Internet Marketing

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Article Marketing - Why Article Marketing Increases Search Engine Rankings

Article marketing, of course, is the process of writing articles, including one or more links to your web site within the articles, and submitting the articles to the various online article directories.

One of the things for which article marketing is especially useful is that of increasing search engine rankings.

How does that work?

Lets take a step back.

How do the search engines determine which websites should be ranked higher than others, and in which ranking?

One of the ways that search engines determine which web site should rank higher than another web site is by counting the number of inbound links to that web site. An inbound link is a link that is coming into your web site.

The theory is this: if you have more inbound links, you must be more popular, and if you are more popular then your web site must have more to offer, than another web site in your niche with fewer inbound links than you.

So how do you get more inbound links, and therefore increase popularity and search engine rankings?

One of my favorite ways , and one of the easiest ways, to do this is by article marketing. Each article that you submit to an article directory, with a link in it pointing back to your web site, gives you one additional inbound link to your web site.

Article marketing is a quick and easy way to get multiple inbound links to your web site. I regularly submit my articles to a list of about 150 article directories and each of these directories places a link back to my web site, which increases my inbound link count and my link popularity.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Article Marketing - You Are Missing Out if You Are Missing Article Marketing

If you are spending your hard earned advertising funds on traditional mail or email marketing, or if you constantly working to improve your ranking on search engines with costly and time consuming search engine optimization operations, then you need to discover article marketing. Article marketing is HOT, and there is a reason for that. The reason is simply this: article marketing can generate traffic to your website quickly, effectively, and at little or not cost to you. If this sounds attractive, then read on.

How does article marketing work? It is actually incredibly simple. Many websites have developed that simply provide informative articles on specific or various topics to interested readers. Someone has to write these articles, so why not you? If you have an online business, then select a topic that relates to the products and services you provide. Write a few informative or persuasive articles on that topic, and then distribute them. Most websites that publish such articles will post your article at no cost to you (some may even pay you, although this is rare), and will add a brief biography and a link to your home website at the end. Then, when interested readers finish your article, they are drawn to your website.

Not only is this easy and fast, it also draws only traffic that is truly interested in your products and services, not a bunch of people who are only clicking the link to your site in order to try to receive a free iPod. Frankly, article marketing is one of the most efficient methods of online marketing that exists today. If you are missing article marketing, then you are missing out.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

Why Article Marketing Works so Well For Creating Profits Online

So many people look at article marketing as just a traffic source. And it is a traffic source. But it is so much more. You see, with most traffic sources, the impact of the traffic source ends once the traffic is delivered.

But with article marketing, the traffic source continues creating credibility long after the initial traffic is delivered.

In my case, with 1000's of live articles online, someone may join my list, and later decide they want more information about something online, then they go to read some of my other articles. The advantage to this is increased credibility, and that helps me generate more sales in the long run, as my subscribers continue to look to me for advice, knowing they can get it either directly from me or by reading more of my articles online.

This creates long term credibility online, which of course is what I am looking for.

Also, with article marketing, once I publish an article, I may get several visitors from that article the first month, much as any other traffic source would provide. But I will also get traffic the second month and the 3rd month and so on. I continue to get traffic from articles I submitted over a year ago - which means I am getting much more traffic than if I had paid for traffic one time up front.

These are just two of the reasons I favor article marketing over other traffic sources.

The bottom line is that article marketing is good for so much more than just traffic, but it helps me to build long term relationships online, hence increasing long term visitor value and profits.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1565 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Writing Keyword Articles

Looking for a way to drive highly targeted traffic to your website?

Writing great articles with lots of good content is a great way to drive traffic to your website or your blog. Here are some easy article writing tips and hopefully some information to help you get started...

Tip number one! Start writing! For a lot of people, writing keyword articles intimidates them and they never pick up a pen or hit the keyboard - lol!

If you know what you are writing about, keyword phrases will automatically fall into place for you. For instance, if you are writing about moms in home businesses , you will have phrases like " marketing home based businesses" , "stay at home moms" , "making money at home" , etc, popping up all through your article. They will just slip in without you even thinking about it!

After your article is written, sit down and think of the different phrases people would put into the search bar to look for the information in your article. A keyword search tip that I have used quite a bit is to put quotation marks around a specific phrase to see how often it is used . If the search is relatively low and you are confident of your niche, it is very likely a profitable keyword.

Here's the important point to remember when writing an article. Your article must stand alone as an independent piece of work, with useful information. Choose a topic to write about that you can be passionate about. Make it YOU... one of the best article writing tips I can give you is to just be you! Do a keyword search for your topic and weave them into your article in such a way as to captivate your audience and still please the search engines..

Articles are all about content. You are not selling your product, or your opportunity. The whole purpose of writing captivating articles is make it such a worthwhile piece of work, that many publishers will want to get it out there to their subscribers.

Your resource box is where your ad is. If your article is worth their while , many will click on the links in your resource box and that, my friend is how you generate the traffic to your website or your blog. Your reader will feel like he is beginning to know you, by reading your article and will become a highly targeted prospect that you are guiding through your information.

It will take some time the first time you start writing keyword articles, because it is a bit more difficult than just writing a letter to a friend! But the really neat thing is that you can submit your article and get them published for free. So commit to writing an article a week to begin with and then as you get more comfortable, write captivating articles about subjects relevant to your products or opportunity and you will generate highly targeted and qualified traffic to your site...

Where do you find the places to publish your articles?? Do a search for "article directories" and you will find a host of places that will publish your articles for you. When submitting your articles, be aware of the type of articles the site is looking for. Some accept any articles while others are looking for specific subjects...

Although it may be slow to start, you'll start getting a trickle of new traffic from people who have come across your article somewhere, some place and were interested enough to click on the link in your resource box. Soon that trickle will turn into a stream and hopefully into a river of highly targeted traffic for you!

Viola is the owner of Moms in Home Business, a website designed to help women become successful work at home Moms! Visit her Squidoo Lens here!

She is also a Platinum Director for the Coastal Wealthbuilders

Productive Article Marketing - Revealed - 4 Huge Ways to Breakthrough with Article Marketing

Gone are the days when people need to shell out huge amount of money or launch reciprocal link building campaigns just to popularize their websites and attract quality traffic. Today, thanks to article marketing, anybody can succeed online by just writing and distributing articles to publishing sites.

1. Offer quality information. If you want your articles to be read and widely republished, you have to fill them up with information that are being searched for by online users. Share a slice of your expertise that can help online users in resolving their pressing issues or provide them with the answers to their burning questions. You can also share information that will empower your readers to do certain things on their own.

2. Use simple terms. Write to inform and not to impress. Substitute complicated terms with simple words that can easily be understood by your readers so they can easily grasp the message you are trying to get across. When introducing new concept or discussing a rather complicated topic, elaborate more and give samples whenever appropriate.

3. Use exclamation points and all caps sparingly. Some writers are using these all throughout their content so they can attract attention. What they don't know is these can easily alienate readers as they appear like shouting at online users. The best way to attract the people's attention is to give your articles attention-grabbing titles and content that is well-written and useful.

4. Enjoy writing. You can't write articles just because you have to. You must love what you do so you can always provide your readers with quality articles. If you are just writing to drive traffic to your website and you really don't care about your target market, you will easily fail in this marketing technique.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Article Marketing - How To Make Money

Selling articles is a type of advertising that is now universal and trendy among online businesses. Firms have been created solely to provide unique articles with unique content for web pages as a method for their promotion.

Article marketing has encouraged the writers by providing them to display their articles for free. Due to this, we find article directories having long lists of free articles which may be helpful to the viewers to get information they want and to the website by increasing its viewers. Some sites offer their own articles only so as to keep their content in limit.

An important feature of article marketing is SEO targeting by using specific key words. Articles will be germane to the overall content of a website but will be loaded with certain words and phrases to make web crawler programs detect them and lead those who search the terms to see the page on a results page and then to visit the site.

Some articles contain misspelled words and poorly-worded phrases to ensure uniqueness and to bring searches who misspell words to the sites. This brings traffic, but many visitors may be unlikely to stay on a page with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. They may assume any product is as bad as the spelling.

Article marketing can provide you with revenue in several ways. The primary source of profit is by linking to sites to generate traffic from visitors, to sell products online, or to provide in some other way for the needs of those who are intrigued by the articles and drawn to the site. You can also offer your articles to other website owners, and tailor the articles to their needs.

Some site owners think that generating traffic is everything, even though they make little money if no one buys their services or clicks on ads. High quality articles are important because they encourage visitors to stay longer when they visit and to make return visits. They generally give your site a professional atmosphere that encourages visitors to purchase your goods or services. Good articles are worth the extra expense.

Those with writing skills can of course create their own copy, but many people prefer ghost written articles commissioned from professional writers. Some recruit individuals and others utilize online sites where articles may be solicited and purchased. These are then placed in directories and sites but will be credited to the purchaser, not the actual author.

S. Montgomery is a lifetime article marketing student who manages a FREE Article Marketing Blog that reveals the secret tricks and techniques the top marketers use to flood their sites with targeted paying traffic!

The Most Valuable Skill To Have As An Internet Marketer

The most valuable skill to have as an Internet Marketer is writing. Other people believe that the most valuable skill is email marketing, or sales marketing. But...if you learn the art of writing, then you'd able to write content for your website, write your own ebook, write your autoresponders emails and of course you can write your very own original articles. Articles are a way to get you unlimited traffic to your website by writing short articles related to the subject of that site.

The benefits of writing articles are tremendous. Writing articles creates the traffic you need to make money. And best of all it's free. You can submit your articles to Ezine publishers and article directories, which can expose you to tens of thousands of Internet users. Of the thousands of readers who read your articles, some will click the links in your article, Visit your site, and purchase your products. Articles build trust and credibility. Readers who do click to your site are pre-sold Because they see you as an expert.

Learn how to write articles

When I started writing articles I was overwhelmed by the numerous subjects. Don't start letting yourself come up with the reasons why that could be true for other people but not for you. You can learn to write articles from the beginning to the end. And as you get experienced you will find it more enlightening every day.

There are thousands of resources on the Internet that teaches the skills of writing. Here is a free resource that will teach you the art of writing your own ebook in less than a week. Just send a blank email to get more information to ebkmkec-2108@responsebot.com This will teach you the in's and out's of writing your own ebook, and that's a start for anyone willing to learn copyrighting.

You don't need to write a masterpiece. You can write from 300 to 500 words articles in no time. Your Heading is the most valuable piece of your article. You need to grab the readers attention from the beginning to the end. When people read articles they want information they can use right away. Write about a subject that will be beneficial to the readers.

Submitting your article

After you finish writing your article and decide to submit to the articles directories, make sure you run a spelling check, and check what format is required plain text, html or both. Add a resource box and list your website URL. List your URL both way wrapped and the link itself. Some of the articles directories stripped hyperlinks that are wrapped.

When you submit your articles to Ezines check their publishing guidelines, since they differ from those at the articles directories. Find out what are their guidelines, before you submit your articles. There are utilities to format articles or solo ads for submitting to Ezines the best one I found to be Ezy Ezine Ad Formatter. See my resource box and send me an email for more information.

Don't plagiarize someone's else's work since most of the article directories check for this on the web. You can acquire new articles ideas by visiting the articles banks and FAQ's on various sites on the Internet. Or you can use unbranded articles written by ghostwriters or from membership sites that you belong to.

Pick good keywords

Getting to pick the good keywords is very critical to the success of your article. You need to choose the best keywords and you'll choose the right audience for your article. It means you connect with the most potential targeted traffic on the web, this way you can earn more with your sales, and it's free.

Match the keywords to your article content and you'll reach an audience that wants what you're promoting. Be specific. If you're selling ebooks, use specific keywords like 'how to ebooks' instead of general keywords like ebooks. Someone searching for ebooks could be looking for any kind of ebook, and for many different reasons.

This is what you need to remember, writing articles creates the traffic you need to make money. They build trust and credibility. That there are thousands of Internet resources that teaches writing skills. Choosing the right keywords is critical to the success of your article. The difference between a good article and a mediocre one is often the difference between successful site that earns thousands of dollars a week and one that barely make ends meet.

Article Re-print Rights Information:

Article must be published "as is" (unedited). Article must be published with below the author's bio paragraph (resource box) and copyright information included. URL in the resource box should be set as hyperlinks. Article cannot be used in spam communications Bio paragraph (resource box) below:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pablo Montalvo writes about Internet Marketing in his free newsletter and free ecourses. You can sign up for his free ebook creation ecourse at his website: http://www.greathowtoebooks.com

Web 2.0 Strategies - Stop Fighting The Power!

It's time to release the future of marketing from the headlock that you've put in. I'm talking about curmudgeons out there. While many have greeted Web 2.0 with open arms some refuse to embrace it and instead prefer to fight tooth and nail. If the past methods of marketing worked online no one would be eager to find new methods. This is the web--faster, fresher, better is expected.

Those expectations however, mean very little to those who want to control every aspect of the internet. Both the greedy geeks and SEO service sites are still trying to cling desperately to the old internet that they claim to have built. But that web is just that--old. Users, browsers, small business owners and even corporate moguls have decided that they want a say, they want to be part of the web building process.

There has never been a better time for Emarketers to take up SEO strategies. Because while it is still work, it's a lot easier than it was five years ago. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of Web 2.0 strategies it's about the coming together of collective minds to contribute to the expansion of the web.

Web marketers are beginning to understand that they no longer have monopoly over content creation. And why would they want to. I, for one, welcome anyone who wants to add the expansion of my site by providing me with content that my users can use and further contribute too.

Web 2.0 strategies allow you to get in front of a lot of people a lot faster. With users passing around content and videos, sending links to like minded people, and posting in virtually every corner that will allow them, net marketers should be cheering instead of shaking their heads while they fumble around with the old methods.

Many Web 2.0 critics debate that it circulates crap and that competition for marketers is ridiculously fierce as everyone tries to get on the front page of virtually every news-feed out there. But I beg to differ. Google and other major search engines still have some say as to what gets ranked what. Also, as more and more content gets produced users become pickier as to what they consider "quality" and what "crap" is. As for the competition, this is marketing there has always been competition and there always will be.

If you've been sitting around trying to figure out what Web 2.0 is and whether or not to do it, stop thinking and start link sharing, social bookmaking, voting, and creating sticky content.

People can debate all they want the fact is the web has altered. The rules for the marketing game have changed. You are either in or out.

Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant and work at home business owner. For more information on website linking strategies please visit his "Top Ranked" Website Linking Strategies Directory gives you all the information you need to Earn Money at Home in the 21st century.

Top 5 Article Marketing Mistakes

I am sure that if you are reading this article then you must have attempted marketing your business with this method of marketing or you have given up trying to market this way because the results were very disappointing.

In this article I would like to share with you the top 5 mistakes that people make when trying to market their business using article marketing.

1) Inconsistency

The number one reason that people fail with this method is that they are too inconsistent. You cannot write one day and then not again for a few days. You need to do this every day and be very strict about it. In fact you can apply this to your home based internet business as well. You need focus and persistence to succeed.

2) Not writing enough articles

To succeed online with this method you need to be writing at least ten to twenty articles a day. If you are doing less than this you simply will not be making enough noise in the market place to succeed.

3) Drive traffic to a squeeze page

The number one thing that you need to do to succeed online is build a list. This is so that you can market over and over again to your prospects.

4) Overcome writer's block

As you write every day there will be days when you just do not feel like writing. It is very important that you go to gym or do some activity to keep yourself energized. So that when you get back you can start again.

5) Create a killer bio

Your bio contains the link to your squeeze page. It is very important that you have your unique selling proposition here so that people will want to click through to your web site.

Are you really interested in driving massive traffic to your website?

Here's the answer:

Secrets Of Article Marketing - Download your free ebook now.

Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.

Article Marketing Secrets To Create Web Site Traffic

Article marketing is very powerful if you know how to do it correctly. Unfortunately most people write one or two articles and do not get a stampede of traffic right away and give up. So you have to have the proper mind set to make this work. Also you need to at least write a few hundred articles to really get the benefit. If you look at the top article directories you will see that there are a handful of people who make a living from writing articles alone. They have a few hundred up to a few thousand articles. When you write an article you are not sure which one will generate the most traffic. If you write a good quality article and it gets picked up by a very popular web site you could get hundreds of visitors in one day. However, you do not know which article is going to do this for you.

Now let us look at one of most overlooked parts of article marketing. It is very essential to track and test how many clicks your author bio is getting. In your article you give by writing on a topic that you are an expert in. You take when someone clicks on your bio and you get a visitor to your web site. It is very important to have your unique selling proposition as your bio. Now I suggest you track and test different bios. Initially I was getting very low click through rates on my bio, but then I changed it and found one that gets a much higher click through rate.

You can also get stuck spending too much time submitting to different article directories. There is software that does this for you, but I found that it works best to submit to the article directories by hand. Also stick to the major article directories. Submitting to the smaller article directories will increase link popularity, but they rarely drive much traffic to your web site.

Once you master this skill you will generate the highest quality leads for free. If you do this on a consistent basis you can drive tens of thousands of visitors to your web site.

Would you like to know more about the magical marketing techniques that have helped me to quit my day job? I have just completed my new guide.

Download it free here: Secrets Of Internet Marketing

Here's your chance to drive massive traffic to your web site: Secrets Of Article Marketing

Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.

Amazing Article Marketing - Latest 4 Popular Secrets to Improve Your Article Marketing

A lot of webmasters and online entrepreneur prefer using article marketing as their primary product promotional and marketing tool because aside from the fact that is it cost-effective, it is also hassle-free to use and it never fails to deliver great results. Currently, it is considered as the best free internet tool not only in positioning yourself as an expert on your chosen niche but also in augmenting your websites traffic and improving your page ranking.

Here are the latest 4 popular secrets to improve your article marketing:

1. Build rapport with your readers. As you know, one of you main objectives in writing and publishing your articles online is to build rapport with your readers so they will trust you and consider doing business with you. This can easily be done by writing in a conversational tone, connecting your readers to your content, and showing empathy whenever appropriate. It would also help to create a compelling author's bio to give your readers a chance to get to know you more on a personal level.

2. Boost the number of your inbound links. If you want to easily get ahead of the pack, you must devise a mechanism that will allow you to explode the number of your articles and submissions so you can gain more backlinks for your website. Some online entrepreneurs hire ghostwriters to do the task for them while others who do not have the budget spend more time writing short articles that are quicker and easier to write.

3. Maximize the use of your resource box. Did you know that most leading article submission sites will allow you to use up to three hyperlinks on your resource box? Take advantage of this so you can easily increase your conversion rate. To make this work for you, use at least two anchor texts using the most popular keywords in your niche and one absolute URL.

4. Strike out sales pitches from your articles. If you think that advertising your products on your articles is the easiest way to connect with your target market, then you are wrong. You have to understand that when people opened and read articles online, they expect to get answer to their questions or solutions to their problems. If you present them a sales letter-like article, they will surely close it and move to the next one that can offer them what they truly need.

Do you want to learn more about how I use article marketing techniques, and list building methods to generate over $15,347 per month online?

Find out free here: How to Make 5 Figures Online.

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Targeted Article Marketing - Announcing 3 Secrets to Energize Your Article Marketing

Are you currently using article marketing to augment your traffic and profit but can't seem to achieve your desired numbers? Do you often wonder if you are doing something wrong that is why your strategy is not yielding favorable results? Have you tried numerous techniques but they simply don't work? Well, fret no more. This article will teach you the 3 secrets to energize your article marketing campaign. These are:

1. Make sure your articles are posted online. After you submit your articles, make sure that they are posted by checking your account on article submission sites at least 3 days after you have submitted them. Too often, articles are declined due to broken link, inappropriate content, and blatant advertising.

2. Make sure that the articles submission site where you post your articles allows HTML codes. While majority of article submission sites allow you to use HTML codes on your resource box, there are some that does not allow outgoing links. Avoid these sites as they will not do well on your article marketing campaign.

3. Analyze the performance of your articles. By logging to your accounts on various article submission sites, you will get an idea on how often your articles are clicked by online users. If your articles are not being clicked at all, I'd say improve your titles. Make them bolder and more intriguing. It would also help if you can incorporate relevant keywords on your titles so they can easily be found by your potential audience. If however, your articles are frequently viewed but no traffic is directed to your site, consider revising your content or your resource box. It's either that your contents are not useful to your target market or your resource box is very lame.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Profitable Article Marketing - 4 Persuasive Methods to Supercharge Your Article Marketing

Article marketing is the most powerful promotional method these days. Ensuring your success in this technique can bring you enormous benefits. From increased page views to higher page ranking and from improved sales potential to higher online revenue. So how can you be sure that you can succeed in this method?

1. Start with a good title. One of the very first things that you need to ensure in this technique is to obtain impressive click through rate. You need to craft a mechanism that can potentially entice your target audience to open and read your articles. One of the best ways to do that is by giving your articles attention-grabbing headlines. So what are the elements that make a title truly impressive? It must be direct to the point, well-written, and it must communicate the benefits that your article content can offer.

2. Content. This is what will ultimately make or break your article marketing campaign. It is not enough that you grab the attention of your readers through your titles, but you must also hold that attention by giving them content that is truly useful and informative. Make your articles content-rich, easy to understand, and direct to the point.

3. Promote your products and services. Write about topics that are closely related to what you offer so you can easily advertise them on your resource box. It will not make sense if you write about acne when you are offering computers and other gadgets, right? Besides, that will not help you in anyway establish yourself as an expert on your field.

4. Use compelling resource box. Learn how to drive online users to your website through the use of your resource box. Use powerful words or persuasive phrases that can easily move your readers to click on your website's URL.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

The Power of Article Marketing

Most people I meet seem to dread writing articles and seem to always complain or have something negative to say when it comes to adding content, writing a post etc. Some are just plain lazy and some don't see it as powerful or successful enough. hey often say that the kind of articles they write don't bring them any real traffic. The reason in most cases is that they don't write often enough and by often enough I mean once a day. Neither do they submit it to enough or at least a few quality article submission sites.

They simply think if they write a few articles a month it would bring a huge surge of traffic lasting for eternity, but unfortunately we don't live in never never land and little boys can't fly...

Writing articles is a great way to generate free traffic and quality backlinks that will somewhere along the line result in definite better rankings and sales. But you have got to work hard at it, doing a lot of it and stay clear of half done work, cause no one wants to read a sales pitch, they expect info not salesmanship. So to benefit your website with traffic and backlinks, write and submit at least one article a day, that's if you really want to make your article marketing a success... Otherwise just don't bother.

How can I write one or more articles a day it's impossible... Oh no it's not!

Keep it simple without lowering the quality of your article. Stick to a certain writing style and you will soon see yourself pumping out 2 - 5 articles a day... Now thats what I am talking about, by using the same structure with all your articles you will never get stuck staring at the screen thinking "uhm...."??

Start each article with a simple product or service intro, accurately describing the product or service you are selling. Follow up your opening intro with the true heart of the article, you know the compelling stuff. Go over to ezine and find 2 or 3 articles around your topic. Use some of their ideas and be sure to put it over in your own words, never ever copy someone else's hard work... It's illegal and foolish.

If you are only starting off with article writing and marketing go for the easier option of writing benefit-laden type articles. Benefit-laden also known as "List type" articles are for instance articles that begin with: 20 Questions to...., or 30 Ways you could... etc. This is one of the easiest types to write and to write a lot of.

Close off your article by bringing everything you said above together. A compelling closing statement that leaves the reader wanting more in which case he or she clicks through to your site... Voila!

For everything and more on Article Marketing and to get shocked by these guys' knowledge, tips and extremely powerful techniques on Internet and Affiliate Marketing go and check out Affiliate Teachings.com and start living the power affiliate lifestyle

Regards,
Ryan

Quick Link Popularity - 5 Key Ways to Link Popularity

Link building cannot get easier these days. With the discovery of forum posting and article marketing, you can easily build one-way links for your website is as little as 24 hours. You can also launch reciprocal and one way link campaigns with other webmasters to improve your search engines. Just make sure that your website is worth linking to so it can be useful to the readers of your potential link partners.

1. Make your website a good source of information. When other webmasters decide to link with you, they are not only recommending your site, they are also sharing their visitors with you. It is one of the best ways to tell their readers that you offer great information and that your website is worth checking out. Don't let them down and offer your visitors with nothing less.

2. Submit articles to publishing sites. This is the easiest way to build links for your website. All you need to do is write quality, relevant articles that will be useful to your target niche and pitch in your website on your resource box.

3. Leave comments on related blogs. You can also leave your URL every time you post comments, suggestions, or ideas on blogs that are related to your website topic.

4. Make other webmasters want to link with you. Take advantage of all traffic-generating tools and optimize your page so you can farewell on search engine ranking. When other webmasters see that you have huge traffic and you can help them generate some for their website, they will take the initiative and request for reciprocal linking.

5. Submit your site to search engines and online directories. This will greatly improve your online presence that can lead to improve traffic and great sales potential.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Small Business Marketing Strategies - How To Write A Yellow Pages Or Newspaper Ad

Just a glance through any local newspaper will reveal a wide variety of ads for varied types of business all vying for the same customers - and the vast majority doing a bad job of it! Reason being that most companies (of all sizes) and ad designers tend to use brand advertising to promote their products or services. The idea is to raise awareness of the company, present its features and hope that the consumer will remember them when it comes to making a purchase.

Though this may work for large companies or corporations, who make the products at our local supermarket or high street, it doesn't for small businesses whose potential customers are looking for someone who can solve their problem, whether its a blocked drain or a broken down car, and normally aren't prepared to wait.

Its common sense really. Just imagine if you had a serious electrical problem at your house. Would you ring the guy whose ad says '30 years experience, great service' or the one that says 'We're there within an hour and guarantee all work for a year' ?

Your ad must stand out from the crowd, offer your customer exactly what they want or more and make it appear almost stupid to choose anyone else before you.

You should first think about your potential customer - who they are, what they want, what they don't want and what they fear (e.g. dishonest tradesmen overcharging, timewasting etc.)

Then consider what you have to offer, how you can improve it to beat your competitors and how you can tailor it to meet your clients exact needs.

You should also choose your graphics carefully. Cheap clipart just looks unprofessional whilst a photo can be off putting if done incorrectly.

Once you have worked that out, your ad should ideally

1. catch the readers attention before all others on the page

2. offer them exactly what they are looking for and more

3. belay all their fears

4. prompt them to call you NOW!

Of course there are many other factors that will influence the effectiveness of your ad, such as size and placement, and this list is just a basic guide.

The location of your business and how far your customers are prepared to travel wil also have an effect e.g. if you are the only emergency plumber in town then youll probably get all the business even with a bad ad. People will travel further for a good lawyer than they would a beauty therapist (I imagine) so you should also consider the nature of your business, your location and your local competition when deciding how much to invest in an ad campaign.

This is just the tip of the iceberg more next time!

For your free, 7 part small business marketing strategies course by email simply visit http://www.webfixer.co.uk and sign up for the free newsletter. If your ads are not performing for you simply contact us and we'll rewrite them for you to give them that boost you so want. We can also optimize your website and make it work for you. Just visit http://www.webfixer.co.uk for the lowdown.

5 SEO Abuses That Will Get a Domain Banned

While some of these are innocent mistakes, others are obvious attempts to 'break the rules' and Google Webmaster Guidelines. Most of these abuses at one time were not considered problems by the major search engines, though over the years these have become 'red flags' . Search engines now have strict rules in place to punish websites for breaking published guidelines. These punishments could be a 30-day drop in organic rankings to the most severe total ban of the domain from the search results.

There are many HTML validators available on the Internet to check your web page to make sure it is acceptable. The most unfortunate part of having a domain banned, is that often it is the result of either a SEO contractor or company breaking the accepted web master rules for their client (and the client has no clue about it) or a regular person is unaware of what they are doing can be a potential problem.

Invisible Text

This has been going on for years on the Internet. White text on white background...or basically whatever color your background is, don't use the same color for your text. Why? Because it becomes 'invisible' to the human eye and typically is a trick used to hide keywords for ranking. This is the oldest and lamest abuse you could possibly do. It is also the most obvious to search engines.

Paid Links

Buying links, or a listing in a link directory, was common practice for a number of years. Many people paid, and still pay, to have a link on a high page rank site to boost their web site's ranking and thus do better in organic search results. At one time, search engines really didn't care about if you had paid a some web site to have a link back to yours. Then in 2007, Google came down pretty hard on the link exchange programs on the Internet. Google decided to give less weight to those 'Link Directories' and 'Paid Links' became a taboo. Paid links and link directories are now shunned by the search engines and they favor more of a natural link exchange system.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are basically web sites, or a web page, that is optimized for a keyword. The problem that the search engines don't like about these types of pages are that it directs the visitor to the true web site when any hyperlink, URL, is clicked. Or worse, has an automatic refresh (see below) to a different web site. Thus the 'doorway' to the real web site. Google and Yahoo really don't like these tactics and your web site can potentially be yanked from their search results index permanently.

Redirects

There are 2 kinds of redirects. The first is a redirect of a page when it is moved or when a web site is moved. The best way to handle this situation is by using a 301 redirect in the .htacces file. This is an accepted authorized redirect by all search engines. The other type of redirect is a meta redirect that used to be ok, but was severely abused over the years and now all of the search engines will punish you for using it.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is a broad term, but generally speaking, it is using the same keyword many times in a web page to such a degree that it becomes difficult to read the content on the web page. This has been a problem since the first web page was ever created for SEO purposes. To set the record on this, search engines have gotten smart over the years and recognize when this is occurring on a web page. Since this was, and to this day, still being abused, search engines totally ignore the meta-keyword content. So 'stuffing' that information in an image or meta tag is totally useless, yet can still get your web site banned because it is obvious to the search engines that you are trying to abuse and manipulate the organic search results.

It is not hard to build a web page that follows the rules and does not break accepted webmaster guidelines. There are 5 Beginner, 5 Intermediate and 5 Advanced SEO techniques that can help in your SEO efforts. However, these 5 abuses will get a web site banned if and when it is crawled by a search engine, or reported by a web surfer.

Stay away from risky, or Black Hat, SEO techniques when creating content for your web site or having a SEO company do the work for you. It is not worth the risk of getting your web site penalized or banned.

Jason Perry

Two great SEO tools which can help track the success of your web site are WebPosition 4 and Hits Link. Both which you can try for free.

Link Building - Search Engine Optimization's Vital Requirement

An effective and thematic link building strategy can strengthen your website's actual presence on all major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and many more. Link building is an innate part of off-page search engine optimization services as it enhances a website's competitive streak. It also gives your website a prominence in the Internet circles. Link building process is usually termed as activities taking place behind the scenes, as far as search engine optimization is concerned.

Link building means directly or indirectly linking your website with other websites. This is basically done to generate increased traffic flow. There is a popular belief that, link building is just about swapping links with every website possible. This is not true and it is always wise to indulge in link building only with websites that are termed as your potential customers in an online marketplace. Although majority back-links help in achieving better ranking on search engines; in reality, they are nothing but adding a link to your own webpage from another webpage.

There are certain tips that should be kept in mind while putting the link building process to effective use:

A- Try to build and exchange links with big websites. By big websites we mean, those websites which are both renowned and widely surfed by the Internet surfers.

B- Always exchange links with websites that have content and services more or less similar to yours. For instance, if your website deals with education, it will be sagacious to have back-links from those websites that talk about schools, universities, colleges, and learning institutions.

C- As we know content is the king of your webpage and there is no alternate for it. Majority times, users are captivated to a webpage because of its unique and engrossing content. Optimum usage of correct keywords and key phrases in the content will go a long way in fetching higher page ranks.

Link building is mainly done in three prime types:

1- One-Way Link Exchange The first and the foremost is one-way link exchange. In this link building process, web pages are usually submitted in various article directories providing back-links to submitters. You can also pick free links from directories that allow this process.

2- Two-Way Link Exchange Second to follow is two-way link exchange. In this process, two websites offering same or related services mutually agree to establish back-links with each other. This is basically done to generate traffic diversion.

3- Three-Way Link Exchange Last but not the least is three-way link exchange. In this link exchange process, one party owns two website, whereas, the one has only one. Fairly newer websites can gain links on prominent websites using this link exchange process.

Link building is certainly the most reasonable search engine optimization service as it comes free of cost. Moreover, it can help your website in fostering better relationships in the online marketplace along with high search engine rankings.

The author is dynamic web content writer and budding SEO. He has got the experience in writing quality content for various websites and getting them optimized too. You can view his website for more information.

How To Get Better Search Engine Ranks

If you're looking to get better search engine ranks, the following article will give you useful tips on how to get those better ranks as well as telling you why you need to do so!

Today, we belong to a society where if you want to find any kind of information you just get to a pc (or even mobile phone) and search for it. Heck, people are now even saying "I'll google it"!

In this regard it is imperative that your website ranks well in the search engines. It is this rank that can decide the overall success of the website. This in turn results in the failure or success of meeting our personal aims of why we set up that web site in the first place. This may be to make money from it, gain exposure of ourselves or our cause, or maybe to offer help to others.

If we miss out on a good Google rank we'll be missing out on 80% of the worlds internet search engine traffic with 300 million queries each day and be buried in the sea of over 8 billion other web pages listed on Google. Although only Google itself knows all of the algorithms that it uses to rank web pages, there are three very fundamental techniques we need to adopt as a bare minimum if we want better search engine ranks.

Once these are done it is more or less certain to show a positive reflection on the search engine ranks that we hold. These 3 absolute "must do's" are;

1) Believe the old saying - 'content is king'. Just sprinkling your chosen key words at strategic places is no more enough to draw good amount of traffic for your site. Google is all about quality for it's users so give it that quality information and you'll get better search engine ranks, and fast become an 'authority site'. In addition, add fresh content by updating your content regularly or add a Blog.

2) In your quest for better search engine ranks, another thing of pivotal importance is linking. These links should again be from quality sites that have relevant content and you never stop searching for new links to your pages. Never use 'link farms'. These will have the opposite effect on your search engine ranks. Articles, blogs and forums with your signature link to your web site is a great way to get one way links to your web site.

3) Optimise your site for a keyword phrase. It's no good trying to get to the top of google for a broad phrase like 'buy shoes'. Your competition is far too great. You need to choose a specific phrase like 'buy Italian leather shoes' and then optimise your web page for that. Then repeat this for your other web pages with other keyword phrases. Long-tail keyword phrases are the way to go for better search engine ranks. And it's good for sales too as you get highly targeted traffic looking for exactly what you are offering them!

Now, although the 3 techniques I mention only scratch the surface on how to get better search engine ranks they are the most important and if you use them they will certainly give your web site a traffic boost.

We haven't even mentioned other techniques such as optimising meta tags, using social book marking, adding 'alt' tags for images, avoiding Google's duplicate content penalization and all the other tricks and tips you should know about. One article is just not enough to give you all the tips on achieving better search engine ranks!

To ensure you get to the very top of google and dominate your competition make sure you check out http://searchengine.247info.us for more great advice. Do it now, before your competition does!

Link Bait is the New Reciprocal Link

Link bait and reciprocal linking programs have quite a bit in common. Without disparaging anyone who engages in link baiting strategies I do believe that many forms of link baiting are just a dressed up version of reciprocal links without the reciprocation. Note here that I said, many forms. I don't mean all link baiting, but I would guess a bigger slice of the link baiting pie holds no more value than the old fashioned reciprocal link schemes.

A brief history of reciprocal linking

We've all heard it said that reciprocal links are dead. Well, they're not. But some forms of reciprocal linking most certainly are. Remember when Google showed up and started evaluating incoming links as part of the ranking algorithm? This started everybody down the path of seeking to acquire as many links as possible. For awhile, the most efficient way to do this was to simply barter a link exchange. "Hey, if you link to me, I'll link to you!"

This solution started the trend of websites adding dozens of "reciprocal link" pages to their sites linking out to other sites in which they were able to work a link "partnership" with. And for awhile, this type of reciprocation worked. At least until the search engines learned to identify these non-valuable pages. Of course this led to three and four-way reciprocal linking tactics and the creation of link "directories." Again, these worked for a while and perhaps still do to a smidgen of a degree.

The basic problem here was one of motivation. It was all about getting a lot of links, many which were largely irrelevant. It was links based on volume and volume alone. Eventually link reciprocates began to target their links a bit more selectively, to be more within the real of relatedness, but still the concept here was on links, not user value.

Along comes link baiting

When you hear people talk about link baiting today, it's almost as if we are in the early stages of the reciprocal links schemes all over again. It's all about link volume rather than link relevance. This isn't always the case but for many, if not most, it is.

Rand has a good series of posts all about how to link bait the linkerati. Essentially, Rand explains how to attract links from the masses of people who are most likely to link to you, not necessarily the ones who are most interested in your product or service. I appreciate Rand's posts and I believe he, more than most, tries to get relevant links through his link bait, but getting links from linkers, rather than a targeted audience or related websites, is going right back to seeking out links for quantity rather than quality.

As did reciprocal linking, this will work. At least for a while. But sooner or later the search engines will get even smarter about analyzing links. Just as links from reciprocal pages were deemed irrelevant, I believe that links from the "linkerati" will largely be deemed irrelevant as well. Search engines, in their quest to provide the best search results for each query, understand that popular doesn't necessarily mean relevant. Especially popularity from a group of people who are always interested in what's popular.

The way sites earn quality links today isn't the same as the way links were earned several years ago, so too the link baiting of tomorrow isn't going to be the link baiting of today. True success in link baiting will be from those that learn how to bait their target audience. Some of that will include the linkerati, but most of it won't. The true skill of link baiting won't be getting to the top of digg, but getting to the top of the minds of your target audience so they can't help but want to link to your site.

Stoney deGeyter leads a spectacular team of seasoned marketing experts at Pole Position Marketing, a Search Engine Marketing Company. Stoney started PPM in 1998 by finding the brightest minds in the industry and nurturing within them an intense desire to become leaders in their respective fields. With this team of professionals, he has built a wildly successful website marketing company that succeeds through both personal and professional integrity.

You can read Stoneys blog posts at the E-Marketing Performance blog and more of his work on several well-known SEO and marketing news sources including Search Engine Guide and Web Pro News. Stoney has authored two website marketing books: E-Marketing Performance: Effective strategies for building, optimizing, and marketing your website online and Keyword Research and Selection: The definitive guide to gathering, sorting and organizing your keywords into a high-performance SEO campaign.

Search Engine Optimization & What It Is

You have probably heard the term Search Engine Optimization, but the question is, what is it exactly? Search Engine Optimization is a process of determining the most preferred targeted keyword or keyword phrases related to your website to ensure that your website ranks high in the search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your website at #1 or as close to #1 as possible. Simply put, it fine tunes the content of your website along with the HTML and Meta tags, and it involves an appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves.

Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret in order to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging their results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking their listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine.

New sites do not necessarily need to be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to pick up its contents. This is called a web spider or web crawler. However, it can take from a few days to even several weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site. Understand that it is the keywords that will trigger the search engines, so choosing the right keywords is important to your search engine optimization experience.

Moreover, if you are not able to research and choose keywords to work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. Also if you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and to make recommendations for editing and to make improvements to maintain and increase your website traffic flow and to keep your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts will work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of your website's design are considered at the same time.

Increase Links Naturally With Link Popularity Building (LPB)

Businesses can gain a competitive edge with Google and other significant search engines through relevant link building strategies. The search engines track links in ranking algorithms while crawling the Web. It is advantageous to grow the number of incoming links to your companys site alongside effective search engine optimization techniques.

There are numerous link building solutions.

1. Free and paid link directories
Link directories all provide either one-way or reciprocal links. Some are free, while others are paid only. Link directories are beneficial because Websites that place your link on their site without requesting a link back to their site are considered more valuable than reciprocal or link exchanges, in the eyes of major search engines. There are many reputable directory sites that are well trafficked by potential buyers for your product. You will find one-way and reciprocal link directories by typing into any search engine search box, keywords like submit a link, add a URL, or add link.

Some small business owners will only link to sites that link back to their site. This creates reciprocal links pages and triangular link patterns. Reciprocal links do not improve a Websites rankings, and should only be done to give value to your site visitors. This is not a savvy SEO tactic or a wise link building practice. Stay clear of SEO companies who use these link exchange strategies; they are not considered real SEOs by other professionals in the field.

2. Business Blogging
This is an ever growing Internet trend gaining in popularity with businesses corporate blogs. Blogging started as personal spaces for individuals to share their thoughts and the events around them, like an online diary. Corporate blogging is then defined as another way to publish business-related content and gain more visibility for your company on the Web. By offering information and sharing knowledge, a company can quickly establish itself as a leading industry expert, get information to customers quickly, increase sales, attract journalists seeking news releases, and attract new customers looking for relevant information.

3. Article Directory Submissions
Article directories are sites that house free reprint articles, allowing authors (people like you) to become known as experts in a field or industry. These sites help authors gain one-way link popularity because others seeking free articles to reprint on their newsletters, Websites, blogs and in print can find them here. Reprint articles can only be used elsewhere if providing a link back to the authors Website. You also receive free advertising and promotion.

4. Press releases
Submit your companys news releases to sites like PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com to allow journalists and bloggers to find important information about your company, its products and services. These releases also build links to your site, and attract attention from prospective buyers.

5. MySpace.com
This is a tremendous opportunity for free publicity, through networking with prospects from around the world. Place your business profile, your company logo and business pictures, commercials and videos, write comments on other myspace.com profiles, receive email, instant message, and search for prospective clients. MySpace.com also has a business section that is cost effective and a great way to share your business with people searching for a certain product or service. This is another way to increase your link popularity.

6. Yahoo! Answers
This site is relatively new, and lets people in all industries become an expert in their fields. Answer questions in categories related to your expertise. Choose a subject from an extensive list of categories. Create a profile on Yahoo!, and you get to list up to 3 other one-way links. Yahoo! Geocities offers free a Website template and tools to build a simple Website. All these avenues add a host of easy ways to increase link popularity for your business.

7. One-Way Links on other Business Sites
Even with these link building strategies, having one-way links are considered much more valuable than link exchanges, also called reciprocal links. One way links from other related business sites or blogs with pertinent subject matter to the Website is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site. Although it is time consuming asking other sites to link to your site, these methods will assist in building stronger link popularity interest among the major search engines.

8. Business Networking Sites
FastPitchMedia.com and LinkedIn.com are two business networking sites that give professionals and business executives many resources under one place. These one-stop shops give professionals a lot of excellent exposure for free, by housing a database of business owners linked to each others online networks. Try something new! Create a profile through these sites, and you will reach other decision makers, stay in touch with others in your network, fill a key position, and keep contact information current.

Wendy Suto is president and CEO of Search Circus, Inc., an ethical SEO firm specializing in one-way link popularity building. The company also offers natural search engine optimization, blog marketing, Website copywriting and article submission solutions. As a certified search engine optimization consultant, she teaches SEO seminars throughout Cleveland, Ohio.

wendy@searchcircus.com

SEO And The Long Tail: Can You Optimize For The Occasional Visitor? Part 2

In part one of this article we discussed what the long tail of SEO is. We also went over some of the seo challenges that you face doing seo for the long tail. Here are the next things to do.

Segmented SEO to target your sub-niche

Now that you have discovered where your visitors and coming from and where they are going on your web site you can begin to target them with search engine optimization. Now that you know the sub-niche you can better target them with the keyword terms and phrases that they not only used to visit your site but also do the research necessary to find more terms in that sub-niche.

Here is an example: (these are all fictitious web sites)

Through your Analytics you notice that visitor are coming to your site in the following ways:

  • Using the keyword phrases
    • designer dog clothes,
    • hats for my dog,
    • vest for my puppy
  • They are coming from the web sites
    • designerdog.com/summer-line.html,
    • cooldoghats.com/custom-hats.html,
    • puppyattire.com/vests/designer/disney/red-vest.html
You notice that most of your visitors are looking for some type of designer or custom dog clothing. When you do some additional research you will find that there are several sub-niches in the designer dog clothes niche.

  • cheap designer dog clothes
  • designer dog coats
  • designer dog clothes UK (country specific)
Now that you have some phrases that consumers in the sub-niche use you can target those phrase specifically by adding content to your web site about that sub-niche. You can also start a PPC campaign to see how well those visitors convert into customers. You would give preference to higher converting keywords and phrases.

The biggest question now becomes is Segmented SEO worth the extra effort?

Targeting all of those low traffic phrases will eventually pay off buy when? How much will you have to spend to achieve the desired results?

With the efficiency that the search engines make information available and realizing that half of all the searches done on a daily basis are unique it will become necessary to do as much SEO for those "Long Tail" phrases as possible without taking away from your key traffic generating keywords. It will be an ongoing process but the main benefit is that as with most Long tail phrases achieving a high ranking isn't that difficult.

Best Practices for Segmented SEO (SEO for the Long Tail)

  • Use a good analytic program (Google Analytics is free to track your site visitors if you use adwords)
  • Look for trends and patterns in your web site visitors
  • Do additional keyword research on your target sub-niches
  • Use PPC to discover the most profitable keyword phrase in your sub-niche
  • Do SEO for your most profitable phrases first.

By Following these best practices you should be able to dominate your sub-niche and quickly gain a competitive advantage in your niche and larger target market.

SEO You Can Use For Your Everyday Business Check out our SEO Blog Today

Copyright 2006-2007 - Mical Johnson. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way.