Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

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.

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 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’!”

If you subscribe to a few Internet marketing newsletters, you no doubt were inundated this past week with sales pitches for Frank Kern’s Mass Control. It seemed as though just about anybody with a list gave you a sales pitch as to why you needed this product.

In some ways this is very disheartening because Mass Control was a high-end launch with a nearly $2,000 price tag.

While I would never doubt the quality of the product (and to be fair, most of the big gurus usually state in their marketing that if you can’t afford the product, don’t mortgage the house to get it), a big launch usually means the hype machine is in full swing. The sizzle is in the possibility that a product this expensive must be so good that it nearly guarantees your success. Of course, there is no guarantee, and the Mass Control launch, along with many big product launches in the past, plainly state this at the bottom of the sales page.

For people that are new to Internet marketing or have been around a while and have made a few bucks, you would be wiser to invest in something you are familiar with. Do you create your own info products? Imagine how many info products you could have created for $2,000? Are you an article marketer? Imagine how many articles you could have written for that money?

The point is, stay the course. Don’t get off track for promises of riches on the other side of the hill.

After putting it off for a couple years, I have finally gotten around to setting up a blog. I have set up and posted to niche blogs for a few years, but as far as having a blog with my personal views on Internet marketing, this is a first

One thing I’d like to invite you to do is click over to the main page of this site and sign up for my 10-part e-Course on how to start an Internet marketing business the Smart Way.

In the coming days I plan to write about who I am and, most importantly, why most of you have never heard of me (it’s a perfectly valid reason). There really is a Smart Way to market on the Internet and I plan to show you how without burning a hole in your pocket!

Take care,

Ed