Posts Tagged ‘google’

Article Marketing is a term which you hear a lot about on the internet.  But if you’ve never done any article marketing, you may be wondering what the buzz is about.  It’s simple.  Article Marketing is a very valuable way of increasing your exposure online – but in more ways than you might think.

So let’s look at how article marketing can benefit your online business building.

•      Article Marketing builds one way links to your website.

Firstly to get a significant presence online and those all important top spots on Google, you need one way back links from quality sites. 

Every article you write should include a link to your website, contained within the final part of the article, called the resource box.  This is the part of the article where it’s acceptable to “sell yourself” by talking about your business and giving a back link to your website.  Assuming your article is interesting enough and you have written the resource box correctly, you will get interested “click through” traffic to your website.  And this will be interested traffic which the “gurus” call “pre-sold” ie people who are interested in knowing more about what your have to say.

And, as article directories are considered to be authority sites on the internet, search engines are thought to give higher weighting to inbound links from articles.  This improves your ranking in the search engines and ultimately will increase traffic to your website. 

•      Article Marketing does your advertising for free.

Everyone needs traffic to their website.  In fact lack of traffic is the number one problem newbies have online.  But how do you get it?  How can you get your name and your business “out there” to let people know you are online? 

If you had a “bricks and mortar” business, you would advertise and online is no different.  But advertising can be expensive – very expensive.  And at the best even top advertising agencies reckon that only 50% works (“trick is, knowing which 50%!).

Article marketing, however, is free.  And reaps long term rewards.  Article Marketing increases long term targeted traffic by creating widespread exposure across the internet. 

On the downside it can take time for the traffic to start reaching your website.  But when it comes, assuming you wrote the article on the same subject as your website, the traffic is completely targeted to your offer, so people are more likely to buy. 

•      Article Marketing establishes you as an expert.

It’s a known fact of human psychology.  People always go with the market leader, the biggest brand name or the most famous person.  It makes them feel “safe”.  Think about it.  When faced with the “real deal” or a “copy-cat”, which do you choose?  It’s the same online. 

Whenever someone wants the info-product or online service which you offer, they are likely start with a search engine search, such as Google.  If they find you, they might also want to know more about you and search for your name on Google too.  If they can’t find you, they may assume you are some sort of “fly-by-night” and move onto the next guy. 

But if you’ve been doing any amount of Article Marketing, they will find your name and be able to get a good idea of who you are and what you offer.  This builds their confidence in you, increasing their likelihood of following through with a sale!

So there you are; three sensational reasons why you should do Article Marketing.  And if you want a great Article Submission Service, please check out my review at http://www.susanowenthursfield.com/reviews/article_marketer 

Money-making niches in the Internet marketing business can be a challenge to find.  It’s possible to do all of the work on your own – but it can also be very time and energy intensive.

And when you factor in your desire to create niches that will bring in ongoing income, you’re upping the ante even more.  And you probably know that there are niches out there that would be fantastic to get into – if you only knew what they were!  That’s why many people use niche marketing software to help them out.

There are several niche marketing software packages available right now, all claiming to be the very best – just google the term and you’ll find them.  For example, some niche marketing software can be used to analyse SEO links and niche competition.  One I like is Web Comp Analyst.  But truthfully, you’ll have to do your own homework to decide which will work best for you.

One thing I do recommend though - make sure that you choose one that does what you need it to do – it can take a lot of the agony and guesswork out of choosing niches and creating the web pages and other media that will flesh those niches out into profit hot spots for you.

Niche marketing software tools can help you to find effective keywords for building affiliate niches with websites and promotional articles.  Some will also help you build Google AdSense content pages that earn you ongoing income.

Creating your own private label rights packs that can be turned around and sold at a good price, creating eBay feeder pages and using uncommon keywords to promote affiliate products are also some of the functions of niche marketing software.  Look for a niche marketing software program that does these things and maybe even more – to suit your needs and cut down on time and energy you spend building your online business.

I’m not feeling too great at the moment.  Since the kiddies started at pre-school they seem to spend more time at home!  I’m sure every parent in the land feels the same about school holidays and a 3pm collection!  However, I am really feeling the strain!  Being an evening person, I am never very creative in the mornings and having to entertain my little men in the afternoons makes the time I have online even more pressured. 

And now I’ve got another cold!  So I’m going to make this a quick post.

We all know that linking is the lifeblood of the internet.  It brings traffic and general good karma.

However, it seems to me that too many people start out by thinking that they have to submit to search engines.  It is a “big thing” for them to be “in Google” and, as my former webhost encouraged, you have to submit regularly to Google to be “in Google”. 

No you don’t.

I really want to explain this properly.  Google loves sites that are linked to other sites.  And there is a general consensus that Google spiders new sites much more quickly if the Googlebot “discovers” them for itself instead of having the site submitted.

So…

Forget submitting to search engines.  It’s not necessary.  You can get spidered by the search engines faster and more often by submitting to directories or posting to a regularly spidered blog and leaving a backlink to your website URL!

Next time the spider visits the directory or trafficked website, it will follow all the new links off it.  So if your link is there, you will get a visit.  PLUS you will have a one way inbound link!  Priceless!

Drop everything and start submitting!  (Hint – you can start right now by leaving a comment on this post!)

First a confession – I am a relative newbie on Twitter.  I’ve only been tweeting about twelve weeks but it’s long enough to realise that some people (most people?) just don’t “get” social media like Twitter.

I decided to find out just how to use this red hot social medium properly.  I’ve done a bit of research and compiled my own list of Social Media Do’s and Don’ts. This is not intended to be exhaustive, so please feel free to comment!

DOs

• Do keep it personal: Twitter is all about one-to-one contact so posts should be sociable.  Having said that, one-on-one DM Tweets work best if you actually want to talk to someone.
• Do use your own name: Although if people know your website really well, using your website name on social media sites might make people more likely to follow you (NB - there is an argument that Google gives greater link-love if it continually sees the name of your website on social media sites like Twitter).
• Do balance personal tweets and dialogues with others with content posts
• Do be unique, contraversial, opinionated, noteworthy – great qualities on social media sites. 
• Do use your personality to get noticed.
• Do become a Real Member of the Social Media community - a resource, provide value, answer questions, retweet others useful posts.
• Do spend REAL TIME developing your social media profile – TweetLater is useful but Tweeting NOW is essential. 
• Do take time to build a loyal following – social media moves quickly but people take time to trust you.
• Do follow People – you’ll get more friends in a year by being interested in them than in a lifetime trying to get them interested in you
• Do engage in conversations
• Do take time to BUILD Relationships - this will NOT “happen” overnight
• Do syndicate your RSS feed across all social media platforms
• Do keep control – 10:10:10 rule – 10 mins three times a day only
• Do create an attractive, unique and professional profile – use the Twitter background to get more unique information about yourself out there
• Do upload an avatar/picture – Many people do not follow people using the default avatar
• Do build brand recognitions by using the SAME avatar for each social media service
• Do take time to find out which social media platform your target niche uses most
• Do learn the unwritten laws of the social media community
• Do be interesting – if you’re funny great.  If you’re not, be yourself.

DON’Ts

• Don’t hard sell
• Don’t publish press releases to the exclusion of all else
• Don’t over-automate – social media is about being sociable
• Don’t get verbal diahorrhea
• Don’t stalk – if the gurus don’t want to talk to you, hassling them across every social media site will NOT help your cause.

Well, that’s my two cent’s worth! Feel free to follow me on Twitter!  And feel free to comment!  Over to you!

These days the importance of getting quality backlinks to your website or blog is essential to get a ranking in Google. And whilst no-one knows the precise way Google rates backlinks, it is widely though that one way backlinks carry more weight.

In the early days of the internet, one way back links could be had simply by dropping a webmaster an email and asking for a link back to your site. Nowadays, the internet is much more aggressive and savvy. By and large, requests for backlinks fall on stoney ground. So how do you get quality one way links to your site?

Are you using Zimbio?

Zimbio (www.zimbio.com) is a large and growing online social networking/sharing site that allows users to build interactive Wikizines (web magazines) that anyone can create, or edit on whatever topics they choose. It is not simply a celebrity site, although members have submitted thousands of Wikizines about a wide range of topics, including celebrities, popular culture and special interests. In fact you could create a Wikizine about any topic at all. Including your blog!

The interface is incredibly easy to use and allows you to create topics in just a few minutes including RSS feeds from your blog! And if you submit articles from your blog posts, then Zimbio will provide backlinks to EACH of your blogposts. The beauty of the system is that every article you add gets a backlink to your site.

Since Zimbio’s mission is to be an authority site on many different topics, Google often features it highly in its Search Engine Results Pages. So by posting consistently on Zimbio you will get quality one way backlinks to your site AND become known as the expert in your chosen field!

If you’re not using Zimbio, you should be.

Ever commented on a blog and seen a little picture icon or photograph of the author at the side? Ever thought that they must be really techie and way more advanced than you? Not so!

They’re gravatars – globally recognised avatars (don’t ask – no idea!). They “follow you” on the web as you leave blog comments, and increase your “web visibility”. And as people feel more comfortable doing business with people they’ve met – gravatars help build relationships by showing you’ve nothing to hide and generate a feeling of “knowing you” that is so hard to achieve online. That can only be good!

Gravatars are easy to get. Go to http://en.gravatar.com/ and sign up for a free account. All that’s needed is your email address. Then simply upload an image, or choose an icon and you’ll start seeing it on gravatar enabled blogs!

They’re easy to put on your blog too – honestly if I did it they must be! Just type “gravatar wordpress plugin” into google, download to your desktop, unzip, upload to your server and activate the plug in from your admin area.

Now everyone can see what you look like!

If you want to get serious traffic to your website, you’ll want to do is rank well in the search engines, like Google, MSN and Yahoo, for keyword phrases related to your site, that people are actually searching on.  Students of Alex Jeffries, like me, have the fun of trying to rank for highly competitive phrases such as “internet marketing”, “listbuilding tactics”, “making money online” etc.  Ranking for these keyword phrases takes more than just on-page SEO tactics. It takes backlinks, and lots and LOTS of them.

 ”Don’t Wish It Was Easier – Wish That You were Tougher” – Jim Rohn

A backlink is an inbound link to your website - from the owner of another website or blog linking to your site (BTW – my BLOGROLL page live backlinks to all the Alex Jeffries coaching students I know of, so if you’re not on, leave me a comment!). 

When someone links to your site, it’s like a positive vote for your site.  The more “votes” a site has, the more important the search engines think it is and the higher they rank your site … generally speaking.  Arguably, fewer high-quality backlinks can be far more significant to your page rank than anything you do ON your own website to draw traffic.

What do I mean by “quality backlink”?  Well, search engines also consider anchor text, ie the visible clickable text for the link. For example, the anchor text, Hot Niche eBooks is the anchor text for the website, octisageebooks.com (hover over the link). Search engines use anchor text as a way of determining what your site is.  Make sure your anchor text for your backlinks includes your main keywords and keyword phrases whenever possible.

Quality backlinks can also be obtained from “authority” sites, such as sites with a high Page Rank, anything by the US Government, major charities etc.  Very difficult to get… unless you know different!

So, if one certain way to get traffic to your website or blog is to get hundreds of backlinks coming in to your site, HOW do you do it?

One method I’ve come across recently is Jon Ledger’s 1 Way Links network.  If you set up a “donor” wordpress blog to accept general blog posts (and Alex’s students should all be able to do that!) , you are given a monthly quota of 250 blog posts (at present), each of which can contain up to three links of your choice.  That’s 750 UNIQUE Backlinks each month!  You choose the anchor text too.  The posts, once approved, are submitted into the network to give GENUINE 1 Way Links to your sites.  (1 Way Links are arguably the most revered by the GoogleBot when deciding on Page Rank and traffic!)

This is a paid option, which you may not be able to afford right now.  He also runs a 3WaysLinks programme which gets you 250 unique backlinks.  But there are lots of FREE strategies too.  However, rather than the “set and forget” options above, be prepared for these to be (REALLY) time consuming, sometimes unproductive and unltimately “long term” in traffic generation, rather than generating “immediate results” (ie traffic). 

1. Make it as easy as possible for other websites to link to you.  Set up a “Link to Us” page that contains snippets of html code (containing keywords anchor text!) that can simply be cut and pasted onto their site;
2. Write some articles and submit them to article directories with your (unobtrusive) link in the Resource Box.  A single article could bring you dozens of backlinks.  This will be the subject of future blogs
3. The Direct Approach – Try contacting a few sites within your niche and ask if they will link to you.  You could offer to write a regular column for them as a sweetener.
4. Submit your site to free directories that are related to your niche.
5. Find blogs or Forums in your niche and post comments to some of their posts. DO NOT SPAM.  Make sure your post is interesting, relevant and actually ADDS something to the discussion.  

All of these work, although they are time consuming.  There is however, one major FREE traffic driving strategy which I’ve not mentioned here.  I’ve tried it for the first time today, so let’s see how it goes.  I’ll blog about it later, and let you know how it’s gone so watch this space!