Archive for June 14th, 2006
A Simple, Easy, Legitimate Way To Get FREE Traffic To Your Site!
by: Ian Simpson
In his ebook “Turn Words Into Traffic”, Jim Edwards teaches
you step by step how to create articles right through to
getting your article physically ready for distribution. The
author shows you how to take the hard work out of writing
articles by drastically reducing the time it takes to write
and produce them.
Many ebooks fail to keep the reader interested simply
because the contents are just a re-vamp of another ebook and
then filled out with “fluff”. This is not the case with
“Turn Words Into Traffic” and the author still manages to
fill over 160 pages with critical “How To” information. I am
impressed by the professional way that Jim has written and
presented this ebook but it does not stop there. Jim
follows up with a series of quality, unadvertised add-ons
with even more tried and tested formulas for writing
effective and interesting articles easily.
Jim Edwards is well respected throughout the internet
marketing community and he has spent many hours testing his
methods before putting them into print and he uses exactly
the same formulas himself to sell his many ebooks and
courses. In his sales copy as well as the text of the ebook,
Jim Edwards claims that anyone, regardless of their
previous experience can write articles to promote anything, including software and ebooks and any scepticism that I had has been confined to the litter bin.
In “Turn Words Into Traffic” I found the most value in the
fact that Jim doesn’t just tell you how to write articles as
an effective means of marketing your products or services,
but he shows you step-by-step exactly how to do it. There
are short assignments throughout the ebook for you to
complete ensuring that you are pro-active during reading. A
summary of all the assignments make up your personal
“article blueprint” for future reference on all articles you
write.
“Turn Words Into Traffic” takes a truly hands-on approach,
explaining logically and systematically, how to take a
proven formula that has been rigorously tested and fine-
tuned and apply it to your own personal requirements. The
ebook is broken down into 2 Parts and a resources section.
Part 1 concentrates on the creation and production of
your article and is further broken down into 11 steps each
with an exercise for you to complete. These step by step
exercises will ultimately form your first finished article.
Part 2 of the ebook contains 11 sections and guides you
through the best way to keep organised as you create more
and more articles using a recommended formatting tool and
some clever promotional strategies and tactics. Also
covered, amongst other vital information is the right way of
creating a compelling resource box and subsequent submission
to directories, ezines, websites and other effective places
to get your article noticed on the web.
As with all ebooks that have a vast amount of content to
read and learn from, it can take time and effort to become
enthused to start reading, but once you start to understand
the logical sequence of article writing shown in “Turn Words
Into Traffic”, it begins to become clear. In a nutshell,
it takes the “thinking” out of article writing.
In the past, I have found that I have a short attention span
when it came to reading and digesting information, so I did
not believe reading another ebook would make any
difference.
I have been proved wrong in this case as not only have I
read the whole ebook from start to finish but I found it to
be a thoroughly enjoyable and informative read.
I usually like to apply some constructive criticism when
reviewing software or informational products but only when
they deserve it. I cannot see how “Turn Words Into Traffic”
can be improved upon as an informational product except to
update the content when necessary to reflect marketing
trends at the time. When you buy an informational product
you expect it to deliver on its promise, especially when you
have probably been sold it through some slick sales copy.
Does “Turn Words Into Traffic” deliver on its promise? (Does
a dog bark?)! I have no hesitation in giving this ebook
9/10 for its sheer professional content. I would certainly
recommend this ebook to anyone who wants to write articles
but does not know where to start.
For more information on Jim Edwards’s book “Turn Words Into
Traffic” please visit http://www.1st-4-income.com/turnwordsintotraffic.html
Hopefully, Jim Edwards will continue to create and publish
other ebook gems on internet related subjects that will
compliment his current work.
Ian Simpson reviews software and informational products on
the internet for their value and usefulness. Subscribe to
his free newsletter at http://www.information4income.com
Permanent link to this post (824 words, estimated 3:18 reading time)
June 14th, 2006
Black Hat SEO: Web Spamming and Linking to Bad Neighborhoods
So you want to exchange links with other web sites in order to get higher search engine rankings?
So you want to create hundreds of auto-generated, keyword rich pages for your site?
Before you go and link to every website that is willing to exchange links, it would be a good idea to know where not to link to. Sometimes it can mean not linking to your own sites.
(1026 words, estimated reading time: 4:06 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
We get so caught up with internet marketing and "web building" that most of us tend to forget the "olden days" of marketing; offline marketing. Years ago, the web did not exist, yet, people still made millions!
Why is it that all of a sudden most of us think that offline marketing is not worth the investment? If anything, the lesser the people that promote offline, the more the opportunity for you to slide in.
(723 words, estimated reading time: 2:54 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
7 Free Search Engine Optimization and Writing Tools
by: Jinger Jarrett
Traffic. Everyone wants free traffic, and what better way to get it than optimizing your site?
There are some very simple things that you can do to optimize your site. If you want to get more from your website, then implement these strategies, use these tools, and make your website spider food for the search engines.
Below are some of the best sites I have found for optimizing my sites.
1. Check your site.
Before you start tweaking your site, you need to make sure that it’s either in Google or not banned by Google.
The truth is, you want to optimize your site for Google, which is now the number one search engine in the world.
It won’t do you any good to optimize your site if Google won’t accept it.
Use this tool to check your site.
Google Banned - http://www.googlebanned.com
2. Toolkits
If you can find the tools you need in a collection, this will save you a lot of time, as well as frustration because you will know exactly what you need to do to properly optimize your site.
You’ll want to check different aspects of your site like page rank, metatag information, and links. Nothing will drive your potential customers away faster than broken links.
This site, in addition to offering a forum on search engine optimization, also offers a nice collection of tools for helping you optimize your site.
SEO Chat - http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools
These two sites also offer search engine optimization tools. It’s really a matter of preference, as well as what tools you need to optimize your site.
Add Me - http://www.addme.com
Evrsoft - http://www.evrsoft.com
3. SEO Software
You can also use software to help you optimize your site. Where software will help you the most is to actually help you optimize your site for the keywords you are trying to target. It’s a waste of time to optimize your site if you haven’t optimized for the right keywords.
This is the software I use, and it’s free. It works for both MAC and PC, and it has some of the best documentation I’ve ever seen on search engine optimization because it’s written for the average person. It also includes a basic search engine optimization training course, a 50 page manual, and excellent, step by step directions for preparing your website for the search engines.
Web CEO - http://www.webceo.com
4. ROR Generator/Robots Text Generator
A what?
ROR is similar to a robots.txt file in that it gives information about your site. The difference is that an ROR file is in XML format.
You can use this generator to create an ROR file for your site, and then paste a button to the main page of your website. When the search engines spider your site, they’ll spider this file and have a better description of what your site is about.
I would also recommend that you create a robots.txt file because this will tell the search engines what not to spider on your site. If you own a members’ area, or you sell anything, you don’t want the search engines spidering your download pages.
ROR Generator - http://www.rorweb.com/rorgenerator.php
Robots Text Generator - http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/robots-text-creator/simple-robots-creator.php
5. Site Map
A site map is not only a great tool for letting your customers know where everything is located on your site, it can also help you with the search engines.
By creating a site map, you will have an index of all the pages on your website. When the search engines spider your site, they’ll find all of the pages. This will help you with your rankings.
Creating a site map, especially if you have hundreds, or even thousands of pages on your site, can be very time consuming. This generator will speed up the process.
Spider Map Creator - http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/spider-map/creator.php
6. XML Site Generator
Google is now offering webmasters a chance to submit an XML site map.
An XML sitemap is a search engine friendly sitemap of your site. This isn’t written for your visitors though. It’s written for the search engines so that they can find all of the pages on your website.
Even if you include a sitemap on your site for your visitors, I would still recommend that you use an XML sitemap. This can speed the process of getting your site indexed by Google. This is an easy way to make sure that all of your pages get indexed.
Creating a sitemap is easy. You can use the generator listed below. Once you’ve created your sitemap, submit it to Google.
XML Site Maps - http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/index.php
Submit your sitemap to Google - https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
7. Linking
There’s been a lot of talk about linking because linking is one of the most important strategies for getting high ranking in the search engines.
The more links you have pointing back to your site, the higher the page rank you will get, as well as creating a way for others to find you. You can use this strategy to get referrals from other sites, which is free traffic. It’s targeted, and you are being recommended by another site.
Before building your linking strategy though, you should check your popularity. See who you are linked to first.
Link Popularity Checker - http://www.marketleap.com/siteindex/default.htm
Once you have checked your link popularity, begin by building links back to your site. Below are two sites that offer directories you can submit your site to.
Directory Manager - http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager/
Free directories that don’t require a link back - http://www.directoriezsubmission.com/free-web-directories.htm
Linking can drive a lot of traffic to your site. The more backlinks you have pointing back to your site, the more popular it will be. You’ll also get a lot more traffic.
Before you start to market, complete your site. Optimize it for the search engines, and use these tools to help you get higher rankings.
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About The Author
Jinger Jarrett will show you how to use the most effective “White Hat” search engine optimization strategies to build traffic and sales to your site. You can get her free ebook, “Search Engine Secrets”, when you visit http://www.jingerjarrett.com.
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Permanent link to this post (1025 words, estimated 4:06 reading time)
June 14th, 2006
Link popularity is just one of the ways you can try to promote your website with the intention of getting to the top of the search engines.
Obviously in this day and age it’s just about impossible to get to the top of the search engines if you have a new website from a standing start.
In fact large companies will now use the services of a professional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company to help them get to the top.
(396 words, estimated reading time: 1:35 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
Search Engine Secrets - Get Top Listings On Google & Yahoo!
by: Mehul Vyas
Let me show you How to Get Top Listings for every page of your site and Rank #1 for all of your Keywords in the Search Engines - Guaranteed.
Did you believe this? If your like me you’ve probably seen a million pages and emails like this that claim they can work miracles for you in all the search engines. They claim everything from having inside information or special relationships with Google and all the search engines.
The simple Truth is this: No one can guarantee top listings on any search engine, in fact, no one can even guarantee that you’ll ever be listed. So beware of big claims and unethical SEO firms as there are many out there.
So how do you get top listings in the major search engines. Let me try to answer that as simply as I can without thoroughly confusing you. CONTENT - yes that’s right… content is still king… the more you try to fool search engines the more damage you’ll do to your rankings. Search engines are getting smarter and smarter and they have seen every trick in the book done by every unethical SEO/SEM firm and spammer out there. So don’t fall pray to the hype and false claims.
Here’s the big Search Engine Secret
Well Written and Related Content, Relevant Page Titles and Meta-tag Descriptions. So there you have it, the secret is out… if anyone tries to tell you different or convince you otherwise - put away your check book and run. Yes, there are other things you can do to help your rankings using the 3 items above and a few more.
How to improve your chances in the search engines rankings:
*** Know your top keywords.. Use Yahoo’s Keyword Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?mkt=us&lang=en_US or Goggle’s Sandbox https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox to find what users are actually typing into the search engines to find sites like yours. Once you have all your top keywords - don’t loose them… you will use these over and over and over again.
*** Use your top keywords in the content of your pages, in your page titles and in your mate-tag descriptions. I don’t mean to use pages that are filled with nothing but keywords, use them in Real Sentences. Pages that are nothing but keywords will hurt you in the search engines, this is called keyword stuffing and will hurt your rankings or worse yet, get your site delisted or banned from the search engines. Simply take your current site content and use your top keywords in appropriate places where they make sense in real sentences.
*** Don’t over use keywords or try to use to many on one single page. Have your main keyword in the title, the description and a couple times on the page content is usually sufficient. Do this for every page of your site optimizing it for the subject of that particular page using the relevant keywords from your research. I see so many sites with the same Title and Meta Descriptions on every page. Make sure yours are different.
*** Get as many high value links as possible. Best way to determine High Value links is to install the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/ and use Google’s Page Rank to determine link value. You can also use out PR Tool at http://www.i4market.com/tools/rankcheck.html. The higher the rank the better. You may have to pay for links on PR7 or higher sites - but don’t pay too much. You can also use Alexa Traffic Rank or their toolbar - http://www.alexa.com/. The more High Value links you have the better your Search Engine Popularity will be.
*** Install Link Exchange Software… but be selective about the link exchanges you approve.
*** Add value added relevant content to your site, such as articles, news, blogs or tools related to your business or industry. This will increase your search engine saturation. A site with 100 pages of good quality content has much a better chance of being found than a site with only 10 pages.
*** Use Google XML Site Maps or find and company that will create one for you. http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html
*** Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, break the site map into separate pages.
*** Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. Search Engines do not recognize text contained in images or flash content. If you must use images, then always use the Alt tag to describe the link.
*** Check for broken links and correct HTML.
*** If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few. Don’t use “&id=” as a parameter in your URLs, as Google does not include these pages.
*** Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
*** Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it’s current for your site so that you don’t accidentally block the spiders from content you want included.
*** Understand the difference between a Search Engine and a Directory. A Search engine uses spidering technology and will search the web for new sites. Directories will not seek you out and you will have to be tell them about your new site manually.
*** Revisit your keywords on a regular basis. There are a 1000’s ways to search for the same thing, search patterns change from time to time. You’ll want to keep up with those changes.
*** Submit your site to the search engines if it has never been submitted or you are not listed in that particular engine. Most search engines still have a free submit for the “Natural Listings”, yet they may not be easy to find. You can find Google’s ADD URL here http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
*** Submit your site to the Directories including Yahoo! and DMOZ. DMOZ http://www.dmoz.org/ is the Open Directory Project and is used to power thousands of other sites and directories - Inclusion in this directory gets you links in 1000’s of other sites. DMOZ is also the directory Google uses. http://directory.google.com/
WHAT NOT TO DO.
– Don’t Use hidden text or links
– Don’t Use doorway or gateway pages.
– Don’t Use pages that redirect users to other places.
– Don’t use any type of cloaking technology - no matter how great it sounds. It might work for a short time - but you will get caught.
– Don’t use Flash content for important information. Flash is an application that is completely invisible to most search engines. Flash is good for animations and other page elements - not for an entire site unless you also have an html version.
– Don’t Use Misleading or overly repeated words
– Don’t Use Bait & Switch tactics… they don’t work.
– Don’t Use Duplicate sites or pages
– Stay away from Free For All or Link Farms schemes, as these will only hurt you.
There are many things that affect your rankings then just the content on your pages, so DON’T obsess about being #1 - you may never get there no matter what you do. Your time is better spent operating your business in areas you have more control over.
Following the above guidelines will get you the best results your site will achieve. That’s not to say that there is not more you can do - but these are the main items that will effect your rankings in the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages). The internet a huge place and technology changes all the time - so do the search engines - a site that is #1 today might be #1001 tomorrow.
You can try to do all this yourself or you can hire a company that specializes in SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing), however beware, there are many that will separate you from your money quickly and leave you with little to no results. We suggest you take some advice from Google concerning selecting an SEO firm for your company. http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/seo.html
Above all else - remember this - There are NO GUARANTEES in any type of marketing campaigns, be it on the web, in print, on television or radio. So spend prudently and select your Marketing firm wisely!
For More Articles And Comments Visit Our Site: http://www.ranosofttechnologies.com
(or)
http://www.vyasil.com
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About The Author
Mehul vyas, is a founding partner and Director of Marketing for Vyas Infotch Pvt Ltd. The firm specializes in the development and implementation search engine optimization technologies and solutions for the improvement of web site placement within the Internet’s top search engines.
links@vyasil.com
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Permanent link to this post (1495 words, estimated 5:59 reading time)
June 14th, 2006
During conversations with web business professionals about pay-per-click search engines, "traffic volume" is always a hot topic. Over the last year or so, Google Adwords has emerged as the pay-per-click (PPC) search engine most enamored for driving "traffic volume".
Indeed, with Google Adwords providing paid listings for Google Search, the #1 search engine in the world, as well as American Online (e.g. AOL), Ask Jeeves and MySearch.com, the fourth, fifth, and seventh spots, respectively, for the most popular search engines per a 2004 study by Neilson/NetRatings, it deserves strong recognition.
(933 words, estimated reading time: 3:44 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
You’ve built up a good site, put in a lot of content, but none of the search engines lists your site? If you’d like to know how to go ahead with Search Engine Submission the right way, read on.
(587 words, estimated reading time: 2:21 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
One of the important factors in ranking high in search engine results is link popularity. It is not enough to just have the best website in the world–other sites have to point back to you. The thought is that if your site is good enough for others to link to you, then you must have a great site.
How do I increase link popularity?
(1287 words, estimated reading time: 5:09 ) read the full post...
June 14th, 2006
Web Statistics for Dummies (part 1: Sales)
by: Shawn Campbell
Do you understand the numbers that your web site generates? Do you know how many sales your site actually generates? Do you know how you can apply that knowledge to your business and cause it to grow?
I will answer all of the above, and also discuss how to use statistics to enhance your web business through the use of sales, traffic flow, uniques, hits, click-through rates, and many other important business factors. Part 1 focuses on sales and traffic, while part 2 is all about where your traffic is coming from (and how to get more of it!). Part 2 will be discussed in the next issue of our newsletter - so be sure to stay tuned!
Sales
The most obvious statistic for many businesses is sales.
Here are 2 of the most pertinent questions every business needs the answers to:
- How many sales do you make per day/month/year?
- How much profit do you make per sale?
Not hard figures to find, but how many sales actually came from your Internet business? Often it is easy to gather this figure simply by looking directly at either online sales, or by asking your customers (”How did you find us?”). But sometimes the Internet is just one part of a very complicated sales process. You may make all your sales in person, but how many of your clients go home and research your products/services using information found on your web site?
These are the questions you need to find answers to in order to estimate how many sales were completed due to your Internet presence but not necessarily completed online. If you make sales online, the answers are easy. If you sell real estate or other “in person” products or services, then you have to ask your customers individually. Either way, it will come down to a concrete number that can provide insight into how you can grow your business.
Profits
>From the number of sales made per month, you can easily figure out your gross sales amount. Then you have to take your expenses per sale into account and figure out your profits. Only cost of sale expenses should be deducted and NOT one-time expenses such as overhead. On the Internet, this would normally be the cost per click of pay-per-click campaigns (such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Marketing Solutions), or the CPM (cost per thousand) for banner ads, and of course, your direct costs for the item or service being sold. Once you have these figures in hand, you can then calculate your profit per sale.
Traffic
So now that we know how many sales we make per month, and how much profit we’re actually making off of those sales, let us take a look at how many potential customers walk through our virtual store. There are many different statistics for web site traffic: page views, hits, daily uniques, monthly uniques, etc Which one should you be using? From my own experience, I recommend using daily uniques.
Daily uniques measures how many unique visitors come to your site in a single day. By that we mean that no single user is counted twice in the same day even if they visit the store several times within a twenty-four hour period. Thus, if someone comes to your site four times on Monday, and six times on Tuesday, he/she would only count as two daily uniques.
Page Views measures how many times your page is viewed (usually including reloads). Page views are also counted for each page. Thus, if someone comes to your site four times on Monday and views eight pages each time, and six times on Tuesday (viewing two pages each time), you would measure (4 x 
+ (6 x 2), or 44 page views.
These statistics are usually available through your server’s statistics program. Alternatively, you could also use one of a myriad of other statistics programs available on the Internet. For most of our clients we set up www.hitbox.com on their sites. With our daily uniques per month figure in-hand, we suddenly have some very powerful numbers to work with.
Conversions
Conversion is the measure of how many people who visited your site were subsequently converted into clients of some sort. Measuring how many uniques turn into buying customers is one method of conversion, but you could also measure how many visitors your site gets vs. how many visitors sign up to your newsletter, or how many of them go to a specific page, or how many send you an email, etc These are all measures of conversions, and simply use the ratio of sales (or sign ups, emails, etc) to visitors (or uniques).
Let us assume our site has the following statistics:
- Sales: 100/month
- Gross: $250/sale
- Average Profit: $150/sale
- Daily uniques: 12 000/month
In the above example, we have 100 sales per month, and 12000 daily uniques per month, thus our conversion ratio is 1:120 or 0.83%. Not such a bad ratio, especially for items that cost $250 each. Most markets would want a ratio of 1% or 2%, but of course each industry is different.
Analysis
Using our imaginary numbers (profit of $150/sale, gross $250/sale) we can then figure out how healthy the online business really is. At 100 sales a month, we are grossing $25 000 per month, and profiting $15 000 per month. At this point in our analysis, we can now see that there are three ways in which to improve the site:
- Increase profit margin
- Increase conversions
- Increase traffic
1. Increasing profit margins involves lowering costs or raising prices, both of which fall out of the context of this article.
2. Increasing conversions involves optimizing the usability of your web site; usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. For more information on usability and how it can help your Internet business, go to www.useit.com.
3. Increasing traffic involves improving your link network, your PPC campaign, or your search engine optimization. We will look at the latter in detail in Part Two of this article (exclusively available by signing up to our FREE Monthly Newsletter at www.RedCarpetWeb.com). Part Two will also discuss referrers, search engine keyphrases, search engine positions, and how to use these statistics to increase your sales. Don’t miss out! Sign up for the Newsletter today and learn how you can make the most of all your web statistics and improve your Internet business.
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About The Author
Shawn Campbell is an enthusiastic player in the ecommerce marketplace, and co-founded Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc. (www.redcarpetweb.com) He has been researching and developing marketing strategies to achieve more prominent listings in search engine results since 1998. Shawn is one of the earliest pioneers in the search engine optimization field.
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Permanent link to this post (1135 words, estimated 4:32 reading time)
June 14th, 2006
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