In this world you only have two types of assets: Money and Time. The easiest way to drive traffic to your site is to buy it. But if you are an Internet marketing beginner you probably don't have much money to invest in traffic building. In that case, you will need to invest your time.
The following traffic techniques are time consuming, but they are 100% free and will get you a fair amount of targeted traffic. If your site is properly optimized for monetization, you will soon be earning enough money to invest in buying traffic, and save your precious time to build new money making websites.
So here are 11 surefire free traffic techniques:
This tip is so obvious it will not even be counted, but it is often overlooked: submit your site to the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) and to as many other search engines as you can.
1. Use this proven Bum Marketing technique, write 5 to 10 articles and submit them to the free article directories. Of course you must include a link to your site in the article itself or in your bio box. The articles should be optimized for a keyword your site is targeting.
2. Find blogs related to your topic and leave useful comments with a backlink to your site. In the same way you could go to answers.yahoo.com, and answer questions related to your site’s topic. Off course put a link to your site in each of your answers. Another thing you should consider is joining the most popular forums that deal with your site's topic and becoming an active poster. Include a link to your site in your signature.
3. This one can be very powerful. Write a press release about your site and submit it to press release sites such as prweb.com. If you are not familiar with press releases, take some time to do a little research: a press release is not written like an article.
4. If you are happy with a product or service you have used, write an unbiased testimonial and trade it for a backlink to your site.
5. Start a blog on blogger.com and a blog on wordpress.com, link them to your site and submit them to the hundreds of free blog directories. This will get you plenty of quality traffic as long as you keep your blogs updated.
6. Try posting ads with a link to your site on all the free classified ad sites you can find (such as craigslist.com). The best ones will allow you to post a live link. But don’t neglect the other ones. If your ad is well written, people will go out of their way and type your url in their browser. Off course you must post in the appropriate category.
7. An easy way to get extra free traffic is to add a link to your site in your email signature.
8. Start a page on myspace.com and on any other high page rank social bookmarking site you can find. In the same way, go to Squidoo.com, open a few accounts, create a few lenses and link them to your site.
9. Submit a viral video to youtube.com. You don’t really need any video producing know-how as a simple PowerPoint slideshow with some background music will do the job perfectly.
10. Search your main keywords on Google and see if you can exchange reciprocal links with related websites that come up in the top results.
11. You could write an ebook or a short report (say 10 to 20 pages), or find a product with giveaway rights that you can brand with a link to your site. Then submit it to all the free ebook directories you can find online.
This last tip is not free, but is worth the extra buck. Check out the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors. If you find a good available domain, grab it and redirect the traffic to your site.
Now all this looks like a full time job! These techniques work, but you don’t have to use them all at once. Just pick the one you feel the best with and act now. Invest 30 minutes to an hour daily in building your free traffic. Then step to your next favorite technique and within a few weeks you should be earning enough money to afford to buy traffic and concentrate your time and efforts on building your online business.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
4 Essentials for Creating a Successful Paid Membership Site
For an Internet marketer, the biggest reason for setting up a paid membership site can be summed up very easily - recurring income. A small amount paid monthly by every member can quickly add up to either valuable extra income or even a full-time income if you have several membership sites and if you have a higher priced membership fee, you can quickly earn a very substantial annual income.
People will buy information that they could probably find on the Internet themselves if they had time and knew where to look, but often there is a higher perceived value when they have paid for it.
The challenge then is to find customers and then provide them with such good value that they will retain their membership month after month and hopefully also recommend your site to others because you pay them a generous affiliate fee.
There are four main criteria you need to consider to achieve this and they are:
1. Your site must be in an established membership type market.
2. You must provide excellent value content or service
3. You need to use software that will password-protect your site so that non-paying members cannot get the content for free.
4. A marketing system to attract new subscribers and retain them once they sign up.
Criteria 1 - Your Membership-Site Market
In assessing your potential membership-site market, consider both online and off-line habits. Ask yourself whether people with an interest in this subject would buy monthly magazines, belong to a club or organization about it and perhaps whether there are books on the subject on Amazon's best popular seller lists. Online, check if there are eBooks that sell well, blogs, forums or other on-line communities about this subject.
The topic must be popular enough to have many potential subscribers or you will be wasting your time. It is worth offering some free material, perhaps an ebook on your subject to see how many people have an interest it it. Another strategy to test your market is to set up a simple survey, asking what issues people have. You can offer free membership to your new site as an incentive for people to reply; the answers you receive will guide you as to what kind of concerns people have on this subject.
The information most in demand on-line is that which solves someone's immediate problem, so it is worth considering whether your content or service solves just a one-time problem or whether there could be an ongoing or related issues that you can address.
An example of a one-off problem would perhaps be a remedy for snoring and for an ongoing problem, think of new parents, who have many worries and sleepless nights when their baby cries, perhaps in the middle of the night and there is no-one they can ask for advice. A membership site that contains suggested solutions for the numerous problems new parents face would be a valuable resource for them.
Criteria 2 - Quality Content
The four main types of content are: written, audio, video and web-based software solutions. Naturally, the media type you use will depend on your site topic as some will be more relevant that others. Most sites will include a significant percentage of written material as this is still the primary method of sharing information on the Internet, but audio recordings are increasing popular because people can download them and listen when they are walking, driving, exercising or away from their computer for any other reason.
Video content is preferred when the information you are providing is instructional; "how-to" in pictures or a video can make a process very easy to understand compared with following a written list of instructions.
Another situation where pictures are helpful is showing symptoms of something. For example, for the new parent site mentioned above, there could be photos of the types of spots or rashes a small child might have on their body if they have caught any of the various common childhood complaints such as measles, chickenpox or have been bitten by an insect.
There are many sources of good content apart from writing your own if you are qualified to do so. Your own material is obviously the cheapest, but will take the longest to prepare and you need to know enough about your topic to keep providing fresh material on a regular basis.
Use other people's material by utilizing royalty free articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com and free content sites, free to use videos from YouTube, metacafe.com or ehow.com or good quality PLR (private label rights).
Outsourcing is another option that will be less time-consuming although you will have costs for the ghost-writer or freelancer you contract to produce your work. Apart from the well-known elance.com & rentacoder.com, there are hundreds of other sources as a simple web search on "outsourcing" will reveal. If you plan to outsource on a regular basis, it is worth the time and effort to find a freelancer and develop a relationship with them, rather than going through a ghost-writing service provider.
Interviews with experts are something you can do yourself with basic equipment. Prepare a list of open-ended questions before the interview and send a copy to the person you will be interviewing two or three days beforehand. Any sooner and they might forget about it and any later doesn't give them time to prepare.
The following are some suggestions for interview questions that will give an expert the opportunity to give you excellent material for your membership site:
1. What is so good about .........?
2. How did you get involved in .........?
3. What do you consider the top 3 things someone should know about ......?
4. What would you suggest would be the best way to get started?
5. How long would it take to be proficient at ..........?
An hour is a good length for a value interview but you may want to go longer and edit the script later. This is easily done even with a free audio editor such as audacity.
Criteria 3 - membership site software to protect your subscriber's investment and save you time
If you can, invest in a specialized memberships-site software package or script. There are quite a number of good choices of varying prices, for example Membergate, Memberspeed, & Wordpress plugins like Wordpress Wishlist, Digital Access Pass (DAP), YourMember & aMember. The advantages of using one of these is that so many of the member functions are done automatically, for example:
1. Membership levels
2. Membership types
3. RSS Feed encryption so that non-paying members cannot access your content through the RSS feed
4. Sequential delivery so that someone cannot sign up and download all the material & then unsubscribe - the longer a person is a member, the more content they have access to
5. Payment gateways - preferably more than just Paypal
6. Training and Support
7. A good strong guarantee
Criteria 4 - Strategies for Recruiting & retaining members
1. Instead of focusing on trying to sell memberships, focus on how how one particular article of your content can solve a specific problem a person might have so that you are providing a solution to that problem and also giving one month's membership to the site for free.
2. Use free advertising by writing & submitting articles & reports, posting on blogs & forums, make squidoo lenses, hubs & other web pages.
3. Buy Pay per Click advertising and banner ads etc
4. List your membership site on Clickbank, Paydotcom etc
5. Email your list & if you don't have one, form a joint venture partnership with someone who does & pay them a generous affiliate commission.
There are many other marketing tactics that have been written about at great length and can be found in a web search.
In summary, if you can address the four main criteria of using an established membership type market, providing premium value content, using appropriate membership software and attracting subscribers, a paid membership site can become a very profitable business model.
People will buy information that they could probably find on the Internet themselves if they had time and knew where to look, but often there is a higher perceived value when they have paid for it.
The challenge then is to find customers and then provide them with such good value that they will retain their membership month after month and hopefully also recommend your site to others because you pay them a generous affiliate fee.
There are four main criteria you need to consider to achieve this and they are:
1. Your site must be in an established membership type market.
2. You must provide excellent value content or service
3. You need to use software that will password-protect your site so that non-paying members cannot get the content for free.
4. A marketing system to attract new subscribers and retain them once they sign up.
Criteria 1 - Your Membership-Site Market
In assessing your potential membership-site market, consider both online and off-line habits. Ask yourself whether people with an interest in this subject would buy monthly magazines, belong to a club or organization about it and perhaps whether there are books on the subject on Amazon's best popular seller lists. Online, check if there are eBooks that sell well, blogs, forums or other on-line communities about this subject.
The topic must be popular enough to have many potential subscribers or you will be wasting your time. It is worth offering some free material, perhaps an ebook on your subject to see how many people have an interest it it. Another strategy to test your market is to set up a simple survey, asking what issues people have. You can offer free membership to your new site as an incentive for people to reply; the answers you receive will guide you as to what kind of concerns people have on this subject.
The information most in demand on-line is that which solves someone's immediate problem, so it is worth considering whether your content or service solves just a one-time problem or whether there could be an ongoing or related issues that you can address.
An example of a one-off problem would perhaps be a remedy for snoring and for an ongoing problem, think of new parents, who have many worries and sleepless nights when their baby cries, perhaps in the middle of the night and there is no-one they can ask for advice. A membership site that contains suggested solutions for the numerous problems new parents face would be a valuable resource for them.
Criteria 2 - Quality Content
The four main types of content are: written, audio, video and web-based software solutions. Naturally, the media type you use will depend on your site topic as some will be more relevant that others. Most sites will include a significant percentage of written material as this is still the primary method of sharing information on the Internet, but audio recordings are increasing popular because people can download them and listen when they are walking, driving, exercising or away from their computer for any other reason.
Video content is preferred when the information you are providing is instructional; "how-to" in pictures or a video can make a process very easy to understand compared with following a written list of instructions.
Another situation where pictures are helpful is showing symptoms of something. For example, for the new parent site mentioned above, there could be photos of the types of spots or rashes a small child might have on their body if they have caught any of the various common childhood complaints such as measles, chickenpox or have been bitten by an insect.
There are many sources of good content apart from writing your own if you are qualified to do so. Your own material is obviously the cheapest, but will take the longest to prepare and you need to know enough about your topic to keep providing fresh material on a regular basis.
Use other people's material by utilizing royalty free articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com and free content sites, free to use videos from YouTube, metacafe.com or ehow.com or good quality PLR (private label rights).
Outsourcing is another option that will be less time-consuming although you will have costs for the ghost-writer or freelancer you contract to produce your work. Apart from the well-known elance.com & rentacoder.com, there are hundreds of other sources as a simple web search on "outsourcing" will reveal. If you plan to outsource on a regular basis, it is worth the time and effort to find a freelancer and develop a relationship with them, rather than going through a ghost-writing service provider.
Interviews with experts are something you can do yourself with basic equipment. Prepare a list of open-ended questions before the interview and send a copy to the person you will be interviewing two or three days beforehand. Any sooner and they might forget about it and any later doesn't give them time to prepare.
The following are some suggestions for interview questions that will give an expert the opportunity to give you excellent material for your membership site:
1. What is so good about .........?
2. How did you get involved in .........?
3. What do you consider the top 3 things someone should know about ......?
4. What would you suggest would be the best way to get started?
5. How long would it take to be proficient at ..........?
An hour is a good length for a value interview but you may want to go longer and edit the script later. This is easily done even with a free audio editor such as audacity.
Criteria 3 - membership site software to protect your subscriber's investment and save you time
If you can, invest in a specialized memberships-site software package or script. There are quite a number of good choices of varying prices, for example Membergate, Memberspeed, & Wordpress plugins like Wordpress Wishlist, Digital Access Pass (DAP), YourMember & aMember. The advantages of using one of these is that so many of the member functions are done automatically, for example:
1. Membership levels
2. Membership types
3. RSS Feed encryption so that non-paying members cannot access your content through the RSS feed
4. Sequential delivery so that someone cannot sign up and download all the material & then unsubscribe - the longer a person is a member, the more content they have access to
5. Payment gateways - preferably more than just Paypal
6. Training and Support
7. A good strong guarantee
Criteria 4 - Strategies for Recruiting & retaining members
1. Instead of focusing on trying to sell memberships, focus on how how one particular article of your content can solve a specific problem a person might have so that you are providing a solution to that problem and also giving one month's membership to the site for free.
2. Use free advertising by writing & submitting articles & reports, posting on blogs & forums, make squidoo lenses, hubs & other web pages.
3. Buy Pay per Click advertising and banner ads etc
4. List your membership site on Clickbank, Paydotcom etc
5. Email your list & if you don't have one, form a joint venture partnership with someone who does & pay them a generous affiliate commission.
There are many other marketing tactics that have been written about at great length and can be found in a web search.
In summary, if you can address the four main criteria of using an established membership type market, providing premium value content, using appropriate membership software and attracting subscribers, a paid membership site can become a very profitable business model.
Crafting a Terrific Close to Your Sales Copy
Now that you have grabbed your reader's attention with your riveting headline and presented your product with great enthusiasm dispelling all possible resistance, included some killer bonuses that make your offer irresistible, it is now time to bring your sales copy to a close.
The close is as important as the beginning of the sales page. This is where the final hurdle is overcome. Therefore, it is to be crafted with great skill.
So what do you write in the close of your copy? And equally importantly, how do your put it across?
Most offers include multiple bonuses that complement the main product. To encapsulate the entire offer for your prospective buyer, summarize everything that he will be getting when he buys. The best way to do this would be by putting all bonuses and products into a table so that everything can be seen at one glance.
Next, the thing to do is to remove ALL risks for the buyer by offering a money-back guarantee. Most guarantees consist of merely a few lines giving assurance to the prospective buyer that he will get a full refund within a specified period of time. Here are two tweaks that you can make to have your guarantee really stand out.
Firstly, you should use an image of a certificate and put your guarantee wording in it. This gives your guarantee a more official and professional look.
Secondly, you can word your guarantee as a personal undertaking or agreement. In other words, instead of the usual "In the event that you are not satisfied for any reason, you are guaranteed a 100% refund...", you can word it as "Should you have any dissatisfaction at all, I promise to give you a no-questions-asked refund of every penny you have paid. All you have to do is email me...". Can you see how this makes your guarantee seem much more personal?
Also, your close should ask for your prospective buyer's action of accepting your offer. This is where your words must be very clear and specific. In fact, give your prospective buyer instructions as though he were a four year old child without treating him childishly.
You do this by giving explicit step-by-step instructions. For example, you could say, "Click the 'Order Now!' button now and you will be taken to our secure order page...".
To complement your order button, you could add some words that reflect the feelings you want your prospective buyer to have. For example, just above the order button, you could say something like, "I understand that I am getting XYZ product at the lowest price ever to skyrocket my sales. And along with that, I will also be getting ABC and DEF bonuses that will give me an unbeatable edge in my business. And if that were not enough, I will be getting a 100% 'love it or leave it' money-back guarantee...".
Lastly, you should sign off with your signature and name. One last powerful piece of copy you should include is a PS after your signature and name. Research has shown that people read PS's more than they do the main copy. Therefore, you would want to add a compelling statement in your PS such as a reminder about your guarantee or your amazing discount, etc.
These are the little tweaks that top Internet marketers use to really add more punch to their close. Now you can do it, too. for more information visit my website
The close is as important as the beginning of the sales page. This is where the final hurdle is overcome. Therefore, it is to be crafted with great skill.
So what do you write in the close of your copy? And equally importantly, how do your put it across?
Most offers include multiple bonuses that complement the main product. To encapsulate the entire offer for your prospective buyer, summarize everything that he will be getting when he buys. The best way to do this would be by putting all bonuses and products into a table so that everything can be seen at one glance.
Next, the thing to do is to remove ALL risks for the buyer by offering a money-back guarantee. Most guarantees consist of merely a few lines giving assurance to the prospective buyer that he will get a full refund within a specified period of time. Here are two tweaks that you can make to have your guarantee really stand out.
Firstly, you should use an image of a certificate and put your guarantee wording in it. This gives your guarantee a more official and professional look.
Secondly, you can word your guarantee as a personal undertaking or agreement. In other words, instead of the usual "In the event that you are not satisfied for any reason, you are guaranteed a 100% refund...", you can word it as "Should you have any dissatisfaction at all, I promise to give you a no-questions-asked refund of every penny you have paid. All you have to do is email me...". Can you see how this makes your guarantee seem much more personal?
Also, your close should ask for your prospective buyer's action of accepting your offer. This is where your words must be very clear and specific. In fact, give your prospective buyer instructions as though he were a four year old child without treating him childishly.
You do this by giving explicit step-by-step instructions. For example, you could say, "Click the 'Order Now!' button now and you will be taken to our secure order page...".
To complement your order button, you could add some words that reflect the feelings you want your prospective buyer to have. For example, just above the order button, you could say something like, "I understand that I am getting XYZ product at the lowest price ever to skyrocket my sales. And along with that, I will also be getting ABC and DEF bonuses that will give me an unbeatable edge in my business. And if that were not enough, I will be getting a 100% 'love it or leave it' money-back guarantee...".
Lastly, you should sign off with your signature and name. One last powerful piece of copy you should include is a PS after your signature and name. Research has shown that people read PS's more than they do the main copy. Therefore, you would want to add a compelling statement in your PS such as a reminder about your guarantee or your amazing discount, etc.
These are the little tweaks that top Internet marketers use to really add more punch to their close. Now you can do it, too. for more information visit my website
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Idiot’s Guide to Article Marketing
Most article marketing slogans will try to pull you into the bandwagon with slogans like "You can earn money by blogging!" or "Make your blog generate cash!" However, beginners make a lot of mistakes when they try to submit their articles online. Below are the most common misconceptions about the business of writing content for the web.
Avoid the hype text.
Whether you are writing for a website, or writing an online review about a certain product, you should always try not to sound like a hawker with a megaphone. Putting too many exclamation points (!!!) in your text is a big no-no. For one, it makes your readers feel like you think they are stupid, and secondly, it gives you away. When you write in an exclamatory (!!!) tone, you only end up sounding insincere. This is not the way to gain your readers' trust.
Stick to informative articles.
Whether you are writing for your own affiliate web site or an ezine that pays you depending on your word count, it is always safe to stick to informative topics. How-to articles are big right now. Everyone seems to be looking for self-help tips online, whether it is about carpentry or losing weight. Because how-to articles require a lot of research, it is safer to stick to topics you are familiar with. You would not want to be stuck with a lot of jargon you cannot understand. Writing articles is about translating your understanding of the subject matter onto the screen. If you cannot get anything about what you are reading, chances are, you will give nothing in what you are writing as well.
Do keyword research.
You can do this simply by typing in what you think your prospective readers will search for when they are looking for your topic. This way, you can compare why one page is ranked over the other and what keywords actually reap a lot of results.
Using less common keywords will probably help you rank higher on search engines, although you stand less chance that this keyword will actually be keyed in by any prospective online reader. On the other hand, using common keywords will help you be included in one of the index pages of a search engine, but you will stand very little chance of actually being ranked in the first page.
The best place to start is with the master of search engines, Google. Who better would know what people are searching for than the most used search engine on the web? Google's Keyword Research Tool can give you a list of related keywords in your niche, as well as the search count, competition, monthly trends, etc. You can find it here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Do not overdo the SEO.
Although it is necessary to know how to manipulate keywords in your articles so it can attract search engine spiders, it is not very good to overdo it. For example, repeating "hypertext inclusion" 40 times in a 400 word article will not only make what you have written sound like gibberish, it can get you banned from the most popular search engines online.
You should write for human readers first. Worry about the search engines later once you have come up with web content that is actually worth reading. There is nothing more irritating than looking at 400 words of garbage. If you are going to occupy a domain's precious bandwidth, anyway, you might as well try to make your text useful.
Try to be original.
Repeating information that has been recycled over and over online will not give you much of an edge as an article marketer. If you cannot get any new information about the topic you are writing about, you might as well try to be creative with your delivery. Again, we do not mean hype when we say creative. Keep your text readable, conversational, and entertaining. You should also never underestimate the power of a well written web article. Proofread your articles before publishing them, and make sure that you do not have any filler text that readers might find useless.
Keep your web content short, sweet, and strong. People who read through their screen do not have the time to filter junk information.
Avoid the hype text.
Whether you are writing for a website, or writing an online review about a certain product, you should always try not to sound like a hawker with a megaphone. Putting too many exclamation points (!!!) in your text is a big no-no. For one, it makes your readers feel like you think they are stupid, and secondly, it gives you away. When you write in an exclamatory (!!!) tone, you only end up sounding insincere. This is not the way to gain your readers' trust.
Stick to informative articles.
Whether you are writing for your own affiliate web site or an ezine that pays you depending on your word count, it is always safe to stick to informative topics. How-to articles are big right now. Everyone seems to be looking for self-help tips online, whether it is about carpentry or losing weight. Because how-to articles require a lot of research, it is safer to stick to topics you are familiar with. You would not want to be stuck with a lot of jargon you cannot understand. Writing articles is about translating your understanding of the subject matter onto the screen. If you cannot get anything about what you are reading, chances are, you will give nothing in what you are writing as well.
Do keyword research.
You can do this simply by typing in what you think your prospective readers will search for when they are looking for your topic. This way, you can compare why one page is ranked over the other and what keywords actually reap a lot of results.
Using less common keywords will probably help you rank higher on search engines, although you stand less chance that this keyword will actually be keyed in by any prospective online reader. On the other hand, using common keywords will help you be included in one of the index pages of a search engine, but you will stand very little chance of actually being ranked in the first page.
The best place to start is with the master of search engines, Google. Who better would know what people are searching for than the most used search engine on the web? Google's Keyword Research Tool can give you a list of related keywords in your niche, as well as the search count, competition, monthly trends, etc. You can find it here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Do not overdo the SEO.
Although it is necessary to know how to manipulate keywords in your articles so it can attract search engine spiders, it is not very good to overdo it. For example, repeating "hypertext inclusion" 40 times in a 400 word article will not only make what you have written sound like gibberish, it can get you banned from the most popular search engines online.
You should write for human readers first. Worry about the search engines later once you have come up with web content that is actually worth reading. There is nothing more irritating than looking at 400 words of garbage. If you are going to occupy a domain's precious bandwidth, anyway, you might as well try to make your text useful.
Try to be original.
Repeating information that has been recycled over and over online will not give you much of an edge as an article marketer. If you cannot get any new information about the topic you are writing about, you might as well try to be creative with your delivery. Again, we do not mean hype when we say creative. Keep your text readable, conversational, and entertaining. You should also never underestimate the power of a well written web article. Proofread your articles before publishing them, and make sure that you do not have any filler text that readers might find useless.
Keep your web content short, sweet, and strong. People who read through their screen do not have the time to filter junk information.
SEO - Natural Linking Strategies
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be the difference between a small, barely profitable or visible website and a traffic magnet website. There are a lot of ways, both good and bad, to influence the search engines. Some search engines react to certain strategies better than others. Some even have conflicting strategies that they react to. To document all of these things would require a significant number of pages and research that goes beyond the scope of this article.
However, there are a number of things that can be documented that will work for most if not all search engines. And let's face it; there are really only 3 that make a difference between a successful and an unsuccessful SEO strategy. They are the big three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines in any given month are responsible for over 90% of all internet searches.
So, what is this article about? It's about what you can do as a website owner that will influence the search engines using commonly accepted practices of linking to other websites (outbound) and getting website links (inbound) back to you. There are basically 4 strategies that a website owner usually will employ to increase their website value in the eyes of the search engine. They are reciprocal linking, one-way linking, multi-site linking and directory linking. A website owner should not think that using just a single strategy is the right answer - sure it will help your SEO but it won't be the Best answer. The Best answer is to employ all 4 techniques and to do it naturally.
Each of the four linking strategies has specific descriptions that can be summed up as:
1. Reciprocal Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links back to Site A
2. One-Way Linking = Site B links to Site A
3. Multi-Site Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, Site C links to Site D, and Site D links back to Site A. Could be 3..N number of sites involved.
4. Directory Linking = Site Directory A links to Site A
That seems simple enough but it takes time and effort to perform all 4 strategies and most website owners aren't willing to spend the time or don't have the time to spend on it. As a website owner, SEO needs to be one of the highest priority tasks that you need to address, just after Order Processing and Fulfillment and Customer Service. Without free traffic from the search engines, other traffic generation strategies that usually require payment must be engaged.
Now doing the 4 strategies above is great, but it gets even harder because you have to do it in a way that doesn't trigger the search engines to enforce a penalty upon your website. No one except the search engine engineers know all of the exact penalties but we have some good theories for some of them.
The first is the rate at which links are created. There is a certain threshold for creating links that is too fast. It's possible that the threshold is a sliding scale and is related to the age of the website according to the engine. For example, a young low-traffic website should not normally be getting 1000 links a month whereas an older website that gets a lot of traffic could be OK to get 1000 links a month. As you progress in your linking strategies make sure you keep this in mind, especially if you are thinking about buying links.
The second is that having a link to every site that links to you will likely reduce the value of the links. In other words, if all you ever get is Reciprocal Linking, you will likely move up the SERP's (Search Engine Results Page's) but you won't reach your sites full potential. Having a mixture of all 4 strategies will appear more natural to the engines.
The third is having all inbound links to your site on "linking" pages will make those links less valuable than having a natural link on a contextually relative page for a percentage of the inbound links. The higher you can drive this context percentage, the better your website will rank. These types of links are often some of the most difficult links to generate an exchange for because it requires more time and effort for both website owners.
The fourth is to have links inbound from all different ranking sites. If all you have linking to you is page rank 6 and 7 sites then you are likely to be sending the message that you purchased your links and that is not natural to the engines. Some would argue that purchasing links for driving traffic is just fine and it is. However, you should not expect the search engines to give those inbound links very much weight when calculating your SERP positions. It is significantly more natural for you to have a large number of rank 1 and 2 inbound links and a decreasing number of inbound links as you move up the page rank scale (0 - 10).
The fifth is to have the text of you inbound links varied. It isn't natural to have every website that links to you to have the same text on the link description. The natural tendency would be to have a certain percent be the sites name, but after that it should be a wide variety of description. Your link text description is a key factor for how your site/page will rank, so make sure that you keep that in mind as you specify your preferred link text description on your website.
Finally, it would be best for a good percentage of your inbound links to appear within the text of a page that appears natural for the reader of that site. And for those links to not all point back to the home page of your website. It's most natural for a good high quality link to appear in the text of a page and have it point internally within your site.
So, when you begin or continue your SEO activities keep all of these things in mind and don't be impatient. Impatience could incur penalties or worse. Your website could end up in the "sandbox". It is rumored and becoming more concrete that Google supposedly uses a sandbox that questionable sites are put in until they have aged to a point that Google no longer feels that they are being manipulated. Many of the search engines use similar protection schemes to eliminate spam sites and manipulation sites to keep their SERP's from being cluttered.
However, there are a number of things that can be documented that will work for most if not all search engines. And let's face it; there are really only 3 that make a difference between a successful and an unsuccessful SEO strategy. They are the big three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines in any given month are responsible for over 90% of all internet searches.
So, what is this article about? It's about what you can do as a website owner that will influence the search engines using commonly accepted practices of linking to other websites (outbound) and getting website links (inbound) back to you. There are basically 4 strategies that a website owner usually will employ to increase their website value in the eyes of the search engine. They are reciprocal linking, one-way linking, multi-site linking and directory linking. A website owner should not think that using just a single strategy is the right answer - sure it will help your SEO but it won't be the Best answer. The Best answer is to employ all 4 techniques and to do it naturally.
Each of the four linking strategies has specific descriptions that can be summed up as:
1. Reciprocal Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links back to Site A
2. One-Way Linking = Site B links to Site A
3. Multi-Site Linking = Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, Site C links to Site D, and Site D links back to Site A. Could be 3..N number of sites involved.
4. Directory Linking = Site Directory A links to Site A
That seems simple enough but it takes time and effort to perform all 4 strategies and most website owners aren't willing to spend the time or don't have the time to spend on it. As a website owner, SEO needs to be one of the highest priority tasks that you need to address, just after Order Processing and Fulfillment and Customer Service. Without free traffic from the search engines, other traffic generation strategies that usually require payment must be engaged.
Now doing the 4 strategies above is great, but it gets even harder because you have to do it in a way that doesn't trigger the search engines to enforce a penalty upon your website. No one except the search engine engineers know all of the exact penalties but we have some good theories for some of them.
The first is the rate at which links are created. There is a certain threshold for creating links that is too fast. It's possible that the threshold is a sliding scale and is related to the age of the website according to the engine. For example, a young low-traffic website should not normally be getting 1000 links a month whereas an older website that gets a lot of traffic could be OK to get 1000 links a month. As you progress in your linking strategies make sure you keep this in mind, especially if you are thinking about buying links.
The second is that having a link to every site that links to you will likely reduce the value of the links. In other words, if all you ever get is Reciprocal Linking, you will likely move up the SERP's (Search Engine Results Page's) but you won't reach your sites full potential. Having a mixture of all 4 strategies will appear more natural to the engines.
The third is having all inbound links to your site on "linking" pages will make those links less valuable than having a natural link on a contextually relative page for a percentage of the inbound links. The higher you can drive this context percentage, the better your website will rank. These types of links are often some of the most difficult links to generate an exchange for because it requires more time and effort for both website owners.
The fourth is to have links inbound from all different ranking sites. If all you have linking to you is page rank 6 and 7 sites then you are likely to be sending the message that you purchased your links and that is not natural to the engines. Some would argue that purchasing links for driving traffic is just fine and it is. However, you should not expect the search engines to give those inbound links very much weight when calculating your SERP positions. It is significantly more natural for you to have a large number of rank 1 and 2 inbound links and a decreasing number of inbound links as you move up the page rank scale (0 - 10).
The fifth is to have the text of you inbound links varied. It isn't natural to have every website that links to you to have the same text on the link description. The natural tendency would be to have a certain percent be the sites name, but after that it should be a wide variety of description. Your link text description is a key factor for how your site/page will rank, so make sure that you keep that in mind as you specify your preferred link text description on your website.
Finally, it would be best for a good percentage of your inbound links to appear within the text of a page that appears natural for the reader of that site. And for those links to not all point back to the home page of your website. It's most natural for a good high quality link to appear in the text of a page and have it point internally within your site.
So, when you begin or continue your SEO activities keep all of these things in mind and don't be impatient. Impatience could incur penalties or worse. Your website could end up in the "sandbox". It is rumored and becoming more concrete that Google supposedly uses a sandbox that questionable sites are put in until they have aged to a point that Google no longer feels that they are being manipulated. Many of the search engines use similar protection schemes to eliminate spam sites and manipulation sites to keep their SERP's from being cluttered.
Monday, June 29, 2009
How to benefit from Social Sites
Social sites have become the latest craze on the Internet. Social Marketing can also be seen as the next wave of internet marketing. Everyone has heard about social sites and benefits from such sites. Social sites provide a lot of freedom and interactivity to the user. Such sites are powered by the latest technologies like AJAX and allow users to personalize page backgrounds,style,post their music, post videos, store documents, share their favorites and connect with people. Users can also post their pictures, share them with friends and even invite or search for new friends.
But how exactly do these sites help your site and its rankings? By sending huge amounts of traffic and getting you a good ranking on search engines.
There are two types of social sites. One is social networking and the other type is social bookmarking. Social networking sites provide you an easy way to connect with people who share similar interests like you. Sites like MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster are popular among users. These sites have a huge user base and provide an excellent opportunity for advertising your site. There are also specialized social networking sites like 43Things, MomJunction, Mothersclick which cater to specific interests.
Some social networking sites group people with common interests, but some sites are "traditional networking sites" and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. In any case you will always have a larger audience for showcasing your site. Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to post your advertisements and promote your products, provided you are not spamming. If you have a really good site, you will surely find a large visitor base just by showcasing your site on your profile.
Social bookmarking sites provide you easy way to store, organize, manage your bookmarks as well as share them with your friends. You can bookmark any URL or page you liked and even mark them for public or private viewing. Social bookmarking sites also provide you with the option of tagging your bookmarks. Some of the bookmarking sites link directly to your URL’s thus helping your site in getting valuable back links and quick indexing. Sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious are known to send huge traffic to your site. If you manage to get on the front page of these sites, you should be prepared to handle a huge number of visitors to your site.
Search engines spiders love social sites and usually follow links on these sites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking sites, your site will be indexed quickly.
If you happen to be using Wordpress for your blog, you should use some good plugins like Socialmarker, Socializer and Addthis. These plugins provide your site visitors a quick option to bookmark your site. Getting bookmarked from different users and different bookmarking sites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines. Some plugins like Onlywire automatically bookmark your post to 20 different bookmarking sites as soon as you publish your post.
It is a known fact that the video and photo sharing sites like Youtube and Flickr are visited by millions of people everyday. If you think out of the box and use your creativity, your published video will get your site the traffic you've always wanted. Some video sharing sites like Metacafe also pay you a part of their revenue just for publishing your video.
Like it or not, social sites have become an integral part of the internet. You need to use this opportunity to you advantage before it is too late.
But how exactly do these sites help your site and its rankings? By sending huge amounts of traffic and getting you a good ranking on search engines.
There are two types of social sites. One is social networking and the other type is social bookmarking. Social networking sites provide you an easy way to connect with people who share similar interests like you. Sites like MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster are popular among users. These sites have a huge user base and provide an excellent opportunity for advertising your site. There are also specialized social networking sites like 43Things, MomJunction, Mothersclick which cater to specific interests.
Some social networking sites group people with common interests, but some sites are "traditional networking sites" and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. In any case you will always have a larger audience for showcasing your site. Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to post your advertisements and promote your products, provided you are not spamming. If you have a really good site, you will surely find a large visitor base just by showcasing your site on your profile.
Social bookmarking sites provide you easy way to store, organize, manage your bookmarks as well as share them with your friends. You can bookmark any URL or page you liked and even mark them for public or private viewing. Social bookmarking sites also provide you with the option of tagging your bookmarks. Some of the bookmarking sites link directly to your URL’s thus helping your site in getting valuable back links and quick indexing. Sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious are known to send huge traffic to your site. If you manage to get on the front page of these sites, you should be prepared to handle a huge number of visitors to your site.
Search engines spiders love social sites and usually follow links on these sites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking sites, your site will be indexed quickly.
If you happen to be using Wordpress for your blog, you should use some good plugins like Socialmarker, Socializer and Addthis. These plugins provide your site visitors a quick option to bookmark your site. Getting bookmarked from different users and different bookmarking sites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines. Some plugins like Onlywire automatically bookmark your post to 20 different bookmarking sites as soon as you publish your post.
It is a known fact that the video and photo sharing sites like Youtube and Flickr are visited by millions of people everyday. If you think out of the box and use your creativity, your published video will get your site the traffic you've always wanted. Some video sharing sites like Metacafe also pay you a part of their revenue just for publishing your video.
Like it or not, social sites have become an integral part of the internet. You need to use this opportunity to you advantage before it is too late.
A Beginners Guide to Social Media Marketing
In the past few years, Social Media and Social Media Marketing have become buzz- words. This is due to the popularity of sites like MySpace, Digg, etc. The social media have two components - user generated contents and the ability to form networks of friends for sharing contents.
In sites like MySpace and Facebook users create their profile pages and use texts, pictures, and videos to embellish the pages. They can then share those contents with others in their friends' network, or the social network
In sites like Digg, YouTube, Flickr users submit a summary of news articles, pictures, videos and they vote on the contents submitted by others. Popular contents are featured on the homepage and it drives massive amount of traffic.
There are many variations of the two models described above, including a combination of the two.
Using the social media sites to promote your product or services (or a website) is called social media marketing. There are two types of traffic you get when your content becomes popular in a social media site.
The primary traffic or the direct traffic comes from the site where it becomes popular. For sites like Digg, it can be huge and your site should be ready to handle the surge in traffic without crashing.
When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. They will put links to the content. The secondary traffic or the indirect traffic flows from those links long after the surge due to the primary traffic is over.
So, what are the benefits of primary and secondary traffic from the social media sites? The primary traffic exposes your site to people who have no other means of knowing about your existence. Some of those visitors will become regulars to your site if you are providing something that they want on a regular basis.
The greatest benefit is the natural links to your site given by others because they want to discuss your offering. Natural links from a large number of relevant sites improve your search engine rankings and organic search traffic.
Social media marketing lets you expose your site to a large group of people. If your search engine traffic has leveled off, shifting your focus to the social media marketing and becoming successful in that will take you to the next level in search engine traffic.
The only other alternative for increasing your search engine traffic is pay per click advertisement. If you are already running a PPC campaign, you can continue your PPC campaign through out the year to sustain increased traffic from search engines at a cost.
Social media marketing is free and making your site popular a couple of times in a year is enough to sustain increased traffic through out the year.
In sites like MySpace and Facebook users create their profile pages and use texts, pictures, and videos to embellish the pages. They can then share those contents with others in their friends' network, or the social network
In sites like Digg, YouTube, Flickr users submit a summary of news articles, pictures, videos and they vote on the contents submitted by others. Popular contents are featured on the homepage and it drives massive amount of traffic.
There are many variations of the two models described above, including a combination of the two.
Using the social media sites to promote your product or services (or a website) is called social media marketing. There are two types of traffic you get when your content becomes popular in a social media site.
The primary traffic or the direct traffic comes from the site where it becomes popular. For sites like Digg, it can be huge and your site should be ready to handle the surge in traffic without crashing.
When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. They will put links to the content. The secondary traffic or the indirect traffic flows from those links long after the surge due to the primary traffic is over.
So, what are the benefits of primary and secondary traffic from the social media sites? The primary traffic exposes your site to people who have no other means of knowing about your existence. Some of those visitors will become regulars to your site if you are providing something that they want on a regular basis.
The greatest benefit is the natural links to your site given by others because they want to discuss your offering. Natural links from a large number of relevant sites improve your search engine rankings and organic search traffic.
Social media marketing lets you expose your site to a large group of people. If your search engine traffic has leveled off, shifting your focus to the social media marketing and becoming successful in that will take you to the next level in search engine traffic.
The only other alternative for increasing your search engine traffic is pay per click advertisement. If you are already running a PPC campaign, you can continue your PPC campaign through out the year to sustain increased traffic from search engines at a cost.
Social media marketing is free and making your site popular a couple of times in a year is enough to sustain increased traffic through out the year.
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