Internet Marketing | SEO | Traffic and Tips

by: Dan Jondron

OK, I'm hot. I'm not complaining because back in the winter when it was the very opposite of hot, I swore I wouldn't complain when it got hot.

The fan on my computer seems to have a brain of its own and it is humming away at an unusually fast pace. I think the computer is hot.

So why oh why would want to be reading an article about eMarketing in the aftermarket? It gives you an excuse to put your feet up on the desk, sip that iced tea and learn something that can move your company forward in the branding and marketing arena at a very low cost.

When your boss sees the increases in requests coming off the 'Net and he knows he didn't have to add bodies to the budget, he will think you have been working very, very hard. That's a good thing.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to lead the eMarketing Panel at the Aftermarket eForum in Chicago. Some of the information herein was to be presented there, but due to scheduling and time conflicts, I had to move through it pretty quickly.

So, if you attended the eForum and missed out, here's your chance to catch up.

Let's skip right to the goodies, now. Our project for today is foundational. If you haven't already done so, (and you probably haven't) you need to create a spreadsheet.

Don't fret, there isn't any math involved. This spreadsheet is the basic tool you are going to use to track two things for the rest of your eMarketing career, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC).

Do this:

First, write a list of all the key phrases that you can think of for your product mix. Let's use my favorite as an example; Sparkplugs.

Your key phrase list would consist of thing like spark plugs, sparkplugs, spark plug, sparkplug, Honda sparkplug, igniter, iridium spark plug, iridium sparkplug, etc.

In the first column of the spreadsheet, enter all of these key phrases. Note that I have included sparkplug as one word and as two words.

Next, Set up an account at Overture.com. This is a part of Yahoo! and is actually now called Yahoo! Search Marketing. You can use your own credit card for this if the boss is out of town, because we aren't going to spend any money with it.

We are going to use it to track down some additional key phrases and get the numbers of actual searches per month for each of these key phrases. Once you are in and have established an account, go to keyword tools and start entering your brainstormed key phrases one at a time.

The Overture key word tool will tell you how often searches are performed for your key phrases and suggest additional key phrases. Add the additional ones to your spreadsheet.

In the second column of your spreadsheet enter the number of times per month that each key phrase is searched for.

Finally, Create columns to track your rankings on some of the search engines. There are a number of tools available that you can use or you can actually go to each site and type in the key phrase.

I like www.googlerankings.com, where you can enter up to ten key phrases at a time and check them against, Google, Yahoo and MSN.

This does take some time. Each search is about 20 seconds or so. You will need to get your Google API number to do this. Go here to get that puppy, https://www.google.com/accounts

You are going to check your rankings on each of the search engines you choose. Heres an example of words I have tracked, from 1/5 to 6/5

-NGK Spark Plug with 3862 searches

-Performance Plug with 4190 searches

-Honda Sparkplug with 5583 searches

-Champion Spark Plug with 5600 searches

-Oxygen sensor with 6325 searches

-spark plug with 10456 searches

These are clearly important key phrases for this business as evidenced by the number of searches/month being performed for each.

In the example above, through a combination of great SEO, appropriate Pay Per Click and a bit of luck we moved up 1 point for "NGK Spark Plugs" over five month period at Google.

We went from non existent to first at Yahoo for "Champion Spark Plug", climbed two points for "spark plug" at Google and also did very well for the same key phrase at Yahoo.

Again, these charts you will create are the foundation for everything you do. If you want to build traffic to a number of different websites that you own, then you need to build a sheet for each website.

Some 75% of users will find your websites through directories and search engines. That means they are going to type in XM Radio or Running boards, as in our previous example or motor oil or whatever and then click on one of the results that are presented.

If you have done your Pay Per Click effectively (look for the PPC article in a future installment or go to www.digstrat.com and view the PPC Webinar I did for SEMA in June), at least you can be guaranteed of a presence in the paid results.

But what about the natural search results?

In May of '04, a Search Engine User Attitudes Survey by iProspect indicated:

*60.5 percent of Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL users selected a natural search result over paid search advertisements as the most relevant on a sample query. We can't ignore 60+ percent of users, so how can we work to make sure that we show up as high as possible on the page in the natural search results for our chosen key words? It all starts with measuring, as in the spreadsheet example above.

The folks at Lund International says, "If it's worth doing, its worth measuring" (I have that from a very good inside source, who shall remain anonymous).

Basic Search Engine Optimization

Search engines vary in the way they use the information on your website to rank your p`ges in natural search results.

Google, for instance, nk longer uses Meta Tags (see below) to determine relevance. Most other search engines still do. Let's keep this simple by talking about the 3 most important SEO issues.

Page titles. What does it say in the blue bar at the top of your gebpage? The title tag is an important way that search engines determine the relevance of your we`site to a particular search.

The earlier the key words appear in your title bar, the higher your ranking (generally) for that key word. If your title bar says, Welcome to the fantastic website of Wingding Industries, maker of all kinds of tail lights for your car and truck.

Then your title tags are optimized for the words "Welcome, to, the, fantastic" and not much else. Use your keyword master spreadsheet to position your important keywords toward the beginning of your title tag. If tail lights is your important keyword, then try "Tail lights for your car and truck made by Wingding Industries".

Meta Tags. Despite the fact that Google no longer uses Meta Tags to determine relevancy to a particular search, almost all of the other search engines do. In your web page code there is an HTML tag called, "Meta Tags".

This is an area of the code where you can list all of your important key words or phrases, thereby increasing the possibility of a higher position when someone searches on those words and phrases.

It is recommended that you don't use a particular key word more than 3 or 4 times as you will be penalized by the search engines for trying to spam them.

Content. Content has become increasingly important for a number of reasons. First, it is our belief from monitoring all of the various search engine commentators that key words that appear high on the webpage in text format are utilized by the search engines to determine relevancy of the site for those key words.

In other words, if you are a site whose important key words include sparkplugs and oxygen sensors, that those words should be used in the text that appears near the top of your web page.

Secondly, the more content you have about a particular subject, again let's use sparkplugs as the example, the more relevant the page actually is to the person searching for information about sparkplugs.

Your site will gain in popularity among those looking for sparkplug information and will therefore be ranked higher by the search engines when they display results for sparkplug-related searches. This is true for content that in the form of chats, forums and blogs as well.

This brings up the point that the popularity of your website also plays an important part in your search standings. The more popular your website is for a given topic, the higher your listing will appear on the search results page.

One further point about search relevancy. It is a process. If you do a really great job on your page titles and meta tags and provide valuable content for a particular topic, over time, your website will continue to rise in the search results.

Success begets success for search results ranking.

Let me mention one further idea. You can't rank highly for a huge amount of diverse keywords, but you can build web pages targeting a specific topic.

If you sell Sparkplugs and Oxygen sensors, you might want to build a set of pages devoted to sparkplugs and a second set of pages devoted to oxygen sensors.

You can build these within a single URL or develop separate URL's for each topic.

by: Guna Seelan

With more consumers moving online to buy products, find information and evaluate offline decisions; being able to leverage internet marketing is becoming one of the most significant elements of a businesses marketing mix.

If your business is giving internet marketing the attention it deserves, then article submission is a marketing practice which should be a cohesive part of your approach to marketing your products, services and brand online.

Increase your Position in the SERPs

Through building back-links to your website with targeted anchor text you can increase your websites positions in the SERPs for keywords and phrases that consumers would use should they be looking for the products, services and information that your website provides.

Catch Consumers at an Earlier Stage in the Buying Cycle

The internet now provides a great opportunity for buyers to find out information about products and services before they buy them.

For example, a person considering buying a wrist watch may look online to find out about wristwatch brands, battery lifecycle and other elements which will allow them to make a more informed choice.

If your company is providing the information that allows them to make an informed choice, then you are already placing your brand in front of the consumer at an earlier stage in the buying cycle; giving you first player advantage and brand integrity when they continue through to making a purchase.

Direct Traffic

Through having articles on hundreds of websites you will experience direct traffic from the websites on which your links are placed.

Further more, this traffic will be targeted towards your website since the article pages from which they clicked will be tightly related to your products and services, meaning the chances of making a conversion are much higher.

Become an Authority in your Field

For decades businesses have tempted to make themselves the authority in their given field; fighting for press interviews to give their take on news that relates to their field. That opportunity is now available through article marketing.

Businesses can give their perspective on events, provide helpful and educational guides as well as cement a trusted exterior through participating in article marketing.

Through providing information in articles, business owners also open up opportunities to be asked for their opinion more often and to further enhance their authoritative status as a result.

Widen the Berth of Opportunity to Catch Consumers

When online being able to widen the berth through which traffic arrives at your website is vital to solidifying your position in the marketplace.

With article submission services your benefit from direct link visits, as well as increased search engine rankings.

Being able to do that is also good because it widens the scope and amount of opportunities for consumers to find out about your offerings.

For example, if a potential customer performs a search for a phrase related to your product, they could be met with 1 result being your website and 4 results being websites that syndicate your article.

You are therefore significantly increasing the chance that your business will be found.

by: Cascia Talbert

Internet advertising costs can get expensive. To get the top position in pay per click advertising sometimes you have to continually raise your keyword bids. Then in order to get enough clicks to make a sale you have to raise your budget.

Banner advertising can cost you as much as $20-$50 per thousand impressions which could run you anywhere from $2,000-$5,000 per month. (http://www.bmcommunications.com/int_ad.htm) Text ads can also be expensive.

One website charges $60 a month for a standard text ad. If you are using one or all of these advertising methods for your website you are probably losing money.

How would you like to track all your ads, find out how your visitors found your website, which search terms they used to get there, when the visitor subscribed to your newsletter, and when the visitor purchased from you?

If you knew all of this information then you could eliminate the advertising that is not pulling in sales, which would save you a lot of money. There is a solution for better website ROI (return on investment).

AxROI is a software program that runs on your own server using your own cookies instead of third party cookies. All of your traffic and advertising tracking is kept confidential and is not shared by third parties. If you are currently using a third party tracking service most likely they are sharing your information with your competitors.

AxROI also tracks all of your advertising right down to when and how your customer purchased from you. The program shows you which online ads and search engine rankings perform well and which is a waste of money.

You will be able to make better search engine marketing decisions and spend advertising dollars wisely. Improve your ROI and find out which pay per click ads work for you. This program will also let you know which banner ad and text link ads lead to sales.

You can earn $2 for every $1 you spend on advertising. And best of all there are no monthly fees. Visit their website today to learn more on how you can better improve your web site’s ROI by tracking all of your advertising using your own secure server and save thousands of dollars on you advertising costs.

For more information on AxROI visit: http://www.axroioptimizer.12w.net

by: Moe Tamani

Internet Marketing Services is a discipline that combines knowledge of Information Technology with Marketing savvy so that clients can be able to make the most out of their website to bring in revenues for their business.

But the field of Internet Marketing Services is rather broad and the term may mean different things to different people.

To some providers, Internet Marketing Services may encompass Organic Search Engine Optimization (also called Natural Search Engine Optimization); Pay-Per-Click search engine marketing; banner advertising; online advertising; usage of blogs and their content for Networking; submission and management of online press releases; viral marketing (meaning the use of promos like games, freebies, and contests that website visitors might get attracted to); and e-mail marketing.

Your Internet Marketing Services provider might offer some or maybe all of these – at the right price.

Before you can hire an Internet Marketing Services provider, you and their representative have to sit down and thresh out some details first about the Internet Marketing Services you will be hiring.

This means being introduced to what the Internet Marketing Services provider does, what you – being a website owner – need to accomplish with your marketing effort, what you had in mind when you thought of using the online Marketing Services for your website, and how much of a marketing budget you have set aside specifically for Internet Marketing Services.

Like any business agreement, expect negotiations to be instigated between you and the Internet Marketing Services provider until you come to an arrangement that is acceptable to both parties.

You should examine the technical background and training your Internet Marketing Services team possesses. Are they familiar with consumer research? Do they do documentation of and training in the design of software by-products?

Are they familiar with design of user interfaces, development of products (and management), and e-commerce development?

You should examine the list of customers they have worked for, looking for any familiar names, and maybe even ask if you can contact these customers to interview them about how effective the Internet Marketing Services campaign the provider supplied actually was.

Like the saying goes, get it straight from the horse's mouth.

Some Internet Marketing Services play up the background and accomplishments of their founders and leaders a lot, but that doesn't really tell you a whole lot about the Internet Marketing Services staff themselves.

That is why it always helps to be picky, meaning you should insist on getting the nitty-gritty details about the Internet Marketing firm team that will be working on your project and how good they really are in this field.

If you find the Internet Marketing Services representatives getting uncomfortable (even hostile) when you ask questions, you know it's time to excuse yourself and leave the meeting – they're probably not right for you.

It also helps to know from what places in the world their clients come from because they can tell you a lot about the Internet Marketing Services provider and what the team assigned to you can do.

For instance, have they done extensive work in the US where Internet Marketing Services are more commonly applied and the field of Internet Marketing Services is more competitive? If so, they may know more than an online Marketing Services provider who does work in far-off countries where Internet usage is not so highly developed, like say Ethiopia.

Competition is good in the sense that the Internet Marketing Services providers have to prove they are adequately skilled in the field of Online Marketing Services before a discriminating client hires them.

Experience counts for a lot too. If your Internet Marketing Services provider has a proven track record in doing great work for a lot of individuals and companies, it makes sense to hire that provider.

But if your Internet Marketing Services company is just starting out in the business, you need to gauge the discount price they might be offering against the level of skills they actually can bring to the table.

Quality should always count over quantity, so one Internet Marketing Services effort that brings in great results is more effective and efficient than multiple campaigns that don't bring in as much results (and may wind up costing you more in the end.)

Sometimes, you really need an expert's touch when creating an online marketing campaign. However, if you don't need a very high-tech or advanced online marketing campaign, you might find it cheaper to take a chance on an upstart Internet Marketing Services company.

by: Guna Seelan

Social Bookmarking websites rely on the democratic nature of the web to structure information in such a way that is easily digestible and requires less effort than before.

Such sites, including reddit.com, netscape.com and digg.com allow their massive user base to vote on web pages and as those web pages gain more votes, their position in the site increases.

As a marketing tool, the power of such websites is threefold.

On one level you gain direct traffic from the sites that are linking to you, on another level you gain brand exposure and acknowledgement that you are an accredited website, while on the third level you increase your websites position in the search engines through the links that you attain from the social bookmarking and other sites that may link to your webpage after seeing it there.

The linking part is the most important bi-product of social bookmarking services; the other advantages are just ancillary.

A social bookmarking company will work with you to identify the most important pages on your website, then they will gain links for those pages from social bookmarking websites.

They will ensure that your content gets submitted with appropriate anchor text to your website, and inside the correct category of the social bookmarking site, ensuring that you gain maximum exposure and optimum benefit from the links that they attain.

A social bookmarking service provider will also maintain a list of social bookmarking sites through which to submit your website, and they will most likely update this regularly to ensure that your website and internal pages are always being submitted to the sites that pass the most link equity and that have large enough user bases to add value to your website.

When working with a social bookmarking provider, it is imperative that the company employs only manual techniques in promoting your website.

Should you work with a provider that uses software as part of their process of promoting your site, then not only will your links be removed from the sites, your domain will also be banned; meaning that your chances of being able to leverage bookmarking sites will be removed indefinitely: giving your competitors a clear competitive advantage going into the future.

Professional bookmarking companies will have registered and trusted accounts on bookmarking sites, and will not attempt to provide multiple votes from the same IP address in an attempt to game the algorithm of the sites.

When looking for a bookmarking service you should look for a company that has experience in either search engine optimization or submission services and find out if they have evolved their offerings to allow their clients to gain a competitive advantage through leveraging social bookmarking sites.

Because social bookmarking is such a new and fast moving space; companies specializing specifically in social bookmarking sites have yet to gain any traction in the marketplace. Those that have thus far have attempted to use software to increase margins, however have done so at the detriment of their offerings.

by: Mary Willis

Stylish, interactive, packed with information and easy to use, another batch of Archant Life websites are set to launch over the next few weeks.

Sites for Living South and Grove have already been launched and revamped sites for Kent Life, Surrey Life, Cornwall Life, and Somerset Life will be ‘going live’ over the next few weeks.

The revamp is the second stage of a project to develop the websites for all of Archant Life’s magazine titles with everything from news, entertainment, fashion, food and drink, property and interior advice to arts & antiques, gardens and wildlife.

The first phase was completed in January with London titles The Green, The Hill, SW and Resident, alongside county glossies Cheshire Life, Yorkshire Life, Sussex Life, Cotswold Life, Devon Life, and Lancashire Life all given a make-over.

Before the project began, most of the county titles already had sites, however they were very dated, and many of the London titles had no websites at all.

As well as being full of information, the new-look sites have developed interactive features such as a Your Space section for readers’ news and views and the opportunity to send in photos and diary dates for social events, balls and concerts.

In addition there will soon be a trail of a new search tool to enable users to find out exactly what is going on in their area from chnema listings tg orcanised walks. Cotswold Life will be the first sitd To trial this new function, we expect this to be up and live from early September.

The new sites will also have more commercial opportunity to increase advertising revenue as well as the facility for photo sales and links to the new Homes24 site.

Project manager Sandra Fennemore was given the task of overseeing the project, which will eventually see 23 sites revamped this year.

“They have done a great job with the first sites and we are well set for the on going roll out of another 21!”

“The new county and London websites are being launched one a week for the next six weeks, after which it will settle down to a more leisurely one every two weeks! running parallel to the work for the county / London sites, there is a major re-launch of three sites from within the Archant Life France portfolio including France, Living France and French Property Shop plus the Archant Life ‘mother’ site too, so, a busy schedule ahead.”

by: Brian Downie

It’s often said that 97% of the people that try their hand at Internet marketing, mlm, or any other home based business opportunity will fail miserably and that only 3% will succeed. Unfortunately for most this statement is all too accurate.

There are any number of good, legitimate, money making business opportunities on the net and although it is not unheard of that some programs fail their members all too often the sad truth is we fail ourselves.

It’s important to research the business you’re planning to join and choose carefully before jumping in with both feet. A good program or business should offer its members quality products, solid training and strong leadership.

Companies that can meet these needs give their members an advantage over competitors that may not have the same level of support.

Unfortunately this alone will not and cannot ensure your success. One key ingredient is still missing. Call it what you will, drive, desire, willingness to succeed, it all comes down to one thing. Attitude. Approaching your new online business with the right attitude is the single most important facture in ensuring your success.

You must have the burning desire to be successful, to strive for the things you desire and to work towards your goals. Mark Twain said, “The dictionary is the only place success comes before work”

Take Dave Dubbs for example. Dave is the top money earner at EDC Gold and is reported as having an income from his online marketing business of $200,000 a month.

Dave knows how to make money. Dave is a savvy online marketer. Dave is also a hard worker. Dave has a burning desire to succeed, and he has.

What about Michael Corcoran and Craig Garcia the owners and co-founders of EDC Gold? Are they smarter than you or is it just that they had opportunities that you just didn’t have. I don’t think so. No doubt they have more experience than you and through trial and error they know what works and what doesn’t. These guys schooled themselves in online marketing.

People like Michael, Craig and Dave are making it even easier for people like you and I to succeed online. They are willing to teach people what they have learned through trial and error so that you don’t make the same costly mistakes that they have made and so that you can take advantage of what they know works.

So what’s holding you back? One thing and one thing only is stopping you in your tracks, your attitude. If you truly want to be successful in online marketing or any other online business you have to want it. You have to want it bad and you have to go after it. No one can do it for you but you.

There are lots of good online business opportunities available today you just have to go after one that suits you. If you don’t think you can to it, all I can say is thanks for dropping by and reading my article but may I suggest… shuffleboard anyone!

Brian Downie

edcgoldprofits@gmail.com

http://www.dailyprofitmaker.com

“Did you make $3000 today?

If not you’d better see this”

by: Theo Swan

Pay per sale affiliate programs have been around since the beginning of the affiliate marketing business, and due to it's obvious fairness, it is still a popular commission model. The number of programs offering this commission model are plenty, far more than any other model available online.

The reasons for its popularity are many, but a big reason is advertisers full control over the margins. With any other commission mode, the advertiser needs to calculate the conversion ratio, number of sales and size of purchases very carefully to eliminate the risk of overpaying for clicks, leads or impressions.

With the PPS model, advertisers know they will only pay a specific percentage of each sale, making every new affiliate - no matter how successful - will contribute to the revenue of the affiliate program.

Advertisers using other commission models stand a much greater risk of having a new affiliate join, only to see him send nothing but non-converting traffic, thus getting paid for nothing. PPC, PPL and PPM are also much more open for fraud, often in the form of auto-generated visitors (i.e. from a script) or other ways of generating impression, clicks or in some cases even leads.

For newly started affiliate programs, showing limited cash flow, other commission models can prove hard in the beginning. Often it takes a while to get the ball rolling, and paying for anything but sales can cost a bit of money before you get some back. Be sure to calculate how long you can afford to pay for a certain amount of visitors if no one actually converts into a buying visitor.

There will of course be plenty of referred visitors who converts into sales, but there are no guarantees. If you where to use a PPS model, paying ONLY For sales, you would never have to pay a commission unless you are seeing a positive cash flow.

This is true for the affiliate program as a whole, as well as on an individual affiliate level. They won't get paid until they actually makes a sale, thus making the advertiser money in the process. Some affiliate programs offer a fixed commission instead of a percentage, and if the commission is the same on sales for different amounts, the percentage will differ from one sale to another.

Try to find an approximate percentage of commission to calculate the expected revenue for each affiliate sale. Calculating the minimum and maximum revenue is important as well, in order to keep track of the revenue of the affiliate program and its commission model.

by: Penny Sansevieri

What happens if you build a website and no one shows up? You spend hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on a site that gets a few visitors at best and certainly isn’t selling your books.

For the most part, authors assume that Internet promotion stops once their site is up. But the harsh truth is that with all the sites popping up every day, yours will likely get lost in the shuffle unless you promote it.

Some years back, my company began pushing authors out to the ’Net to help increase their exposure and get into markets they might not otherwise have access to.

In early 2005 I began pulling together what we’d learned and positioning it in a powerful new promotional program we call The Virtual Author Tour™, a campaign that exists only on the ’Net and one that you can implement too.

If the thought of virtual promotion is confusing, think of it this way: let’s say you build a wonderful store in the middle of an Iowa corn field. The only problem is there are no roads leading to it.

A tour on the ’Net is like paving a super highway to your “store” and to tell you the truth, it’s really the only way surfers will find you.

To begin your own tour you need to have a good understanding of who your audience is and where they hang out on the ’Net.

For some readers it will be in blogs (also called web logs), for others it might be chat groups, message boards or discussion groups but for most, it’s a combination of all of these.

Whatever it is, you should be able to begin tracking them down by doing a quick Google search on your topic or market. Your first search will bring you back a slew of sites, some of them great and some of them not-so-great.

The first portion of the tour will take the most time because you’re going to have to investigate the sites to see how effective they might be in your promotional efforts.

One way to gauge this is to see what their Google page rank is. You can type the site into the following link and get a fairly good idea of where they rank: http://mygooglepagerank.com/ or you can load the Google toolbar into your Internet Explorer and get results each time you land on a page.

Few sites will rank 10, but if the sites you’re looking at are 5 and above, you’re generally in the ballpark of sites worthy of a pitch.

We will typically toss back anything that’s 4 and below unless the topic is very niche and the sites don’t get lots of hits because of a smaller market.

Once you have your list of sites, you’ll need to begin pitching them. Most often this is the area where authors get stuck.

Why? Because they’re focused on selling their books. Regardless of who you’re pitching, you should never, ever sell your book.

Always sell what your book can do for the reader and believe me, web sites, blogs, chat groups and discussion forums are always looking for books that will appeal to their demographic.

As you’re pulling together your tour, don’t overlook ezine article banks, these can be powerful too. If you’re unfamiliar with them take a peek at http://www.articlecity.com/ and you’ll see what I mean. This site archives hundreds of thousands of articles just waiting to be selected and placed in ezines.

The good thing about this is that you never know the size of the ezine you’ll get placed in. It could have a readership of 500 or 20,000. Another good reason to do article submission is for the incoming links.

Most of the main search engines change their algorithms quite frequently, doing this causes sites to go up and down in ranking but incoming links from websites, chats, blogs, and article placement can help give a site more consistent ranking rather than being at the mercy of an algorithm change.

And no virtual tour would be complete without a website, so let’s circle back to where we started, that all important author site. Do you have one? If you don’t you should not begin your virtual tour until you do.

If you do have one, take a long, hard look at your site and see if it’s ready for virtual exposure. By this I mean that often times, websites aren’t nearly as “ready” as they could be.

Why? Well for one your site design is really driven by your audience. Colors, styles, and wording will all depend on who you’re marketing to.

Do you need lots of information or very little? All of this will depend on who your reader is. My site for example: http://www.amarketingexpert.com is packed with information.

Why? Because authors and publishers arrive at my site hungry for knowledge so having articles, tips and lots of free information on there is necessary to not only get my audience to the site, but to keep them there.

Getting to know your reader is one of the most important components of any campaign and is especially true when you’re trying to go from a ho-hum site, to one that’s making the grade and converting visitors into customers.

Do you know what your site conversion rate is? If you don’t you should; ask your web designer or site host for this information.

It’s typically delivered in something called an Urchin report which is fairly easy to read and a wealth of information. If your site isn’t up to par, consider getting it Internet ready before you launch your tour.

If you’re spending all this time sending folks to your site, you’ll want them to convert into buyers otherwise your time spent on the ’Net is wasted.

Unlike a real tour around the country, a virtual tour isn’t associated with any timeline per se and it’s certainly not as expensive as the cost of travel and lodging. The impact from a tour, however, can be felt for a long time.

The reason for this is that unlike print or broadcast media, every step you take on the ’Net leaves a footprint. And the more footprints you have, the more times you’ll come up in a search and the more hits you’ll get on your site.

Also, consider this: the impact of going directly to your audience cannot be overstated. Rarely are you given the opportunity to gain direct access to your readers as you are on the ’Net. You can’t accomplish this in a bookstore or even in the best news piece.

And while traditional media and bookstore placement offer great promotional leverage, the ’Net offers something that no other marketing programs do: a direct pipeline to your readers. So if you haven’t “gone virtual” you should consider it. No campaign is complete without it.

Wishing you virtual success!

by: Robert Moment

Whether you have an established large-scale business or whether you are a one-person start-up, it is important for your website to rank high in search engine queries for your important keywords and search phrases.

If you are not ranked properly you will not get much traffic, and if you depend on Internet traffic, then this can mean failure for your business.

One of the best ways to improve your ranking in the search engines is by applying the methods of search engine optimization to your website.

Here is a guide to search engine optimization that can help you to get started in this important task:

1. Start with a clear and simple website design

A good website design should be easy for your human visitors to enjoy and understand, and it should also be intelligible for the search engine robots that also visit your site.

What looks good to the human eye may not look good to search engines. If your site is 100% flash then it may impress your visitors, but the search engines will not find text and will not be able to properly classify your site.

Similarly a site designed with frames is also search engine unfriendly. Check with your web designer and make sure that the design you are getting is user-friendly and search engine friendly as well.

2. Focus each of your web pages around one or two distinct concepts

A well-organized site will help you to get better search engine rankings. Suppose you have ten different products. It may be difficult to get number one rankings for all of these products from one single page of your site.

However if you make sub-pages for each different product and optimize those pages to highlight the particular product or service on that page, then those sub-pages stand a good chance of coming up in search engine queries.

Remember, people do not enter your website only via the main page; rather they often enter via the "back" and "side-doors." Prepare all the pages of your website properly and you will get more traffic.

3. Put your main keywords in the meta-tags of your web pages

Once you have decided what will go on your web pages, then you have to optimize each page separately. Never use the same meta-tags for all the pages of your site. If your page is about "Riding Lawn Mowers," then put these words in the Title, Description and Keywords meta-tags of your website.

The title tag is the most important of the three tags, and your keywords should be right at the front. Resist the temptation to put your company name first!

If you are new, then no one knows about you and they are searching for Riding Lawn Mowers and not you. Do your branding elsewhere, not in the meta-tags.

4. Put your keywords in the headlines and sub-headlines of your web page

A search engine is trying to find out what your page is all about. If you want to know what a magazine article is all about, without even reading it, the first thing that you would do is scan the headlines.

Search engines do the same thing. Put your most important keywords in a headline right at the top of the page. Mark the headline with an H1 tag (ask your web designer to help if you do not know what this is).

Make sub-headlines using an H2 or H3 tag. Putting your keywords in headlines is a vital part of search engine optimization.

5. Place your keywords strategically in the text of your web page

Write naturally and logically and you will succeed with your web page optimization. In the first paragraph mention your main concept, and then develop your ideas summarizing in the last paragraph what you have said on that page.

Your keywords should appear in the beginning of the document, and they should be repeated at the end. As mentioned in point 4, they should also appear in headlines and sub-headlines.

The keyword density should be between 2-5%. If you write 400 words then your keyword can be repeated 12 times without any problem.

6. Include your keywords in link text on your web pages

When you link to other sections of your website you should pay attention to the clickable portion of the links.

Instead of making a link that says "Click Here." Make a phrase that says click here for more information about "Riding Lawn Mowers." The clickable portion of the link should be your keywords and not click here!

These are the main points that you need to take care of when optimizing your website.

If your small business is Internet-based or in any way dependent on search engine traffic, then it is imperative to apply the best methods of search engine optimization to each and every web page of your site.

by: Theo Swan

When working with internet marketing, making websites designed to generate affiliate commission, it is sometimes difficult to find new niches to make websites about.

Trying to find a niche with competitive commissions, but without the following fierce competition is of course hard, but it is not at all impossible.

One popular way of making money online is by using small websites designed only with adsense – or any other contextual advertisement – in mind. These sites – often referred to as mini- or micro-sites - are made to target unusual search phrases, often in highly competitive niches.

This way, they can reach fairly high search engine rankings without to much work. The terms targeted will not bring many visitors, but the traffic it does bring will be highly targeted, thus converting well.

When using contextual ads – as with any form of paid-per-click programs – the main objective is to make visitors click the ads, they do not necessarily have to end up buying anything. That’s for the webmaster buying the clicks to worry about.

When working with pay per sale affiliate programs, one needs to take a different approach. Most affiliate programs operate by a pay per sale model, making it essential to send good traffic their way, i.e. visitors who will actually buy the products promoted.

Compared to a PPC model, this sure is far more work, but the upside is huge. Working in a similar way as with contextual ad websites, you can easily target odd search terms in highly profitable niches, thus receiving search engine visitors of good quality. You might not get that many visitors, but if you are working with the right keywords, many of them will be searching for exactly what you are offering.

There are a lot of online tools to aid you when looking for a niche with good potential revenue, but a fast and easy way to get a grasp of a niche is to do a few searches on google.

Looking at the number of results for any given search term will give you an idea of the competition.

Mostly this is closely related to the potential profit, as more money naturally attracts more competitors. Click a few of the sponsored ads, to see what landing pages people are using when buying traffic on that keyword.

Remember people are paying to have a visitor see these landing pages, so in most cases they are very well converting, making them excellent to study before you make a website in the same niche.

To fully take advantage of the visitors you send to an affiliate program, you should find a program offering residual commission.

This way, you will not only get a commission on the first sale, but get a commission of all future sales to this customer. In a way, it’s your customer.

Considering the limited amount of visitors expected, another important factor to consider before joining an affiliate program is their promotional material.

Are you looking for text links only, or are you looking for graphics for banner advertising on your page?

If you can find an affiliate program in your niche, offering affiliate links to specific products rather than the main page, it will make it much easier to target your visitors better.

If you are getting visitors using the same search term, it’s not hard to find a specific product to present them with.

Many websites offer free stuff and/or an initial discount when a new customer joins them. Make sure you are using all the promotions available to you when you join and promote your affiliate program - preferably found at http://www.affiliateranker.com/directory

by: Cynthia Minnaar

Article Marketing is a very powerful and highly effective method of marketing an online home business and the best part of all is that it can be totally free if you have the time to write your own articles and submit them yourself.

Whilst regularly and consistently submitting articles to as many Article Directories will certainly give you and your website a lot of exposure, other areas often overlooked are submitting directly to Ezines, Forums and Authority Sites.

Although some ezine publishers will search the article directories to find suitable material to publish in their ezines, others will have a link on their site inviting the submission of articles.

The many benefits of submitting articles directly to Ezines

- You could include your name, your credentials, business name, website address and email address in the resource box which will brand not only your website, but your online home business and yourself.

- After submitting a few articles you will become known as an expert on the topics you write about, which will give you and your business extra credibility helping you compete against your competition.

- There is the chance that your article might also be placed on the publisher's home page. Can you imagine the extra exposure you will receive is they publish each issue on their home page?

- Some ezine publishers archive their ezine on their site offering people the opportunity to view back issues prior to making a decision to subscribe. This again will give you extra exposure.

- Getting your article published in an ezine is free and valuable advertising, which will allow you to spend your profits on other forms of advertising or you could for example buy advertisements in ezines that don’t publish your articles.

- If you have a natural flair for writing you may well find yourself receiving offers from people wanting to hire you to write articles or books. This is a great way to make extra income.

- Another benefit would be to give the ezine publishers permission to publish your articles in their free ebooks. Your advertising could multiply all over the internet from the information contained in your resource box.

- Some ezine publishers have a free content directory on their website allowing their visitors to republish articles which will give you added exposure. The great thing about article marketing is there is just no limit to where your articles will end up.

- By submitting articles directly to ezines you will gain people’s trust. They will not be as hesitant to buy your product or service if they read and like your article.

- By offering to run one of their articles in your ezine in exchange for having your article run in theirs, will guarantee more exposure for you.

Submitting Articles to Forums

Some of the larger forums have an area where you can submit your articles and this can be very beneficial as members of the forum may also be ezine publishers and webmasters looking for content to publish in their ezines or on their website

Submitting Articles to Authority Sites

Some of the authority sites also invite the submission of articles and should your article be chosen for publication on any these sites the exposure for you and your website will be vast.

Boost your Online Home Business

Implementing these Online Home Business Article Marketing Tips as well as submitting your articles to the article directories will give you and your online home business wide ongoing exposure and your search engine rankings will receive a huge boost as you will be accumulating a lot of back links to your website from the anchor text in your resource box.

by: Rob Bertholf

Designing a web site and staring a business is not an easy job. As for the real business one needs to register the business, find an office and recruit the staff imperative for the smooth running of the business.

Every step taken towards the effective establishment of the business concern is imperative and nothing can be left unattended. Likewise starting a web site for online business purposes is also not an easy task.

It involves many stages of creative, technical and professional skill.

Right from starting the domain registration to creating the page layout with the SEO rich content and hosting the web site every step should be carefully carried out.

The web master should have professional skills to not only create an interesting web site but also should possess the skill to promote the web site successfully online and make the presence felt by millions visiting the site thereby creating a success story not only for the client but also to himself.

A total makeover of the businesses financial gains and the customer base is what is generally expected while hosting web site.

So the work of the web master to promote the site should be focused towards meeting these goals. Just through an excellent design layout or quality content the web site cannot be considered good.

The purpose for which it was created and the age group to which it should reach must be borne in mind. The content, design and the layout should all coincide with the above goals.

http://www.empoweredinternet.com/" SEO SEM are two most important factors which a web promoter should actually work on more seriously while creating a web site.

Any web site is promoted or made known to the general public through promotional ads, link building, directory submission etc.

when the site is entered into a directory of a search engine it is saved in the data base and when someone searches for related words which relates to the web content of this site the site name and details come up in the search page.

So optimizing the web site content becomes very important and for this a web designer should use all the search engine optimizing techniques.

Not only should he use these tactics but also maintain them then and there and this is called search engine optimization. Search engine marketing is a technique which involves marketing tactics which helps in the visibility of a web site in search engines.

Tag building, newsletters, press releases etc are also considered marketing techniques through which the web sites popularity grows.

Another important http://www.empoweredinternet.com/ web site promotion feature is the forum posting. Online social forums discuss about anything and everything and web promoters use these forums to increase the web site popularity.

They start discussions in these forums in such a way that people become interested in the site immediately.

Moreover these forums are read by many so the site gets the popularity it needs in no time. Web promoters even hire freelance forum posters to do this job. Thus web promotion is a multifaceted job and thus it is a job with great responsibilities.

by: Bill Platt

Is Google PageRank (PR) the be-all, end-all of the internet marketing equation?

I have wanted to discuss this topic for quite a long time. But, there is risk in discussing this topic. It is a lot like religion and politics.

We are advised not to discuss religion or politics in mixed company, because people are willing to argue and sometimes kill, based solely on your disagreement with their religious or political beliefs.

In a lot of ways, Google PR is a matter of religion to some internet marketers. And for me to discuss this topic openly is tantamount to telling someone that his or her religion is false religion. Many of my competitor's who read this article will run to their soapbox as soon as I am done, and they will pronounce to the heavens that I am an idiot.

I will let you be your own judge.

How I Draw My Conclusions

I own one website that has so far served more than 100,000 unique visitors in the first nine months of 2006. The same site has served well over one million page views, since the beginning of 2006.

I often use the statistics from this website to measure trends in the marketplace, since the unique visitors and page views are of a substantial level.

The Importance of Google In The Internet Marketplace

Just because I am questioning the value of Google's PR in the grand scheme of things, it does not mean I am questioning the domination of Google in the marketplace.

The statistics on the previously mentioned website prove the dominance of Google against their competitors. Here is how my search engine referrals break down:

* 37 Search Engines have sent me traffic. * 78.1% of visitors were sent from Google. * 18.4% came from Yahoo, Ask Jeeves/Ask, MSN * 1.5% arrived from AOL, Dogpile, Netscape, Earthlink, Altavista, Alexa. * 98.0% of all search engine referral traffic arrived from the Top Ten Referring Search Engines.

So hands down, Google is the MOST important element for my search engine marketing.

The Concept of Google PR

Google has often said that their PR system is an integral part of their search algorithms.

According to Google's own documentation, this is the definition of PR is as follows:

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.' "

Since PR utilizes a count of the number of links pointing to a website as a measure of PR value, professional internet marketers are very interested in acquiring large numbers of inbound links for their websites.

PageRank values also allow you to decide whom you might want to do a link exchange (if you do such things).

The Pros and Cons of Buying PR

Professional internet marketers are also interested in getting links on pages with an already large PR.

With Google's definition of PR, this makes sense.

PROS: * When you buy links on pages that already have a significant PR, then you can gain that value with much less work involved. * You can bulk up your own PR in very short order.

CONS: * Most sites that sell links on their high PR pages only do so on a monthly or quarterly basis, so this expense will be an ongoing for as long as you want to hold onto that value.

* Depending on the PR of the page where the link is being sold, the cost can be very high. Many webmasters decide how much they will charge for advertising on their website, according to the PR assigned to their website.

* The powers-that-be at Google warns us away from buying text links to increase our own PR. They warn us by example, pointing to the SearchKing devaluation in Google, as the result of SearchKing's paid linking scheme:

http://news.com.com/Judge+dismisses+suit+against+Google/2100-1032 _3-1011740.html

* The Google power broker Matt Cutts stated matter-of-factly that we should not "participate in link schemes designed to increase (our) site's ranking or PR," as stated in the Google quality guidel! ines. He went on to say that Google "does consider buying text links for PR purposes to be outside our Google's quality guidelines." Read the full story in context here:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-PR/ If you continue reading the comments on Matt's blog about the text links and PR, take a moment to search out the comment on the subject from Dan Thies (http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/). Dan asked Matt at the end of his post to define the "algorithm for determining intent" of the person placing the link. Bravo Dan.

Google Toolbar Role In PR Monitoring

Just like any discussion of paid links and PR, people tend to get fired up.

Just the other day, I read a different thread on Google PR. In that thread at http://forums.Site-Reference.com, someone said that the importance of the Google Toolbar was the visible PR that shows up in the toolbar.

( PR value is only exported to the Toolbar at regular intervals. According to the "Page Rank Update and Export List History" page, the PR information was last exported to the Google Toolbar on September 28, 2006: http://www.seocompany.ca/PR/page-rank-update-list.html )

The poster I mentioned above had stated that the importance of the Google Toolbar was the visible PR that buyers use to observe the trust factor attached to a website. He said that when people view the PR, then they would be assured that the company from whom they are about to purchase from is a reputable company.

I had to disagree.

The only people who have the Google Toolbar installed in their machine are online marketers. Perhaps that is a wide paintbrush, but it is not very far from the truth.

Because most people who use the Toolbar are online marketers, then they will be the only people for whom the little green PR bar has any meaning.

The Real Importance of Google's PR

How many times have you heard that the value your website holds with the Google PR system will make or break your website's ability to gain traffic from Google?

How many of you actually believe that?

Here is where I am going to get people excited.

I launched a site with zero PR in the first week of September. Within four days, I had page one placement in Google. Let me repeat that for you. Within four days of a website's launch, I had a website with PR 0, no official backlinks according to Google, and page one search results in Google!

Okay, I admit... It was a memorial website: http://www.GoodbyeSteveIrwin.com

I have several search keyword phrases in Google that produce page one, two and three results. Right now, the search phrase "irwin nature conservation" brings up my memorial site as the #3 result.

You might tell yourself that I was able to do this because it arrived at a time when Steve Irwin was the only new story. But, I have created results like this with several websites. The Steve Irwin site was not a fluke.

The Steve Irwin site was simply the fifth site that I was able to reach page one of Google search results within two weeks of site launch, with zero backlinks according to Google, and zero PR.

So, let me ask you again how important the Google PR system is for guaranteeing the placement of your website on page one of Google's search results?

You be the judge.

Traffic Links Vs. PR Links

Previously I mentioned my website that I use to measure trends in search engine marketing. Here is another interesting bit of data that I pulled from my website statistics for that domain:

* 53% inbound traffic comes from search engines * 47% inbound traffic comes from links on third-party websites (not from search engines) * Both values exclude people who visited my site as a result of bookmarks for my site or clicks directly from an email

If you break down the numbers even further, you will find the Google powerhouse is responsible for 41.4% of my gross inbound traffic from another website. And my website receives 47% of its traffic from websites that are not search engines.

Wow! My website is getting considerably more traffic from links on websites that are not search engines, than what it is getting from Google! Interesting.

Perhaps now you understand why I have always focused on getting permanent links on third-party websites that will send me traffic for years to come.

How Many Links Are Traffic Links?

This traffic arrived at my site from a total of 12,876 external webpages. If you ask the search engines how many links I have to my website on external pages, they will NOT show you a number of links anywhere near this number.

In fact, MSN shows the largest number of inbound links to my website. And MSN only shows that I have 2,164 links pointing to my website. That is a number that is six times lower than the number of external webpages that actually send me human visitors!

You would be surprised how many PR 0, 1 and 2 pages are actually sending me real traffic. Real traffic converts into real sales. And I am getting more traffic from these nowhere links, than what I am getting from the Holy Grail of Google

In Conclusion...

Let me repeat the question that I opened this article with, "Is Google PageRank the be-all, end-all of internet marketing?"

I offer a resounding, "No!"

Is Google PageRank the Holy Grail of internet marketing?

"No." Do you need to put your links on pages that have high PR?

"No." I feel good that Google says that my PR is a Five. It makes me feel that I am gaining ground in the Google algorithms. And it boosts my human ego.

But, for every keyword phrase that really matters to my business, I am already on page one of the search results, with a measly PR of 5, and no real backlinks to speak of according to the brilliance of the Google algorithms.