becomes loyal by revisiting in the future.

You may be able to most effectively build your business by focusing on one or two of awareness, interest, trial, or repeat visits, then changing your focus over time. If your site is brand new or known to very few people, for example, your plan is likely to concentrate on ways to increase awareness and interest.

A focus on interest and trial may be in order, however, if you get an above-average number of "window shoppers" - visitors who never purchase (or do not respond to some other call to action).

Additionally, if you sell multiple products or a product that needs replenishing from your site, focus on repeat purchases may be more effective.
Setting Your Marketing Objectives

While there are different approaches to setting objectives, my preference is to develop a single objective for a site that may encompass more than one approach to business building.

In the marketing plan, I include separate strategies and tactics to address each approach suggested in the site objective. I also like to note in the objective both the customer stage(s) and business model(s) I will focus on in the marketing plan. This makes it easier to decide upon the most effective marketing strategies.

Another approach is to address the customer stages separately, in a summary or write-up. With either approach, you should view your marketing plan as evolving over time. As the business environment and situations change, your focus should change as well.

Once you get past the launch stage of a new site, for example, you are in a better position to evaluate site traffic, so your plan may shift from focusing on awareness and interest to building trial and loyalty. Similarly, a better understanding of site visitors may lead you to adjust your business model to more closely address your company's and Web customers' needs.

Writing Article Marketing Is Profitable Strategy

2010-01-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

Writing and distributing articles is my first way to drive pre-targeted traffic to my sites. Besides that, search engines love fresh content and what better way than submit articles and to post or archive your articles on your own article directory which you should have implement on your own sites.

Better yet, writing and submitting unique content articles rather than submitting the same articles will produce more traffic, back links, and higher rankings. Although this can be difficult and time consuming writing hundreds of versions of unique and different articles, most of the article submission software available can only submit the same article to different article directories.

Article Pro Software is one piece of software I can highly recommend that will automatically submit unique articles saving you valuable time. It is not an article spinner or content creator that submits gibberish. You write the articles and it does the rest.

Sometimes writing articles can be intimidating and you may feel that this is really not your cup of tea. One option is to buy PLR or Private Label Write articles or have ghostwriters write articles for you. Both are fee related services. From my experience PLR articles can be a great source of content for your website to build content and feed those hungry search bots looking for fresh edible content. There is one catch to these articles, which I will cover next.

If you do decide to go the PLR route, it is highly recommended that you go through and alter them or modify them in such a manner that they do not read the same as the original article. Keep in mind that these PLR article are being bought by many other would be "content seekers" so you need to make them different or else you will be submitting duplicate content.

The major keys to profiting from article submissions are to write articles filled with useful information and are of great quality. Adding your resource box to the end of your article is where you develop your traffic and back links. A simple, catchy one-line phrase will do the trick.

For example "Click here for the latest hot article marketing strategies! http://www.yourwebsite.com" should do the trick. Don't overlook trying a few longer resource boxes; say 4 to 5 sentences long. I have had great success with those as well.

Before publishing your articles, be sure and do a spell and grammar check on them. It does not convey professionalism when your articles are loaded with spelling and grammar errors. Some of the major have a spell check already built in, but I usually draft my articles in notepad and then copy and paste into Word where I can run a check on them before submitting. This is somewhat of an extra step, but a valuable one that does not take long to complete. Not only that, but you can learn a lot form going through the spell checks yourself.

Publishing your articles to the top ranking article directories and to your own Website or Blog are two great ways to get your articles exposed on the Internet. If you do not have a blog yet you may want to look into it. They are usually free and can serve as another Website for your own self-promotion.

As previously mentioned, unique content articles are a major advantage over your competition. Article Pro Software can create unique articles for you to distribute not only to it's internal list, but you can also use those unique articles to copy and paste into the major high ranking article directories e.g. Ezine Articles, Isnare, and Go Articles which require manual submission.

In closing, article writing and submissions is a great article marketing strategy that can yield huge profits if done correctly. There are other important factors that also contribute to article success which I will cover in future articles, but if you follow this article marketing strategy you will be ahead of your competition separating you from the field.

5 Simple Tips To Inspire You to Write An Internet Marketing Article

2010-01-14T23:19:00.000-08:00

Creativity is the main ingredient in baking up an internet marketing article. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone crazy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can't seem to get their creative juices flowing.

Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.

So just what do you have to do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to get your creative juices flowing. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but many methods may aid you in achieving that state of mind. Here are five easy ways for that.

1) Keep a diary or a journal with you always.

Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard, someone's internet marketing ideas could be used to develop your own ideas and this is not stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it's the development of the idea that makes it unique.

2) Relax and take time to sort things out.

A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Everyone must have a clear mind if one wishes to have their creativity in full speed. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity. If you are bothered by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.

Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find out what triggers your emotions. Discover what inspires you and what ticks you off. You can use these emotions to help you in expressing yourself and your ideas, with this you can grow creatively.

3) Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness.

Your working place can be quite a hindrance if it doesn't make you feel happy or relaxed. Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won't be conducive in firing up your creative flow.

Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects that inspire, or anything that can get your creativeness cranking. A clean and well organized workplace also rids of distractions and unwanted hindrances. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.

4) Set the mood.

Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce your self to feeling what makes your mind works best. Finding out what makes you tick could help you find ways to get your creative juices flowing. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.

There are many ways to set the mood. Some writers have been known to use alcohol, a little sip of wine to stir up the imagination. Some would like some mood music while others let the lighting of the environment create the mood.

5) Go on a getaway and just do something unlike crazy.

Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a solemn hike. Whatever it is that is unusual from your daily routine can take the rut out of your schedule. In no time at all, your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive and the end result will be an internet marketing article that attracts readers like crazy.

What You Need to Know About Email Marketing.

2010-01-13T18:30:00.000-08:00

All Customer hate junk mail. Whether it comes through snail mail or electronically, many marketers believe that it is a waste of time because customers will just throw it away or delete it without even reading it. While this may be true for some cold customers who have never used your services, using opt-in email marketing is an effective email strategy as your customers have given their permission to be contacted via email. So why should you use email marketing and why does it work?

1. Email is a primary means of communication for many of your customers.

Email is now the preferred method for people to receive information, and they use it for all aspects of personal communication. From paying bills to sending greeting cards to applying for jobs, email is now the primary method for all of these things because of its speed and ease of use. By implementing an opt-in campaign, your customers are more likely to read the email because they gave you permission to send it.

2. Email allows fast and timely delivery of important information without high overhead. No need to worry about paying for printing or mailing, it is all delivered electronically. Mail house and commercial printing expenses are a thing of the past with email marketing. You best bet is to use a professional service, such as Constant Contact, to ensure that your emails are not filtered out of your customer's inbox as spam.

3. Email is another way to promote your brand. Now that most email is html-based, you are able to send mail that is just as effectively designed as your direct mail
to deliver results. Make sure you have a designer who can design or this new medium. This can help brand recognition.

4. Email campaigns are easy to measure. Unlike direct mail, email is easier to track and analyze data to find out how well your campaigns are doing. You don't have to worry about setting up special measures to know that the response was generated from an email ad. This is another advantage of hiring a service to help with your email marketing.

Now that you are aware of some of the advantages of email marketing, it is equally important to understand what to include in your campaign. Be sure that your email has all of the following:

Offer: Sometimes an internet-only special is a great enticement for the customer, and will keep them signed up to receive future emails

Call to action: Be sure to position this above the fold, or closest to the top left corner as possible.

Use white space: Less is more. Balance text with graphics and open areas to keep the message from looking too close together.

Bold text and highlighting: Be sure to use these to draw the eye to key points.

Corporate identity: don't forget your logo and fonts that are consistent with your brand.

Is Your Email Valuable to Your Readers?

2010-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Do you ever think about how valuable is your email to your readers? Do you offer them something unique, necessary to their daily living, something they anticipate each time? Or does your email give off a whiff of "same old same old" or "buy buy buy"?

Put yourself in your reader's shoes and look at the last email message you sent out. Why would that reader ever want to get another message from you?

This is really the heart of deliverability. When you send email messages that your readers want to read, that they anticipate and that speaks to their needs and wants, they will overlook all kinds of problems just to see what you have said.

Getting to this Nirvana position is not so easy. In fact, you have to know your customers inside and out. Not only that, but you also have to make sure you do nothing to get in the way of your email and distract them from your actual value.

Why Email is Still Worth the Effort

No matter how often some pundit declares email dead, it's a fact that value-laden permission email does work. The latest report from database marketing firm Merkle noted these two key findings based on its annual consumer survey, "View from the Inbox”:

50% of respondents had bought something based on a permission email message, up 3 percentage points from the previous year.
50% also said a company that "does a good job with email" influenced their purchase decision.

Conversely, a negative experience can drive customers away:

32% said they stopped doing business with at least one company because of its poor email practices.

We talk a lot about how to improve your deliverability by using opt-in, managing your reputation, segmenting lists, optimizing content and testing, but it all boils down to this: provide demonstrated value in each email.
Promote Email Value Throughout the Relationship

It would be nice to think your email program's value would be so obvious that readers would see it in each message. Alas, we live in the real world, so we know we have to sell the value at all points in the email relationship, and even before it begins officially.

Promote your email value at these crucial touchpoints (Need more info on each of these? Find resources at the end of this article) :

1. Your home page

This is your first chance to sell potential subscribers on your email value. "Sign up for email updates" and a link doesn't begin to hint at what they will receive if they hand over their email address.

"Join our site now and receive email-only discounts and advance sale notices" makes the value clear and begins to set subscriber expectations.

Not just your homepage, either, but every page of your Web site should invite visitors to join your party. You can tailor the invitation to suit the atmosphere of each page if you want. The most important thing is to make sure readers know they are welcome and that they will receive benefits not available to the casual site visitor.

2. Your registration page

This is your showcase, the best location to explain the benefits of signing up for email, including the kinds of email you send, how often and what the content entails.

All too often, though, companies who otherwise have an excellent email program give this short shrift. They rarely dedicate a page solely to the value of their email program.

Instead, they slap up a checkbox and a one-sentence value statement more focused on the subscription function itself.

These elements convey your email value proposition more effectively:

Explanation of benefits (what's in it for them)
Privacy policy (assurance that you'll treat their email address responsibly)
Preference choices (increases message relevance)
Sample messages (subscribers see what they're getting)
Links, images and transactions (subscribing, confirming, even unsubscribing) that work reliably each time
Graphic design that models the email message template to help readers recognize it more quickly
A thank you page that appears immediately after subscribing that acknowledges the subscription, restates the subscription elements and the value of your email, provides instructions on how to confirm the request, asks subscribers to add your sender email address to address books or contact lists with directions for the major ISPs or email providers, links to key locations on your Web site and links to key areas including your privacy policy and unsubscribe form.

With all of this information, be careful not to come on too strong by asking for too many details up front. Get just what you need to start the relationship, and then go back in the next phase to flesh out a profile or preferences.

A note on add-to-address-book instructions: Your email template probably lists these in every message you send. Trouble is, waiting even for the welcome message to deliver these instructions is too late.

Instead, be sure to post these on your thank-you page. If you post them on the sign-up page, they'll get lost in all the other business your subscribers are doing to get their messages going. If you wait until you send the welcome message (see next section), this all-important message could get lost or routed to junk, and you will have missed a key opportunity to build your relationship with your reader.

3. Your welcome program

This is another opportunity that too many companies waste with a simple "you are subscribed" message. Accurate enough, but it does nothing to remind subscribers about what they signed up for and what value your message brings.

When you launch a welcome program, you capitalize on your newest and most enthusiastic subscribers. Enthusiastic, yes, but not yet engaged. The welcome program brings them into the fold and helps them get up to speed quickly.

It consists of two parts:

The welcome message, sent immediately upon confirmation
The welcome program, a short cycle of emails that offer special benefits outside of your regular program emails.

The Welcome Message

This welcome message, sent immediately after opt-in confirmation, has become a generally accepted best practice for conveying value before you mail your very first program email.

The ideal welcome message includes these elements:

Subject line that welcomes the new subscriber
Personal greeting if you capture name at opt-in
Restatement of the email content, frequency and format the subscriber chose
Link to privacy policy, customer support and unsubscribe
Instructions on adding your sender address to address books or contact lists
Design that delivers key information in text, not images. This ensures that the subscriber can view it in the preview with images turned off, as well as in full view with images showing.
Links to any incentives you offered (use links rather than attachments that could trigger blocking)
Link to your current newsletter or offer9. Invitation to return to your Web site to fill out a profile or preference page.

The Welcome Program

The optimum welcome program includes these elements:

The current newsletter issue or offer if you don't link to it in your welcome program
The subscription incentive if you didn't deliver it in the welcome message
Quick explanations of how to use your Web site or your service
Invitation to fill out a profile or preference page along with a benefit statement
Survey of subscriber attitudes and expectations to assess how well you're performing
A subtle reminder of when the next message will be coming so they can look for it.

The value of your email program should shine through in each message, reminding subscribers of what they signed up for and that they need to open each message or they’ll miss out.

4. Regular Program Emails

These are the regular emails you send as part of an established programming cycle. However, if all you do is sell, sell, sell, you'll wear out or bore your reader. And, a bored reader is one that is likely to click the report-spam button to make you go away, especially if they don't trust your unsubscribe to work.
These elements help remind subscribers about your email program's value:

Email-only discounts (one-time or permanent, only for subscribers)
Invitations to fill out surveys or complete profiles
Directions on how to use products or to contact company reps
Account statements, membership numbers and links to key functions at your Web site
Company or product newsf. Changes that affect their email subscriptionsg. Links to blog articles and requests for reader comments.

5. Transactional emails

Naturally, the first job of a transactional email is to confirm an action, deliver an account statement, ask for a payment or conduct other business. However, you can remind subscribers of your email value here, too, provided you keep the focus on the transaction.

To do this, put the business in the top half to two-thirds of the message content, then put your email value proposition and a subscription link in the bottom third to half. This is also called putting it "below the fold," a reference to a standard broadsheet newspaper page where the most important stories go up in the top half, above the fold.

6. Mid-cycle messages

You don't want to wear out your list by sending more email than you promised. However, a carefully chosen and timed message sent between campaigns, or in the middle of a publishing schedule, can restate and refine.

Use these messages to remind subscribers, especially less active ones, about email benefits or account details to bring them back into the fold. Invite them to update their profiles. Send a short survey. Offer incentives for referrals. Explain any program changes that could affect their subscriptions.

Final Word: Emphasizing Value is Easy

It might sound as if you have to overhaul your messages to make the value clear, but you might need just a simple retooling.

Put yourself in your subscribers' shoes again, and see where you can add information or functionality, improve design or boost convenience. Never waste another chance to remind your subscribers of all the benefits they have coming.

Writing A Superb Internet Marketing Article

2010-01-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we must think that writing a good internet marketing article is not enough to reach to our target audience and get a good ranking in search engine results. But we must think to write a superb internet marketing article. It also helps you enhance our sales. The writing norms do not change, but key words should be strategically integrated into the article. Don’t go for a commercial write-up since people want just useful and informative content. You might want to go through the checklist given below to solve some general problems in this regard.

1. Having a purpose is really important. Start with writing on such a topic which you are interested in. you must have a clear idea about what you intend to achieve. The purpose includes whether the article is being written to address customer queries or improving the ranking of your website, or any other reason.

2. Focus is also really important, since you might not want to feed the readers with everything. Narrow down your topic to focus on some key areas which you want the readers to be aware of. Always keep the readers in mind before going for a difficult entertaining article or a general article giving out useful information.

3. Have a good idea about your target audience. You must consider their interests and wants as far as the given topic is concerned.

4. Go for an exhaustive outline and stress on the benefits. After having a purpose and the target, you must organize the article in such a manner that the reader will feel that the article will benefit him and will consider the key points mentioned therein.

5. Think of a creative, but meaningful title.

6. Spread the important points which you want to mention, throughout the article, instead of concentrating on them in the last paragraph mainly.

7. Don’t use technical jargons which might be incomprehensible by the common man reading the internet marketing articles.

8. Use a warm and friendly tone while writing the article. You must share the goals of the reader. Also, make it a point to collect feedback from the reader which would give you an insight into his mind.

9. Construct the article with short and simple sentences, which would keep boredom at bay. Long articles are a strict no-no, and if the article is not interesting in its entirety, it will test the patience of the reader. What’s more, he might actually quit reading the article mid-way. Sharp editing is very necessary.

10. Read more than you write, as by this, you can get a reader’s perspective. Proofreading is a must.

After writing the internet marketing articles, add it to your website. Submitting the articles may not be a very easy process, but you can use soft wares which can submit it to many directories at the same time.