Author: Mike Spratt

The key to getting on traffic to your website is having your website on the front page of search engines. Studies show that surfers are notorious impatient and while they are highly motivated, they have a very short attention span. If their interest is not grabbed immediately by you, they will wander off to whatever topic shouts the loudest at them.

So how do you get high up the rankings? Well the first step is see where you sit right now. There are various services to check your page ranking and while you are there try a few of your competitors websites also. So where do you sit? Best in class? Midway? or Tailend Charlie? Store these results and check back often until you get a decent feeling for how you are perceived. If you are number 1 and stay there - congratulations. You are winning the a big share of business that comes via the web.

For everybody else you now have a target to beat. One very important element in Search Engine Rankings is the number and quality of the inbound links to your website. The more and better links you have the higher your page ranking.

So the second step is to look at your own inbound links and your top competitor. Check it out and take note of who is linking to your top competitor and not to you. Repeat this for all your competitors who have a higher Page ranking than you.

Now you have a readymade list of websites to contact to seek reciprocal links! Just send them an e-mail and ask for a link. What is the worst thing that can happen, they say no? Why do they link to your competitor and not to you? Perhaps you should seek links from their competitors? In other cases you will see that links are from directories who will all have a subscribe mechanism, which you can also use.

In this way you can start pushing yourself up the page rankings and getting to the top of the search engines. There are a few other tricks such as articles like this one, blogging, social book marking that will be the subject of future articles.

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Author: Robert Johnston

Many business owners fail to bring in new clients because they do not have the least idea how to answer questions that may allow them to develop a new business relationship. No matter how many  color business cards  you distribute, you won’t accomplish anything if you cannot describe what you do without driving the person away.

You have to know how to approach people in an informal setting and answer any questions they may have about your business. You do not need to tell them your process or any other details, but you must be able to discuss your business without losing their attention. The process of  business card printing  is not going to help you speak with perspective clients although it will help you provide a lead for them to follow.

When you talk to perspective clients, do not give your job title but rather use a descriptive collection of words that will not bore your prospect to tears. You have only one chance to talk to a perspective client, and if you fail to capture the moment you will not get another chance. Whether that first meeting was after presentation of color business cards or at a party you still must make the first impression a lasting one.

You should take the time to develop a good first line introduction before you meet any perspective clients for the first time. In fact, it is a good idea to begin this practice long before you are faced with an opportunity to present your company and yourself. When you are well-prepared for any questions a perspective client might ask, you will be appear more professional and less likely to appear eager and overzealous.

Choosing your words carefully is the key to success. You don’t want to come across as being desperate to gain their attention but at the same time you don’t want to appear as if you don’t care one way or the other either. You want to present yourself somewhere in the middle—you want the business but you want it to be on their terms.

Never pressure anyone or you will definitely lose the sale even if you did not initiate the call or meeting. No one likes high pressure sales people, and that is the easiest way to find someone returning to their car because they think they left the lights on when it isn’t even dark.

Follow your client’s mannerisms—you will be able to tell if he or she is seriously interested in your business or is just making small talk. At most informal functions people tend to ask questions just to pass the time rather than because they are really interested in what you do. Be sure you know how to recognize the difference and don’t jump on a limb for someone making small time conversation.

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Author: Kuldeep Singh

The primary reason you want to submit articles is to get links back to your site, but how are you formatting that link in the resource box? You want to have the anchor text of the links to be the keywords you want to rank for, yes, but it’s important that you don’t have the same anchor text in every link.  Why? Because if the search engines see that every link to your site contains the exact same anchor text, it’s a red-flag that your links were not acquired naturally.

People don’t always behave the same, and search engines know that it’s statistically impossible that every single person who links to your site will use the same link text.  So be sure to vary your link text. I like to reinforce my main keywords while also optimizing for related keywords. For instance, if your site’s primary keywords are “kitchen remodeling”, you could use a variation like “kitchen remodeling tips” or “kitchen remodeling advice” or “how to remodel your kitchen”.

Those anchor texts still help reinforce your ranking for your primary keywords since they contain your primary keywords (or variations), but they also help you rank for lesser terms–and it’s the lesser terms that are the easiest to rank for.  So when submitting to article sites, be sure and vary your anchor text, using your primary keywords about 70% of the time.

This is simple enough to accomplish: just change your resource box for each site that you submit to.  Submit Slowly to Avoid the Sandbox  there is one school of thought that Google and Yahoo both penalize links that appear too fast. They basically wait for months before actually applying the value of those links to your ranking.

This is referred to in the search engine optimization world as “sandboxing”.  As of right now, MSN (under its new name, Live) does not sandbox links. So if you’re looking to rank and get some traffic going quickly, getting a lot of links fast will pay off with MSN. You’ll just have to wait a while before seeing many results in Google and Yahoo.

If you’re trying to rank in Google or Yahoo as quickly as possible, and if you’re a believer in the sandbox theory, then you’re best bet is to submit to the article sites a little more slowly. Maybe only submit to a few a weeks. This will cause your links to build more “naturally” from the search engines point of view.  If you’re Not a Sandbox Believer…  There are other schools of SEO thought that claim sandboxing doesn’t exist at all.

Their theory is that it just takes a long time for the algorithm updates to hit Google and Yahoo so that your links are counted. If they are correct, then it’s still best to get as many links as possible as quickly as possible, and then just wait for them to be applied.  What I Believe  I tend to lean away from the Sandbox theory myself, but not because I have a lot of empirical evidence that it doesn’t exist.

It just seems illogical to me for search engines to sandbox links just because they appear quickly.  For example, let’s say there’s some big news event that happens regarding some web site, and suddenly thousands of links appear from every news site covering that sector. Would it make sense for the search engines to ignore all of those links just because they appeared quickly? It was natural that they appear quickly, since the event was unexpected.

So I tend to believe that it just takes a while to update the rankings for billions of web pages, and therefore the links don’t kick in immediately.  Summing it All Up  whatever your Sandbox beliefs are, you can see that your linking strategy needs to be analyzed before you start submitting to article sites. Take a few minutes to come up with the list of keywords you want to rank for. Try to get at least five or six sets of keywords into your article resource boxes.

Don’t put all of your keywords into one basket, so to speak.  Taking a little time to plan out your submission strategy could save you from wasting all of that time only to find that the search engines have ignored your links because they think they’re “not natural”.

It’s not big news that submitting articles to free article sites is one of the best ways to get free one-way links into your sites. However, it’s important that you think about your linking strategy when submitting articles, otherwise all of your efforts will be lost. Here’s why.

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Author: Kuldeep Singh

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is defined in the Wikipedia as a “set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings”. To the average webmaster, it’s how you get higher up in the search engine results pages and get more traffic. There are many myths and also many great pieces of advice I see floating around so I am presenting a list to you, the reader, of what to do and what not to do in the SEO world.

Having the correct knowledge you can get the best results. I see quite often sites employing “tricks” like hidden text and keyword spamming, and hopefully after reading this article you will at the very least know what to avoid like the plague. After all, while some of these tricks work even momentarily, in the long run (usually within a month) you get heavily penalized or banned.

SEO DO’S :

1. Original content – Search engines reward websites with original content, which will also naturally draw incoming links and visitors as well. Original content can be anything from product reviews to a blog to your own articles.

2. Add more content regularly – How often a website is updated can have a big impact on your search engine ranking. Most search engines prefer fresh content, so you become a more preferred source by constantly having new and fresh content.

3. Research your keywords – You need to research which keywords you want to target before you even start making your website. These are the keywords that you will be targeting in backlinks when possible and your main page will revolve around these keywords.

4. Create a sitemap – Sitemaps are a definitely plus. It helps search engines walk your website with ease, since you’re hand-feeding it the list of webpages. It can also greatly help visitors find what they are looking for on your website. Be sure to link to your sitemap from your main page.

5. Use HTML – While this may sound obvious, there are sites out there created entirely in flash or javascript. While some search engines can read part of javascript, by not using regular html link between pages on your site may not even get seen by search engines, and your page text may never be seen, so your target keywords are never seen by the search engines.

6. W3C compliant – Making your web pages complies with the World Wide Web Consortium’s standards is always a good idea. It is impossible to know exactly how the search engine spiders read a web page, so it is impossible to know how it will handle non-standard code. You can bet, though, that it has been tested to handle html code that follows the standard.

7. Webpage title tag – Be sure to put your target keywords in your title tag.

8. Build backlinks at a normal pace – Don’t use one of those link farm programs where every member automatically shows links to all the other members. Search engines will see you one day literally showing thousands of backlinks instantly and this could get you penalized or banned.

Link exchanges are fine if they’re the type where you agree to or initiate each exchange, because if you were out looking for link exchange partners you would be doing the same thing. The key is not have thousands of backlinks show up instantly.

SEO DON’TS :

1. Avoid cloaking – Cloaking is when you give your visitors one page, and search engines another page. Search engines want to see and index what your visitors see. Getting caught cloaking can have dire consequences on your site ranking.

2. Avoid hidden text – This is making text, but background or near-background color. Normally it has tons of text that is meant for only search engines to see (they read raw html), and is loaded with keywords. Search engines are very good at catching this old trick and it will quickly get you a huge penalty or possibly a ban.

3. Avoid keyword stuffing/spamming – Avoid overloading your webpage with keywords that are only intended at tricking the search engines. The best way to avoid doing this is just write your text, with keywords in mind, towards your audience.

4. Avoid using flash or javascript for your navigation methods - Search engines usually can’t read these, or read them well enough to be dependable. Always use standard html links to be sure your site is easily walk able by search engine spiders.

5. Don’t submit your webpage url too often, if at all – You can submit your url directly to search engines, though search engines prefer to find your website via a backlink or incoming link. Resubmitting weekly or monthly can heavily damage your ranking with the search engines.

6. Avoid the “quickly get submitted to thousands of search engines” deals – While many of these do what they say, keep in mind that 98-99% of all search engines are powered by Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Just keep these 3 in mind and you’re covered.

7. Don’t forget backlinks – Link popularity plays very large into how your site is ranking by search engines, and is always a key element of SEO. Miss the backlinks part, and your SEO will suffer quite a bit.

8. Avoid excessive graphics and flash presentations – This is not to alter how the search engine looks at your site (directly), but at how your visitors view your site. There are many ways to make an effective website without overloading your visitors, and if a website takes more than 5 seconds to load, you will likely lose your visitor before they even get to visit your website.

As you can see, the list of things to do and things to avoid can have a large impact on your website. Heck, doing too many of the wrong things can get you outright banned and can be the demise of your website. The big things to keep in mind to keep you on the right track is to play it fair and don’t try to cheat the search engines. Cheating the search engines has a good chance at working in the short run, but usually in very short order you are worse off than when you started.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a buzzword to most people, but what it comes down to is how to get your site noticed by search engines more and thus more traffic. There are many good ways and bad ways to go about this, and inside I show you want to and what to avoid like the plague.

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Author: James Lowe

When you think of the term blog, does it represent money, income to you?

Do you believe that you could make money with this new craze? Well let it be known that, yes, people really are generating more business to their companies and they are making money.

When it comes right down to it, blogging can easily enlarge your net authority, and increase credibility and market value. Some people even claim that they are only in business because blogging has made it possible for them. They also claim that the business they have gotten has increased significantly as a result of it.

The object is to have a niche and to keep everything small. If you are looking for a range of view or balance you will find yourself lost in the shuffle. The general premise of a blog is to sell an idea. Anyone who makes blogs is not merely asking for money

because of the blog itself, the ideas are the star of the show and the blog is merely the vessel to transport it to the clients. It is one of the best ways to gain reputation in business networking, this in turn leads to more business and finally to what you have been striving for, which is profit.

They are kind of like a tool that you need to transport information in short bursts, so as to not confuse or overwhelm the customer. By keeping them short, many business people believe that the original message or core idea remains intact.

There is thought among the net industry that far more intangible ideas and products are being peddled online these days. This in turn decreases paid content value, rerouting the connection between the business and the client is the primary goal.

One of the best methods to date, to generate business and profit is to employ a good blogger. Bloggers have a way of gaining trust. They also can capture the market with the use of strategic reputation.

Microsoft is one of the leading employers of the blogging trend, and uses the blogs on all their sites and sales pitches. Microsoft feels that if they have multiple blogs that give small portions of information and tid-bits, of needed content.

They can reach a broader market and keep people informed on what they are doing in the business and any market adjustments that may come your way. If more companies go this route, you could easily see a change in the face of business.

Faster communication between client and company, more precise information packets that are not stressing to understand, and an overall cleaner appearance are the goal with the blogging industry. These little vessels of information just may be here to stay.

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Author: Chris Vendilli

So what’s so popular about MySpace and why do so many young adults flock there in droves?  Could it be the amazingly well-designed user interface?  Or perhaps it’s the ease of use coupled with the endless possibilities for exploitation.  That’s right, I said exploitation.

Why spend endless amounts of time trying to get web traffic to come to you when you could be doing just the opposite?  I suggest going to where the traffic already exists.  There are numerous techniques that a well educated MySpace marketer can use to legally and completely within the MySpace terms of use, draw nearly infinite amounts of traffic to their website.

Even if you don’t have a website you can use other proven systems to market advertisements and promotions to your MySpace friends where you could be receiving juicy commissions that could fill up your banking account faster than you could say “hog’s breath.”

I have personally used the methods I preach and can honestly tell you that there is no better time to jump into the world of internet marketing other than right now.

This very second, you should stop what you’re doing and consider this:  There is no such thing as “getting rich quick,” but there is a such things as “getting rich fast” if you use a proven system that others have developed and fine tuned before you.

There are teenagers who have never had any formal training on internet marketing or web design, who are making $25, $50, and even $100 dollars per day on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster.  How do they do it, you must be wondering?  That’s the secret, they’ve discovered their own methods and have fine tuned them to a point where they’re nearly auto-pilot profit-pulling machines.

Don’t let this unique internet income opportunity leave you in the dust while others are cashing in and then cashing out.  The MySpace bandwagon is full of teens and young adults that are just begging to be exploited as an endless supply of clicks and visits to your website.

If you have a product or service that would be of interest to this target audience and you’re not already capitalizing on some of the proven methods that can really get your website the attention that it truly deserves, then you are missing the boat!  This ship is about to sail, don’t be one of the few losers who spends the next couple of years complaining about “missing the boat.”

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Author: Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo

Would you like to increase your home based business profits by 50% without increasing your marketing budget?  Direct sales opportunity, with the current economic and market situations as they are, is fast gaining ground and popularity as an alternative source of income.  Any direct sales consultant with a home business,  you know that marketing is a fundamental to building any successful direct sales home party business.

Where many a home party plans business owner stumble, struggle and fail is not knowing to whom they are marketing and how to market both online and offline!   You see the common urge in the mlm direct marketing industry is to try and crumb something down the throat of a would be customer.  When you get a potential customer, many will do an immediate sales pitch.

It is unfortunately premature and turns people off! A better method, that any direct sales marketing guru will tell you and a business best practice is the 2 step direct marketing.   Simply put,  2 step direct sales marketing is based on giving something away for free, or at low cost , with the purpose of getting something back in return.

Of course that something is a sale, but beyond that is the relationship.  The idea here is to start small and build.  You want to obliterate concerns before you sell them anything – this is what is termed as pre-selling.  Step

1: Give away something, time, free samples, free demos, a free report, free session of coaching or consulting.    Step

2: Get their contact information and permission to market to them.  This is called dripping information.  No hard sells please.  In this phase you are building rapport and trust.  Why?  So that you can begin to exert your influence.  Ever heard of the phrase Jump!  How high?  Good, that is the power you will command if your engage in the 2 step process!

So here is the psychology behind it You get a visitor to your site or meet a potential customer/business builder.   What you want to do is get their  1.Attention 2.Permission 3.Interact 4.Trust 5.Influence  You want to craft an irresistible offer, to raise the fever pitch if you will..  In doing so you will get their attention and in effect raise anticipation.

If you place and ad in a paper, mail out a postcard or have a website, the best way to get attention is an irresistible headline.  For example  How To Have “Killer” Sex At Any Age… Even If You Don’t Deserve It!  I have a feeling that got your attention and you are headed to google search to figure out if the book exists.  At the time of this writing, I have not yet ascertained the validity nor the existence of the book.

Your attention getting message must be compelling create a compelling giving just enough information about the product to get the prospect to take some sort of action. Invoke curiosity….   Direct Sales Training Tip  : Use the useful but incomplete rule…don’t give it all always.  You now what they say, why buy the cow if you can milk it for free?  2. Call to action

There is no point in crafting an irresistible offer only to drop the ball.  People like sheep, must be led every step of the way.   A call  to action is the desired action you would like the potential prospect, client or customer to make.  For example Click Here To Order.  Limitted Time Offer.  While Supplies Last.  Get Your Free Copy Today!

The purpose of the call to action is an exchange of information.  You are capitalizing on their desire to get their hands on what you have in return for their name, phone number, email address and where possible a physical mailing address!  This is called getting people to raise their hand for information.  This is the essence of <a href=”http://www.sethgodin.com/permission/”>permission marketing</a>, a term that is associated with Seth Godin,

Marketing Demi-god!  Those who raise their hands for information become very hot direct sales leads. These are great business opportunity prospects and an excellent way to build a list.  As every direct sales representative or home party consultant knows, the “fortune is in the follow-up!”  Once the information exchange that was initiated by you is done and you have provided them with the requested information don’t stop there. Now you get into the direct sales marketing relational capital area of things!

You all know of the dismal statistics    “95% OF PEOPLE FAIL WHEN THEY START A BUSINESS WITHOUT A SYSTEM.  95% PERCENT OF PEOPLE ARE SUCCESSFUL WHEN THEY START A BUSINESS WITH A SYSTEM! ” -    Entrepreneur Magazine  This is a direct result of lack of follow up and follow through!   Contrary to popular opinion, the money is not in the list. If you haven’t heard this before “the money is in the follow-up” so continually follow up.

Once you have permission to market to people set up an email marketing campaign! If you don’t have an autoresponder, get one, this is the easiest way to follow up. Send them an email as often as necessary to create a relationship and remind them of your backend product.

Don’t just do hard selling here.  I am a strong proponent of direct mail efforts with a combination of email marketing!  2 step direct - marketing  method is a time tested marketing method and will produce targeted prospects for your home based business.  The idea here is work smarter not harder!

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