Low Cost Internet Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the complex task of improving the way your site is viewed compared to other sites on similar topics. The way a search engine ranks your site, and the methods it uses to compare one site to another is a closely held secret in the industry. Experts have been trying to decipher this mysterious algorithm for years and even though certain aspects of it are constantly updated and adjusted, some basic criteria are core to the way a site is ranked. Knowing what the basic ranking criteria are is essential to improving your ranking, and ultimately your traffic.

One of the main considerations most search engines have for a particular site is the concept of keywords. How many times a keyword is used on a site, and where on the site it appears is important to the search engine in it’s ranking of the site. Very little you can do to improve the ranking on the site will have as big an impact as this simple fact. So when you are setting up the site initially, think carefully about the name you choose and be sure to include the keyword in the site address (domain name). Even if you have to set up several “sister sites” with keyword specific web addresses that highlight a keyword you care about, you can always redirect these to your main sites landing page.

You must be sure to have your site indexed or “crawled” by search engines you care about on a regular basis. This can happen naturally, or you can make it happen by submitting your site to the search engines directly. This will cause them to index your site faster and initially improve your rating. Because the search engines care about sites that update their content regularly, and will rank them higher, be sure not to force this indexing too often. If you do update your content, it is a good idea to re-submit after the update and your should see an improvement in your ranking. Also, if you update regularly, the search engine will notice this and will normally index your site more frequently as well. This index frequency is another key factor in your search ranking, so is a great idea to keep your site fresh.

Another major factor in search engine rankings is the number and quality of links that exist for your site. Having a lot of these links, especially from other sites that are ranked high is very important. The more links you can establish the better. There are a few easy ways to get these links created and most of them are free, but it takes a little effort on your part. Next to having the perfect website name, getting a lot of links for your site is the single most important factor in improving your search rankings.

There are a lot of techniques for getting these links established for your site and some work better than others. One easy way is to submit your site to website directories. These website directories are a sure way to get some links established, but it can be tricky. Over the years the search engines have caught onto this technique and if you submit to too many of these directories too quickly, you could be penalized, so spread out your submissions. There are a few of these directories that have been flagged by the search engines and will actually hurt your ranking, so be sure to research them all and pick the right ones. Another great place to get these links started is by visiting and posting comments on a group of blogs covering the keyword you are trying to target. Usually if you post on these blogs, you can add a link back to your site and have it counted in your favour. You could easily post on several blogs a day and establish an impressive collection of links as a result.

You could start a blog yourself on the keyword of interest and pepper this with links back to your site as well. This would help with your ranking, but could be a little less effective since all of the links originate from a single site. It is better to have these links back to your site start from a lot of different sites. The other advantage to having a blog is that you can publish articles on it about your keyword and have your link in these as well. You could also submit these articles to other blogs or article directories to expand on the impact of these links.

All of these techniques are fairly easy to implement and will have a very positive impact on your search rankings quickly. Some of these are more effective than others and take a little time to work. The trick with improving your search engine rankings and traffic is to use a variety of techniques to help your site rise in the ranking.

It seems that there are hundreds of new terms entering our vocabulary each year because of technology. It wasn’t so long ago that nobody would have understand what ‘go and Google it’ would mean. The latest craze bringing in a wealth of new terms of its own is Twitter.

Let’s look at how you can increase your chances of meeting the tweeple. (This is just one of those new terms mentioned. It is so new that spelling checkers still think it is a mistake). Tweeple are simply people using Twitter. Why would you want to meet people using Twitter? The reason is that there is a potential to reach a huge audience very quickly. Unlike spam email the people reading your messages (or tweets) have opted in to do so by becoming your ‘followers’. This raises the possibility for Twitter marketing.

It is not a good idea to blatantly advertise in twitter – even though many do. Apart from the fact that people may stop following you, they are also a lot less likely to click on any of your links. A better method is to tell a story. For example, you could send a tweet that said something like ‘You’ll never guess what happened to me at the shops today – find out the full story [link]’. This would arouse curiosity. The link would send readers to your blog or website where you could include an interesting pre-sell story. Not only would you get more clicks, you are likely to get higher conversions.

Of course, none of this is going to happen if you don’t have followers. There are some simple steps you can take to increase the likelihood of others following you. The simplest is to make good use of your twitter profile. You should include a picture of yourself in order to appear personal and approachable. If you have a website then you should include the URL in the profile. Twitter allows you to add up to 160 characters for your bio. This is an area you should put some thought into. As well as introducing yourself you should add something about the niche you are targeting.

An advanced tip is to change the profile background. Most people couldn’t be bothered doing this so this one small change can help you stand out from the crowd. Not only can you change the background color, you can also add a picture. This could be a picture of yourself, your product or one that just sets a theme.

If you set up your profile well and provide useful tweets that add value you are likely to build an army of followers as well as make some extra sales and get increased traffic to your website along the way.

If you think you are too poor or too busy to succeed with a home-based business on the Internet, here are some tips to help you save time and money to invest in your online business.

Most people have never stopped to analyze how they spend their time and money and would be shocked if they realized how much of each commodity they wasted every week of their lives.

The problem is that people often lack a clear focus in their lives. So the first key to finding the time and money you need for your Internet business is to find your sense of purpose and focus on it. Napoleon Hill called this sense of purpose a BURNING DESIRE.

What is it that you truly want?

What is it that causes you to want to start a business working from home on the Internet?.

Whatever it is, make it a concrete, visible, tangible BURNING DESIRE and that will give you the focus you need to cut out time and money wasting habits and invest that saved time and money in your online business.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the key time wasting NON-ESSENTIAL activities that many people are addicted to, often simply because they have not developed a BURNING DESIRE to achieve anything more positive in their lives.

First and foremost, television must be the chief time-waster in many people’s lives.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with television in itself. It is the way people spend hours of their lives in unplanned TV viewing that is the problem. So if you cannot or do not want to cut the goggle box out of your life, at least plan and ration your viewing time. Use the TV guide to plan your viewing and look out for programs that will inform and educate you.

Now, here are some other activities that you will want to ration, cut back on or eradicate from your life altogether in order to save time and money for your Internet business:

spectator sports; socializing with negative-minded types who can drain you of your self-belief; telephone conversations, email and online chat; surfing the Internet with no clear purpose in mind; newspapers and magazines; gambling and lotteries; smoking; drinking (both alcohol and beverages - cut out those long coffee breaks); expensive cars; cinema; clubbing; fashion and vanity; long baths; long dinners; restaurants; bars; DVDs; expensive holidays; impulse purchases and window shopping expeditions; searching for bargains on eBay…

Perhaps as you read through the list and came to activities that you enjoy you found yourself making an excuse for them… Just remember the old saying, “No pain, no gain”!

You don’t (really) have to become a hermit who spends all day working on the Internet with just a couple of ten minute breaks for bread and water. But if you do want to succeed online and are operating with limited time and money, then you will need to decide where your priorities lie and act accordingly.

One final point is to see yourself not so much as giving up stuff, but as REPLACING a non-productive activity that eats into your precious time and money with a new, positive activity that is both fun and productive.

Yes, Internet marketing IS a lot of fun. If you are willing to save time and money on other pursuits in order to invest in your online business you will build new friendships and associations as you make contact on the Internet with mentors, fellow marketers, and a growing network of customers and affiliates.

Really, it is up to you what you really want to do with your life, your time and your money.

Do you Twitter?

It’s the latest craze, and one that can make you money, build your brand, get you clients, and bring on some great joint venture projects. No one made me the Twitter police but I have noticed there are ways to work Twitter and there are ways to use Twitter that won’t get you any work.

Here are some dont’s with regards to getting followers:

1. Don’t try to amass a huge following before you’ve done some tweeting. People will not be interested in following you when they click on your Twitter page to see what you’ve got, and notice you don’t have much. You need to have tweeted more than, “Trying to figure this Twitter out” and “I think I’ve got it figured out now.” Tweet, tweet, tweet before you gather your flock. Don’t know what to say? Try “retweeting” (RT) some other peoples’ tweets that resonate with you. Reply to what someone else says and start up a conversation. Tell what you’re doing on your business right now. Those are several tweets in the making right there.

2. Don’t shoot out promotion after promotion. When others look at your timeline, they’ll notice you’re just in it for you. People want to know what’s in it for them. There are millions of Twitters to follow, why should they follow you when you’re only tweeting about your own annoying promotions?

3. Engage in conversation with your Twitter friends. If they’re your friends/followers, shouldn’t you reply to them on a daily basis? I don’t mean reply to all of them everyday, just do several replies to various tweets a day. Again, your potential followers will look at your Twitter timeline and if you don’t ever talk to anyone, it’s a big turn off. It says ME, ME, ME. So hit @reply and give attaboys, words of encouragement, comments on their blog post link or tell them how you like their latest product. Offer answers when someone has a question, which is an excellent way to brand yourself as an expert. And if someone @replies to one of your posts, it’s considered common courtesy to comment back.

The biggest advantage of Twitter is using it to build relationships. Offer value, yes, but also take the time to “talk” to people so they can see you as a real life person. Give first, make friends, and watch your business world open up - just from tweeting on Twitter.

Concert Tickets

A few months ago I wrote about Revolution MoneyExchange as a PayPal alternative. Although eBay is understandably resisting the use of RME as a payment facilitator (they, of course, own PayPal), it couldn’t hurt to open an account if you haven’t already done so.

Some people have resisted opening an account because you have to give RME your Social Security number, but this is because you are essentially opening a bank account at First Bank & Trust of Brookings, South Dakota, an FDIC-insured institution, and banks are required by the Patriot Act to obtain your Social Security number.

If you’ve ever had your PayPal account limited or frozen because of, oh, let’s say, they were “concerned” that an item you sold on eBay may have been part of a fraudulent auction (even though you have a four digit 100% Feedback Rating), you’ll be happy to know that couldn’t happen at Revolution Money Exchange because your account there is essentially a federally regulated bank account.

Recently I received a Revolution Card in the mail from RME. This little card works just like a debit card, allowing me to withdraw funds from my RME account at nearly 150,000 locations, or even access the funds in my account at ATMs. It has no name on it for your protection, you just need a PIN to use it.

In order to entice account holders to use their Revolution Card, Revolution MoneyExchange will add $5 to your MoneyExchange account for each of your first three purchases of $25 or more. This is another great reason to open a Revolution MoneyExchange account.

Click here to check out Revolution MoneyExchange and open an account. Free money is just as good as any other kind.

What good is setting up a website or blog if nobody is visiting it? Fortunately, there are several ways to promote your site and they don’t cost a penny. They will cost you some time however, but many people, especially those just starting out, prefer to spend the time needed in order to get free traffic.

You need traffic to succeed in this business and the more traffic you can get the more money you will be able to make. The trouble is that many would be internet marketers simply don’t take the time to draw out a plan to get traffic. There are several ways to get traffic to your website that won’t cost you much of anything.

Trading links with other similar or related websites is a great way to increase the volume of traffic to your website. Generally speaking, the more links a website contains the more authority is given to that website in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s).

The higher the authority of your webpage, the more traffic you will receive. Most experienced webmasters understand the importance of exchanging links and are therefore more than eager to share links with other webmasters.

Blogs have become increasingly popular over the years and many internet surfers now only search for blogs when doing a search for information. Blogs have become popular because they are considered trusted sources of information, much more so than commercialized websites. Starting a blog related to the theme of your website will draw to your main website.

I feel the best software choice for your blog is Wordpress, which is free and can be installed directly into a sub directory within your website’s domain. Social bookmarking is all the rage right now and having a blog will allow you to more easily take advantage of social bookmarking traffic.

Online forums are great places to network and meet other people who share your common interests. What many people don’t know is that forums are also great places to bring targeted traffic to your website.

Before you can start using forums to pull in traffic to your website you’ll first have to find a forum that is relevant to the theme of your website. Most forums allow you to receive traffic by permitting you to use a signature file within each of your posts. Your signature file contains a link that directs people to your website. Like link exchanges and blogs, most forums a free to join.

These are just a few recommendations. I’ll post more free traffic sources in the future.

Save time and increase your traffic.

Those of you who are members of my list know that I will not recommend something unless I use it myself. I have been using a suite of Wordpress plugins that make administering a Wordpress blog so simple and, more importantly, save me a tremendous amount of time.

Wordpress Traffic Suite is a collection of Wordpress plugins that help to automate article posting and, more importantly, social bookmarking.

The content plugin is called Poster Pro. This is a nifty little plugin that lets you upload as many articles as you want to your blog. They will be placed in a queue whereby you can post each article manually or, for the ultimate in hands-off operation, can be posted automatically using a Cron job (don’t worry, there are videos that come with the software that show you how to set up Cron if you are unfamiliar with it).

At the time of this writing, an RSS Aggregator plugin is included with the Suite as a free bonus. If you have neither the time nor the resources to come up with original content for your blog, the RSS Aggregator will allow you to post articles from RSS feeds to your blog that relate perfectly to your blog’s theme.

The third plugin included in Wordpress Traffic Suite is what made my head spin and should excite you as well. The plugin is a social bookmarking tool called Socialize It-Pro. It actually automates the social bookmarking process for 29 social bookmarking sites, including Technorati, Delicious, and Furl. All you’ll need to do is create an account at each social bookmarking site if you currently don’t have one, and enter your login information in the plugin. This one-time set up will only take about 15 minutes.

Any time content is posted to your blog, Socialize-It Pro will contact a random sampling of those sites for each article - so you never hit all the bookmarking sites with your posts all at once (a surefire way to get BANNED). You will even decide the ‘randomness’ level of the bookmarking. So, if you decide you want the plugin to post to 30% of the social bookmarking sites for each post, Socialize-It Pro will select 30% of the bookmarking sites at random, and post bookmarks to those sites.

If you have a group of social bookmarking accounts that you post your content to manually, you know how cumbersome this task gets.

At the time of this writing the price of Wordpress Traffic Suite is $97. I rarely recommend books or software at this price point but these plugins will save the Wordpress blogger so much time that at $97, it’s still a bargain, especially when you consider it’s half the price of the only other available automated social bookmarking plugin.

Click here to go to Wordpress Traffic Suite

By nature, most humans have a short attention span. If you think its easy to get a visitor to search for your website, find it, read it (meticulously) and bookmark it, well – you’re deluded. The majority of web-hits these days (they don’t call it visits anymore) occur through search engine crawlers – leaving alone the ones that are referred from somewhere else (usually costs money) or if your friends and family trying their best to promote you through chain mail.

The question now therefore is – how to get the search engine’s attention ? Well of the several methods, putting up small, snappy articles crafted specifically for the search engines – using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques is the most cost-effective and intuitively simple way to do so. Needless to say, your website must convey the impression to the reader that she is actually getting something out of their time visiting you (an important principle for first dates too) !

SEO “crawlers” can be a website’s best friend , or worst enemy. If your business site contains irrelevant stuff for instance, or hard to digest info, then no matter how well you have optimized your key words for the search engines, your page ranking will drop faster than it rises – after all its humans who read it, not machines. SEO must go had in hand with good, well-structured content. Consider hiring a professional copywriter. When the crawler comes across the keywords in the content, and brings up your site, the content must match – ‘now that we have got your attention, we have something important to say.’.

For good keyword optimization, one of the tools to consider here is “keyword density”. This is helpful to make sure that the main keywords show up enough times to be catch a crawler’s attention, but low enough to maintain readability : not to read like ”The Eagles of California have seen a sharp rise in their California Eagles fan base, despite the fact that eagles in recent years have become fewer around California” (real-life now defunct example, passed into web lore). Most keyword densities should reside between 3 to 5 % - any higher and you risk being rejected as a spammer. Some sites will still raise this percentage (greedily) in order to get more hits, but the content can be insufferable

A bit of history now as to why working with very high keyword densities can make it difficult for a site is that some search engines actually blacklist sites with unreasonably high keywords. Google’s folks amongst their many pioneering inventions, started using this technique with their crawlers to filter out spammers above the 5 % threshold. In today’s Internet marketing, a savvy copywriter should maintain a nice balance between flow and skilled use of keywords - the Zen of the Art of the SEO.

Many copywriters have started using “secondary” keywords. These, specially placed within the context, increase the number of hits for a page. Not only that, articles with secondary keywords just seem to read more naturally.

By now most people who are online have a PayPal account, or at the very least, have heard of PayPal.

But PayPal is not a bank, and therefore cannot be regulated like one. What this means is that if PayPal thinks that money in your account came from “less than scrupulous” means, they have a right to freeze your account and make you jump through as many hoops as they please in order to prove that the money is legally and legitimately yours. They can even hold your money for up to six months before they decide to give it back to you. Check their Terms of Service, it’s all right there!

Enter a competitor called Revolution Money Exchange. They distinguish themselves from PayPal in two ways - first, you can send and receive money to and from other Revolution Money Exchange members with no service charges whatsoever.

Second, and most importantly, Revolution Money Exchange is administered by an actual bank, unlike PayPal. The bank is First Bank & Trust in Brookings, South Dakota, and is FDIC-insured, along with your Revolution Money Exchange Account.

In order to gain maximum exposure, if you register with Revolution Money Exchange now until April 15, 2008, they will give you $25, placed in your account, just for registering for an account, NO STRINGS ATTACHED. You can link your checking account to your Money Exchange account and transfer the $25 right into your checking account, just like I did. Click here for a screenshot of my account.

Some people might be wondering whether or not it is safe to sign up for an account because your social security number is required. But this is required because the account is backed by a financial institution which must comply with the Patriot Act. The company also has financial backing from such giants as Morgan Stanley and Citi, and received $50 million in venture capital backed by Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, and Steve Case, the founder of AOL.

To sign up for an account, click here. Like john Belushi said in Animal House, “…doesn’t cost nothin’!”

There are too many people being held back from making a good living online, just because they don’t know the basics. Things like building websites, setting up a domain, processing payments automatically, assembling a squeeze page…

These can be scary for someone who is not that technically inclined.

Be scared no more!

There’s no need to let these hurdles get in your way any longer. Through an arrangement with author Kevin Riley, his series of “Newbie Toolkit” ebooks are now available through Ed Casey’s Smart Internet Marketing Blog.

The cost? FREE!

Check out what’s in these ebooks at the following sites, but don’t pay for them there. Instead, come back here and download them for free.

http://newbietoolkitdomain.com
http://newbietoolkitaffiliate.com
http://newbietoolkitwebsite.com

Just enter your first name and email address below and I’ll send you a link to download all three Newbie Toolkit ebooks. And, when Kevin releases more books in the series, you’ll automatically be sent those as well, all absolutely free!

As always, I will never rent, sell, or give your email address to anyone. Ever.