You have to search a lot to find what is most likely to work for your web site. Once you get an understanding for each type of advertising then you can put it to work.
Website directories: Helpful for one way links to your website to increase link popularity. Do not expect a lot of clicks.
Free Classified ads: Expect what you pay for. Nothing!
Safe lists: Stay away!
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Search engines use algorithms calculate the order in which the search results are displayed. Although no one outside the search engine companies know the actual algorithms, search engine optimization (SEO) experts agree that back links are heavily weighed. A "back link" is text on another website that links to your site. Search engines count these links as "votes" for your site. The more votes, the better.
Drumming Up Votes
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Ranking well under the free listings in the major search engines basically mean one thing ? Lots of free, recurring, and targeted traffic. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN can be very powerful weapons in your internet marketing, if you know how to optimize your website to rank highly for your keywords. This article will focus on how you can optimize your website to rank on the top positions in search engines.
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How To Drive Low Cost Targeted Traffic To Your Website
by: Jack Summers
In this article I will outline how you can drive targeted traffic to your website either for no or very little cost by writing and submitting articles. Read on to learn more.
When your website has been created then your next objective is to drive traffic (or visitors) to your website to give it exposure. There are a number of ways to do this including the use of Search Engines, Safelists, PPC (Pay Per Click) Search Engines, Banner Ads, Ezine Ads, Bulk Traffic plus many more methods. Of these methods a Search Engine listing will bring you the best targeted visitors for the least cost. In order to get a high search engine listing however you will need to create backlinks to your website (i.e. hyperlinks to your website from other websites). This can be done best by submitting your website to directories or exchanging links with other websites. However a relatively new and popular way to do this is by writing articles containing a link to your website(s) and posting your articles to article directories. This method gives you free backlinks, which are extremely important to your search engine position, and also gives you free direct targeted visitors when they click on your link in the article.
When you are writing your articles you will need to make sure you are giving people good and useful information and not overtly selling anything in particular. If possible you should try to write about a subject you know a lot about. Write intelligently, making sure you spell check and proofread before you are in a position to show your articles to the world. You could also try to use the same phrase or keyword a few times in your articles to drive the right interest to them.
When you have created a good article or articles then you will need to submit or publish your articles to the web. The first method to do this is by manually submitting your article to article directories. By typing “article directory” and other similar terms in search engines you will easily find a plethora of sites willing to accept your submissions for free. A couple of good article directories to submit to and get you started are www.ezinearticles.com or www.article-world.net .You could also use a special piece of software which will submit your article to multiple article directories for you. A couple of good examples of pieces of software like this are Article Submitter Pro or Article Announcer. A final good method for publishing your articles is to use an article submission service such as Isnare or Article Marketer. These services will submit your article for you to multiple article directories for a fee.
Articles really are one of the most effective and cheapest methods of driving targeted visitors to your website, so good luck and happy writing!
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About The Author
Jack Summers currently owns and runs the article directory http://www.article-world.net and the niche article directory and blog for IT professionals and entrepreneurs http://www.itsuccessworld.com.
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Keyword Writing and Niche Marketing: A Success Story
by: Elizabeth Kirwin
As a writer with a background in public relations and marketing, I’ve always wanted to focus my energies on one particular client and make them a great success. In 2004 & 2005, I got my wish. Elaine VonCannon, a REMAX Capital REALTOR in Williamsburg, Virginia, had attempted to enter the real estate profession and thrive in a market where the ‘old guard’ has a stronghold. Sidhe Communications internet marketing tactics helped launch her career as a REALTOR. And her sales and marketing skills helped turned the leads Sidhe Communications generated into solid sales.
Internet Marketing: SEO the Seed of Growth
In 2003, I worked for a Public Relations firm, Wasabi Publicity, in Saluda, North Carolina. It was here that I first learned of an organic SEO method through a woman who calls herself the Publicity Hound. She said the best method of web site promotion was to write one article per month that educates readers on a product or service. The Publicity Hound also recommended a short list of article submission web sites where these articles could be posted. In January of 2003, I convinced Elaine VonCannon that I would help her write several articles and post them on sites across the internet. Elaine was in the first 6-8 months of working for REMAX Capital in Williamsburg, and was using traditional marketing methods (print media, brochures) to promote her services. We dropped several articles between January and March and then she decided to stop, because of budgeting concerns.
January 2004 - Niche Markets are Contacting Me Through my Site
Elaine phoned me at the beginning of January 2004 to let me know she was receiving leads from the articles we wrote and published in early 2003. In fact, her prospects mentioned the articles they had read. The articles we published in 2003 were directed towards real estate investors, who were interested in rehabbing and reselling property in the Williamsburg area. There were also a few articles that educated readers about real estate in general. Because she was receiving leads from the site, Elaine wanted to proceed and write some more articles, this time focusing her articles on retirement and relocation to the Williamsburg area. This was the lucrative audience she wanted to reach. I agreed readily. She asked my advice and I told her to take her money out of print media and to put it all into internet marketing. I promised her that this would pay off royally. She followed my recommendations, and began an aggressive publishing schedule of 3-4 internet marketing articles per month.
Keyword Writing for the Niche Markets
During our collaboration, the most important thing Elaine and I did was focus our story ideas on the niche markets she wanted to capture. Sidhe Communications team of keyword writers wrote articles geared towards the retirement audience, which touted Williamsburg as the retirement capital of the East. We researched golf courses and golf communities in the area, and began compiling informative articles about these subjects. Later we developed articles geared towards boaters, which listed marinas in the area and are designed to capture people interested in purchasing waterfront properties. All of these ideas worked. These articles actually brought the desired traffic to Elaine’s web site and her telephone began ringing. Soon she was doing the sales she actually envisioned herself doing - the high end real estate sales all REALTORs dream about. I was pleased as punch.
Keyword Headliners for Niche Markets
I always joke with Elaine that she is the best headline writer. She would phone me up at all hours of the day and night with ideas for titles. Some of them were takeoffs on old 70s tunes or common clichés reworked. I always impressed upon her that titles needed to be 7 words or less and punchy, and she rose to the occasion. To this day, I feel the headlines on her articles are a large part of what helps them to be selected for digital publication across the internet. .
Internet Marketing on a Regular Basis
Elaine VonCannon is committed to web site promotion on a monthly basis. She actually averages three articles per month to promote her site www.voncannonrealestate.com. In January of 2004, her web statistics showed 5,000 people entering her site. At this posting in March 2006, she now averages over 200,000 per month to her site, with 8-10 telephone calls per week. The site is generating leads for her, and mostly in the relocation and retirement markets.
Any internet marketer poised for success must make a regular commitment to article writing and submission on a regular basis. Web site promotion must also include periodic digital press releases, and uploading new content to the site on a regular basis. Finally, complement this with some Pay Per Click Services, and the web site promotion strategies intrinsic to success are all in place.
Without a web site promotion plan in place any business can be assured of one thing: your competition will be doing it! And they will be gaining the leads you could generate to your site, not you. So if your company is caught between the ‘promote the web site’ or ‘leave the web site alone for a while and see what happens’ remember — internet marketing works. Keyword writing combined with niche marketing is a strategy that gives your product or service the edge on the web.
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About The Author
Elizabeth Kirwin has published work in national magazines and newspapers. She is co-owner of Sidhe Communications http://www.sidhecommunications.com in Asheville NC. She develops keyword rich copy for web sites. Her internet marketing plans have helped companies achieve high web site rankings and set up inbound links across the internet over the long term. For more information, e-mail ekirwin@bellsouth.net.
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There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!
1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account.
Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is.
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Creating a well-designed website is the first step in your internet marketing strategy that must be backed up with techniques designed to drive traffic to the website for successful, long-term results. You wouldn’t consider opening a retail store in a major shopping mall without signage and you shouldn’t consider having a nice looking website designed without expanding your web presence in order to be found on the internet. The following strategy overview is designed to bring about these results:
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If you are a webmaster and you review your logs, often you will see a bunch of really strange hits. They aren’t humans, you can’t tell their operating system or their browser! Who are these pesky little creatures who rummage around the internet all the time?
Not quite sure what I am talking about? Here is a few examples of various bots searching my website:
207.68.146.40 (msnbot.msn.com)
msnbot/1.0 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)
This is the MSN Search bot.
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Misconceptions About Search Engine Optimization
by: Donald Nelson
Picture this scene, an adolescent boy walks into a barber shop and says to the barber, “Don’t touch me, I’m only here because my mom forced me.” Search engine optimizers are sometimes put into the position of the barber. They are knowledgeable and willing to work on their client’s site, but the client doesn’t want any modifications done to the text that is visible on her web pages. This kind of dilemma occurs due to general misconceptions about search engine optimization. Let’s look at these misconceptions.
1. SEO only involves writing meta tags and working on “invisible” code
Many people want to get a high ranking for various keywords or keyword phrases, but if you look at the text on their web pages you can hardly find these vital words. They come to a search engine optimizer and think that he or she will sprinkle these words into the meta tags and it will work like magic. This is a major misunderstanding.
It is true that your main keywords and key phrases should be in your title tag and your description meta tag, and even in the keywords meta tag, but they must also appear on the page itself and they must appear in some strategic places on that page. Some clients say, “But I like the way it looks now.” You may like the way it looks, but the search engines will not recognize that your page is truly about Electronic Widgets unless these words appear in headlines on the page, in the opening paragraph, in the file or domain name in link text and in the body text of your page.
So, by all means if you already have copy that works, that can convert visitors into buyers or otherwise accomplish the purposes of your site, keep it. But you should also be ready to listen to what the optimizer has to say about modifications that will enable search engines to select your site when a potential buyer makes a query for your key words or phrases.
2. Search Engine Optimization is Tricking the Search Engines
Some clients say, “Don’t touch the visible copy but put in the modifications invisibly.” Using invisible text is something that can get you banned from a search engine. The main purpose of search engine optimization is to give your website the best possible chance to come up in good positions when someone makes a query for your keywords or key phrases. The key to doing this is to design web pages and write copy that is intelligible to search engines, without sacrificing the experience and understanding of your end-users, the people who visit your site. So, don’t ask your SEO professional to try to trick the search engines, but work with him or her to present your website in the best possible way.
3. Search Engine Optimization deals mainly with onsite modifications
Even if your website is well designed, has proper meta tags and has keyword-rich text, this alone does not guarantee that your site will rank high in competitive queries. All of these factors, design, meta tags, and copy, are on-site factors. Search engines certainly take them into consideration, but they also value off-site factors such as how many high quality or authoritative websites link to you. This means that hand-in-hand with your on-site optimization you and your promotion team will have to embark on a campaign to get links to your websites coming from websites that are already highly regarded by the search engines and by the public in general.
4. Search Engine Optimization works instantly
Don’t expect to get a flood of traffic right after your site has been optimized. Some search engines work in a fairly rapid manner, but the main search engine at the present moment, Google, is believed to have deliberately put an aging delay into its algorithm. This means that it may take several months before your site makes it into the top results for your particular category, especially if it is a newly created site. During this initial period you will also have to consider using other promotional methods such as pay per click advertising, article marketing, joint ventures, paid advertising in ezines and offline advertising.
So, the next time you work with a search engine optimizer, let him or her go about the task of making your website both user friendly and search engine friendly.
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About The Author
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He is the proprietor of A1-Optimization http://www.a1-optimization.com and provides search engine optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking and article marketing services.
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Add comment August 13th, 2006
Article Marketing - How to Make It Work For You
by: Tinu Abayomi-Paul
Information based marketing is one of the oldest and most effective techniques for bringing targeted prospects to your site and converting them into buyers. This is part of the reason that software, and distribution services that make the process of article promotion easier are so popular lately.
Though the various tools you can use to make the process of distributing your articles more easily are invaluable in getting your content the most exposure, that’s only half of the story.
Getting article marketing to work for your site lies primarily in two things:
Since those two determining factors make at least 50% of the difference in bringing you success, let’s take a look at what the most common mistakes are in that area, and how to overcome them.
Mistake #1 - Confusing the Reason to Promote with Articles with the Reason to Write Articles
There are three key benefits to promoting an article - branding, lead generation, and as a corollary, online promotion, particularly as part of your optimization efforts.
Yet there is only one reason to write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If your article is not geared towards this as its primary purpose, you will fail to see the three benefits of promotion - because no one will want to read your article.
How many links you’re able to generate by submitting your article to hundreds of sites will matter little if you’re unable to get them picked up by publications, or read by people who search for information.
Sure, if you know what you’re doing all those links pointing back to your site will count for something in your search engine results - but remember that generating links to your site is only one part of optimizing your site for Google, Yahoo or MSN.
To overcome this issue, you’ll need to figure out how to get people to read what is in your article, and then click through to your site from your resource box. The best start to a solution is to produce better content.
In the end it’s a matter of choice. You can get a little exposure from increased link backs, on a very basic level, or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra work.
Mistake #2 - Starting The Article Promotion without a Plan
Not every article can fulfil all three purposes of promotion. Some will work better for branding, others can generate leads and increase sales. But if you don’t start out with a plan for what the function of your article should be, you’ll end up unhappy with the results.
To overcome this issue, before you write a single word, decide what purpose the article is supposed to serve. An article meant to brand you as an expert should display your knowledge. One for generating leads may need to be geared towards solving a very specific problem.
An article that gets published every where and helps to make you known is not meant to have the same level of exposure as hyper-targeted content geared towards a narrow group of people. Learning the difference will help you know what kinds of articles to write.
Mistake #3- Publishing Content That Doesn’t Help Your Reader
Maybe you’re thinking: ‘All I want is links back to my site - any visitors the article generates is gravy.’
Well guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. You can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with readers. And all it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience tenfold.
So if you want article marketing to work for you, write articles that publishers want in their publications.
This also means obeying the standard guidelines, running a spell check, researching a good topic to write about, or even hiring a writer to produce articles on your behalf.
Mistake #4 - Failing to Maximize the Promotional Opportunities of Article Marketing
You already know that articles marketing can help you generate additional links back to your site. But did you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from articles in a variety of ways?
You can mention your desired keyword in strategic places, though you should take care not to overdo this. Some people will also tell you to make use of anchor text, which can also is an effective method. However, you should know that the majority of directories and publications aren’t able to support this.
There are alternatives to this method that are just as effective, if not more so, but they require more space to explain.
It’s not just about the links back to your site either. Part of doing well with article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with large audiences, or gaining the ability to leverage other brands due to the quality of your work.
Better search engine results are great.
But by themselves they don’t put money in your pocket - there are a myriad of factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity to increase your income, not just the number of visitors to your site.
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About The Author
Tinu Abayomi-Paul is a Web Promotion Specialist who runs the Free Traffic Tips Blog. You can read part two of this article at http://www.freetraffictip.com/article-marketing and learn about three more common mistakes even veteran article marketers make.
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