1. Write on a buzz topic

Whatever the niche market, there will always be some buzz around
a specific topic at some time. The trick is to find out about it
early and make frank and compelling contributions to the discussion.
Always try and put a new twist to the topic and add a new dimension
to the topic that no one else has thought about. But how will you know
when something is happening in your industry? Always keep your ear to the
ground. Subscribe to other blogs in your niche especially the
authoritative ones. You should also contribute in forums related to the
topics in your niche blog so that when a new interesting topic comes up
you’ll know about it and be able to write about it. Scanning the
forums will also give you other ideas as to what to write about based
off the questions others submit.

2. Create a video

An interesting way to add content to your blog is to create videos about
a topic and embed it into your blog. The videos that really do well
are those that offer instruction on some tricky task or give breaking
news in an informative manner. For example, SEO expert Brad Fallon has a
video blog called the FreeLineReport which gives Web 2.0 news in a short
2 minutes. Another example is that of internet marketer, Michael Cheney
who offers internet marketing advice in a blog called ConfessionsOfAMarketer.

The good thing about using videos on a blog, or any website for that
matter, is that it will greatly increase the time each visitor stays
on your site. And it doesn’t have to be an expensive venture either.
Using a digital camera with motion camera capabilities for close up
disussions is standard for many video bloggers. Also the use of screen
capture software to make moving screen tutorials is commonplace.
You can pay for Camtasia Studio from TechSmith or use the open-source
CamStudio to do screen capture videos.

After you’ve created you’re video, upload it to one of the popular
video sharing sites, example Youtube or Viddler, then use the embed tags to
include it on your blog. This way, whenever others see your video and want
to share it they will also embed it into their website. This can cause a
viral effect and a massive boost of traffic to you original blog article.

3. Recycle other articles

If you prefer to stick to the written media recycling articles that you’ve
sent to article sites, example EzineArticles or GoArticles, may be one way
to go. You could also search for articles related to your niche on these
article sites and use them. But ensure you leave the original author’s
signature box with a link back to their site. Another way to gather articles
is to pay for private label rights (PLR) articles. This is the better option
because the articles become your own to do with what you please.

4. Use a ghostwriter or contributed author

You could hire the services of a ghostwriter, someone you will give the
privilege of contributing to your blog after paying them. They can be
sometimes helpful if you’re looking to write topics related to specific
keywords in your niche. However try and look at their track record and
articles written beforehand.

Also you could strike up a partnership with another blogger in your niche.
And if they contribute regularly to the niche you can propose to trade
articles at intervals. If you use wordpress, just set up a user account for
them so they can post articles when they feel like it.

5. Use ShareAPost

A new service that came out this year offers users the opportunity to share
their blog post with others with a blog. The service is called ShareAPost and
it is free to use for now. You simply sign up for an account, then when you
spot an article from another user in your niche which is relevant you can
send it to your blog using a user account you set up in your Wordpress blog.

These five techniques are a quick rundown of ways to think about gaining
content for you blog. Now what do you think is another way? Don’t be afraid
to leave you comments.

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The new search engine is called Cuil and presently boasts to be the search engine with the highest number of pages in their index…..over 120 billion and counting. The founders of Cuil include former Google employees Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier. Patterson and Power worked on Google’s “TeraGoogle” search index and Monier specialized in search engine design. To further stand out from Google, Cuil is experinenting with a magazine style spread for their search results. With this style they have their search results presented within three columns on the webpage varying from the single-template, 10 result per page results that Google offers. Maybe with this style webmasters may have an equal opportunity to get their website links clicked once they show up on the first page. (Just maybe). Right now only testing will provide answers to the question of user responsiveness to the layout of the results page. Presently Google’s pages show greater clicks for the first 3 results on the page than any other, meaning a lot more traffic for showing up in the top 3 for a search term. 

 On a side-note, Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj, in a blogpost on the official google blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html seemed to make pre-emptive comments related to Cuil’s insistence that they have the largest index for search engines on the web. They said that Google scanned more than a trillion webpages but didn’t index all of them because “many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content …. that isn’t very useful to searchers.” Google has only about 8.2 billion web pages in their index. 

Another new search engine came into the fray this week. This one is based off the new search initiative that allows users to create their own search engine using Yahoo BOSS. It is called SearchCloud and it allows searchers to specify which keyword or keyword phrase is more important. The idea behind it is that with a weighting going to each search term the searcher includes, it will improve search relevance in relation to that specific user. However, it remains to be seen how well this user influenced search works in practice. Check out a review about the search engine from TechCrunch here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/28/searchcloud-weights-keywords-to-improve-search-relevance/

Check out a video on how to use SearchCloud here:

Blogging is a super way of getting traffic, but this has to be done in the right way and needs to be updated at regular intervals. When you blog, you must, of course, social bookmark your post to the top directories, and for your guidance, some of these are listed below.

1. Digg
2. Onlywire.com (with this method you will get into twenty two directories with one simple click)
3. Propeller
4. Stumbleupon

Carry out a Google search for The Authority Black Book. When you download this information, which is free of charge, make sure you read and understand it. This will tell you all you need to know about using blogging to drive excellent quality traffic in high numbers on a daily basis to your blog.

Another way of getting great traffic is to use Article Marketing. These days if you write for traffic and get your articles into a few of the best article directories, there is no worry about duplicate content penalties.

The top 5 article directories for your articles to appear in are as follows:-

1. Ezinearticles.com
2. AssociatedContent.com
3. Goarticles.com
4. IdeaMarketers.com
5. SearchWarp.com IdeaMarketers.com

No doubt by now you will have noticed the theme taking place here. It’s the theme of getting traffic from your social booking marking directories and from article directories too.

The job of search engines is to give their searchers new and relevant material. You can easily do this for your visitors without having to be concerned with the search engines now or at any time in the future.

It’s a great feeling when you know you are getting traffic every day and will continue to do so even if Google were to totally rearrange the top ranked sites in the blink of an eye, as this will not affect you and your traffic at all.

Source: Internet Marketing

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/v/sHM7hU0O9RM

Go to the FREE videos http://www.addtrafficnow.com/giveaway.html

When I first came across Michael Rasmussen’s FREE Mini-Site Profits Exposed
Videos I honestly wasn’t expecting much . Products released in the internet
marketing field are a dime a dozen. To top it off, it was free. I totally
expected a lot of rehashed information or something average.
I was pleasantly surprised with well thought out and presented videos
which as concisely as possible brought out a lot of information.

They are 12 videos of stellar production quality. They have powerpoint
presentations as the background and contain illustrations and images to
keep the viewer actively involved with the videos. Each of the videos is
also broken up into segments to make it easier to follow. The videos cover
a lot of information on not only the structure of mini-sites and how to
build one but also how to pull as much profit as possible from them. There
is even a final video on how to blast as much targeted traffic as possible
to your mini-sites once completed.

There also seems to be an excellent support system set up for the site. I
had a little problem logging into the membership section after signing up. I
then made a support request to the supplied email and hours later had my
problem resolved.

With all that I’ve said the product contains, it could have easily costed in
the over $100 pricerange but it’s free so why don’t you check it out here
Mini-Site Profits Exposed

Click
Here To Get FREE Private Access to
This
$197 Value, Life Changing Product!

Here is a Breakdown of the Video Contents

VIDEO 1 - INTRODUCTION

This videos introduces you to the entire course, as well as the teacher himself. You’ll
learn what you can expect from the course, and why it’s structured the way it is.

Michael realizes that you may not have heard of him, and so he spends some time
establishing his credibility with you by sharing some of his biggest successes. It doesn’t
come across as bragging at all. Michael explains that, in order for you to get value from
the teachings, you need to have faith that the teacher actually knows what he’s talking about.

VIDEO 2 - THE BASICS

This video will introduce you to the basics of mini site marketing. This will set the
foundation that all future learning will rest upon, so it’s important to pay close attention
to this one.

You’ll learn:
* What mini-sites are, and what makes them different
from regular content sites.

* Which businesses they work well for… and which ones
they don’t.

* The right mindset to have when it comes to creating
mini sites as part of your online business strategy.

* And the different tools you need to get started.

VIDEO 3 - SQUEEZE PAGES

This is probably one of the most useful videos of the entire course. Every Internet
marketer needs to build an email list, but how do you do it? What is the best way
to capture the most opt-ins?

The answer is ’squeeze pages’. This video will teach you:

* Why using a squeeze page is far superior to other
opt-in methods.

* The single most important thing you must include at
the top of your squeeze page to skyrocket your opt-in
rate.

* The secret structure of a squeeze page, and why most
marketers get it wrong (which costs them a LOT of
money).

* The most important to include in your opt-in process
that will make sure that people actually receive your
email.

After watching this video, you’ll know everything you need to know to start
building a massive opt-in list right away. This will probably be the first video
that you ‘take action’ on. You’ll be so excited about the possibilities, that I
guarantee you’ll go and create your own squeeze page right away.

VIDEO 4 - MINI SITE COPYWRITING - PART ONE

Nothing happens until the sales copy is written. Graphics alone will never sell a
product, but sales copy alone WILL. This video begins to demystify the mysterious
process of writing words that make people whip out their credit cards and buy.
Specifically, you’ll learn:

* Why you need to learn copywriting, even if you “hate
to write”

* What a compelling offer looks like, and how to tell
the difference.

* How to write an eyeball-grabbing headline that
practically forces your readers to go through your
entire page.

* A simple trick you can use in your opening to make
your reader want to learn more.

There is no skill that is more important to your success than the ability to write
killer sales copy. Make sure you pay extra attention to this video, as well as…

VIDEO 5 - MINI SITE COPYWRITING - PART TWO

This video dives right into the individual components of a killer sales letter. You’ll learn
how to create the “secret structure” of a mini site sales letter that makes big money.
Specifically, you’ll learn:

* How to create captivating body copy that draws your
reader into the sales letter.

* Bullets that force your reader to keep reading the
whole page, and makes them insanely curious and want
to buy your product

* How to take the risk off people’s shoulders, so
they’ll feel safe buying from you.

* How to craft your ‘call to action’, and get people
to whip out their credit cards and buy immediately.

* The secrets of writing a killer P.S. that helps seal
the deal, and flip your prospect into a buyer
instantly.

This video covered a surprising amount of detail, especially considering that this course is not
specifically about copywriting.

VIDEO 6 - HOW TO AUTOMATE THE DELIVERY OF YOUR INFOPRODUCT

Unless you want to be chained to your computer, you must learn how to put your
mini sites on autopilot. The only thing you should be doing is driving traffic, and
letting the site itself do all the work, including the work of instantly delivering
the product to the customer.

This video will walk you through the process of automating your product delivery, so
you can just relax, and collect the money. The best part is… once you have this
automated system set up, you never have to touch it again.

VIDEO 7 - HOW TO “GROW” YOUR SALE

This video is guaranteed to be an eye opener for almost everyone who watches it,
even the experienced marketers. Michael dives into some of the most effective
‘upselling’ techniques that I’ve ever seen.

Nowhere else on the Internet have I seen such a thorough tutorial on how to
increase the ’size’ of your orders. You’ll learn:

* The psychology of ‘upselling’, and how to use it
make your customer spend even more money with you.
The best part? He’ll think it was his idea!

* The absolute best time to upsell your customer. This
one will surprise you when you realize how much money
you’ve been leaving on the table by skipping this
step.

* 5 simple techniques to increase your profit by up to
100%.

If you’ve already got a mini site that’s up and running, this video will make a big
difference for you right away.

VIDEO 8 - CREATING AN AFFILIATE SALES FORCE

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed that all successful marketers have in common, it’s
that they have a great affiliate program. They create a program that allows other
people to make good money by promoting their products, and they get to just sit
back and relax,while everyone else is doing the hard work of promoting FOR them.

If you’ve ever dreamed of having an army of motivated sales people working hard
to make you money, then you’re going to love this video. Michael will teach you:

* What an affiliate program is, and how to set one up
very quickly.

* Exactly what tools you need to give your affiliates
(most people miss the mark here, so pay extra
attention to this part).

* Why merely having an affiliate program is NOT enough
to convince people to sign up, and what you can do
instead to have people eagerly trying to become one of
your affiliates.

* How to motivate affiliates to sell for you.

VIDEO 9 - MINI SITE MISTAKES TO AVOID

Let’s face it… it’s not enough to explain what you should do. You also need to
know what mistakes you should avoid. Michael has already made these costly
mistakes, but you don’t have to. You’ll learn:

*Why people do judge a book by its cover… and how to
capitalize on that for your mini-site

* The single biggest reason people don’t buy from a
mini site, and how you can apply this ‘instant fix.

* The single biggest thing that will kill your
mini-site (it’s not what you think, and making this
mistake is a surefire way to drain money from your
bank account FAST!)

* Two list building mistakes that’ll cripple your
long-term profits.

VIDEO 10 - SECRETS OF CREATING A PRODUCT FUNNEL

This video will walk you through the process of designing a product line that will
make you a TON of money. There’s a lot more to it than you’d think, which is why
this important concept (which was taken from direct marketing) gets it’s own video.

After watching this video, you’ll understand why you can’t just have a single front
end product, and you’ll know exactly what to do in order to get your customer to
keep buying more and more expensive products from you… completely on autopilot!

This video is a MUST for any serious marketer who wants to make a lot of money
from their online business.

VIDEO 11 - OUTSOURCING SECRETS FOR WORKING LESS, AND MAKING MORE

The title of this video says it all. You’ll learn all of Michael’s secrets for getting top notch
freelancers to help you create your mini site empire in record time.

Let’s face it, you can’t be an expert at everything that mini sites require. For example,
it’s really tough to be a top notch graphic designer, while also mastering HTML, and
then becoming a killer copywriter, on top of also creating the product itself.

And the list goes on and on. If you want to be efficient, and begin making money as fast
as possible, outsourcing is the secret to making it happen. This video will show you exactly
what to do, as well as some common (and very expensive) pitfalls to avoid.

VIDEO 12 - TRAFFIC STRATEGIES

Let’s face it… it doesn’t matter how great your mini site is if you don’t get any traffic
coming to it. Getting traffic can be one of the most confusing and mysterious parts of
making money online IF you don’t get the proper education.

Thankfully, Michael really dives in, and gives you a lightning fast education in this area.
Specifically, you’ll learn:

* How to use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to get
targeted traffic fast.

* 3 ways to get targeted traffic without spending a
dime.

* 2 ways to leverage the experience and contacts of
other people to explode your traffic.

* 3 traffic strategies to avoid like the plague!

By the time you’re done with this video, you’ll know what to do right away to begin driving targeted
visitors to your mini site.

 Wow, you get all those videos for free?
Click here to check out the Mini Site Profits Expose course for yourself:
http://www.addtrafficnow.com/giveaway.html

Depending on whose figures you’re looking at, in the USA, 90% of all new small businesses will fail in their first 5 to 10 years. My personal experience with folks who are trying to “make it” online is that the failure rate is higher and faster. Why? Because when things don’t go as planned many just give up and decide that they are unable to succeed on their own.

Is there a true key to success in running a business online? Yes, there is, and it’s largely psychological.

My wife and I were browsing a local mall recently, as we occasionally do to get out of the house and do something fun. I’m not a shopper — I hate shopping — but I love bookstores, so I always make it a point to stop at the Borders bookstore when we go. My wife calls me a dork for doing it, but after checking for any new John Grisham novels I always head to the Science section.

This last time I found a fascinating book called The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow. I love numbers, though I’m no mathematician, and this book is quite readable even if you cringe in fear when you hear the words “algebra” or “calculus.”

The book discusses, in part, how the laws of randomness are at the heart of many successes that are often attributed to one person’s abilities. To quote Mlodinow, “We all understand that genius doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s seductive to assume that success must come from genius.”

Well if genius doesn’t guarantee success, then what does?

Citing a 2005 Psychology Today article, Mlodinow later states that “psychologists have found that the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is at least as important a factor in success as talent.”

Persistence is incredibly important when you’re working for yourself. When you have a job, if there’s a problem, you go to a manager or boss to help you solve the problem. When you’re working for yourself, you have to take the initiative to fix the problem on your own. When you have a job, you earn a steady paycheck that you don’t have to create. When you’re working for yourself, it’s up to you to ensure that you have enough work in the pipeline to keep the bills paid. There is a lot more stress and headache involved in being your own boss, especially in the formative years of your business.

Even if you’re a super genius gifted with incredible talent, you’re going to run into a lot of problems running a business. If you don’t have the ability to persist in the face of those obstacles, you’re going to fail, no matter how bright or talented you are.

This is particularly true in the online world. Many seem to believe that running a business online should be easy — but it’s not. Doing business online typically does provide a greater level of flexibility and freedom, but it still requires a whole lot of good ol’ fashioned (dare I say the four letter word?) work. This unexpected realization coupled with a lack of tenacity can quickly result in disillusionment and despondency.

Do people really believe that running a business online is easy? If you want evidence of this fallacious belief just look at all of the get rich quick schemes available online. Look at the top sellers in the ClickBank marketplace (especially the top Business to Business products). People promising riches for doing easy work like filling out surveys. “Common” sense should tell you that if it was that easy everyone would already be doing it, and yet these products continue to rake in money from countless people trying to chase the dream of self-employment.

The flip side of this psychological coin is that, even if you’re just an “average Joe (or Jane)”, with persistence and dedication you can succeed. Whether you’ve got a unique new idea of you’re own or you’re just replicating a successful method you’ve learned from some brilliant person, it’s the persistence that’s going to pay off for you.

Personally, it has taken me a few years of solid dedication, hard work, dozens of failures, sleepless nights, endless worry and loads of stress to get me to where I am now. And where is that? I’m now at the point where I can spend 50-60 hours a month doing what really matters in life: volunteer work. Yes, I still work a lot (it’s in my nature), but I can take my daughter to the arcade mid-morning on a weekday when we practically have the whole place to ourselves, and I can take several trips a year with my family without constantly worrying about my business because I have a fantastic support staff, and when my son is born in late July I won’t have to ask anybody for time off to get to know him. It is a dream, and it’s one worth working hard for.

I’ll close with a statement from Mlodinow’s book that I particularly enjoyed:

“It might seem daunting to think that effort and chance, as much as innate talent, are what counts. But I find it encouraging because, while our genetic makeup is out of our control, our degree of effort is up to us. And the effects of chance, too, can be controlled to the extent that by committing ourselves to repeated attempts, we can increase our odds of success.”

Please post your thoughts in a comment below.

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Source: online business

There are many people that make their living online just by promoting affiliate products, but some will still struggle with selling anything. But what separates the huge money earners from the “strugglers”? The answer is simply one word…….TRAFFIC. You need to get as much potentials buyers in front of your offer in order to make any sales. Where most people stumble is not in the time and effort they put into their promotional efforts but in how they choose to promote the product.

Before we look at some ways to get traffic to something you’re promoting, we have to look at the important concept of preselling. The concept is simple, if you just show somebody something once and say buy this, they are less likely to even consider the offer than if you have had some prior relationship with them. Building that gap between you “the affiliate” and them “the buyer” is like building a friendship, one based on trust and honesty.

Having An E-mail List
The best way to create that trust in buyers is by establishing an email list where you give them useful information on a regular basis. Many affiliates miss this important step in creating that trust in buyers and preselling. You must also only recommend products which you feel will be useful to others. Don’t just sell something because you know it will make you money. And you must be honest with people. Give your honest opinions about the products and don’t overhype or hard sell.   

Organic Listings
One way to introduce a product to somebody is by having relevant content on a website or blog and placing links to the product within the body of the page. This not only aids in the preselling approach but the person is more likely to click if they find the information/offer might be useful.Now to boost the effectiveness of this page would be to try and show up in the organic listings in the search engines. The organic listings are search results that show up in the search engine after you type in a word. They are more heavily clicked on by surfers than sponsored links and ads. To show up in the listings you have to do some search engine optimization (SEO) techniques on the page. To find out more about about SEO, take our free seo course.

Pay-Per-Click
If you have a little money in your budget for marketing, utilizing pay-per-click search engines can be beneficial to getting traffic for your affiliate program. This type of advertising is most popularly done on Google or Yahoo! Search Marketing (once referred to as Overture). You can use it to either drive visitors to an email list (where you slowly build them up to your affiliate offer) or send them directly to your affiliate link. Try as much as possible to do the former.

If you do the later try to cloak the affiliate link which might look like this www.product.com/aff?123 to something looking more professional. You can buy a domain with a similar name to the affiliate offer and then redirect the page to your affiliate page. You can do this using the options for the Cpanel of your webhost or by including a bit of code. You can also make the redirect from a site you already own from a page like this www.mysite.com/recommends/product

To get codes for redirecting urls CLICK HERE.

Article Marketing
A short cut to getting listed in the search engines is by writing articles. If the keywords you write about are not highly competitive and the article site has a high pagerank you can generate a listing in the search engines from posting your article in their directory. Make the article related to the affiliate offer and include a link to your affiliate page in your author signature box. Some article sites frown on placing affiliate links in your articles, so you might have to have links to another page you own that has the affiliate offer listed.
 

Social Bookmarking
Utilizing social bookmarking (SBM) sites or establishing a Web 2.0 strategy is an easy and cheap way of getting traffic to your affiliate page. There are many sites now on the internet that allow you to bookmark pages that you like for free for future reference. But don’t just bookmark your affiliate page alone. That won’t work. Try and get some content related to your affiliate offer like articles and blog posts, have a link in it to the affiliate offer and then bookmark that page. Utilize sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Furl, Spurl, Twitter and many others. (At the end of each of my posts there is a link to a bookmarking tag. Click on it and see a list of sites I’m talking about.)

But don’t just stop there! If the program is popular utilize Squidoo and HubPages to write reviews about it. People sometimes search for the terms “productx review” or “buy productx” and if you write about it on one of these sites you can score high in the search engines for those keywords. You can also search for less competitive keywords related to the product and create pages on the two sites mentioned before related to them. And of course include a link on the page to the affiliate program you promote.

But don’t just stop there!! Further bookmark the mini-pages you’ve created on Squidoo and Hubpages on the SBM sites. And even more, link to each content you create about the product to another page about it. Say for example you wrote an article, have a product review on Squidoo and have a content page on HubPages.com, link from the HubPage to the Squidoo page to the article. In that way you provide relevance to each site and by interlinking you have a better chance of ranking well with more than one page.

To learn more about becoming a better affiliate read the FREE report Affiliate XFactor. Where a super-affiliate goes through some techniques he used to generate a $40,000 Clickbank affiliate pay check in 72 hours selling a $77 ebook. Find out more here http://www.addtrafficnow.com/recommends/xfactor.html
 
Summary

In summary, utilizing some of the more effective traffic generation methods can help in making affiliate sales. An important concept to remember is that the buyer must be presold to the offer to maximize conversion rates. Apart from the more popular website promotion methods utilizing a Web 2.0 strategy can be influential in gaining more traffic for affiliate programs.

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The folks over at SEONoobs.com recently launched a contest about 3 weeks ago for SEO newbies to rank best for the phrase “Yicrosoft Directory”. It’s a 30 day SEO Challenge to see who can come out as the #1 organic listing for the keyphrase “Yicrosoft Directory”. The contest ends March 4th so it might be too late to enter and win but by just looking at the listings for “Yicrosoft Directory” in the search engines you can get an idea of the methods that people are using for their SEO campaign.

In case you wonder why they used that keyphrase; Microsoft recently put in an offer to Yahoo! to buy out their company and merge it with Microsoft for a cool $44.6 Billion. Seems the main reason they did it was to try and compete with Google in the search engine arena. Yahoo! looks to have rejected the offer so far. Of course all this has created a buzz around the internet with different websites and videos. People have been even created mock logos as to what the company might become. Maybe MicroYahoo or Microhoo? Who’s to tell? In case you missed this bit of news here’s a report of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDrDITVJMls&NR=1

Typing in the contest’s keyphrase in Google returns some 52,000 normal results and 21,100 results in anchor (meaning the phrase was put in quotation marks ie “yicrosoft directory”). But whichever way you look at it the contestant who leads (as of this posting), owns the site Yicrosoftdirectory.net. The next two rounding out the top three are Garrysoft.com and Yicrosoft-directory-online.com. Doing a quick check in Yahoo! tells me what I knew would be the main reason for these people leading the list. And the answer is one word folks….LINKS.

Breakdown of Top Five Contestants
SITE                                        PAGES  INLINKS
Yicrosoftdirectory.net                 21        677
Garrysoft.com                           11        2,470
Yicrosoft-directory-online.com    10        252
Yicrosoftdirectorygirl.com            25        1,330
Gh-yicrosoft.info                        14         271

But why are the second placed and fourth placed listings not listed better? A quick look shows that the number one site has a lot more content (21 pages) than the 2nd placed. Ok…I hear you ask….So why does it still beat out the fourth placed site. Simple. The content that is on Yicrosftdirectory.net is a lot more optimized for the phrases “yicrosoft”, “directory” and “yicrosoft directory”. In fact it lists itself as a directory (probably gaining more reciprocal links from this method) accompanied with great content that repeatedly has “yicrosoft directory” in title tags and headers. It also is getting links from a more diverse set of sites (not just one site, like some of the others). And I didn’t check this but more than likely the links they received from sites have better authority and page rank according to Google

Why not check out this for yourself?…….Go to Yahoo! and in their search bar type in link:www.thesite.com (replace “thesite” with whatever site’s name is listed) and analyse the listings you see. It will give you an idea as to what to do for your own SEO promotion. Go ahead…….have some fun with this SEO thing

P.S. The reason I used Yahoo! to check the links is because they usually show a more accurate look of backlinks for most sites, once they’ve been indexed.

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 One thing that is considered a definite no-no is the act of keyword spamming. This practice was once used by persons to attempt to increase their keyword density
(a factor used in ranking of web pages) for a specific phrase. Keyword density being
the relative importance of a specific word or phrase to the entire text within a webpage. The more times a word is repeated, the more keyword dense is the webpage for that particular word.

The trick was to place phrases repeatedly within the html code of the page which weren’t seen by people normally browsing that webpage. Of course, the algorithms of the major search engines have adapted now to this attempt at manipulation and anybody trying it will see their webpages penalized for Google page rank and possibly deindexed.

 This webmaster is repeating the keyword balloons

 The advice here is to not overdo it. Keep the pages of your website relevant by repeating your key phrases but don’t stuff them in irrelevant areas or try to hide them in bits of html code.

Another bad tactic is to become involved with what Google considers to be “bad
neighbourhoods”. In their webmaster guidelines they say

“Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

According to them webspammers help to devalue the integrity of their index and adversely affected accurate search results. Link farms are considered by Google to be another no-no because persons are using a method to manipulate how many link partners they have. And the goal here is to rapidly increase your link popularity by connecting to numerous persons within a link scheme.

One other thing that has become a sore point among many persons is the common use of paid links services to increase inbound links to one’s site. According to the above statement from Google’s guidelines, this is considered a link scheme and if found out your page rank will be reduced to zero.

Why it has become a major argument is that many high PR web pages were using their status to sell links on their website. Many people see this as a corporate model for their own website and offer links on their site as a service. How could Google look down on others for trying to get links for their site anyway possible? Isn’t it basically a type of paid advertisement?

My thoughts on the issue are that website owners and corporations should always be allowed to monetize their websites anyway they want, once it’s legal. But if a major penalization will result from the use of any of these paid linking systems then stay as far away from them as possible. You might not agree with something, but if it might hurt you in the long run, why continue doing it?

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There are some very essential ways that can be used to foster more content on your page. One method which many webmasters use is to write articles or new pages of interest that will keep visitors interested  to return. Forums and blogs also add more content and if the author writes regularly he/she can have unique visitors to the website daily.

Most websites place a frequently asked question (FAQ) page on their site for whatever product or service they offer. Information for this can come from questions viewers ask about the website services. It is essential that the sites keep a comments page or support email open for queries from visitors. 

Another good method is to interview experts in your field or target market about common issues/problems and include their answers as part of your main page. This will enhance the honesty and popularity factor of the site as the known expert may be seen to be endorsing your website content, product or services. Some people might write an e-book for their target audience and then include the interview as part of the content of the book. Both ways tend to work and adds a creative edge to the information you are giving.

A relatively easy method of keeping content fresh is to include rss feeds on your website. Rssfeeds are basically links for updated content from some reputed website. RSS Equalizer is a tool that can be used to include quality rss feeds on your site.  Many links from other reputed sources on your site will also enhance its integrity in the eyes of many search engines.

Many websites offer a monthly newsletter which gives tips, information, promotions and products related to the specified field from their site. This is a good way to keep customers and visitors informed about news updates in your field and offer promotions and services on the back-end.

On the main page of your website you can include regular updated advice or tips on matters pertaining to your field. If you have products selling or services offering, you can apply this to them as well. People love to see new information and titbits pertaining to services that companies offer.

Of late, information provided via the visual format is a hit. It is so much easier for people to understand a quick video tutorial  concerning some product or service you offer than just giving written instructions. Videos don’t have to be used as promotions for services alone; they can be used to give how-to guides and practical tutorials.

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