Internet Marketing & Website Design News

For those busy moms out there...

2005-09-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

If you are a mom like me and are looking to generate more online income, I created an ebook that walks you step by step on how to write a profitable ebook and sell it on the internet.

It doens't matter if you are a complete beginner and don't even have a website up, you can still make money by learning how to write ebooks.

You can also check it out even if your not a mom :) , but I wrote it geared towards mothers.

http://www.money-making-mommies.net

Leah

Internet marketing guru, Corey Rudl died at 34

2005-06-06T12:53:00.000-04:00

I am sure that by now most people in the internet marketing world have heard about the tragic death of internet marketing giant, Corey Rudl. He was truly a great man who contributed much to the world. My condolances to his wife and family.
You can check out the story here.
Leah

The Proper Way to Use Images

2005-05-25T19:28:00.000-04:00

Most people will agree there is nothing more annoying than going to a site and it taking forever and a day to download all the images just so you can see the site. Then after waiting, realizing that the site is completely ugly, irrelevant,or not what you thought is was, and wasting your time.

A lot of newbie web designers rely completely on the use of images to display their clients websites. In fact, a lot of times when you see text on a site it isn't actually text, it’s an image of text.

You could have a great piece of copy with all of your well researched out keywords, but if it's placed into a graphic by your web designer than it won't do you any good.
Remember search engines can only read text, not images.

With that said, we all know that if you don't have images your site is absolutely boring and pretty ugly too. I don't think that is the image that most of us want our business to have.
Realize that you need to have a balance between readable text and images to make it pretty. But the key here is using.....balance.

Whenever you are using images, be sure to optimize them by saving them out as a .gif or .jpeg format in a 72dpi resolution or lower.

.gif seems to be better for text type images (like logos) and .jpeg is better for pictures.
By saving your images out in these formats you will save on the download time on your site, so people don't get irritated and leave. It will still not make to much of a difference if you have images that are as big as the entire screen. Make sure you choose your images wisely and break up bigger images into smaller slices for a quicker download time.

Now I mentioned earlier in this ebook that you can use an ALT tag description to place keywords into your site. This is a very effective and often overlooked way to add some keywords to your page.

Another clever way to use your images to boost your keyword count is to name your files with a keyword in it.

For instance instead of having myfile.jpg, you could have dogcollars.jpg if you sold dog collars.
Most of your competitors will not know that this is a great way to add more keywords to a site.
When done correctly, images and graphic can enhance a site's look and offer a place for added keyword placement.

Designing a Website So the Search Engines Will Like You

2005-05-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

Before you go and spend big money on a professional website designer, or start designing yourself, read through this article and make sure that you or your designer knows how to design a website that the search engines will like.

Being a web designer myself, I know firsthand what they teach you in college about being a good designer. While I learned all of the important design concepts like color theory, the importance of graphics and white space, ect ect, I came away knowing nothing about how to actually design a site to get ranked in the search engines.

Because of the lack of training in design schools, there are many, many web design companies out there today that know nothing about designing a web page properly.

It wasn’t until I started doing some research that I realized there was a whole world of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that I didn’t know about. Most designers love to make your site aesthetically pleasing. Maybe they use newer technologies like Flash design or really graphic intensive pages. While these techniques make your site look pretty they are not practical if you ever want a visitor to find your site in a search engine.

Here are some basic concepts to learn before beginning your website design.

**Flash**

I know it’s tempting to have an all flash site because lets face it they look really awesome. The problem with having an all flash site though, is that it is basically nonexistent to the search engines.

A flash source file is embedded in the html and therefore offers no content to which the search engine spiders can look at to rank you. Unless you are already well known in your particular industry or have a very identifiable brand (think Pepsi or BMW) then you should not use an all flash site.

But what if you really, really want to have flash? Here are some ways around this problem.

First, you can create two websites for your visitors. An HTML version and a Flash version. You can let your visitor decide where to go. That way you won’t leave them frustrated if they have a dial up connection and are not surfing with broadband. There is nothing that will tick your potential customer off faster than having to wait ten minutes just to view your fancy flash intro. By having both versions available you also give the search engine spiders a content rich HTML site so they can rank you accordingly.

Secondly, you can add flash components in your main site to give off some cool effects without taking forever to download. For instance, I have seen a lot of websites lately where the top header portion of their site is made in flash or their buttons are done in flash to make them stand out more. These are two good ways to use flash without overdoing it. Just make sure that your body copy is keyword rich to offset the flash.

**Keyword Placement**

This next part assumes that you already have researched and gathered targeted keywords to work with. If you have not done keyword research for your services or products you are selling, then you have some work to do before this next step. You can check out http://www.westmarketing-design.com/articles.htm for more information on doing keyword research.

There is a phrase that you will hear in the SEO world and that is “keyword rich text”. This simply means that when you write your body copy for your website that you need to word it a certain way so that you include your keywords. Now that doesn’t mean that you insert a keyword every other word. The search engine spiders consider that to be spam. What it means is that you give your body copy a lot of thought, making sure you have keywords placed within your copy that make sense to the overall service or product that you are selling.

Here is an example of a keyword rich paragraph selling an information product on public speaking. The keywords are in quotes.

Are you interested in becoming a better "public speaker" or improving your "public speaking skills"? You can become a "paid public speaker" and make lots of money for "speaking in public" to a wide variety of audiences. Learn all the latest "public speaking tips" and tricks, including learning how to "overcome stage fright" and "add humor" to your presentation.

All of those keywords were researched and found to be very targeted to the phrase “public speaking”. Now I went a little overboard in my keywords for the example, but you get the idea.

There is another phrase called “keyword density”. This refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase is found in one website page for every 100 words.

You walk a fine line between having enough keyword density to having too much and having the search engines consider your site to be spam. Be aware though that not all search engines are created equal. Some might like a keyword density of 5 percent, while another one might favor 7 percent. I suggest testing your copy for a month or so and keeping tabs on your search engine ranking. If you get high ranks, keep your copy the way it is, but if it is lower than you want, try tweaking your copy and keyword density to see if you can get the desired ranking.

**More Places for Keywords**

There are other places that search engine spiders look for keywords besides your website copy. If at all possible try to get a domain name with one of your keywords in it. For instance if you sell dog collars, a name you might want for your website would be www.dogcollarsales.com or something like that. It might take some thinking and some time to come up with a related name that someone hasn’t already taken, but it can be done.

Another good place for keywords is in your page title. Instead of putting the name of your business which most people won’t know, instead place a keyword rich sentence or phrase. Using the dog collar business example again here is a title page you could use.

Dog Collars – We sell dog collars and other products for your beloved pet.

It clearly tells the search engines what the page is about. Remember that the title of your website is indexed by the search engines and is part of what is shown to someone who is searching on that keyword.

So if I typed in dog collars into my search engine, the title from above and my meta tag description would show in my search results. Make sure you put some thought into your title.

This rule also applies to your meta tag description which is also viewed when a search engine pulls up your site. Make it only one or two keyword rich sentences. The meta tag keyword has less impact today then it did a few years ago, but I still recommend adding a few keywords. Don’t go overboard and write out 50 keywords or your site will be considered spam to the search engines.

Most websites that are designed today rely heavily on graphical content and not much else. Another tip on keyword placement is to try to place a keyword rich sentence near the very top of your page. Some people have spots for banners and such at the top of their pages, this is the same kind of idea and can be made to look pretty and not out of place. This is important because the search engine robots start at the top of your page and work down. The closer to the top of the page you have keywords the more the search engines will think your page is relevant.

**A Frontpage Trick**

Search engine spiders will look at a block of text and if any words or phrases are typed in an H1 size then they consider that phrase to be of the utmost importance to the page. This is a great place to have a keyword look very important to the search engines.

Now for those of you who don’t know, an H1 size is pretty big and would definitely stand out on your page and can oftentimes look a little ugly. There are ways around this if you know CSS well, but if you are designing your site yourself and have no clue what CSS even is then I can help you.

*This tip is only for those of you who are using Frontpage as your web editor.*

You can show the search engines that the text is in an H1 size, but then change the size of the text back down to whatever size you want instead. Here’s how you do it.

In Frontpage select the text you want to use and set it to an H1 size. Then go over to the font size drop down and change it to whatever size you want to use. It’s that easy.

Now one drawback to using this technique is that there will be empty space around the phrase that is designated as an H1 size. Basically it is still taking up the same amount of room it normally would, it just doesn’t look so blatantly obvious. This technique is best used for titles of paragraphs or break points in paragraphs, so that it won’t look weird to your visitors.

**The ALT Tag**

This design tip is a pretty clever way to get an extra keyword or two into your site. The ALT tag is an HTML tag that is used when you want to give a written description for a graphic element on the page. It was designed initially so that if someone couldn’t download your pictures, they could see an alternative description in text describing the picture.

Instead of describing the picture you can place a keyword in the alt tag instead. Here’s an example of what the HTML code would look like.

img border="0" src="myimage.jpg" width="640" height="150" alt="keyword phrase"

These are just a few proven techniques when designing your site to improve your search engine ranking.

-Leah

New Free Online Tool for Keyword Research

2005-05-25T19:21:00.000-04:00

I came across a new website the other day and was quite pleasantly surprised.
Basically this is another really great way to get targeted keywords for your website. And the best part is it is free to use. You can check it out by going to http://www.nichebot.com
You simply enter in your keyword (I noticed you can’t use more than 2 words) and it will give you a list similar to what you would see in Wordtracker. You can choose to have your keywords shown through a Wordtracker database, Overture database, thesauras, lateral or with a keyword analysis.
It is pretty extensive and I highly recommend that you check it out. It gives you five statistics for the keyword you type in.
1.) Phrase - Exact keyword phrase people are using to search the search engines.
2.) Count - Number of times search phrase was used in the past 60-days.
3.) Pages - Number of pages listed in Google with any or all of the keyword phrase.
4.) Competition - Number of pages listed in Google with the exact keyword phrase.
5.) Ratio - Number of sites for every 1 search; the closer to zero, the less competition.
Wanna know your Google ranking without having to buy expensive software? Nichebot also has a way that you can check you ranking.
At the bottom of their homepage you will see a link that says ‘Google Ranking’ click on the link and you will be able to enter your keywords and website url to check your ranking.
I think this website is going to get big really quick. Hopefully it will continue to stay free to use.
Go check it out and see for yourself: www.nichebot.com

Leah

Want your website critiqued for free?

2005-05-18T16:22:00.000-04:00

Are you wondering if your website is search engine friendly? Do you want to find out for free? All you have to do is sign up for my monthly ezine and I will give new subscribers a free website critique.

No strings attached, no obligations, just a gift from me to you.

Go to www.westmarketing-design.com/website-critique.htm to sign up! Check your inbox over the next couple of days for info on how to claim your free website critique.

Leah

Want to learn how to use blogs for profit?

2005-05-18T14:33:00.000-04:00

It really is true, you can make money for your business using blogs....IF you know what you are doing.

You definitely need to check out this Audio ebook on using Blogs and RSS to create income. It is very informative and easy to understand.

Check it out by going to www.westmarketing-design.com/Blog_Rss

Leah

New Ebook

2005-05-13T12:49:00.000-04:00

I just finished expanding my ecourse, "17 Surefire Ways to Bring Traffic Flooding to Your Site" and made it into a free ebook for anyone who wants it. It is more in depth and also links to related resources that you may find helpful.

You can score your copy by either visiting my homepage www.westmarketing-design.com or going to www.westmarketing-design.com/17waysebook.htm to get the download link. Get your copy now!

Special Report on How to Get Listed in Yahoo Within 24-48 Hours Without Paying.

2005-05-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

I have just written a special report on how you can use a blog ( like this one) to get any of your websites listed in Yahoo, practically overnight. And the best part is that you don't have to pay $299 to do it. Click here to get the info.

Spring Sale Extended

2005-05-01T19:44:00.000-04:00

I have decided to extend my spring sale for until May 14th. You can get 15% off of any design package I offer. If you can't find a package that you are interested in then please contact me and we will come up with a package just for you. Go to www.westmarketing-design.com/packages for more information.

Get the one on one attention that you deserve to help get your small business off the ground in the right direction. Don't put it off any longer.

Free Internet Marketing Ecourse

2005-04-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

I have finished my 5 day in depth ecourse, "17 Surefire Ways to Bring Traffic Flooding to Your Website"
Just sign up by going to www.westmarketing-design.com/ecourse.htm and you will get your first day of my ecourse today!

New Article - 6 Reasons Why Using Flash is a BIG Mistake

2005-04-27T18:59:00.000-04:00

Most web designers and web design companies will try to convince you that if you want your business to have the best site possible that you MUST have a flash site. Flash, for those of you who are newbies, is a software program that can create really cool special effects and animations. You can either have flash elements embedded in your website or you can have your entire website done in flash.
Now I will be the first to tell you that Flash can make a site look pretty cool, but if you are actually trying to make some money from your online business that using flash is a BIG no-no. Here’s why.

1. Too Much Time

It takes way too much time to download an all flash website. Even though broadband and DSL users are growing there are still too many people that are still on dial up to rely on using an all flash site. Your potential customers will get ticked off at waiting an hour to download your beautiful website and will leave to go to the next one.

A lot of times, designers will say that they can fix the download problem by making smaller portions or chunks of the main site. So instead of having to wait for just one huge file, you now have to wait for a huge file every time you click on a button to go to another part of the site. It does not fix the problem at all. Your customers are still gonna get ticked after they click on your product button and then realize they have to wait another 8 minutes to download that page too.

2. Annoying Intro

I see a lot of websites that have these flash designed intros. The concept is to have a really cool looking intro to the company or product before launching the main website.

First of all, I have seen some really pathetic attempts at flash intros. If you can’t design a good one you should definitely not try at all.

Second, most people search for the skip intro button and just click past it anyway. Or if you don’t have a skip intro button, they just leave your website all together because they don’t want to watch your useless and annoying intro. I know that they can be cool, that everyone seems to have one, but unless your website is already bringing in some big time money, then don’t risk losing customers by using a flash intro.

3. Not much Content

It seems to be a common problem that a lot of sites that rely on a completely flash design are lacking in the content department. They seem to think that by having lots of cool, flashy elements and designs that their visitors will not notice they are lacking in anything substantial to offer.Make sure you have good relevant content in your website, the more the better.

4. Search Engines Don’t Like Flash

Websites that are done completely in flash, all face one BIG problem. The search engines have nothing to index for your site. In your HTML file you simply have a piece of code that calls up the flash file to play. The search engines can’t read this file or what is in it so they have no idea how to index your site and just skip right over it.

You must have readable text and content if you ever have the hopes of getting in the top 10 search results. You will never ever ever get in the top rankings with an all flash website. It’s just not going to happen.

5. Flash Headers and Navigation

Some websites have the header portion of their sites display a cool flash picture or have there navigational buttons done in flash. You can get away with this if you have lots of other good quality content for the search engines to read.

If you use a flash based navigation, include links to your other pages within the body of your text as well as text links at the bottom of the page. Search engines won’t be able to read the flash navigation and won’t know there are any other pages to index if you don’t also have the text links in place.

6. No Plugin

Some internet users don’t even have the Flash plugin installed on their computer. Some people don’t like to download anything from the internet or have never even heard of flash. If they don’t have the plugin then your site won’t even be visible to them. Even if you put a script up to tell them to go get the Flash plugin, most people won’t even bother. This is just another annoying problem to a potential customer.

Now you are armed with proof that using flash in your website is a very stupid thing to do if you want to make any money. If your web designer insists on trying to convince you otherwise, then print out this article and smack him over the head with it. If he still won’t listen then find a new designer.

---------------------------------
Leah West
West Marketing & Design
Sign up for my free internet marketing Ezine and gets lots of great stuff.

Yahoo Drops Google: How To Flood Your Site With Traffic In The Next 48 Hours

2005-04-24T20:02:00.000-04:00

It official Yahoo has dropped Google and will be using Inktomi's results to power their directory.
Previously when you did a search at Yahoo the top sponsor ads are from Overture and the bulk "free listing" ads were supplied by Google.
A few months back Yahoo purchased Inktomi as well as Overture and the online community was just waiting for the day that Yahoo would power all it's results in house.
That day is here...
Inktomi is a paid inclusion service. What this means is that you pay for each page you want included in the search engines.
Currently Inktomi powers MSN, About.com, HotBot, numerous other search engines and now Yahoo.
The submission charges are $39US for the first page and $25US for each additional page. This price covers your pages for a full year. This is a huge savings over going direct to Yahoo for $199 to $399 with no guarantee of any type of inclusion in their directory.
Your pages are guaranteed to be refreshed every 48 hours and included in all the engines powered by Inktomi.
Please keep in mind that this does not guarantee a certain rank within the search engines. This is why you only submit your best optimized pages.
To take advantage of this golden opportunity do the following:
1. Choose your best keyword optimized page or pages.
2. Go to http://www.All-Paid-Inclusions.com and set up your paid inclusion account.
3. Choose to submit to Inktomi and follow the step by step instructions.
4. Within the next 2 days log back into your paid inclusion account and verify that your pages are marked as "refreshed"
5. Check your rank in the various search engines for your optimized keywords
6. Tweak pages every 48 hours to get your desired results.
You now can cash in on the explosion of traffic from Yahoo within the next 48 hours.
No one knows how long this window of opportunity will last.
The opinion among search engine experts and those in the know is that Yahoo will raise the prices of Inktomi inclusions drastically and without warning.
If you use pay per clicks you may remember when Overture did this. At the time clicks were .05 minimum and they sent a notice stating effective immediately the minimum bid is .10 per click.
So don't wait around get your pages in now at the lower price. You can tweak them later.
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(c)2004 Rodney Boettger - All Rights Reserved http://www.right-on-the-money.com/dt/t/68/
To learn more about the ins and outs of Inktomi and how to get higher rankings without needing to be an SEO or search engine expert drop me a line at mailto:inktomi@right-on-the-money.com and I'll send you an updated tutorial to walk you through the process step by step.
About The Author
Rodney Boettger helps small are large business properly market online to gain qualified leads and customers.

Back Again

2005-04-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I am back again after a little break. I have had a lot going on during the past few months. I now have my new internet marketing website up. So you can go and check it out at www.westmarketing-design.com

You can also sign up for my monthly ezine by going to
www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm
When you sign up you will be entered into April's drawing for a free consultation(Worth $200!), plus you get a really great Free Download of Larry Dotson's ebook "5000 Hypnotic words and phrases that sell like crazy!". I printed it out and keep it close at hand to help give my ad copy some oomph.

I will be releasing my new ecourse "17 Surefire Ways to Bring Traffic Flooding to Your Website" in the very new future. I will be giving it away for free to anyone who subscribes to my ezine, but only for a little while, and then I am going to convert into an ebook package and sell it on the internet.

You definitely don't want to miss out on getting your copy for FREE. Check back here to find out when the release date will be.

Also don't miss out on April's Spring Sale. Right now you can get 15% off any design package.
www.westmarketing-design.com/packages.htm

Monthly Ezine

2005-03-22T10:55:00.000-05:00

Check out my monthly ezine Small Business Success by going to
www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm
It is filled with great internet marketing articles, the latest search engine news, product reviews and my monthly contests. Each month I hold contests and giveaways for subscribers.
But you gotta sign up to qualify!
Soon I may go to a biweekly ezine so you can get even more internet marketing news and advice to help your small business truly become a HUGE success.

How To Find Relevant Web Sites For Link Exchanges

2005-03-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

If you’ve been on the internet very long at all, you know that one of the very best and certainly cheapest ways of making your web site known is by exchanging links with other sites similar to yours. The more relevant sites that link to yours, the more your rating will improve, the more people looking for whatever you have will find your site, the more traffic you will get and the more sales you will make! So just how do you go about finding webmasters who are willing to place a link to your new site onto their site?
When your site is brand new, your best bet is to type your key words or phrases into a search engine and see what comes up. The sites you see on the first few pages have made it to the top of the search engine rankings. Go to the sites and look around on the home page for the phrase “links exchange” or sometimes just “links.” They will have instructions for how to place their site on yours, and instructions on the information they need from you in order for them to place a link to your site on theirs. Always remember that the Golden Rule applies here. You want them to place a link to you on their site so you need to reciprocate. If you are uncomfortable with the content of their links page and would prefer not to be associated with that site, then just move on. There are millions of others.
Some of the higher ranked sites will have non-content related restrictions about with whom they will exchange links. They will only exchange with you if your site and/or links pages have achieved a certain Google PageRank. (*More about that later.) If you encounter such a site, graciously just move on. Don’t waste your time linking to them or requesting a reciprocal link because they will most likely ignore you.
For instructions on Keeping Track Of Your Links Exchanges, please follow the link to another article that I wrote. Trust me on this one; you need to keep track. You will eventually have many many pages with similar sounding titles and URL’s and they will all begin to swim around in your mind. Only a savant could keep it straight!
OK. Now your site has been up and running for awhile and you would like to focus your search on exchanging links with sites that have a higher PageRank. Repeat your very first steps of typing your key words or phrases into a search engine and see what comes up. It may or may not be the same sites you saw before, but it will be the current top ranked sites for those key words. Go to the first site just as before, but this time click on the little blue icon on your Google toolbar (if you don’t have the Google tool bar click here to download it.) You will see a dropdown menu with 4 items on it. Click on “backward links” and you will get a page of web sites that looks like a regular Google search but is really all of the web pages with a PageRank of at least 4 that have linked back to the site you started with. Go to each of those sites and request to exchange links with them. The procedure is the same, but all of these sites and pages will have a PageRank of at least 4 and the more pages ranked at least 4 that link back to you, the higher your site will be rated. Just keep plugging away at it. It is tedious to the max, but free (unlike some programs on the market) and effective.
At some point in time, other webmasters will begin to contact you requesting to exchange links. Ta-daahhh! You’ve made it! The first thing you need to do is visit their site. Is their site relevant to yours? Are you comfortable putting a link to their site on yours? Would you want your Grandma to visit your site and follow that link? If the answer is yes, then put up the link. E-mail them back to thank them for the offer and to let them know where on your site you put their link. If you are not comfortable putting the link on your site, don’t worry about it. You will get requests from people who obviously didn’t read that you prefer not to link to casinos and Viagra sites or whatever, and you will get requests to exchange links with sites that have absolutely nothing to do with your site’s subject matter. Just ignore them, or you could reply and politely decline. Now here comes some more Golden Rule stuff.
NEVER turn down somebody because their site or links page isn’t ranked high enough! Remember that you once had a whole site of “0” ranked pages and were so grateful for any of the exchanges you could get. Return the favor. Remember that you were new once and others helped you. Remember that the “Big Kahunas” on the internet were new once and had “0” ranked pages that are now very highly ranked. That new person you agree to link to today could be tomorrow’s next “Big Kahuna.” Remember that Google has pulled the rug out from under people before and likely will do it again. Today’s top site could be tomorrow’s cellar dweller, and next week some site could shoot out of nowhere to the top. You don’t have to put their “0” page on your “6” or “7” home page, but do exchange links with them somewhere on your site. It’s the right thing to do. 
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You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
About The Author
Sandi Moses has been involved in internet marketing since November, 2003. Visit her site at http://www.123iwork4me.com

Linking is Queen

2005-03-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

If content is king, then linking is the queen that shares his throne. We have all heard about adding content to your site to give the search engines fodder to consume. But the secret to luring the search engines is the links to your site. Today's search engines look very carefully and critically at who is linking to you, and what it is that they are saying about you. A link from a leader in your industry carries a lot of weight and means that your site is important. Two links from industry leaders means your site is even more important. 100 links from random web sites, from industries you are not even related with, means almost nothing. Thus, getting links is only the start; the important thing is getting good links from quality web sites.
Why do links matter?
Since the arrival of Google and their PageRank, search engines have put a lot of weight on links to a site. There used to be simple ways to get good rankings: Meta tags, titles, keyword density, etc… Today, things have become more complex, with search engines now using a very complicated algorithm that involves:
links to your site,
what is written in those links,
who is linking to the site that links to yours,
what are the keyphrases used in those links,
what is the quality of the site that is linking to yours,
how many other links does that site have,
how many links out (and to what sites) does your site have,
and other such criteria.
To use a rather appetizing analogy, these new criteria are added to the stew that is your site, along with the quality and quantity of the content. Left to simmer on the worldwide web, this stew is then eaten up by the search engines depending on how well your site matches the aforementioned criteria. Put differently, the king and queen must join together to turn your site into a number one result.
How do we get links?
It all starts with content. No one will link to you unless you offer quality information about a particular subject. If you are in real estate, you must offer information about the area you sell. If someone wants to buy in your area, first s/he will want to learn about it, so you will need to have good resources about that area. The next step is to find new sites that would benefit from your site's information; new sites whose clients would potentially buy your real estate. For example, one of our clients (www.monlac.com) sells real estate in the Laurentians area of Quebec. Their site has content on activities in Quebec and the nearby Laurentian mountains. Thus, we will be soliciting links from web sites such as the nearby water parks and ski hills, nearby towns, lake and boating associations, and local construction web sites to name just a few. To these web sites, not only will linking to www.monlac.com make their customers happier, but it is in their best interest that the site sells real estate since it brings in more business for them.
How do you solicit links?
To solicit sites you have to use a lot of elbow grease. Send out personalized emails to these sites. Don't send out mass emails or spam. Be friendly, and point out the benefits of linking to your site. If you are lucky, maybe 1 in 3 emails will get a response. It is frustrating and discouraging, but keep your spirits up. Many times a site is perfect but they don't ever update it, so your site won't get the link in because nothing ever changes on the solicited site. Don't waste too much time on sites that haven't been updated in years. It is also important to follow up. Until you get a flat out denial, keep saying "Hi", and keep it personal. Keep track of who you have contacted and what you have written or said because you have to make it seem like they are the only person you are contacting. As soon as they get a sniff that you are sending out a mass email, or that you are using the exact same approach with other sites, you will probably lose their respect - and their business!
Do not forget to submit to the directories such as the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org), because getting listed here counts for a lot in all the big search engines. Take your time and choose the right category to submit to. Also, read about how they want their descriptions and titles written, and write them that way. These are the keys to getting into the directories.
Soliciting links is a very time-consuming (and frustrating) venture, but it is essential to getting good rankings in the search engines. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of time. Getting your first link is like getting your first sale. It is just as hard - and just as satisfying.
Good luck,
About The Author
Shawn Campbell is an enthusiastic player in the ecommerce marketplace, and co-founded Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc. (http://www.redcarpetweb.com/). He has been researching and developing marketing strategies to achieve more prominent listings in search engine results since 1998. Shawn is one of the earliest pioneers in the search engine optimization field. Contact: shawn@redcarpetweb.com

The Power of Link Popularity

2005-02-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

Getting quality links to your site from related web resources can be very difficult. It is a time consuming process and requires careful research. There are two ways to build your link popularity; 1 Make your site attractive to webmasters or 2 go out and hunt them down your self.
Getting webmasters to come to you:
Having lots of useful content on your web site such as informative articles, online tools, studies, etc will make another webmasters what to link to your web site knowing that you will not only help their site's traffic and link popularity, but adding content to their own web site.
Sometimes you may even get webmasters that like your site so much that they will link to your homepage or to certain web pages that they think their visitors will find useful because this adds to the usefulness of their own site by providing useful links.
Keep it clean by avoiding tricks (Blocking access via robots.txt to robots, linking out with JavaScript, etc.) meant to keep your site from transferring Page Rank to other webmaster's web sites and link to your links page on every page of your site.
Sometimes you will get requests for link exchanges with web sites that are not related to your site’s topic, these sites should be ignored and you should focus on only related web sites.
Hunting link partners down your self:
Type your keyword phrases into a search engine and wait for the results. The web sites you see on the first few web pages of the search engine results should be your main targets and should be looked at. Visit their site to see if you can find the site owners name and email them asking to exchange links, remember to email them at the right email address, don't email the email address that's for support.
Type your keywords or phrases into the search engine and see who links to the sites that come up first. After finding a few sites that link to the sites that rank high on your keyword phrases email them and ask if they would be interested in a link exchange. This is great if you can get both the top sites that rank for your keyword phrases and the sites that link to the top sites because not only do you have the top sites linking to you, but also the site sites that made them get there in the first place.
Some webmasters use link exchange programs such as www.linkexchangeit.com, these link exchange program help you find link partners easier because the sites are cauterized into their related topics, so you don't have to search for them.
Use those rules and you should do just fine! Just remember to take your time and don't use automated software, instead hand pick the sites that you link to.
Matt Colyer began as a SEO Specialist in 1997. He founded Superior Webmaster in 2004 as a source of articles and tutorials for Web site owners looking to improve their Web site.

Jump-start Your Link Building (without Getting Sandboxed)

2005-02-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

Link popularity has been written about ad nauseum, but most articles address the subject from a perspective circa 2001. The available information usually focuses on topics such as reciprocal linking or the current price of a PR6 link. But following outdated link building advice is more likely to get your Web site penalized than it is to help you gain top rankings.
Google’s increasingly sophisticated algorithm has largely caught on to PageRank brokers and has successfully filtered out the benefits of many bought links, as well as those of reciprocal links. The risk of obtaining these types of links is even greater for a new site, as detection of an “unnatural” link structure has recently gotten many sites “sandboxed” to the bottom of the SERPs. For this reason, a link popularity campaign must be conducted carefully and yield relevant, “natural” links.
The methods described in this article will give your Web site backlinks that fit the following criteria, which are important for keeping a site out of the “sandbox”:
The link is on a Web page that is hosted on a unique IP address.
The link is on a Web page that itself has a unique, wholly independent set of backlinks.
The link is on a Web page that is at least loosely relevant to your Web site’s topic.
The link is created within a week.
Numbers 1-3 are important so that your Web site’s new backlinks are independent and natural, and do not trip a filter in the search engine algorithm; number 4 ensures that you can move on to more advanced link building tactics before your competition gets further ahead.
Directories
Directories have always been cited as a basic starting point for a link popularity campaign. Listings in the Open Directory Project and the Yahoo! Directory ensure that a site will be spidered and indexed quickly and also provide a reputable backlink. In the past few years however many general and niche directories have sprung up, most charging a yearly or one-time fee to be listed. Webmasters have questioned the ROI from being listed in these second-tier directories, as most provide little traffic and charge 10-50 USD per listing.
But listings in these directories provide important link popularity benefits for a Web site. A link from a directory fits the four criteria we laid out above—each of these directories has a unique set of backlinks and is hosted on a unique IP, the site’s URL will be placed on a topical page, and all of the directories review and add new submissions within a week. With directory listings alone, a new Web site can gain a few dozen quality backlinks for under 1000 USD (not counting Yahoo!). Aaron Wall of SEO Book has provided a good list of directories at http://www.seobook.com/archives/000166.shtml
Press Releases
Press Releases provide an opportunity to announce your Web site, and just as importantly, provide a backlink to your Web site from a relevant page (it had better be relevant—after all, it’s an article about your Web site!). A press release should be well-written and submitted to multiple newswires. In less than a week, it will be published on its own Web page by each newswire and possibly by the newswires’ syndication partners as well. The writer should be sure to include a link in the body of the press release in http://www.mysite.com/ format. Again, these backlinks meet the four criteria we laid out above. Newswires usually charge a fee to publish a press release, although a few offer this service for free. You can view the Open Directory Project’s category of press release services at http://dmoz.org/Computers/!Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Press_Release_Services/
Articles
Another great method for gaining quality backlinks, as well as publicity, is to write and publish a helpful article. The author can write a relevant, informative piece on your Web site’s subject, which of course includes a link to your Web site in http://www.mysite.com/ format. General “how-to” sites (and often, news sites in your particular niche) accept article submissions and will often reprint a relevant, well-written piece. It’s free content for them, and a backlink for you—a win-win situation. The author of THIS article swears by this method, and once again notes that it fits all four of our criteria for a timely and quality backlink. Aaron Wall of SEO Book has provided a list of Web sites that accept article submissions at http://www.seobook.com/archives/000099.shtml
Just Say ‘No’
Although it may be tempting, you should stay away from reciprocal linking, except in the rare case where the link is relevant and helpful to your visitors. Likewise, you should avoid renting links from link brokers or networks; the links they sell are usually filtered by Google. These two types of links will have a minimal impact on your search engine rankings anyway and may even get your Web site “sandboxed.”
Instead, seek quality one-way inbound links by the methods described in this article; if you have exhausted these tactics, or if you have run out of money, you can always beg for links from relevant Web sites. If your site contains quality, original content, you may not even need to beg!
Conclusion
The success of a search engine optimization campaign depends greatly upon link popularity. Getting a Web site listed in directories, distributing press releases and submitting articles for syndication are three ways to gain a slew of legitimate backlinks from unique IPs relatively quickly. This will keep the site out of the “sandbox” and give any SEO campaign a sound link structure to build upon.
About The Author
Andy Hagans is a search engine optimization consultant who specializes in link building and risk management. Visit http://www.andyhagans.com/ for more information.

What Can Lots Of Content Do For Your Site?

2005-02-21T14:54:00.000-05:00

Today there are so many web sites on the web, but so few of them have good content and there are even fewer web sites that have large amounts of content. Why is the web like this? For one most webmasters are trying to make a quick buck and others don't know where to begin or are too lazy to do the work.
Content really is king! Why? because visitors will stay longer or will come back more often and they are more likely to buy from your business. Visitors know you are an expert in your site's topic because you write informative articles, which leads the visitor to trust your business more. And to your visitors it's all about trust because if they can't trust your business, how can they trust the product/service you sale or how can they even know that they will receive the product/service.
Most of the time before an Internet surfer buys a product they will search the web to get more information about it. Sometimes they are just looking to see how it really works or maybe they want to know more about a certain feature. If you write articles about your products, surfers are more likely to find your web site in the search engine and you may even steal a few sales from your competitor, which will result in more sales for you!
Having a site with great and informative information will make another site owners more likely to link to your web site. Think about it! Would you link to a site that just had their products and service web pages? Or would you link to a web site that has great content that will help your visitors? If you are like most webmasters you would chose the 2nd one because this will benefit your web site because it helps the visitors know more about your products.
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! love themed sites! Having a good themed web site means your ranking is more likely to rank higher than other web sites. Not only does this help out your site's theme, but also allows you to target more keywords. Surfers will find these web pages when searching the web and will result in more sales.
About The Author
Matt Colyer is the owner of the Marhen.com Network which includes www.linkexchangeit.com and is a part-time SEO. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

2005-02-10T19:53:00.000-05:00

Have you spent a lot of money on advertising with the expectation that you would get many sales from the 1000s of web site visitors that read your ad?
Have you poured money into driving traffic to your web site, only to have no one buying your product?
Maybe you have seen the ads, “Get 10,000 visitors to your site, for only $20” . Wow, you think, that’s a great bargain, I’ll go for it. The result – 10 people visiting your site and no one buying. What’s the problem? You have not effectively targeted your customers. Your field of customers is too large. Most of them are not interested in your product. You need to zero in on the person that wants, needs and thirsts for your product.
How do I find my targeted customers?
1. Place yourself in your customers shoes. There’s an Indian saying that goes something like:
“You must walk a mile in my shoes, before you can understand me".
For example, if I am selling a weight loss product, I would not be targeting skinny people, but targeting those that are overweight.
2. Make a thumb nail sketch of this person
Who is your customer?
What are her wants, needs and desires?
Try to understand how they think. Understanding what problems they have, will give you a clearer idea of what
to offer them.
For example, let’s make a sketch of a typical overweight person:
30-50 years old Out of shape Probably married with children Under a lot of pressure, tight for time, stressedLooking for ways to improve health and wealth Lack of self esteem
3. Develop a product that addresses one or more of their needs. Always refer back to your thumbnail sketch as you write for your site. Elaborate on the points that fit your product and what it delivers. As you start writing, new ideas will naturally emerge, but always keep them focused on your targeted customer so you won’t go off the track of what your customer wants.
Based on the profile I outlined above, you may sell them products that help them lose weight, improve their health, look good, spend more time with their children and get wealthy.
4. Write your copy to sell - when you write the copy for your site, always stress the benefits. Develop a theme for your site that focuses on this benefit and don’t stray from it. for more indepth information on this topic, read my article:
“How to Get Listed in the Search Engines – Developing a Theme-Based Site”(www.isitebuild.com/searchengine.htm)
5. Make sure each page sells. - each page should emphasize the benefits in the headline, to pull the reader into the contents of your page. It should ask the question:
What’s in it for me?
Why should I spend my precious time reading this page?
6. Write as if you were talking to your friend - your copy should be conversational, friendly and personal, as if you are sitting next to the person. Write from the viewpoint of what your customer wants to buy, not what you want to sell.
7. Deliver the contents in a clear, crisp way - be careful not to stray from the central purpose of what you promised in the headline. Make sure your customer wants to click through to the next page or your order page. Don't be afraid of clearly stating the price of your product.
Clearly identifying your customers and writing copy tailored to solving your customers problems, places them in a buying mood. Converting these visitors into buyers should now increase the amount of sales from your web site.
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles - mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com - Read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

Importance of Keywords Article

2005-02-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

If your new to the internet marketing world, you might not understand how vitally important choosing the right keywords for your website is. Most people who put up a website (designers included) don't realize that the right keywords on your website will improve your search engine rankability.

When a person goes to a search engine like Google or others, they type in a word or phrase that they want information on. This is what we call a keyword. For instance if the person was looking to buy a new golf club, he might type in 'golf clubs' or 'golf shop' or another variation.
So if you were a golf store you would want to have those and other related keywords within your site.

So what if you understand the importance of keywords but don't do any keyword research? Instead you simply think about your product or service and come up with keywords that you think people will search for? At first this might sound like a good idea but in reality you risk losing many potential customers.

What do you think happens if you pick a bunch of words or phrases that people aren't actually searching for? Or you don't think of all the hundreds of other keywords that relate to your product or service and therefore lose potential clients?
You might have the best of intentions when thinking of your own keywords, but it's better to do a thorough keyword search before beginning any website project.

There are a few different places that you can perform these keyword searches.

Wordtracker is a great online tool found here.
You can sign up for a free trial to test it out. This is the most thorough keyword research tool that I have found. You can easily find several thousand related keywords in one search.

I created a free ebook that you can download that will help walk you through all the steps of doing an in depth keyword research with Wordtracker. You can download it at
http://www.westmarketing-design.com/wordtracker.pdf
Overture is actually a paid per click advertising center, but they do offer a keyword search tool if you can find it

They like to move it around a lot so it doesn't get too abused. As of this article you can find it by going to http://www.overture.com/ then clicking on 'advertiser center' in the top right corner. Then under the tools table on the right click on 'keyword selector tool'.This tool is similar to the one at wordtracker but does not give you as in depth a search nor as many options. It is still good though to use different resources so that your making sure to get all the related keywords you possibly can.
Teoma is an often overlooked place to also gather keywords. It is actually a search engine of its own, but has a cool little feature that can help you choose more keywords. When you type in a word or phrase to search it also gives you two sections on the right hand side that can help you out. The first is 'refine' which shows related keywords to your search that you might also want to search on. These are extra keywords. You can keep clicking on the keywords in this section with each new page offering more related searches.The second section is called 'resources' which provides websites that have gatheres links on your specific search topic. This is great to see what kind of competition you got going and check out what works and what doesn't.

These are the main three tools that should be used whenever conducting a thorough keyword research. Remember that your site will only be as good as the keywords you choose.

Welcome to the Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog

2005-01-29T09:51:00.000-05:00

Here you will find all kinds of relative news and info to changing trends in the Internet world. Learn the newest techniques and ideas in internet marketing and website design. Leave your feedback and own ideas to share with everyone.