Written on 12:08 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things...
Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the greedy and idiotic polluted the well by spamming the planet with everything from weight-loss products to sexual enhancement drugs and beyond. Because of the stench, filters and laws have been created to attempt to fix the problem, but still the Internet is polluted with more and more junk each day. So obviously, filters and legislation are not the solution, for consumers, publishers, or marketers.
Everyone has been left scratching their heads and asking... What do I do to avoid this crap and make the Internet mine again? How do I build my business and promote it without having to deal with email? After all, what's the point in spending money on email advertising campaigns when there is no guarantee that the emails will even reach their destination?
Enter... RSS.
RSS is the perfect communication tool. It's applications far outreach those of email for marketing, publishing and personal communications. RSS is the answer to our communication woes.
Using RSS to create blogs for communicating with customers, affiliates, partners and family is far and away more effective and reliable than email ever was. As a marketing tool, it really packs a punch that email never could. The reason being is that blogs are targets for search engine spiders. They are themselves, a web presence, whereas email never was and never will be.
Just like a web page, search engine spiders hit blog pages and rank them. The difference between the static web page and the RSS feed is that web pages seldom update their content, RSS feeds, by design, are created to be dynamic and provide regularly updated content, in theory, depending on the blog owner of course. This prompts the search engine spiders to revisit and rerank them more often.
For writers, publishers and and anyone else with something to say, RSS has been a godsend. It has provided the answer to the question of what to do now. Blogging has replaced email for those who have become frustrated with dealing with the problems of email publishing and marketing. Publishers can now get their message out to their subscribers without the headaches associated with sending email, or posting static pages to the web. Even publishing an ezine to the Internet as a web page required the sending of email to make readers aware of the newest issue.
As with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and blog publishing is no exception. Now that RSS has become the rage for marketing purposes, several people have taken it upon themselves, in the name of the almighty dollar, to pollute this well too. The newest rash of 'RSS tools' have created some issues of ethics and and credibility. With perhaps the honest intention of being search engine optimization tools, or an automated system for fetching content, this batch of stuff has too much potential for misuse. The result of misuse of these types of programs can be devastating. Already some of these programs have been banned from places like Google and Blogharbour because of this potential.
Programs such as these in the hands of the inexperienced, will cause future problems for bloggers down the road. More and more pages generated using these programs will be banned, and getting banned, right out of the gate, for a newbie, would be a sad thing indeed.
The right way to use blogging to increase your search engine presence is to publish good content. Period. Provide useful information to those who are looking for it. Become someone's trusted information provider, and you have a customer for life. Publish keyword rich articles that give the searcher what they are looking for... solutions for problems.
Publish your information regularly. Weekly is good, daily is better. Sending pings and things too often will get you blacklisted too.
And here is where networking comes in... Find content for your blog from article banks, where authors submit their work for reprint. List yourself in databases as one who accepts article submissions. Get to know other authors and publishers and share content with them. Syndicate your blogs in exchange with other bloggers. Watch your world explode with new opportunities.
Automation in business is a good thing, but it has its place. Nothing beats human communication when dealing with people and creating partnerships. Do you want to talk to an autoresponder? No, and I doubt anyone else does either.
Some of the new programs designed for the automation of article collection have legal issues to consider. The biggest being copyright infringement. Not every author wants their work reprinted, or they require control over where their work is displayed. (Which is as it should be.) Without manually seeking your content, you could very well find yourself being served papers for publishing someone else's work without permission.
Plagiarism is another issue. If you don't follow certain rules for reprinting contributory work, you stand to be hounded for plagiarism. Yet another sticky issue.
Some of the new programs mock safelists, or resemble FFA sites. Before long, those types of blog pages will become banned as well. Search engines will figure out a way to block non-informational blog pages, those that carry nothing but links or classifieds. (Is your head sore from hitting that brick wall yet?)
Still, there are other programs designed to post spam to blogs using the comments feature. This is referred to as comment spam. The only solution thus far, to battle comment spam, is to disallow your readers the option of leaving comments. This is a bad thing, because allowing your readers to interact with you is supposed to be one of the benefits of using this form of communication.
The makers of these programs may have had good intentions to start with, but have ultimately created Frankenstein's Monster. Many are stating that their programs are not spam, because they do not involve email. That is a cop out if I ever heard one. Spam is the transmission of unwanted stuff, whether it is sent to your inbox, or your blog, or even the search engines themselves. Search engines want relevant content, not pages of of keywords, or links. So feeding them page after page of nonsense is spam.
Everyone hates spam, except the spammers, so why be a part of something loathed by so many and embraced by a few? Bad business if you ask me.
The only real way to combat these issues is to simply not use the programs themselves. Do your due diligence and create a reputation as a trusted information provider, not a blog bomber, and your business will prosper. Using these programs will ultimately diminish your reputation and your livelihood.
Your customers are looking for information, a solution to a problem. Give that to them, not just endless pages of links. You will achieve your rightful spot in the ranks, and you stand a far better chance for longevity. There are good RSS tools available, you just need to look beneath the sales copy to find them. And if you are new to RSS and blogging, do some research. Find someone who knows, really knows what RSS is and how to use it, and ask some questions. Don't go out and spend buckets of money on something you're not sure how to use, because you could be doing yourself more harm than good.
A few good books to read some solid information on RSS and blogs...
RSS, Blogs and Syndication
http://www.ads-on-q.com/RSS.html
Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS
http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?trii65/mrktstudy
RSS Advertising Secrets
http://www.ebookadvertising.biz/products/rssad/
Taming The eBeastie
http://www.feedyourhungrymind.com/Taming-the-eBeastie.html
Do give me your feedback through comments...
Awaiting,
Fkay
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Written on 12:05 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Ready - Set - Go on a 90 day journey around the net.
From my Windows XP
my eyes would see
my 90 day trip
around the net.
I packed my Visa credit card
immunized my vehicle with guards
protected my domain with a great wall of fire
and found a website watchful eye for hire.
I was off and determined
to see my journey to the end
but would soon discover
the journey had no end.
But until I get to that
you must know
that the net is a vast universe of
Silver and Bronze and Diamonds and Gold.
From my travel experience
I'll give you a tip
I purchased the best my Visa would buy
and counted on my resources to not run dry
I purchased a new home
furnished it too
finished my masters and
vacationed somewhere new.
I insured my life
met my true love
dressed myself pretty
below and above.
Confident my purchase decisions
were made with great wisdom
Because I looked in the corners and cracks of the net
And found products and services that are a sure bet.
When I arrived home I noticed that
my domain rank had sank.
I had fallen from the charts
and my sales truly showed it
so I researched my findings to keep from further blowing it.
From my journey I found a great product and guarantee
to set my rank right.
So now I proceed to
educate others in their rank plight.
You see now that this journey has no end
but was really quite bold and
I discovered the net had
Silver and Bronze and Diamonds and Gold.
You can too and then you may
see for yourself that 1st Search Ranking is all I say.
My ranking is now and will continue to be
in the top positions of the search engines.
Hee! Hee!
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?5194
1st Search Ranking not only tries to get you more traffic but ensures that the traffic you do get is converted into more sales.
Bronze Package:Optimization of your site for 5 keywords, driving targeted traffic to your site. Guaranteed to get at least 4 top 10 positions for you within 6 months from the time that you order this service.If you get you more than 4 top 10 positions, you don’t have to pay anything extra!
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Order With 100% Confidence
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?5194
Do give me your feedback through comments...
If you like the post then please do click on my ads.
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
blogger,
publicity,
SEO
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Written on 6:10 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Blogs for Advertising?
Yes! Blogs and RSS boost your online business, rankings, traffic and sales. We all sometimes ignore the trends in advertising on the internet until the masses are allready doing it. That is why I felt compelled to right this article and hopefully help others to understand that Blogs are a very powerful advertising method and you do not want to ignore this trend, You will regret it!
A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments, web links and news. It is an online Enzine of sorts. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with automated published systems, most notably is blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger alone.
I only realized myself how powerful Blog advertising was, after I submitted an article to one Blog, yes just one Blog. What happened next amazed me! Within one week my new site wich I used in my byline in the Blog was not only indexed, but every single page was indexed and I had over 200 other sites pointing links to my site! All from one Blog posting. See websites need content and Blogs are a great source for content, and search engines LOVE blogs! I really need to say that again, search engines love Blogs!
Want your site indexed? Want hundreds maybe even thousands of incoming links all pointing to your site?
Here are the reasons you should not ignore Blog advertising. Remember when all search engines were free, and simply submitting your web sites got you listed quickly? Gone. Then it wa FFA pages, they brought in a ton of free traffic, built links to your site, and added to your mailing list like crazy. Tried one lately? Safelists were an online goldmine for a while... until bottom less email accounts were introduced.
Every new technology does what you need, at first. Then slowly more and more learn the secrets, and by the time the herd has caught on it's too late. Technologies have changed, everything has slowed way down, or the search engines have decided that it's become another form of spamming the search engines and stop weighing it so heavily. Sometimes they even ban the technology from their databases, remember doorway pages and multiple sites?
So where is blogging along this curve today? The early adopters have been doing it for the last couple of years, and the leading internet marketers started coming into it over the last year, many are still just getting started with it. So you're at the perfect time, most of the expensive development time is done, the bulk of the bugs are out of the whole RSS and Atom feed systems, and engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google are embracing the technology and waiting to greet your Blog with open arms. So dont ignore this whole Blogging idea, embrace it you just might see your sales soar through the roof!
Do give me your feedback through comments...
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
advertising,
blogger,
feed,
publicity,
RSS
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Written on 4:54 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
1) You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially Banners have a less of 0,5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.
2) Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.
3) No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them again having the same color with your website's background.
4) No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside
your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.
6) Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay per Click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways is link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.
7) Do not rely on one website. Yes you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.
8) Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is http://www.articleequalizer.com/ .You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!
9) Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
10) Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find relevant ad in your page he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.
First the file must be saved with the appropriate name for example: Golf-Secrets.html if your article is about golf. So the webpage will be:
www.yoursitesname.com/Golf-Secrets.html
Second thing you must change is your title tag. For example:
Title Golf-Secrets article title
Third is the heading. The first sentence must have this heading:
12 Golf secrets
Do give me your feedback through comments...
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
adsense,
CTR
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Written on 2:51 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Most of us are trying to Earn with Google Adsense but are frustrated with this Program... and want to have some other source just like this program... According to me Experimentation is the Best way to gain something... I have found these alternatives for Google Adsense all of which are worth trying..
1. Clickbooth
2. Bidvertiser
3. Revenue Pilot
4. Chitika
5. Clicksor
6. Yahoo Publisher Network
7. Tribal Fusion
8. Vibrant Media
9. Bidclix
10. Cpx-Interactive
11. Fastclick
12. Adbrite
13. Addynamix
14. Burst Media
15. Oridian
16. Adtegrity
17. 24/7 Real Media
18. Expoactive
19. Adsonar
20. Agloco
All the above sites are offering their best for Publishers & are good Examples of Adsense Alternative So Who Wins Google Adsense or These Alternatives?
Do give me your feedback through comments...
If you like the post then please do click on my ads.
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
adsense,
advertising,
earning
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Written on 2:48 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
In order to increase traffic to your Website or BLOG you must follow these 7 simple steps:-
1. First of all you must stick to your topics this will show your knowledge about the topic & people will always be attracted towards your site in search of the information regarding the particular topic .
2.Then you should update your blog Everyday or with a gap of some days this will show your sincerity towards the topic & would help to establish your Site or Blog in that particular Field.
3. The 3rd thing usually seen in most of people is that they get frustrated of not getting Comments or Replies to their posts & finally the stop writing. But this should not happen because whenever we are writing or Updating our Website our Rank on many Popular search Engines continue to increase & we start getting traffic within 1 to 4 Months.
4. You MUST use Pinging sites such asi) http://www.pingomatic.com/ii) http://www.pingoat.com/whenever you update your Blog .This will help in Better Rankings in Search Engines like Google.
5. You Must give Powerful comments on the Blog or Site of others & always put a link to Your site .This will impress the owner of the site & the other people commenting on the sites . This will help to increase traffic to your Site.
6.You Should make your own communities at sites like http://www.mybloglog.com/ when other people will join your community it will help in greater traffic to your site & don’t forget to join the communities of other people.
7.The last step is that You should Never leave the Spririt & should Continue writing & Finally you will be able to get the desired amount of traffic & will be able to generate Streams of Revenue from your site...
Do give me your feedback through comments...
If you like the post then please do click on my ads.
Awaiting,
Fkay
Posted in
directories,
earning,
publicity
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Written on 3:13 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Last month, I began promoting Jason Potash’s “Article Announcer.” I always take time to research new products on the market. I don’t believe in “magic bullets.” There is a principle taught in physics, chemistry, biology and even Algebra 101. Nature seeks dynamic balance, equilibrium. If you add something to the left side of the = sign, the right side moves to balance it.
I anticipated a reaction to the introduction of this new software. I was right. I chose to submit last month’s article, “Penury Perpetuates Poverty” the “hard way,” one by one to various submission sites on the Internet. Out of about 80 submissions, I discovered about 25% have temporarily (I hope) ceased accepting new authors/articles. Some submission pages came up with a 404 Error upon clicking the “submit” button.
One came up with the following: “Wére being plagued by so many automated submissions, duplicate article submissions, etc. that we spend too much time in selecting the real articles that matter. For this reason we are temporary not accepting new submissions until we have implemented some security measures to block bad submissions. We hope you understand. Please come back in about 1 month to submit your articles.”
Some have extremely obtuse instructions. Some simply don’t work. Some are very specialized. Some are email submissions only (which opens the door to being spam’d). Some of these bounced. One may have had his ISP overloaded, shut down, and later began accepting articles again.
Right now I’m checking each site if my article was accepted. I know it is “loading the dice” when I access Google, Yahoo, MSN and search on [“Robert Leggett” Penury]. I was getting over 600 listings and dominated the first few pages of these search engines. I’m even listed on sites where I never submitted.
Of course just after doing my first “submission run” I periodically checked Google. Wow! Exposure just kept growing! Then, one day, I got no listing at all on Google. Yahoo still liked me a little. The following day I was baaaaaack. I need to research why Google didn’t like me that one day. Now my search engine hits have settled down to a more realistic number.
Shortly after going to press, I continued checking latest submission and submitted my next article, “Discover your Creativity.” I am “paying my dues.” I must know how this all works. It is new to me. Once I see everything has settled down and a more stable balance has been achieved, I will seriously consider purchasing Jason Potash’s “Article Announcer” - if it saves me time. Always intelligently automate whenever possible!
“Doing it the hard way” I have discovered my articles must have strong headlines. They must contain words search engine spiders like. They must have valuable content. Don’t take my word on this. Check out a lot of “Submission Guidelines” at different directories. Through necessity, I must become a better writer.
This exercise was time intensive. I have profited more not taking a “magic bullet” approach. Other benefits include “sharpening up” our webZine “Cyberspace Marketeer,” offering greater content and more user-friendly design. I have just added a new page which includes 37 user-friendly Article Submission Directories.
Recently I received the following [edited] message from one of these Directories: “You can now save your default RESOURCE BOX and up to 2 additional RESOURCE BOXES for your default author and alternate author accounts - SAVING YOU THE TIME from having to copy and paste it each time you send in a new article. :-). Think of the additional time you can save with this new feature? Perhaps you might want to head to the gym earlier or better yet, send in another article now that you can do it in less time! :) *hint hint*”
They want you! Write and rewrite your articles you plan to submit. Research different submission sites. If you publish your own eZine or webZine, some sites accept these listings, too. Some sites also accept News Releases. Get a feel for these submission sites. Work with them. When you eventually decide to put much of this on automatic, you will have a much better overview of the process.
Posted in
publicity
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Written on 3:12 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Did you hear the news?
Oprah Winfrey’s a billionaire!
Congratulations Oprah.
Now I bet you’re wondering to yourself. “How did a black woman, who came from humble beginnings in Mississippi, make it to the “Billionaire Boy’s Club”?
You might think she’s just lucky.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”
- E. Joseph Cossman
I once heard Oprah quote the above on her show and you could tell she believed it. I think this is a fantastic philosophy and everyone should memorize it. Let’s say it again out loud: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
How did you feel when you said that?
Hopefully you felt inspired, because this is one of the keys to Oprah’s success: Preparation.
Without preparation you won’t be ready when opportunity knocks at YOUR door. How many times have you been jealous of someone else who’s more successful than you?
Ever think about WHY you feel jealous?
Maybe it’s because you think you can’t achieve what they’ve done. Maybe you feel stuck in a rut and wish you had someone else’s “good fortune”.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
Unless you were born a Rockefeller, or you’re a member of Sam Walton’s family (Walmart), etc. You will have to work your way up like the majority of other successful self-made people. People like Oprah. No one handed her a silver spoon and said here’s the road to making a Billion dollars.
Oprah didn’t know she would be this successful when starting out, but she did know that she had to PREPARE herself along the way if she didn’t want to be stuck in a rut her whole life.
She prepared herself by reading. She prepared herself by having role models. She prepared herself by developing her verbal communication skills.
And most importantly, she prepared herself by knowing that she would always be true to HERSELF. No matter what anybody else thought of her. This is one of the qualities that people love about Oprah. She’s REAL.
How much time do you waste worrying about what other’s think about you, instead of following through on your goals?
What are you doing to PREPARE yourself for something great?
Successful people are too busy enjoying their journey towards creating a successful and fulfilling life to worry about other folks petty jealousies, insecurities, etc. As Oprah proves, it takes a lot of focus to just work on overcoming our own hang ups as we try to become better people.
So the next time you feel that someone’s luckier than you. Just keep in mind that their luck didn’t just fall out of the sky. Most likely they had a hand in creating that luck because they were prepared when opportunity came a knockin at their door.
And that’s just my opinion.
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inspiration
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Written on 3:11 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Since the last Google update, there have been many instances and examples of the Google Nuke Bot! This is what I call it anyway. Have you visited a favorite website lately only to realize they've been nuked by Google?
More and more we are seeing internet marketing / SEO companies getting nuked, by Google completely removing them from their data banks. I am not going to mention any names because I'm sure the owners of the once populated websites already know and are embarrassed from this development.
Since the word went out on WebPositionGold getting banned from Google for automatic queries sent to Google, we are noticing other related websites going down for the count as well.
For the info on WebPositionGold, go here:
http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/webposition-banned/
The things is, we already know about Webpositiongold, what about other sites that are getting hit hard? Has your site been nuked?
It seems as though, some sites that had thousands of links pointing from Google are getting hit the hardest. It seems like Google is cracking down on "spam tactics", "submission tactics", and anything related to unethical SEO practices.
Is Google Making An Effort To Uphold Their Webmaster Guidelines?
Will it come to a point where if we don't uphold the Google guidelines, we cannot be successful online? This thought is ridiculous but almost scary to think it could happen! What about website's that still hide text through same background colours? Hidden div layers? and mirror pages? Why hasn't Google attacked those issues first?
You can almost make the assumption that by Google nuking websites that send automatic ranking & link popularity queries to their data base, this may be a huge effort to relieve the strain on the query servers in order to free up some memory.
How Does Getting Your Website Nuked From Google Affect Your Credibility?
An event like this could ultimately ruin your reputation online. People who have come to trust your knowledge and judgment on Google rankings may never look at your company the same ever again. People might think to themselves "I don't want to get nuked like they did!".
How Can You Tell You've Been Nuked?
* Your Google Page Rank is now 0-2/10 and should be at least 5/10
* You have zero backlinks listing in Google anymore
* You have zero internal website listings within Google by doing (site:www.yoursite.com)
* Google's cache of your website is no longer to be found
For newer websites, don't be confused between this nuking process and your own evolution online. Getting and maintaining a high PR level takes a lot of work.
Once Nuked, Does Google Still Come Back?
The question I have for websites that have been nuked: Can you still see Google in your stat log files for your site? If so, I wonder if Google is still keeping an eye on you and watching your every move?
In Conclusion:
Stay away from programs that generate automatic queries into Google. Don't check your link popularity 3 times a week and especially don't check your search engine rankings twice a day. Just simply promote your website and measure your success through your internal website stats and monthly profits. Google doesn't appreciate websites that consistently draw their power in order to measure their success, just simply take that out of your daily actions.
Cheers to your online success!
Posted in
SEO
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Written on 3:06 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Little do you know but you too could be making mistakes with your website that are costing you your
search engine rankings.
Goggle and the other search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to keep pace of search
engine spammers. Some novice website owners may be like me and be making big mistakes in the eyes of the search engine bots which will lower their search engine ranking or blot their website right out of existence from everyone except those people that have been given their website URL.
Let me tell you my mistakes and what I've learned from them... In 2000, I started a small research vineyard. Soon I wanted a website to tell people about it, advise others how to grow grapes, and get my research information out to the public.
I was on a shoe-string budge so I learned HTML myself. My website was quickly posted to one of those "free" website hosts. Two months later, my website was hitting the top "5" in the search engine rankings for all of my keywords. I had lots of relevant content which made this possible. I was in heaven!
I soon realized that the free web host didn't provide all that a webmaster wants (cgi-bin, commerce, etc). I found a better host provider at a reasonable price and I moved my website.
Big Mistake #1: I didn't remove the pages from the free website host. I figured with time, that host would see no activity and just drop me from their server to make more room for other websites. Little did I know how long that free website would persist on the Internet.
Big Mistake #2: This one is much like the first one, just done in a different manner. After three years, I got tired of my website's appearance. I had learned CSS and wanted to make my website more uniform and professional looking. Slowly, I began transitioning my pages to the new look. Since the search engines knew the old pages, I simply left them on the backend of my website, while naming the new pages differently and more google friendly. Little did I know at the time the search engines would spider both the new and the old pages now.
I really didn't know that I was doing anything wrong. When I checked my search engine rankings, I still ranked very high. I should have paid more attention and noticed that sometimes it was the new pages that ranked up there but often it was the old pages. They had been there all along and still commanded those high search engine rankings. Once in a while I even saw some of the old pages from the free web host days.
I guess I was only concerned about my search engine rankings, not which pages, new or old were being indexed. After all, as long as my site was getting noticed, And traffic was coming to my website so why care?
Big Mistake #3: I wanted to put up more relative content in the form of articles related to growing grapes and win on my website. I though this would help my search engine rankings for some keywords I was low in and also help my website visitors.
I purchased a program named "Article Equalizer" to make this task easier on myself. Being a new user of this program, I began to use this software with the templates that came with the program. It seemed to work well and produced the results I wanted.
Little did I know that by using the built-in templates that came with this software, a "finger print" would be placed in the resulting pages that would identify that I used this program to generate the index to the article and the article pages themselves.
Mistake #4: To aggravate the above mistake, I loaded the index page to the back end of my website. This index page was a collection of hyperlinks, no content, just links.
Goggle drastically changed its algorithm early in the year 2005. The unthinkable happened. Not only did my search engine rankings drop, they disappeared altogether. I wasn't even in Google. Google had treated me as a search engine spammer! I had lost my top rankings and now wasn't even indexed.
I had violated Googles new rules. I learn a lot from my mistakes. What rules did I violate? First, I had multiple pages of the same content all over the web and my own website. Google says, "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content." Boy, had I done that. And without even knowing it. I had links up on the search engines that lead to multiple pages on my own site and to my old free one.
I had created pages that had multiple links that lead back to my main page through my article directory index. I know it looked like I was spamming Google but it was just a naive mistake, compounded through the software that was going to save me time.
Naive mistakes can cost you everything when you're running up against google. My laziness cost me. I didn't erase what I had created before and had used a program to save me some time.
I've remedied my mistakes but am yet to be found in Google. They are unforgiving in that respect but I believe that I will soon be back in their good graces. Learn from my mistakes and don't make them. If you have disappeared from Google, you might want to check and see if you too have made some naive mistakes like I did. Change your website to conform to Google's guidelines and then re-submit your site. If that doesn't work. You'll have to start all over with a new domain name. And that can be a painful waste of time.
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page ranking,
publicity
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Written on 3:04 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
In the past, website directories, online classifieds, safe lists and banner ads were all terrific ways to obtain website traffic. But the Internet is a dynamic medium that is constantly changing. And some methods just haven’t been able to keep up.
On top of that, cost-per-click advertising is costing today’s entrepreneurs as much as several dollars per visitor!
Search engine optimisation is a long-term strategy, costing thousands of dollars (unless you do it yourself) but results are not guaranteed…
Pop Under advertising campaigns are cheap but you have to know how to properly set-up a pop under campaign.
In my opinion, PopIn (layer) ads are a terrific (and cheap) way to attract the attention of thousands of visitors:
PopIn ads receive a click trough rate of 1% - 2.0% (some popin layer ads receive a CTR of up to 5%)
Banner ads receive a click trough rate of 0.2% - 0.6% (some banner ads receive a CTR of up to 2%)
That means that if your PopIn ad receives a CTR of 2%, a 100.000 PopIn impressions campaign (avg. cost: $200,00) will bring 2.000 (targeted) visitors to your web site with a cost per targeted visitor of $0.10 only.
Targeted visitors are people that have clicked on your ad to visit your site. These are visitors that already have some idea of what your site offers and have come to look for more information.
Do a search on Google or Yahoo for PopIn Advertising to find companies offering this type of advertising.
Tips for a successful ad: Use a catchy headline, a dark background and offer something of value for free to motivate the viewers to click trough to your website.
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advertising,
publicity
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Written on 3:03 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
If you want to make money online with a work from home business then you are going to need lots of good targeted traffic to your web site and or affiliate links. One way to get good targeted traffic is to pay for it. I know you were hoping to do this business of yours without spending a dime right? Well if that’s what you are thinking you better keep working for someone else and forget about working from home with your own internet business.
I have been paying for traffic ever since I started my online business over 4 years ago and one of the best sources of targeted traffic is through pay per click search engines (PPC) or pay for placement search alternatives like Google adwords or Yahoo Sponsor Listings, formerly Overture.com .
Google adwords and Yahoo Sponsor Listings are the kings of pay per placement search engines. They are also the most expensive but you will get the most targeted traffic from them. If you cannot get a free listing in the top 10 on their main search results under the sponsored listings then you may want to consider pay per placement. Sponsored listings usually appear at the top above regular listings on Yahoo, and down the right side of the page at Google.
If Google and Yahoo are too rich for your liking then try some of the smaller PPC search engines like 7Search, Findwhat and or Kanoodle. I have put together a web page with links to these PPC search engines at the following web page.
CLICK HERE-----> http://bigmoolla.com/ppc.html
The key to good PPC advertising is to find cheap key words under .50 cents per click that will land you in the top 5 positions. There is no need to be number 1. A number 5 placement may cost you a few cents per click less and you will likely get the same traffic or in some cases even more than a number 1 spot. Try to pick as many key words as you can that are directly related to your product or service.
If you are advertising a work from home internet business try breaking down what I just typed. Work from home, home internet business, internet business, work from home business, home business. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you want to advertise a product like multivitamins try keywords like vitamins, supplements, vitamin supplements, health supplements, diet supplements, multivitamins. YOU GET THE PICTURE.
If you don’t have your own web site and only an affiliate link you may have to get a redirect URL from someone like http://tinyurl.com/ . Most of the PPC engines will not allow you to use an affiliate link. But you can get a tinyurl for free and have it re-direct to your affiliate link. If your affiliate program allows you to key code for testing purposes like SFI does then you can get several tinyurls and direct them to a different key code. That way you can actually test your PPC ad campaign to see which key words are working the best for you. This is important if you want to reduce your advertising dollars without sacrificing traffic to your web site. (We all want to do this right?)
PPC is only one advertising method that you should be taking advantage of, but it’s an important one so give it a try if you have not already. It may just change the way you do business and effect how much money you make with your work from home internet business.
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advertising,
publicity
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Written on 3:02 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
I decided to try something a little different and illustrate the marketing challenges of a small business. I'm using one of my clients, PrescottWeddings.com.
PWC is an online resource guide for couples planning their weddings. Along with a ton of information for brides and grooms, the site includes a resource guide where local businesses can advertise their products and services.
We launched PWC in November 2001. Like many start-up businesses, PWC didn't have much money for marketing. Yet we had two major challenges (three counting the limited budget):
1. PWC had to attract two kinds of target markets to the site -- advertisers and couples -- essentially at the same time. And if that wasn't bad enough, we had to appeal to each group even though one was dependent on the other -- advertisers wanted brides and grooms logging onto the site, and brides and grooms wanted a complete resource center.
2. Several bridal print publications had come and gone in Prescott -- and had burned their advertisers while racing out of town. Businesses were understandably hesitant about sinking their money into another bridal venture.
Armed with those challenges, we went to work. Now, just over two years later, PWC enjoys well over 40,000 hits a month and has increased its advertising base by over 600%. On top of that, PWC is well on its way to establishing a reliable brand in not just Prescott but throughout Yavapai County.
So how did we do it? A great Web site with great content plus three main marketing strategies:
1) Using print to drive traffic online
2) Thinking small
3) Frequency, frequency, frequency
I'll cover number two and three in the next two articles. Today we'll talk about number one: Using print to drive traffic online.
The cornerstone of PWC's marketing program has been print advertising, more specifically monthly advertising in the local newspaper. Print advertising is an excellent choice for many businesses -- from small to large. In fact, it's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses to build their advertising program around print.
The strength of print advertising is its flexibility. Print publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can appeal to a broad readership or a narrow one. They can be published every day or once a year. This variety gives you a lot of flexibility in fitting print advertising into your campaigns.
You can also track print to a certain extent (coupons in newspapers for example). Print is physical, allowing your customers to carry something around with them.
However, print's weakness is also its strength. It's a visual medium only, so it requires more effort and interaction from your audience to make an impact (they need to stop and read it).
In the case of PWC, we chose monthly advertising in the local paper as the foundation of our marketing program. We decided upon the local newspaper because it has the broadest reach. Prescott isn't big enough to have its own evening television news, so the newspaper is the best vehicle for local news.
If you live in a big city, the local newspaper may not be practical because of cost. In that case, you may want to try a niche newspaper or magazine, like a business or lifestyle journal, or maybe a regionalized newspaper. In Phoenix for instance, the Arizona Republic is the main newspaper, but all the cities around Phoenix, like Scottsdale and Tempe, also have their own papers.
Because PWC is a Web site, there's an assumption we should be using only online methods to advertise. Online methods are good, and PWC does use them, but they only take you so far. Print is a part of the "real world" -- something you can touch and pick up, not virtual like a Web site. Print has also been around a lot longer, and carries more trust with it. We found by using print, some of that trust and "real world" essence rubbed off, making PWC seem less anonymous and more like a "bricks and mortar" business (a business with a store front).
Also, since we were trying to drive local traffic to the site, it made sense to advertise locally rather than attracting people from all over the world. But even with our local advertising, we still have a substantial number of visitors from around the state, including Phoenix and Tucson, as well as all over the globe.
The point of our marketing program was to advertise regularly so we could both build the PWC brand and drive traffic to the Web site. Yet it was essential to keep our costs down. So we leveraged our monthly newspaper advertising to stretch our marketing dollar as far as we could. More on that and how we "thought small" in the next article.
Posted in
advertising,
publicity
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Written on 3:00 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Ok, so you’re at that stage where you’ve gotten just enough
content to publish your first e-book, finally the grunt work is
out of the way.
Sit back and pat yourself on the shoulder for a job well done.
Next task on the list?
How to add fresh content to your already existing e-book, I
personally find it much easier to add to an already existing
e-book then to create an e-book!
But one does not shine without the other.
Can you think of any “sub-niche” market your target audience
would like more information about, something that would
definitely grab their attention and add:
• Punch to your e-book.
• Increased interest for your e-book
but even more importantly…
• Increased sales of your ebook
• Add a “higher perception value” to your already existing ebook
How do you go about finding that all elusive nugget?
Always turn to your target market for the best ideas on which
“sub-niche market’s” to explore next, not what you think they
might be interested in but what they are buying and recommending
to others.
Case-In-Point:
A few months ago I created an e-book related to a certain breed
of dog. I made it through the grunt work and now simply add to
the e-book one step at a time, one product review or interview at
a time.
I ended up picking (by reading what the most used products or
most wanted products by this particular target market were) a
pedigree software program for a back end sales product. This
pedigree software program helps owners of animals keep all the
details they could ever want to track in a database about their
pets.
What owner wouldn’t want to know about a software program that
could help make tracking certain details of their pets easy and
convenient?
So I simply contacted the owner of this particular software
program, told him that I was interested in including information
about his product in the e-book I had created. He knew it was a
win/win situation and gladly agreed to answer a couple of
questions regarding how his software worked and what benefit it
could bring to the reader.
The end result, more content for the e-book with only a few
minutes of work involved on my part plus the possibilities of
making commission from the back end sales of the pedigree
software which sells for $95.00 U.S., which I get a nice chunk of
every time someone clicks on my link and makes a purchase.
So you see, it’s not that hard to add fresh content to your
e-book.
With the right angle, you can make your e-book unique from your
competitors, more informative to the reader, putting more money
in your pocket.
Summary:
Expanding an already existing e-book is simply a matter of
reading what products your target market purchases, analyzing
their wants and needs, focusing on one “sub-niche market” at a
time.
Posted in
publicity
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Written on 2:59 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record
of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This
article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad
tracker.
FOR AFFILIATES
#1. The Long Url Problem
Have you ever seen an ad where you are asked to click on an affiliate URL so long that it stretches over 2 lines, like this
http://www/anysite.com/cgi-bin/dir1/dir2/.cgi?code=123RT&type=102
35&subid=89715
Do you think your reader will bother to do the necessary cut and paste to put it in a browser?
Probably not.
And that's probably one lost sale.
And even a one line affiliate link may exceed the permissible length for some ad posting requirements.
The solution: use a short tracking URL.
#2. Losing Your Affiliate Code
As an affiliate you may have your affiliate code embedded in a link something like this:
http://www.abc.com/123
Some customers will bypass the affiliate code and just type in the home URL http://www.abc.com/ (possibly because they think that they will be paying extra for an agent's commission)
The solution: use a tracking URL - so that your affiliate code number is never seen.
#3. Make Your Ad Stand Out
You may have seen search engine results showing near identical listings for the same product, differing only in an affiliate code appended to the URL.
Your listing here will be just one of many unless you make it stand out. So bypass the standard affiliate URL and use a tracking URL.
#4. How Effective Are The Links
You can measure and compare the effectiveness of the different banners or text links the affiliate programs provide you by using a tracking URL.
#5. Changing Links
If an affiliate company change their links then your existing ads, wherever they are posted, become worthless. But if you use a tracking URL you simply revise the affiliate URL at the tracking control centre.
#6. Affiliate Program Discontinued
Similarly if an affiliate program is discontinued you just change your tracking URL to a new page where you explain the circumstances and point your visitor to your other promotions.
#7. Better Affiliate Stats
Not all affiliate programs provide you with stats about visitors. And if they do are they adequate ?
Compare a basic monthly figure say
- Jan: 39 hits
with a detailed analysis such as
- Jan 12: 10 hits
- Jan 13: 2 hits
- Jan 20: 21 hits
- Jan 21: 6 hits
where you can relate those dates to particular ad campaigns.
Tracking URLs will give you these improved figures.
#8. Checking Affiliate Stats
Even if you do receive good stats from your affiliate program it still makes sense to use tracking URLs so that you can compare your figures with theirs.
A large discrepancy could mean errors in their software or (hopefully not) fraudulent activity on their part.
An alternative reason is that their measurement takes place when their page is fully loaded rather than at the start, indicating that visitors are clicking away because it is taking too long to load.
FOR EZINE PUBLISHERS
#9. Win Advertisers With Tracking Reports
If you sell advertising space in your ezine you can offer to your advertisers to replace their URLs with your tracking URLs and Email them the results.
Tell your advertisers about these benefits in your advertising guidelines
- They will know the number of clickthroughs their ad has generated. They can then decide how to improve the ads for better performance
- If they use a tracker program with your own domain name in the tracking URL your ezine subscribers will be more inclined to click
- They can use your ezine as a test centre, modifying their ads until they are happy, before launching with other publishers
#10. Use Tracking Report Results
The tracking reports above will provide you with information on your subscribers' interests, influencing your editorial content and helping you select which potential advertisers to approach.
Also, once your advertisers have seen for themselves the benefits of an ad tracking program they will be inclined to purchase one. So set yourself up as an affiliate for a program and promote it to them.
#11. Measure Your Readership
You may know how many subscribers you have but how many actually open and read your ezine and which parts of it attract most attention ?
Here's how to find out if you distribute your ezine in HTML Format: include an image on your page, e.g a banner or logo or a single pixel GIF. Then reference this image with a tracking URL.
For an ezine distributed as plain text it is not possible to see if it is actually opened or read. But what you can do is insert tracking URLs at the appropriate points, such as product offers or special articles, and get comparative figures for which items are being read.
AT YOUR WEB SITE
#12. The Problem Of Permanent URLs
Web sites are continually evolving and changing.
You may want to rename a page to make it more consistent and logical but there's a huge problem. You have given out the URL in an ebook, or a directory submission, or an article or wherever. There's no way you can undo this.
The solution ?
Never provide the actual URL, just a tracking URL. You can then just edit the link at the tracking centre whenever a page is moved or renamed.
The external links, in your ebook for example, stay the same but they will redirect to your new page.
#13. What Are Your Visitors Doing ?
You have text links all over your site, links to your other pages and links to recommended sites.
Where are your visitors clicking ?
Where are they leaving your site, why, how can you stop them ?
Which graphic do they click on the most ?
Do they click on the text link more than the graphic link?
Your log files may tell you at best which are the most popular pages at your site but it is vital to know how your visitors move through your site and what is tempting them.
Use tracking URLs to replace actual links wherever you need to monitor click activity.
#14. Sell Website Advertising Space
You can offer tracking reports to your advertisers in the same way as for ezine publishers (above).
#15. Stop Piracy
If you have invested man-months of time setting up a vital resource site involving a directory of links it's very easy for a pirate to simply copy your page and provide useful content for his own site.
If you use tracking URLs for those directory links you can detect this copy - because the ad tracking program will record the referring URL.
At the same time of course you can measure the popularity of the directory links.
USING PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES
#16. Better Click Activity Reporting
Pay per click search engines will report to you click activity on your URL. Engines vary in the frequency and format of the reporting so you can use tracking URLs instead to obtain better information.
#17. Prevent Fraudulent Activity
You can compare your figures with the engine's and should query any large discrepancy.
If click activity is unusually high you may have a competitor clicking on just to incur costs against you. You may be able to detect this by comparing the figures for unique hits and actual hits (several hits per visitor).
OFFLINE MARKETING
#18. Check How Successful
If you have ever wondered whether it was worth advertising off line because of the supposed impossibility of measuring the response then ad tracking URLs will answer that problem. Just include them in your ads in
- newspapers
- magazines
- flyers
- billboards
- press releases
- shop notice boards
- and so on
#19. Use The Time Reports
The date and time when clicks are made will allow you to check the progress of your ads, for example
- has your newspaper ad been submitted yet ?
- has your billboard notice been removed ?
- how long does a magazine ad stay around ?
For a long running ad you can study the response and switch the link midstream if necessary to an improved web page.
EBOOKS
#20. Do Free Books Work ?
The main purpose of a free ebook is to get the reader back to your site. But how successful is it proving ?
Put tracking URLs in the book and you will find out.
#21. Maintain Control After Download
Once your ebook is downloaded it would appear that you no longer have any control over it. Not so. You can redirect the reader to other pages of your site by changing the tracking Url links.
OTHER WAYS
#22. Become An Ad Tracking Affiliate
Since ad tracking programs are high demand marketing tools you can profit by joining their affiliate program (if they have one).
Owning the product that you promote always gives that extra advantage e.g you can give an example of how you use it or a personal testimonial as to how it has benefited you.
#23. Privacy
You may want to post an URL somewhere and - for reasons of your own - not let it reveal your website. You can do this with an ad tracking program where the supplier domain name is used in the tracking URL.
Posted in
advertising,
affiliate programs,
publicity
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Written on 2:57 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
Posted in
publicity,
SEO
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Written on 2:55 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
1. Start a newsletter that people can subscribe to, and use an autoresponder service like GetResponse (http://www.getresponse.com/) or Aweber (http://www.aweber.com/) to capture and store your subscribers’ contact information.
2. Use the double-opt rather than single opt-in method to capture qualified targeted leads. Why? Because double opt-in requires new subscribers to confirm their subscription (yes, I want what you have to offer) and reduces the chances of a bounced email.
3. Refer people to your web page that offers them a freebie (free report, ebook, etc.), capture their name, email address & phone number (optional) and then take them to your home page while behind the scenes your autoresponder provides a series of follow-up emails to them automatically, re-introducing yourself and your business offer. Studies show that most people need to see your offer at least 7 times before they make a decision to purchase.
4. Include a headline & outline the features/benefits of the product or service you are offering on your web site. Make it easy for your audience to understand what they will gain by buying from you.
5. Include written testimonials from people who have used your product or service on your web site. Include audio testimonials that prospects can listen to and you will really capture their attention.
6. Let your "personality" come across in your newsletters. Allow your subscribers to know who you are and what you are about. Keep it real and be honest with them. By establishing trust and credibility with your prospects, you will greatly increase the return on your investment in time and money.
7. Be sure to include plenty of informational articles on your web site that focus on educating your visitors. Add or replace older articles with new ones on your web site each month. Keep you web site content fresh and exciting to your viewing audience. The more content you have the better. Search engines tend to rank sites higher that have a good deal of content and good content keeps your visitors or prospects coming back for more.
8. Write an informational article about a topic related to your business and post it on your web site. Include an "About The Author" resource box at the bottom of the article that includes your name, company, telephone number, address, web site link and your permission to re-print and use your article on their web site or e-zine as long as your resource box remains intact. Submit your article to web sites like http://www.ezinearticles.com/ and watch your web site traffic increase substantially.
9. Include a "Refer a Friend" section on your web site and add a hyperlink to this in your newsletter. This gives your visitors and subscribers and opportunity to share your URL with others. Most autoresponder packages make it easy to do this.
10. Start your own affiliate program using an affiliate management solution like AssocTRAC (http://www.assoctrac.com/). Promote your new affiliate program on your web site or newsletter. Watch as you recruit a global sales force eagerly willing to promote what you have to offer. They send you a paying customer and you cut them a commission check. It’s as simple as that.
Posted in
page ranking,
publicity
|
Written on 2:54 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.
In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:
1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.
2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.
3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.
4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.
5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.
6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.
7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.
8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.
9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.
10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.
11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that
you have updated your content.
a) http://www.ping-o-matic.com/
b) http://www.rssfeedpromoter.com/
So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?
Posted in
blogger
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Written on 2:47 AM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
1) You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially Banners have a less of 0,5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.
2) Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.
3) No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them again having the same color with your website's background.
4) No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside
your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.
6) Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay per Click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways is link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.
7) Do not rely on one website. Yes you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.
8) Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is http://www.articleequalizer.com .You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!
9) Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
10) Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find relevant ad in your page he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.
First the file must be saved with the appropriate name for example: Golf-Secrets.html if your article is about golf. So the webpage will be:
www.yoursitesname.com/Golf-Secrets.html
Second thing you must change is your title tag. For example:
Title Golf-Secrets article title
Third is the heading. The first sentence must have this heading:
12 Golf secrets
Posted in
adsense,
CTR,
earning
|
Written on 3:15 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
If you would like to add your website or blog's link here while adding mine to your own, email me at alikarachi@hotmail.com and I will have a look to ensure it is related to my blog.
Hopefully you will soon see it here.
Posted in
link exchange
|
Written on 3:11 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Many affiliates fail in affiliate marketing because they limit their marketing strategies to placing referral links in their web sites, distributing links to business sites through multiple emails or posting their links to other web pages. Doing any of these alone would not guarantee sales and thus, your commission.
You have to exert effort to promote your affiliate products and make yourself ahead of the thousands of other affiliate marketers who are selling the same products in the Internet. There is actually no perfect sure-win get-rich-quick scheme or formula in affiliate marketing; but using tried and tested ways to promote your affiliate products can be of great help. The following are eight promotional techniques used and proven to be effective by experienced affiliate marketers.
First, provide visitors of your website enough information about the product. Aside from your website design, the content of your web page counts a lot in capturing the interest of the guest. Your web pages must contain factual and objective articles on the product, such as product reviews. In the informative articles, state the products’ special features, benefits and advantages over other brands of its kind. Take note, you are not selling but informing.
You are trying to establish the value and desirability of the product and thus, convince the visitor that the product matches his needs and wants. He will then follow the link and complete his purchase. Spice up the content of your web pages with statements like “And not only that, there’s more..” that does not only create suspense but likewise hold the interest of the reader to know more of the product. There’s no perfect product, of course, so you can also reveal some of its negative attributes but don’t let them overshadow the good ones.
Second is through the use of testimonials and endorsements from respected or relevant individuals who are using the product. This sounds like a familiar marketing strategy but this still works. These testimonials validate the information you are presenting about the product; this way, you build confidence and trust of the client.
In addition, you exude an impression that you are an expert in the field since you are able to prove that the product and services you are offering really works as assured. Remember that your prospects are also conducting researches on their own so make sure you can back up every claim with facts and figures.
Next promotional strategy is through marketing banners. Make these banners attractive enough for visitors to click them. However, don’t overuse banners as they can make your site messy, too. Webmasters say users generally do not have negative remarks about banners. In fact, they appreciate that they can shop through the site they frequently visit.
Others, however, find crowded banner ads annoying, so limit your use of banner ads. The fourth is offering newsletters, which guests of your site can opt-in to. In the newsletter, you can place informative articles, advertisements, affiliate program links, news and features. In this way, you can regularly inform them of the hottest products available or you can get their interest to check your site every now and then.
You can add to your site a forced opt-in page, the fifth most effective marketing strategy. Here you may put an emphatic headline, a problem, an offer, which is a solution to that problem and an autoresponder opt-in box. As the visitor signs up, he is directed to the business site, while you increase your highly targeted mailing list.
Remember that signing up signifies his interest, so it’s not a waste of time sending emails to that possible buyer. Statistics show that most sales are generated from second and third mailings, so follow up. Using the same mailing list, you can also promote affiliate products through “thank you” emails.
If emailing doesn’t work well for you, then try the sixth way to effectively promote your affiliate products, using advertising services like Google AdWords. The Google AdWords helps you meet your marketing goals in a fast, effective and easy manner. Through this, your own ads are connected to a large number of users who are exactly in need of your products and services.
After you have created your ads, you can see them on Google right away and many buyers online likewise can. You get quick response to your ads and you get to advertise with Internet users who are actually interested in buying. You can also define or choose your target market area, allowing you to get the best possible results.
Although you are not involved in the actual selling process, you are responsible for referring a customer to the merchandisers’ business website and convincing him to buy so you are sure of your commission.
The seventh most effective way of promoting the product and compelling a visitor of your website to go to the merchants’ site and buy is to tell something about the price. Higher-priced items give you the most commissions but they are hard to market since customers always have the propensity to go for the lowest priced.
But you can work on this by breaking down the total cost and putting it in words to make it appear cheaper. Instead of stating the lump sum, state how much he has to pay in affordable installments or how much dollars or cents he has to spend everyday.
Lastly, you may want to be extra generous to your prospects by giving them bonuses. Add-ons and freebies are always inviting, especially when they match the interests of the buyer. It doesn’t have to be expensive; you can even just customize it, say a CD with freewares and tips and list on the best online resources on interesting topics. Make it unique so your prospects can’t easily price it and compare it to the offers of your competitors. Be creative and know what your buyers want. For sure, you’ll get what you want, too.
Posted in
affiliate programs
|
Written on 3:09 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be
desired. We have ads that emulate Windows-warning boxes. We
have pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with
the intent to make people notice them. However, most of them
only end up irritating them. Advertisers, especially those
with small budgets, can't afford to waste money on
ineffective buys. In order to optimize your advertising
buys, you need to concentrate on improving your creative.
Here are some tips that might help:
Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign
The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is to
have a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a
specific group of people, your initial aim may be to target
at least 1000 internet surfers and so on and so forth. Have
a well defined, clear purpose.
Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your
goals
Sites that are most relevant to your product or service
will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider
larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're
trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you
have multiple products or services that appeal to various
target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all
those various segments.
Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience
you're targeting
This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites
you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology
site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have
the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus
your campaign.
Step 4: Content of your Ad
Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The
content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your
product or service from your competitors’. Have a catchy
headline. The headline is probably the most important part
of the Ad – It is the customer puller.
Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that
correspond to your goals
The promotional messages should concentrate on the major
selling points of your product or service and have a strong
call-to-action.
Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible
This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should
necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be
visible within an accepted format for the media you're
using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links,
"click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all
ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.
Step 7: Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the
sites where you're advertising
For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in
your text, color schemes in your background, font color
choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try
to conform to the environment so potential customers
visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad.
Step 8: Produce multiple versions of each ad
Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the
promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color
schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price
testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By
splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of
your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based
on the message that works best.
With these tips, you will not only be able to create an ad,
but you will be able to create an effective ad that does
what it is supposed to do – sell your products and services.
Posted in
advertising,
earning
|
Written on 3:08 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
After having chosen several programs to join, you probably realize that customers won't knock on your door - you have to come to them. By promoting your affiliate programs successfully, you build your own success!
So what should you do to promote your affiliate programs? Here are five methods which have succeeded for millions and can succeed for you, if you choose to follow the same steps as those millions before you!
#1 Create your own marketing affiliate program materials.
Many people use the marketing materials provided by the program they signed up for. Guess what? Thousands of people are using those same materials, those same ready-made websites and those same advertisements. People are easily bored and those ads get old really, really fast. Create something brand new and all your own!
* Create your own promotional website instead of using a stale, pre- packaged website. This is not very expensive and the returns can be huge!
* Create your own brochures and pamphlets. Whether using email or mailing materials to prospects in the old-fashioned way, be sure your material is fresh and new.
* Create compelling business cards. The business cards you hand out to contacts that you network with should also be fresh, new, and cause the person reading the card to feel compelled to contact you. A simple byline such as "Information on Becoming an Overnight Success" can be all it takes to make that person call you for more information.
* Write original articles and submit for publication to ezines for exposure of your fresh material.
#2 Generate Leads from an Opt-In Email List
Sure, you can buy names from email lists, but are those people even interested in the type of product you have to offer? Probably not! Create an opt-in mailing list by allowing prospects who come to your website to choose to receive a free newsletter. This gives you the opportunity to include information in the newsletter about your products. Why is this the best way?
* Allows contact with people who have at least some interest in the product you are promoting on your website
* Generates mailing list for future products you may promote
* Saves tons of money compared to buying mailing lists!
After all, think of all those flyers that come in the newspaper. What do you do with them? If you are like most people, you throw them away because they don't pertain to you. If all the flyers in your newspaper were placed there because you, personally, had expressed interest in them, you probably would read them all! This is the difference between random mailing and mailing to prospects that share an interest in your product type!
#3 Network, Network, Network
Never miss an opportunity to network with others who may have an interest in your products, or even be interested in joining the affiliate program under you.
* Share your own success story with others you encounter. Many will be interested in joining you in your endeavor.
* Offer to mentor new prospects to ensure their success.
* Exchange business cards and make follow-up calls to encourage them to talk with you further about your programs.
#4 Use Blogs to Promote Your Programs.
In the past year, blogs have become extremely popular. You can use this forum to your advantage in promoting your affiliate marketing programs.
* Generate top-quality content to place on the blogs.
* Be sure that the blogs you choose are not over saturated by affiliate marketers already. Locate fresh blogs to use in your promotions.
* Content should compel the reader to action. Make them HAVE to check out your program.
#5 Use banner exchanges to your advantage.
Most marketers know that banner exchanges can help them promote their products, but there are a few tricks to success.
* Make sure your banner is placed on sites that will attract the same client base that will desire you product.
* Create attractive and compelling banner content. Plain-Jane banner ads won't attract, those that send acompelling message to act will!
* Always look for new places for your banner to appear. Don't become complacent because you have three or four sites showing your banner. There are new websites every single day!
These five tips will help you successfully promote your affiliate programs. There are many other ways to promote products, but these are proven to work for people who dedicate themselves to ensuring their programs get the necessary exposure to succeed.
Posted in
affiliate programs,
publicity
|
Written on 3:06 PM by Faraz Uzzaman Khan
Step One: Select right keyword for web SEO Optimization.
You must choose your keywords carefully. This is the most important step of the SEO. Wrong or ineffective keywords mean invalid keyword optimization. You should find popular keywords and phrases related to your business, then know search popularity and competition number of every keywords. The keywords with more popularity and less competition will be your targeted keyword phrases.
Resources:
Best Promotion Keywords - http://www.websitepromotionsoft.com/bestpromotionkeyword.html
Overture - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Google - https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
2. Step Two: Optimize your website ranking factors.
Once you have finished keyword analysis and selected specified keywords, you should optimize your web site to improve search engine position. The important ranking factors including website title tags, description tags, meta keyword tags, heading text, link url, link text, image alt, comment and web page body text.
Every keyword frequency, weight, size, prominence
and proximity all affect the ranking. You should optimize all these factors carefully. The top 10 ranking website content and ranking factors will give your more help.
Resources:
Web Optimization Angel - http://www.websitepromotionsoft.com/weboptimizationangel.html
WebPositionGold - http://www.webposition.com/d2.pl?r=TBI-55EC&FN=download.htm
3. Step Three: Submit url to search engines directories.
After search engine optimization page design, Submiting all your web sites to Google, Yahoo, MSN, DMOZ and the other major engines. Manual free submit url is recommend. At
http://www.websitepromotionsoft.com/submit-url-free.html you can find top 588 search engine list with homepage, submit url address, alexa rank, google page rank, google inbound links and google including site pages.
Resources:
search engine PageRank order list - http://www.websitepromotionsoft.com/search-engine-list-page-rank.html
4 .Step Four: Link Exchange and Manager.
Link popularity is the total number of websites that link to your web site, and is an extremely important method of improving your site's relevancy and position as many engines are using
this information as a ranking criterion. Both the quantity and quality of link popularity is important. The best links are "relevant" links from web pages related to your keyword or topic.
Resources:
External Link Promotion - http://www.websitepromotionsoft.com/external-link-promotion.html
5. Step Five: Monitoring and ReOptimizing.
Often checking your website search engine position of your targeted keywords, if not satisfied with optimization ranking results, you should do more SEO to achieve higher search engines ranking position.
Posted in
publicity,
SEO
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