Archive for July 29th, 2006
Beginner’s Guide To Site Promotion
by: Matt Colyer
Promoting a web site is no real easy task for anyone, including the Internet promotion experts. It’s even harder for those of you with little or no experience with web site promotion. In an effort to help those of you that need help in this area I have wrote this article or guide (Call it whatever you like!). Although this is by no means a complete guide, this will show you the basics of promoting a web site.
Search engine optimization - When a Internet user searches for something that is somehow related to your web site, you want your web site to come up as near to the top of the search results in the search engines as possible, right? Of course, you do. But how do you get to the top of the search results? Well, it’s easier said then done, but can be done if you follow the few simple tips below.
You need to take a close look at your site and decide which search terms people will use to find it. Example, your site is about dogs, you’ll want to come up under keywords such as dog information, dog facts, etc. You need to pick your most important keyword and try to get a keyword density between 5 and 15%, this depends on which search engine you are targeting though. Important keywords should also appear in bold and be one of the first words on the web page
The most important thing is to get is backlinks. But not just from any web site, but from ones that are related to yours and those that look clean, or otherwise the ones that don’t use Spam techniques. You also want the backlinks you get to look like they are natural to the search engines, so one-way links are best and increase your backlinks slowly and not get them all at once. Your anchor text should vary, using the same one too many times won’t look natural to the search engines.
The web site’s structure will decide how the spiders read your web site. You want there to be more text content then HTML content. Stay away from using Java or Flash heavily on your web site, the less you use on the site the better. Spiders (Also known as robots) cannot read Java or Flash. You should avoid programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, they often add coding errors.
After that you may want to submit your web site to the search engines, this isn’t important if you get links from web sites that already appear in the search engines and by submitting will not help your ranking or speed up the time it takes for your web site appear in the search results. Some suggest that submitting to the search engines instead of letting them find you can hurt your ranking, but this is highly unlikely.
Links - As you now know getting links can help you in the search engines, but they can also bring in tons of traffic and not just any traffic, but some of the best traffic you can get. You should submit to directories such as Yahoo! and the ODP (Open Directory Project). Even better, try topic related directories, they send VERY targeted traffic compared to most other sources. Contact web sites that are related to yours and ask if they’ll exchange links.
Award Programs - Although this can be a waste of time if you bother with all those web sites (Most won’t send any traffic) that offer awards, but if you pick the right ones and have a web site that offers something useful, this could send you great deal of traffic for many years to come. Most of these award programs will link back to your web site if you are one of the award winners.
Paid Advertisement - Of course, you can pay another web site to display your advertisement. The cost depends on a number of things, such as amount of traffic they get and where your advertisement is placed at. PPC (Pay per click) search engines such as Google AdWords and Yahoo! Overture is an another posable option. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad and often the traffic they send is highly targeted. This may be the best option out there right now.
Offline Marketing - Most people don’t even look into this and many think it’s a waste of time, but they are very wrong. Use word of mouth by telling your friends and colleagues about your site, you can hand out cards and flyers to generate good word of mouth. Take your flyers and put them up at local stores, collages and Laundromats, but make sure they are OK with you adding your flyer first though.
Look into placing an ad in the local newspaper, this is often cheap, so you can’t lose much money here, but then again you may not be able to lose much. Although Radio has died out because of CDs, Internet and paid radio, it’s still one of the best places to advertise offline because it’s cheap and can reach a number of people. You may have to look into AM radio depending on your web site’s subject.
Don’t even try it! - Of course, no promotion guide would be complete without pointing out things you shouldn’t use to promote your web site. Do not send email Spam, unsolicited e-mail is not acceptable, it’s likely the most hated part of the web. Spamming will make more people hate your web site than like it, thereby making you lose could have been customers.
Don’t try to Spam the search engine, most web sites get caught right away, while some may not get caught right away, they will get caught sometime down the road. Remember that the search engines are always changing the ways they ranks web sites and are getting smarter (Although at times that seems hard to believe), so you will get caught if you try to Spam them.
Don’t open your web site to the pubic before you have tested (Links, coding errors, etc.) it completely and know it’s working correctly. Make sure every section of the web site is completed. Most Internet users will never return to a web site where they find a section of a web site that isn’t completed or see an under construction sign.
Permanent link to this post (1095 words, estimated 4:23 reading time)
July 29th, 2006
“Pay-per-click,” by far the most popular form of online advertising, recently came under fire as charges of rampant “click fraud” gather steam on the Web.
Google and Yahoo! earn the majority of their money through sales of advertising to tens-of-thousands of online merchants, companies, and professional.
In fact, some estimate that 99% of all Google’s revenue comes from advertising sales. Unfortunately, allegations of click fraud may well rain on Google’s otherwise sunny parade and cause a whole scale revamping of current online advertising practices.
(573 words, estimated reading time: 2:18 ) read the full post...
July 29th, 2006
Running an online business relies to a greater or lesser extent on search engine traffic. Be this free search engine traffic or pay per click traffic your business still relies on the search engines to profit and survive.
There’s a problem. Actually let me rephrase that and say there’s always been a problem. Abusers. Some people have to take shortcuts to profit. No matter how straightforward it might be to actually do some work and then profit from this work they simply can’t accept that as a business model. They need the easy, quick, fastbuck way. The model where they don’t have to think or research. Just push a button and hey presto instant business.
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July 29th, 2006
If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It’s the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.
Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it’s going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.
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July 29th, 2006
Lets face it. Search Engines rule the World Wide Web today. Anytime you want to look up some information or a product you want to buy, you put the relevant keyword in the search field of a major SE like Google. And Violá! The efficient little engine throws up pages and pages of website URLs which carry your keyword.
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July 29th, 2006
Promote, Promote, Promote
by: Robert Nixon
Website promoting is easy, all it takes is doing a little of it every day. You should have a plan,however,so you can tackle the wide assortment of places you can promote your site to a few of each at a time. Nothing beats the use of ’submitters’ and other types of tools for getting your message out to as many with in as little time as you can, such as to ‘networked’ sites. Not all submitters are the same, nor do they send your article to the same places to be seen. For this reason, you may want to get a couple of them. As the web is world wide, then why not one based in the United States and another from Europe?
You will still find yourself doing a lot of manual submissions as there are many very good sites to place your message that are not on submitters or tools, yet they are well worth the efforts.
1.These include ‘classified’ sites, which will allow you to post your message up to 30 days for no charge. You will have to watch your desire to post across the categories with many of them as you will be quickly banned from any postings if you do so. I am so tired of seeing the same advertisement in every category from someone that by doing so, appears to be very desperate. I would never consider even checking out what they are touting for this reason. IF they were getting good results, they would not have to spam the site in the first place. By spamming the site, they show me the product is non-productive and they are desperate to make a buck, or they either don’t care or don’t know what they are doing. Why would I spend good money on some program where the person representing it is so un-ethical?
For example: I was doing some promotions for one of my clients that is a service company. When I posted them under the ’services’ category, I noticed that there were many advertisements there for things like Casino’s, home business opps, and things of that same nature. Let’s face it, if I were to go to a classified site and were looking for a business services company, which one would I click on anyway? This also makes me wonder if the owner of the classified site even pays attention or if they are running it like an FFA type of site and that is for the e-mail captures. Yes, some still think others will really read what they have sent to their ‘junk’ e-mail box. Are classified sites ‘dead’ then. NO, not yet, but if this trend continues they will soon go the route of the FFA’s. That will be sad, indeed, as the abuse by the posting parties will ruin another still great place to post your url’s.
2. Even if you use a submitter, you will want to go to the mail box you have entered in the submission to check for ‘validated’ responses. These are the ones that require you to ‘confirm’ your posting by clicking on a hyperlink text and then re-entering your e-mail address that you used for the posting. I love these as they tell me that MY advertisement will not be competing with a thousand ’spam’ postings. After awhile, you will know which ones they are.
For example: Submit to ’scrub the web’ and you will have to go thru this routine. ‘Scrubby’ is great because they will also tell you the status of any previous submission. If you use a submitter that allows you to select the engines to submit to and if you know your current with some like ‘Scrubby’ then you can take it off the list. Exactseek and Websquash are a couple of others that come to mind also.
3. Manual submissions:
Some engines will only take manual submissions, even if they are on the list of engines of the submitter you are using. Again, you will, after a period of time, know which these are and if you are smart, will save them as a ‘favorite’ on your browser, in a separate folder, for when time or your url changes content. Guess what? Even MSN still has a manual free submission site, if you know where to find it. There are some other great engines that are out there and if you are doing your submissions every day, then you will find your ‘favorites’ also. I like http://searchwarp.com/ among others, because I can submit my url’s there and my articles too.
4. Find places that offer you a wide choice of the types of sites to submit to. I have a few on my ‘Free stuff’ page that you can access at my site http://www.cpucash.net
As you go down the various listings of sites for submission, you will always find a few that are no longer valid or no longer take submissions, but have not notified the listing places or submitters. Take these with a grain of salt and keep moving on.
5. Word of mouth is always a good avenue to pursue. You should be proud and knowledgeable enough about what you are promoting to tell everyone you know about it in a causal manner, of course, with a good testimony about what it has done for you in return for your investment. If your product or service will not stand up to the light of day, then what makes you think others will take your offer?
6. Safe list
Safe list are great and many swear by them. Many make a very good living by using them only. The key to this is your ‘headline’ being able to get the attention of those that do look at the other’s listings. Then you have to make your spiel for your offer, short and to the point but good enough to make them want to ‘click’ on your url for more information. Here, you can get submitters that only go to safe lists.
The only drawbacks are if the members are indeed reading the postings and if the owners are not spamming you with there ’solo ads’. Remember, many of the owners own more than one safe list and if they send you a daily ’solo ad’, then you will get many repeats of the same thing. The ethical owners will only send you an admin message once a month or so and only put the ’solo ads’ in the ’safe list’ newsletter or up-date and keep the admin messages to reflect what you expect them to be, like new features etc. I made the mistake of belonging to a couple of safe list where the owners were ethical. When I assumed all were the same and actually gave them my personal e-mail as my ‘contact’ e-mail, was I ever sorry. Do not make this mistake and use a separate e-mail box as your contact box for these also. One good submitter that I use, but here use a different address for your contact e-mail is: http://thesubber.com/sub/index.php?userid=rnixon
I love to use the sites that have the listings for search engines, classifieds, and even FFA’s in some sort of ‘descending’ order, so I can do all the ‘A’s’ one one day, all the ‘B’s’ on another and so on. I like to see the sites that are monitored like DMOZ and validated e-mail sites. IF you get your site ‘rated’ for viewing by the general public, especially kids, then more and more sites will accept your submission. This rating can be put in your meta tags and the spiders that look for this will be more than happy to include your url in the lisings.
Most of all, keep doing your submissions every day and your efforts will pay off. Work your programs and listen to the advice and training the better ones give you. Remember, they want you to achieve because as doing so not only do you make money, they do also by the residual income they get. Any associate program worth the investment today will give you commission on many tiers of your downline, or whatever they desire to call it.
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About The Author
Robert has been active on the internet since it’s start. Had a successfull shareware distribution business. Now dedicated to helping others with site improvement and avoiding scams.
View their website at: http://www.cpucash.net.
robert@cpucash.net
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Permanent link to this post (1407 words, estimated 5:38 reading time)
July 29th, 2006
Paid Directory Submission Checklist
by: Lakhya Phukan
Every online business needs traffic, which comes with increased visibility on the web. One great way to get noticed is to get listed in the major directories. Links from good directories increases your site’s visibility many fold.
There are thousands of web directories on the net and selecting the good ones to submit your site can be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories and paid directories. You need to submit to both types of directories.
The following checklist is for paid directory submission only. This checklist will help you choose the best and worthwhile paid directories on the net.
Submission Check List:
1. Check out if the directory is indexed in major search engines.
2. Check the robots.txt file. Make sure that search engine bots are allowed to crawl the pages where you intend to put your listing. Check the Meta tags to make sure that search engine spiders are not prevented from following links in it. A Meta tag with noindex/nofollow will not be indexed or spidered and links in that page are not followed by bots.
3. Check if the directory is being maintained regularly. Visit the directory from time to time to see if errors are getting corrected, site information is getting updated and the like. In short, look for positive activity on the directory.
4. Check if the listings in category pages match in theme and content or not. Directories with tight focus on relevant grouping of web sites are useful for visitors and tend to show up frequently in SERPs for keyword searches.
5. Check out the age of the directory. Do a whois search ( http://www.whois.net) to get this information. Many new directories vanish after a few months due to lack of maintenance and promotion. With older directories you can at least be sure that you listing will remain visible for a reasonable period.
6. Check if the directory consists of too many empty categories - it is not useful for visitors and also does not send a too good signal to the SEs about the directory. Think twice before submitting to such directories.
7. Check if the contact information is available on the site. Proper businesses will provide you with some kind of contact information.
8. Check the Alexa rank of the directory - it is not accurate, yet you can get an idea of traffic the directory receives.Look for directories with decreasing Alexa Rank as it indicates that the directory is getting popular.
9. Check if the directory provides SE friendly urls. No JavaScript link or redirection. Also watch out for dynamic urls. Sometimes search engines find it difficult indexing or recognizing dynamic urls with parameters like ……com/index.html?cat=1&p=12… An example of SE friendly URL is http://www.hedir.com/business.html
10. Check whether category pages have too many outgoing links. If your link is one of 100 links on a page, visitors will find it difficult to locate your site.
Permanent link to this post (508 words, estimated 2:02 reading time)
July 29th, 2006
Volume-based filtering may be pre-sorting your marketing messages to the bulk folder or worse.
You’ve got a great product, fantastic customer service, and a loyal base of customers that opt-in to your email list. They’re interested in staying abreast of new products, special offers, and other news and relevant information you send them.
Unfortunately, customers don’t seem to be getting the message - literally. You are careful to avoid phrasing and formatting mistakes that might confuse your permission-based marketing message with the scourge of unwanted junk.
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July 29th, 2006
How To Get Higher Ranking Through Website Promotion And Website Optimization?
by: Thomson Joseph
Recent studies suggest that more than 85% of website visitors to any website come from searches done with search engines. If this is to be believed the study suggests getting top placement on search engines is the key to bring quality traffic to your website.
I have few tips how to optimize your website for a better search engine placement .
Search engine friendly website optimization : There are thousands of search engines out there on the web 90 percent of the web traffic comes through these three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN so your website promotion should be focusing on these three search engines. Top search engine placement allows you to target and attract potential buyers and sellers through the Internet and generate qualified leads
Website promotion should targeting you business audience: Do research and figure out what are the closest keywords and phrases your prospective customers would be searching for. This keyword optimization should be related to your business, local area and most common keywords.
Optimize your Meta Tags for Internet Marketing : Most of the Expert in the industry says Meta tags are dead and all search engines doesn’t give priority to Meta tags. But I believe it is still the key to higher placement on search engines. The most important are Title, Description and keyword. All these three should have your targeted keywords.
Title tag for website promotion : is very important because search engines gives weight age to that so place your most specific keyword over there.
Page Heading for search engine placement: As heading in newspapers or any media give importance to media it also gives importance to search engines as well. It is so important to website promotion so place your most important keywords in these Headings tags.
Keyword research and Web site optimization: keyword research and optimization is an important for keyword placement and selection it involves lot of keyword research. I have the expertise in web page keyword placement and optimization to my clients since 1999 successfully.
Highlighted text for website optimization: Search Engines consider Highlighted text like bold and italics tags, so place your targeted keywords here too.
Image optimization for website promotion: Most of the search engines started indexing websites by images found on the website, this is achieve by looking at the ALT description of the image found on the site. The important keywords should be included into this ALT tags.
Title tag on your links for search engine placement: Text link plays an important role on the anchor links of the website. Search engines spiders on these text links. Most of sites still don’t use the link title tag, so when you do, you gain an advantage. The link title should be a short keyword or phrase.
Link popularity for optimization : When we talk about website optimization and search engine placement the important aspect is Link popularity. There are different types of link of link building reciprocal links and non-reciprocal links
Check for broken links and errors: Before submitting to search engines and website promotion run your website pages through a HTML checker and a spell check. Search Engines penalize for these errors
This article was written by Thomson Joseph of http://www.website-promoiton-expert.com
Article source http://www.digitallabz.com
Permanent link to this post (571 words, estimated 2:17 reading time)
July 29th, 2006
Many search engine optimization companies will sell you a search engine optimization package that addresses many of the major aspects of search engine optimization. These aspects include, but are not limited to, use of file names, alt tags, h1 tags, keyphrase density, meta tag optimization, link analysis and the like. These are all key aspects of a good search optimization.
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July 29th, 2006
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