PIPS is the best business opportunity for earning residual income. The basis of a successful home business is being able to earn residual and passive income. With your own PIPS business, you will earn income for many years in the future from the marketing efforts you apply today and the sales you make today. This makes PIPS an easy and smart way to make money online.
PIPS offers multiple streams of income from reputable affiliate programs. Many people who try affiliate marketing fail to succeed because they don�t pick affiliate programs that pay well, and some of the affiliate programs they pick suddenly go bankrupt and vanish overnight. PIPS comprises of solid affiliate programs that have been thriving for nearly 7 years. PIPS ensures that you earn income from several best affiliate programs that have the most lucrative commission payments structure on the internet. PIPS is in essence a very powerful multi-income stream machine which anyone can have and start earning money quickly. By promoting your single PIPS business website, you will be promoting many affiliate programs from which you can earn attractive commissions. This makes PIPS an attractive and well packaged business.
PIPS business has immense training. As soon as you sign up to the PIPS, you get your own �30 Days To Success Guide� which takes you by the hand and show you what to do to build your business and start making profits. All you have to do is to follow this guide and you can never fail to make money with your PIPS business. With this guide, you will learn all the key steps of promoting your business, which would otherwise take you years to learn on your own. PIPS training guide basically shortens your learning curve. No other online business models or opportunities offer such step-by-step training. All the information you need is available for you to use and achieve your own financial freedom.
The PIPS business models comes with all the marketing tools you need to succeed. Stone Evans provides to PIPS members all the tools he uses to build his own business. As a PIPS owner you get your own branded Dotcomology e-book to promote, which is one of the most powerful and highly read e-book on internet marketing. Many people fail to have their own internet home business because they do not have the necessary guidance to help them succeed. Not with PIPS. You�re not left alone drifting in the dark. In fact, PIPS offers so many marketing tools that you can never fail to build your business. No matter what your experience in internet marketing is, you are guaranteed to succeed because you get all the marketing tools you need and more.
PIPS is a business opportunity where a lot of support is provided. As a PIPS business owner, you also get automatic access to a dedicated forum for PIPS members where everyone share ideas, and help and support each other. The PIPS forum is one of the very few places on the internet today where you will be able to find and interact with people who are willing to help you build your business by giving you all the support you need so that you can start earning money.
PIPS is an evolving business that continues to develop. Stone Evans also continues to make additions and improvements to the PIPS program to the benefit of all PIPS business owners, thus ensuring that PIPS remains the most successful and top-notch business opportunity on the internet today.
PIPS business opportunity comes with an auto-responder system so that you can start earning money on autopilot. The success of any online business depends on being able to make money on autopilot 365 days, 24 hours a day! Your PIPS will be set up with an auto-responder and your own 400 day email marketing newsletter ready to build a list for you and promote your site to prospects on auto-pilot. This is a very valuable aspect of your home business, and you get this all set up for you.
PIPS is a business opportunity which rewards your hard work and efforts with ever increasing income. PIPS is not a get rich quick scheme. It�s a real business like any other offline business. Just like any other business; time, effort and commitment will be required to build your business. Because PIPS is a well designed home business program, all your efforts in building your business will be rewarded in the form of increasing commissions from the many affiliate programs you will be promoting.
Minimal start up and marketing costs. An online business requires some capital outlay, just like any other business. However, many online businesses require a high capital outlay which many people who want to earn money at home do not have. The beauty of PIPS is that the start-up costs are very minimal, so anyone can start their own PIPS business. You can start and build your own PIPs business on a shoe string budget.
You get many invaluable bonuses as a new PIPS business owner. Another attractive feature of the PIPS business opportunity is that when you sign up, you get many bonuses that are worth thousands of dollars which you can use to start promoting and building your business. Here�s a sneak peak at the bonuses you will get when you sign up for your own PIPS site.
Anyone can do it! Best of all, whether you know nothing about internet marketing or are an experienced internet marketer, you can start making money with your own PIPS business. You get your own website set up for you, and all the tools and support you need to grow your business. There is virtually no reason why you can not have your own PIPS business and start earning residual income on autopilot.
Earning a living online need not be hard. The PIPS makes making money online very easy and quick, and this is one of the key reasons why PIPS remains the best business opportunity of the decade. PIPS is a great program that provides you with all the tools and support you need to be successful online. Hundreds of thousands people are making money with PIPS today, and you can too!
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Advertise Your Busines Site in forums
Posting on forums is one of the cheapest and fastest ways in which you can advertise affiliate products on the Internet and it is a good way to attract potential Plug-In Profit signups or new subscribers to your Ezine. However, in order to do this successfully, you must do a number of things carefully.
First - an important warning:
Starting a thread that contains an affiliate link is a good way to get banned from a particular forum board and it is never be a good way to make sales.
You can start by finding a number of forums for your particular niche or marketing angle. You can find massive lists of forums at the following two URLs:
http://www.big-boards.com/
The site is currently the largest forum directory on the Internet.
Once you have selected a number of directories that match your specific marketing angle e.g. home business, work from home and make money forums, you will need to investigate to determine whether or not they have excess rules regulating signature files.
For instance, some sites do not allow any links in signature files; others, by contrast, allow links, but do not allow any commercial links. Make sure you know what the rules are before you post. Otherwise, you are simply setting yourself up to be banned from the forum.
Next, take the list of forums you have created – that are both relevant to your topic and allow commercial links – and begin developing a reputation on those forums.
The best way to start your forum marketing is to make multiple posts on a forum board before you even setup a signature file, which includes a link to your site. Even if the particular forum you are using does not specifically mandate this, you will want to do this, anyway, as it will increase your credibility – which is your real goal.
Post regularly, avoid meaningless fights and flaming, and contribute useful, on-target information to discussions. In a matter of 1-2 weeks, you will have developed a reputation, provided that the forum receives a considerable amount of traffic.
Once you have developed a good reputation, you will want to begin advertising through your forum signature. Ideally, you will want to include some eye-catching assortment of colors, symbols, and words in your signature.
This will draw people's attention. You will then want to link them to something other than an affiliate page – whether it be a page you created to sell an affiliate product or an auto responder course used to capture email addresses.
Remember to repeat this process in all applicable forums. Look for high traffic forums that allow commercial link posting in signature files – and that also happen to fit with your specific audience-targeting and marketing angle goals.
Next, create a reputation. Last, add your signature in some attractive way that draws visitors' attention, but is also likely to convert them into interested clickers. You will find that this form of advertising pays off considerably – and does so faster than other methods available.
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
First - an important warning:
Starting a thread that contains an affiliate link is a good way to get banned from a particular forum board and it is never be a good way to make sales.
You can start by finding a number of forums for your particular niche or marketing angle. You can find massive lists of forums at the following two URLs:
http://www.big-boards.com/
The site is currently the largest forum directory on the Internet.
Once you have selected a number of directories that match your specific marketing angle e.g. home business, work from home and make money forums, you will need to investigate to determine whether or not they have excess rules regulating signature files.
For instance, some sites do not allow any links in signature files; others, by contrast, allow links, but do not allow any commercial links. Make sure you know what the rules are before you post. Otherwise, you are simply setting yourself up to be banned from the forum.
Next, take the list of forums you have created – that are both relevant to your topic and allow commercial links – and begin developing a reputation on those forums.
The best way to start your forum marketing is to make multiple posts on a forum board before you even setup a signature file, which includes a link to your site. Even if the particular forum you are using does not specifically mandate this, you will want to do this, anyway, as it will increase your credibility – which is your real goal.
Post regularly, avoid meaningless fights and flaming, and contribute useful, on-target information to discussions. In a matter of 1-2 weeks, you will have developed a reputation, provided that the forum receives a considerable amount of traffic.
Once you have developed a good reputation, you will want to begin advertising through your forum signature. Ideally, you will want to include some eye-catching assortment of colors, symbols, and words in your signature.
This will draw people's attention. You will then want to link them to something other than an affiliate page – whether it be a page you created to sell an affiliate product or an auto responder course used to capture email addresses.
Remember to repeat this process in all applicable forums. Look for high traffic forums that allow commercial link posting in signature files – and that also happen to fit with your specific audience-targeting and marketing angle goals.
Next, create a reputation. Last, add your signature in some attractive way that draws visitors' attention, but is also likely to convert them into interested clickers. You will find that this form of advertising pays off considerably – and does so faster than other methods available.
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, January 20, 2007
5 Free or Cheap ways to promote your site
Happy New Year!! I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and you are all relaxed and ready to make 2007 the most profitable year ever!
I had a great holiday - almost 2 weeks of no work spending lots of time relaxing, socialising with my family and friends, eating lots of lovely food.
In this post, since it's New Year I'm going to try to list 5 different site promotion methods that I've not mentioned before on this blog. The criteria for the advertising is that it has to be free or cheap (I'm not a fan of expensive advertising). Hopefully you will find something new that you can do to promote your Plug-In Profit Site.
So here goes....
(1) Social Bookmarking - I'll devote a whole post to this sometime in the future, but you may want to consider bookmarking pages on your site or blog on a Social Bookmarking site e.g. Furl, Del.icio.us or Technorati. Just sign up for a free account with these sites and bookmark your own website and blog pages.
(2) Bidvertiser - this is a pay per click advertising company and it is growing pretty fast. At the moment they have a good offer. If you register you can get $20 of free advertising. If it isn't working for you after you've tried it with your free $20, just cancel.
(3) Instant Buzz - join Instant Buzz for free and install a toolbar on your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox). The toolbar shows ads, you earn credits for each ad shown (no clicking required) and you can use these credits to get your ad shown on other people's browsers.
(4) Directory Submission - there are lots of directories on the internet that you can submit your site and/or blog to for free. It's time consuming, but most directories do not charge you anything to submit your site. A few directories do charge a fee, so if you do decide to submit to a paid directory be sure that it is worthwhile (i.e. check the page rank of the site and the page that your site is likely to be featured on). You may also want to download a free trial of Directory Submission software to speed up your submissions.
(5) Yahoo Answers - Register with Yahoo for free and look for questions related to home business, internet marketing, making money etc. Write a good answer to one of the questions and add a link to your site in the source box. If your answer is useful and informatitive you may find that people visit your site to learn more. Be very careful not to spam here.
Hope you got some ideas! All the best with your business in 2007!
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Harness the power of email marketing with these
Email marketing has experienced a lot of growing pains over the past few years. In the beginning, it was seen as the perfect marketing tool — cheap, fast, and measurable. Click-through rates were the only numbers that mattered, and people were still excited to receive — and open — just about every email in their inbox.
Then, it seemed like the explosion of spam, and the sheer volume of email people receive ruined the effectiveness of email as a marketing tool. Even perfectly legitimate emails were being trapped by spam filters or deleted, unopened, by wary recipients who were concerned about viruses.
Yet there are still companies that, despite these challenges, manage to generate millions of dollars of profit every year using email marketing software.
In fact, here at IMC, direct email marketing generated $3.5 million in revenue last year alone! And the opportunities keep growing.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, email remains the number one online activity of Americans — ahead of Web surfing and using search engines — and now that more and more people are able to receive e-mail on their cell phones and PDAs, the opportunities for creative email marketing are only continuing to expand.
At the recent MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Summit in Chicago, Barry Stamos of Responsys.com even stated that people now spend more time reading email than watching TV!
All of these developments, combined with the fact that email can be tested and measured for specific results — unlike other promotional methods — means email marketing remains one of the most valuable tools in any marketer's arsenal.
Despite the obstacles presented by spam and volume, email marketing can still deliver an exceptional return on investment (ROI) because of the massive amount of time people spend online, and the proportion of that time they spend checking their email.
In fact, eMarketer reports that email generates a much higher return on spending than methods such as direct mail and newspaper and radio advertising.
So if anyone tries to tell you that email marketing is dead, don't believe them!
The truth is that spam and volume didn't kill email marketing the way many so-called experts predicted. But they did manage to create a few hoops you now have to jump through to get your emails delivered and opened.
These days, you need to educate yourself on the best ways to collect, manage, and store email addresses, and only send out relevant emails that people will open without hesitation. Do these things right and you'll be able to profit from all of the new opportunities available to email marketers... and continue to enjoy the impressive ROI email marketing provides.
Carefully manage your opt-in list to fully capitalize
on the income-boosting potential of email marketing
Okay, so you've written an opt-in offer for your web site and started to collect the names and email addresses of visitors who want to hear from you on a regular basis. These are people who have decided they like what they see on your web site enough to give you their email addresses. They are basically inviting you to sell to them!
Now you need to decide how you will store, manage, and use this information. Many people simply store their opt-in lists in a spreadsheet or text file, but there is also great email marketing software out there to help you manage this information more easily.
The method you choose to look after this information will depend on your own unique situation, but if you are going to get serious about email marketing, then you'll need to get serious about managing your opt-in list — not just building it, but also cleaning and maintaining it to ensure that you always generate the best results and never look like a spammer.
Here are a few things you need to know to effectively manage your opt-ins... and guarantee the highest possible response to any mailout you send:
a. Manage your "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests
One of the most important things you can do to minimize your headaches — and maximize your profits — is to stay on top of your "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests. If you don't have an automated system for managing subscriptions to your opt-in list, this is especially important.
Always treat requests to unsubscribe from your list seriously. People who aren't promptly removed from your list after making an unsubscribe request can accuse you of spamming them, and you can quickly find yourself in trouble with your ISP.
Of course, it's just as important that people who ask to be added to your list are subscribed right away, since you never know which one of those subscription requests is going to end up being your best customer.
If your subscribe and unsubscribe requests aren't handled automatically, you should take care of them right before you send out a mailing. This ensures that your list is as current as possible, and it also means that you don't have to deal with this chore on a daily basis.
b. Remove duplicate addresses
Before you send any mailings, you'll want to make sure that you don't have any duplicate email addresses in your list. There will always be some people — more than you might think — who will opt in to your list, leave your site, and come back a couple of days later to sign up again, forgetting that they've already joined.
Now, people are happy to get one copy of your email, but start sending them multiple copies and just watch how fast they unsubscribe from your list — or worse yet, report you as a spammer!
This kind of spam complaint is relatively easy to clear up, but it is still a hassle, and instead of having a potential customer who was so excited about what you had to offer that they signed up twice, you now have nothing.
c. Clean your list
Keeping your list clean means more than just removing unsubscribes and duplicate addresses. Cleaning your list means sifting through the messages that "bounce back" to you after a mailing, and deciding which ones should be removed from your list completely, and which ones you might want to try mailing again.
"Bounced" messages are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully delivered to the intended recipient. Most bounced messages can be categorized as either "soft" bounces or "hard" bounces.
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Soft bounces: These are messages that could not be delivered at the time they were sent, but may be deliverable at some time in the future. These types of bounces are usually caused by the recipient's inbox being full.
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Hard bounces: These are messages that can never be delivered. Hard bounces are usually caused by the user typing in an incorrect email address when opting in to your list, or the subscriber no longer using the email address they originally opted in with.
Hard bounces should be deleted immediately. If you leave these addresses in your list, you'll just have to wade through unnecessary bounce messages every time you send a mailing, and that's a waste of your valuable time.
Plus, if you continue to send email to an address that is invalid, you can get into real trouble. This is one of the methods used to identify spammers, and if you are found to be repeatedly sending messages to a "dead" email address, you could have a problem with the ISP receiving the messages.
Emails that are returned as soft bounces, on the other hand, should be dealt with in an entirely different way. Since soft bounces are the result of a temporary problem — a full mailbox, for instance — you'll want to re-send your promotions to all the soft bounce addresses a couple of days after you sent out the initial mailing.
You'll be surprised how many messages get delivered on the second try. And since you've already written the email, there's almost no extra work on your part.
d. Divide your list to conquer more subscribers
Given the mountains of email people receive these days, most only want to see what's relevant. And, unfair as it may seem, anything irrelevant could be considered spam... and reported as such.
If the people on your list know that the message you're sending is something they want, they'll open it!
Using email to target different segments of your audience is one of the single most effective ways to market products or services on the Internet. In fact, email marketers practicing segmentation are currently seeing much better results than those sending undifferentiated mailings.
A 2006 report by MarketingSherpa found that email marketers using segmentation saw click-through rates that are 72% higher than email marketers who are not segmenting their opt-in lists.
The simplest way you can market to different segments of your opt-in list is by targeting them based on whether they are (a) existing customers, or (b) visitors to your site who have simply opted in to receive your free newsletter, eBook, etc.
The message you send to your existing customers, for instance, might focus on selling them an upgrade to a product they already own. Because you've already earned their trust through a previous sale, this promotion should do quite well.
Of course, you'll need to approach your subscribers — those people who haven't made a purchase from you yet — with a slightly different angle. You might try offering them a 25% discount off their first purchase, for example.
There's no end of ways to segment your audience depending on the information you've collected — and email automation makes it not only possible, but simple!
By targeting different segments of your audience with a promotion specific to their current situation, you can just about guarantee that the results of your email marketing efforts will be dramatically improved.
e. Snag your recipients' attention by using their names
If there's a "secret" to getting email recipients' attention, it's this: Personalize the subject line. There is no other single technique that will boost the response rate of your emails as much as personalization.
Have you ever noticed that a great salesperson will find out your name and then use it every so often while they talk to you? It's a way of establishing trust and building rapport. Using someone's name makes them feel as though they have a relationship with you. And the truth of the matter is that nothing gets a person's attention faster than hearing or seeing their own name!
By personalizing your subject lines, you also make your email appear more authentic and safer to open, because recipients will be more likely to view your email as coming from a trusted source.
Unfortunately, typing each individual recipient's name into the subject line of every email you send is just not practical! Once you grow your list to more than 50 or 100 people, it becomes unmanageable! It's way too time consuming...
The good news is that there is great email marketing software available these days that will help you completely personalize your campaigns automatically, and save you tons of time and effort.
Choosing the right email marketing software
will make your life easier!
Luckily, there are some pretty powerful products out there designed to help email marketers develop, manage, segment, and personalize their lists easily, from one user-friendly interface. Choosing the right email marketing software can save you literally hundreds of hours of frustration, and help you to avoid being accused of spamming.
If the software you choose doesn't have the following features, you could be missing out on the full potential of email marketing, and leaving "money on the table." To be effective, your email marketing software must allow you to...
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Manage your subscribes and unsubscribes. Top notch email marketing software will automatically add people who fill out your opt-in form to your list, and automatically remove the names of people who have submitted "unsubscribe" requests.
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Segment your opt-in list for custom mailouts by collecting information on your opt-ins' preferences, buying habits, location, etc.
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Personalize your subject lines automatically to grab your recipients' attention, and make your emails seem more authentic and safer to open.
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Protect yourself from bogus "spam" complaints. Every time someone subscribes to your list, the date and time should be recorded so if they accuse you of "spamming," you can prove to your ISP that they have opted in!
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Filter undeliverable email automatically. The right email marketing software should automatically determine whether your undeliverable message is a "hard" or a "soft" bounce. If it's a "hard" bounce, the email address should be flagged as "bad" automatically.
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Protect yourself from "domain bombing" by automatically removing duplicate addresses from your list — so you never risk mailing the same subscriber twice and being accused of spamming.
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Avoid having your messages blocked by ISPs and service providers by accidentally hitting their servers too hard, too fast, with too many messages.
... And that just scratches the surface. If the email marketing software you choose doesn't have these capabilities, you will not be able to fully capitalize on the on the awesome, profit-boosting potential of email marketing. And, your email promotions will be more likely to be considered spam, which can cause big headaches.
Final thoughts
Email marketing remains a highly effective tool for any business. And the success of your campaigns rests largely on the percentage of your messages that get delivered and opened.
It's a little more of a challenge to make sure your emails get delivered and opened these days, but by keeping your list squeaky clean and sending highly relevant and personalized messages you will not only improve the likelihood of people opening your emails, you'll avoid being labeled a spammer.Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
Discover the Top 5 "Dos" and "Don'ts" of Web Site
If you want your online business to be successful, it's a good idea to optimize your site on a regular basis to make sure it's got a good position in the Web's top search engines.
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get A Free Money Making Website Just For You That's 100%
Ready To Take Orders And Pull In Massive Residual
Profits Today!
http://WealthOnline-ProfitMachine.com/pips.html
------------------------------------------------------
However, in order to maintain your ranking, you have to keep on top of what's happening in the rapidly changing search engine industry. The rules that affected your ranking yesterday may be meaningless tomorrow!
Read on to learn more about the latest developments in the search engine industry and what key tricks you should (and shouldn't!) use to optimize your site to make sure it gets a high ranking with all the major search engines, plus the tools and resources you can use to keep it there.
The "Dos" and "Don'ts" are constantly changing!
The search engine industry is continually evolving. You need to know which of the major "players" is powering the smaller search engines if you want to know where you should focus your optimization efforts.
1. The battle of the titans
For the past couple of years, the major search engines have been preparing to square off against each other and battle it out for the industry's top spot. Google has been #1 for a while now, but Yahoo! and MSN have been making moves to steal the crown.
Google is still extremely powerful, with about a 55% market share. Yahoo! is the closest runner-up, with about 20% of users choosing it as their main search engine. And MSN is still a distant but threatening third, with about 10% of the global usage share.
Keep in mind, however, that Google and Yahoo! power many of the smaller search engines. For example, Google powers the free listings featured on AOL and Netscape, plus the paid listings
featured on AOL, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Teoma, and Lycos.
Yahoo! powers free listings featured on MSN, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and HotBot, plus the paid listings on MSN, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb.
However, MSN won't be powered by Yahoo! for much longer! MSN came out with a preview of their own long-anticipated search engine technology earlier this month. They're still working out the bugs, and the official MSN Search engine is still being powered by Yahoo!. But you can expect MSN to go solo
sometime over the next few months.
You need to be aware of these changes if you want to gear your optimization efforts toward the engines that will send you as much traffic as possible.
2. The changing rules of search
Of course, you also need to keep tabs on changes to the search engines themselves!
Search engines frequently change the algorithms they use to rank sites. They don't want unscrupulous site owners manipulating their indexing methods in order to get high rankings. By doing so, they damage the integrity of free search!
As soon as the search engines become aware of a trick being used by "search engine spammers" to boost their site ranking, they figure out a way to catch them.
So be careful! You don't want to catch yourself employing a "great strategy" promoted by a marketing "expert," only to find out it's a tactic the search engines hate! That could get you booted off their listings in no time flat.
In fact, that's exactly what happened at the end of last year, during what has come to be called the "Florida Google Dance."
Google made some major changes to their algorithms in November 2003 and started imposing an "over-optimization penalty" on any sites that appeared to be artificially boosting their site's relevancy for targeted keywords.
Many members of the business community were surprised to find their sites dropped from their high ranking in Google's listings. These people had to put a lot of work into revamping and resubmitting their sites in order to get listed again.
And many of the people who were penalized weren't "unscrupulous" site owners! They weren't trying to pull a "fast one" on search engines using frowned-upon techniques such as "keyword stuffing." They were simply trying to be smart marketers -- and some feel they were unfairly punished for it.
You don't want the same thing to happen to you!
So let's have a look at a list of what exactly the search engines are currently looking for when indexing sites -- and what they'll punish you for!
The "Dos": Legitimate tricks the SEO masters use to optimize their sites and maintain their high ranking
The search engines don't want to be manipulated by marketers. They want to provide the best unbiased results possible for any given search -- or they'll lose users!
That's why they need to change their algorithms so frequently -- to stay ahead of the tricks people use to get top rankings.
That being said, there are still a lot of legitimate ways you can optimize your site without angering the search engines and causing them to drop you from their list.
Here are some of the best things you can to do ensure your site has a high ranking:
1. Ask relevant sites to link to your site
In the past, scoring a high ranking with a search engine was all about positioning your keywords in "prime real estate" positions in your text and site coding. All that has changed, however. These days, links are king!
Search engines place a huge amount of importance on the number of sites that link to yours. But it's not just the quantity of links that matter, it's also the quality. Search engines look at how relevant the links are -- i.e., how much the content of the linking site has in common with the content on your site.
The more relevant, the better!
Search engines also look at how "important" the linking site is. What kind of "online presence" does it have? How much traffic does it get?
For example, your site will get a higher ranking if it's linked to by sites such as BBC.com or nationalgeographic.com instead of, say, the personal homepage of your friend's neighbour's kid.
2. Pay attention to keyword inclusion and placement
Keywords may no longer be the sole determining factor of a site's ranking, but they're still pretty important. The most useful places to include them are:
- In your domain name -- only make sure your keywords are in the root of your URL, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones," try to get a domain name such as "www.cell-phones.com" instead of "www.mobileusa.com/cell-phones.com." Some search engines will actually penalize sites for including key words in the stem of a URL.
- In the title tags in your source code
- In the meta description of your site -- this is much less important than it used to be, but it can't hurt.
- In your meta keyword tags
HOWEVER: Be sure you only include relevant keywords! Search engines will penalize you if you try to sneak in keywords that have nothing to do with the content of your site.
3. Create content-rich "information pages" to direct traffic to your site
An easy way to boost the number of pages that link to your site is to create some pages yourself!
However, you have to make sure these pages contain valuable contents that provide people with useful information. Search engines hate "pointer pages" that have no content and exist only to add to the number of links pointing to a site.
Be sure the information relates to the content on your site and has your keywords placed in advantageous positions. This will boost the ranking of your pages with the search engines and ensure they get lots of traffic -- which they can then redirect to your site.
4. Submit your site to online directories
Be sure to submit your site to important directories such as Yahoo!, the Open Directory Project, and About.com, as well as smaller directories. Your listing on these directories will help your ranking with the major search engines.
5. Multiply and conquer!
Create a "community" of related sites that link to each other. Why stop at only one information page? The more content-rich sites that point to your site, the better!
You can also boost the number of links that point to your site by dividing it into several separate sites that all link to each other.This works especially well if you sell a number of different products or services.
If you build a different site to focus on each of your products and services, then you can also concentrate the use of specific keyword phrases on each site. That's another great way to boost your search engine ranking.
The "Don'ts": Tricks the search engines hate and why you should never use them, even if your competition does
Now that we've covered the "dos," here come the "don'ts." Although these questionable tactics have worked well in the past, the search engines absolutely hate them. If they catch you using any of these tricks, they may go so far as to drop you from their listings like a hot potato!
1. Beware irrelevant links!
Yes, it's a good idea to get a lot of different links pointing to your site, but the search engines only like RELEVANT links. If they find sites that have nothing in common with the content on your site linked to your web site, they'll lower your relevancy rating.
2. Beware irrelevant keywords!
Search engines hate finding irrelevant keywords on your site -- especially in your meta tags. If they catch you using keywords that have nothing to do with the actual content of your site, they'll penalize you for it.
3. Don't "keyword stuff" your meta tags!
In the past, people used to repeat their keywords in their meta tags over and over again. This used to get them a high ranking with the search engines -- but not any more! Search engines are on to this trick and will punish you for it by dropping your ranking.
4. Don't create "link farms"!
"Link farms" are the evil cousins of the "information pages" we discussed above.
In the past, some spammers used to build multiple "doorway" sites that existed only to multiply the number of links pointing to their sites.
Unlike content-rich information pages,these doorway pages would usually only include a string of keyword terms that would earn them a high ranking with the search engines.
The search engines have caught on to this tactic, however, and will drop you from their listings if they find you using it.
5. Avoid "free for all" link pages!
Don't bother placing links to your site on pages where everyone and their dog is invited to put up a link. Such sites have extremely low relevancy ratings and will cost you points with the search engines.
Essential tools and resources to optimize your site and stay n top of the search engine game
There are a lot of great tools out there that can help you optimize your web site while ensuring that you stay on the good side of all the search engines. Here are a few of our favorites.
Tools:
- Wordtracker: This great online tool helps you select specific keyword phrases that will direct more traffic to your site. Free and paid versions are available.
- SitePromoter: This useful software program helps you create individualized submissions to the different search engines.
- Optilink: A lot of search engine optimization experts swear by this software. It's a "link reputation analyzer" that helps you determine a site's reputation and why the search engines like it or dislike it. It certainly comes in handy when you're checking out the competition or looking for reputable sites to link to yours!
- WebPosition Gold: This is a great piece of search engine placement software that generates Web pages designed to rank high on the major search engines. It also analyzes your existing Web pages, providing suggestions for improvement, and tracks your ranking on different search engines.
Resources:
- Search Engine News: Planet Ocean's online resource, "The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars" is updated monthly and provides excellent optimization tips and information on the Search Engine industry.
- Search Engine Watch: This free site is another rich source of tips and information on the Search Engine industry. Paid memberships are available for more advanced content.
- Search Engine Guide: This free site contains a lot of useful information about the smaller search engines on the Web, and who you should submit your site to in order to get a better ranking with the bigger search engines.
Final thoughts
Recent research by search engine optimization experts suggests that there is a surprising lack of overlap between the results produced by the major search engines. All too often, sites that are ranked high on Google get a much poorer listing with Yahoo! and vice versa.
This could mean that webmasters are focusing their optimization efforts solely on one search engine while neglecting to improve their ranking with the other. They might be using optimization tactics that work for Google on Yahoo!, without being aware that Yahoo! uses different criteria to index a site.
Either way, sites that aren't optimized for both Google and Yahoo! are missing out on a lot of potential visitors.
And don't forget, MSN will soon be throwing its hat into the ring and switching from Yahoo! to its own search engine technology. When that happens, you should be sure to submit your site to MSN as well.
No one really knows what the future holds for the search engine industry, but one thing's for sure: Businesses that don't stay on top of the changes are going to find themselves slipping behind. Don't let that happen to your business!
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
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Tuesday, January 09, 2007
How a Game of "Tag" Can Direct Swarms of Targeted Traffic to Your Blog
Did you know that by adding a simple word to the end of your blog posts, you can skyrocket them to the top of the search listings on the 'Net's most popular blog community?
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
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It's true! These simple words are called "tags," and they act as labels that help specialized search engines identify the subject matter of your blog posts. These tags also alert the search engines whenever you publish a new post -- so when someone uses one of these search engines to look for blogs related to a certain topic, posts that are tagged with that topic label will appear at the very top of the listings, with the most recently published post appearing first.
So what this means is, if you add certain tags to the end of your posts, you can drive a whole lot more traffic to your blog -- and all this traffic is going to be made up of people who are actually searching for blogs on the topics YOU'RE writing about!
Sounds pretty cool, huh?
Okay, so here's how tags actually work:
After you finish writing a blog post, choose a word or phrase that accurately describes the topic of your post. That word is going to be the "keyword" label for your tag. (For example, if I was going to create a tag for this post, I'd probably label it "Tags.")
You don't have to stop at one tag, though -- you can add as many tags to your blog as you want! (You just have make sure those tag labels are relevant to the content of your post -- people who do a search on those words and click on your blog will be annoyed if your posts have nothing to do with the topic they're looking for. And you DON'T want to annoy your readers -- otherwise, they'll never come back!)
So for this blog, I could also add the following tags: "Derek Gehl," "Internet Marketing," and "Blog Traffic," just to name a few.
Once you've created your list of tag words or phrases, all you have to do is attach a snippet of HTML code to each one, so that the search engines can recognize them as tags. (I'll tell you exactly what code to use in a moment... )
If you're the kind of person who goes cross-eyed at the thought of generating HTML code, don't worry! There are free online tools you can use to create your tags for you, such as the one at Keotag.com
Now, here's the kicker: the HTML code you use to create your tags is going to be different, depending on the search engine you want to "read" them. That's because tags work by actually linking your blog post straight to the search engine's index. (For example, if you go to Keotag.com, you'll see that you can make tags for Technorati, a popular blog community, or Flickr, the 'Net's largest photo blog community, or del.icio.us, a popular online bookmark site.)
Right now, the best place to link your blog tags is Technorati. In case you've never heard of it, Technorati is the Internet's most popular blog community. Currently, Technorati has over 45.3 million blogs in its index -- that's up from 24 million in January, which means it's grown a whopping 88% in just five short months!
And all these web pages are linked together via more than 2.5 billion Technorati tags that allow people to surf from one linked blog to another, or to find blogs related to certain topics by using Technorati's search engine.
This means that if someone does a search on "Internet Marketing" on Technorati's search engine, for example, this blog post should appear at the top of the listings. (Until it gets bumped off the list by more recent posts that are tagged with "Internet Marketing," that is... but in the meantime, I should get a whole lot of extra traffic to my site!)
Not only that, but if any other blogs are also tagged with the keyword label, "Internet Marketing," then they're going to be linked to this blog post as well -- which means that some of their readers might click on the "Internet Marketing" tag at the bottom of their blog post and be sent to mine!
Tagging in Technorati is easy. All you have to do is follow these three simple steps:
Go to your Account page on the Technorati site and "claim" your blog (in other words, register it) under the "Your Blogs" header. Include Technorati tags in your posts by inserting an HTML link at the bottom of each post. The tag should look like this: [tagname] Once you've created a new HTML snippet for each of your tags, using a different tagname for each one, you're done! Your blog post should now be indexed with Technorati, so you can take advantage of their HUGE community of blog readers.
All you have to do is copy the above bit of HTML and add your own "tagname" to it. The tagname is the word or label you want to use for your tag. For example, if I wanted to create a tag for "Praveen Kumar," it would look like this:
If you have a business blog, I highly recommend you start adding Technorati tags to your posts right away. You'll soon find out that driving more readers to your blog is child's play. As in... Tag! You're it!
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How Writing A SINGLE Article Can Create a 100% -- OR MORE -- Increase in Your Web Site Traffic!
Today I'm going to tell you how to increase the kind of web site traffic your business really
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
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needs...
- AND build your crediblity...
- AND improve your ranking in the search engines...
- AND get your customers talking to others about you...
... all with a simple four-step process that won't cost you a single dime.
Sound too good to be true? It's not!
Let me give you a quick rundown of the plan before we dive in:
-
You're going to find a handful of keywords that the ideal visitor to your site would use to search for your product
-
You're going to plug those keywords into your web site
-
Then you're going to write a SHORT article that contains those same keywords
-
And finally, you'll distribute your content all over the web and get people passing your information on to other people who will be interested in what you have to offer
You'll be surprised how quickly and easily you can get this strategy going -- AND how fast you'll see an impact on your traffic numbers when you put yourself on the radar of people who are looking for what you provide.
Let's check out the first step in a little more detail...
Step One: Set up your web site for maximum "searchability"!
If you haven't taken the time to...
-
figure out the keywords your potential customers might be using to search for your product
and -
place them throughout the copy on your site
... your traffic is going to be sluggish right off the bat. How are the people who really want your information supposed to find you?
When I tell people that they've missed an important step in their traffic-building strategy, they always ask me: how are you supposed to figure out the right keywords for your web site? Here are the two tools I recommend to help them with the job:
- Yahoo Search Marketing's Keyword Selector Tool is a good place to start your investigation. You just type in a word or term you think people in your market might search for, and the Keyword Selector Tool will tell you how many people searched for that particular term in Yahoo Search Marketing over the last month.
It will also show you a list of related words and phrases, and tell you how many times people typed those terms into the free search engines over the last month.
This is a great way to find out how many people may be searching for information to solve a particular problem, and give you a picture of the demand for your product on the Web. But best of all, it gives you tons of ideas for keywords that you might never have thought of.
Once you’ve generated a list of useful keyword ideas, you’re ready to dig in and do some serious research with Wordtracker.
- Wordtracker goes into more depth to show you not only what people are searching for online, but also how many other web sites are competing for the same audience. Basically, it keeps a record of how many times a particular keyword or phrase was searched during the past 90 days across the Web.
When you enter the keyword phrases your market is searching for, you search the Wordtracker database of over 330 million searches (or “queries”). You're looking for search terms that are popular, but don't have too many sites competing for them.
You can also pop all of this detailed information into useful reports that help you determine which keywords and phrases will bring you the most traffic.
To check out Wordtracker and get a step-by-step guide to the process, just head to:
www.marketingtips.com/wordtracker
and click "Tour" on the navigation bar.
Wordtracker is a paid service, but you can sign up for a day for under $8.00 and a week for under $27.00. It's a great investment.
Step Two: Plug your keywords into your site
Now that you have some great keywords for your market, find as many places as you can to plug them into your web site!
Use them in your title tags, in your source code, in the copy on your pages, and in your opt-in offers.
If you find your domain name isn't telling people what your web site is about or showing up in the right search results, consider purchasing a new one.
A keyword-rich domain name is a small investment that really pays off by making your site easy for your potential customers to find and remember.
(One quick note: remember to use only keywords relevant to your product -- search engines will penalize you if they find keywords sprinkled through your code that have nothing to do with the content of your site.)
Now to move on to the next step -- your foolproof way to snag people searching for your product on the Web and bring them back to your site!
Step Three: Create a keyword-rich article to distribute on the Web
When you're ready, get your keywords, sit down, and write a keyword-rich article that relates to what you sell.
Then give it away to other sites -- for FREE!
Believe it or not, this is one of the best ways you can drive a steady stream of eager customers to your site.
Why does it work? Well, people basically come online for one of two reasons: To check their email or to look for information. Sure, some of them end up making purchases, but this is not generally the reason they log on. They want...
- the answer to a question
- the solution to a problem
That's why it's your job to give them that information, as it relates to your product. You already do that with the copy on your web site, but why stop there?
Writing a short, informative article to distribute on the Web is a great way to gain recognition as a valuable resource in your industry.
Of course, you'll want to write about something that relates to your products or services, since the ultimate goal of the article is to drive visitors to your site who are interested in what you're selling. But the article should be informative, not "sales-y".
Make sure that each article you write contains rare, valuable, or hard-to-find information. Not only will this increase the chances that other site owners or managers will post your article, it will also increase the number of visitors who click through to your site after reading it.
For example, if you have a web site that sells used golf equipment, you could write an article about three things to look for in a good, pre-owned putter. Or if you sell an eBook about setting up your own home computer network, why not write an article about common problems people have in setting up a wireless router?
Look for article ideas in the questions that people ask you all the time, or in the things you often see people doing wrong. Share hot new tips on how to use the products you sell, or talk about trends that you've spotted in your industry.
I'm not talking about a major essay here, though.
Did I just hear a big sigh of relief? :-)
Nope -- you don't need to be a professional writer to turn out a solid, traffic-boosting article! Your quick piece should...
-
be no longer than 400 words (not even a whole page!)
-
contain a keyword related to your product in first 90 characters
-
contain the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
-
have a short, credibility-building "bio" with link to your site at the end. Here's an example: "ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joe Smith is a recognized authority on the subject of widgets. His web site, www.JoesWidgets.com, provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you'll ever need to know about widgets."
Now for the fourth step in this traffic-driving strategy.
Step Four: Get your content headed EVERYWHERE on the Web
Once you've taken a few hours to write one or two quick articles, head to one of these top online content distribution sites. Upload your keyword-rich content to:
- www.contentdesk.com
- www.ezinearticles.com
- www.freesticky.com
- www.goarticles.com
- www.ideamarketers.com
- www.findsticky.com
It only takes a couple of minutes, but the rewards for your site will be huge.
These sites carry hundred or thousands of articles on a range of topics. If someone is looking for content for their web site, they can download or copy an article from the distribution site without paying a dime to use it! They can't change the text of the article, and they must publish it with the author's name and information intact.
Now people who are plugging your keywords into search engines will be directed to your content at these highly-ranked sites, and web site owners who are looking for fresh, search engine-attracting content will download your article -- along with your bio and link! -- and put it up on their pages.
And once visitors see that you know what you're talking about, they'll click on the link in your bio, and head straight to your web site!
The best thing about this strategy is that these visitors are QUALITY, TARGETED traffic -- they actually WANT what you're selling, because you are meeting a need or giving them help with the problem they came online to solve!
Some content distribution sites also offer "send to a friend" links next to articles posted on their sites -- so make sure you're uploading your articles to sites with this kind of capability!
Every time someone enjoys your article enough to pass it on, your audience grows. And since people don't forward BAD content on to their friends, they are basically recommending you as a credible source just by passing it on.
You can also create a "send to a friend" link on your own web pages with the help of a simple script added to your code. Here are some examples of what this kind of link might say:
- "Did you enjoy this article? To recommend it to a friend, click here..."
- "To pass this important info along to a friend or family member, click here..."
- "Share this with a friend -- just click here..."
- "Can't wait to tell a friend about this? Here's how..."
To find scripts to make links like these ones fully functional, check out the resources at:
The visitors who come to your site through articles or forwarded material are highly targeted... and likely to take action when they actually arrive at your web site seeking your specific information.
Final thoughts
See how much you can do with one little article?
It's amazing how effective a small piece of content can be when you...
- know your keywords, and...
- know all the places to position that content so it's viewed again and again
Once you've done your keyword research, you might feel a bit intimidated by the idea of writing something yourself for the 'Net. Or maybe you don't feel like you have the time to do it justice.
Remember -- any free content you create shouldn't be too long, and it definitely shouldn't be too complicated, since the people reading it won't know your product or your subject as well as you do.
If you're still concerned, you can always hire a writer from a freelance web site like Elance to do a couple of short articles or an eBook (with a bit of basic information from you, of course.) Expect to pay anywhere from $25 to $35 an hour for their time.
But I recommend that you try to write something yourself first. You definitely don't need to be a professional writer to create something readable and interesting... (I sure don't have a degree in creative writing myself!)
Just try to think like your audience -- what do they want to know, and how much do they know already? Then tell them simply and clearly. We're not talking Shakespeare here.
Here's one more quick peek at my easy four-step plan to increase web traffic:
-
Find the keywords people are using to search for your product
-
Make sure all the content on your web site contains these keywords!
-
Write short, keyword-rich articles with links directing people back to your site -- nothing too long or complicated; just enough content to establish you as someone "in the know" about your industry
-
And finally, send your article to content distribution sites and -- with just a simple suggestion or a script-based link -- encourage people to pass your material on to their friends (and direct them back to your site!)
These simple steps are things that practically anyone can do to drive traffic. They'll help you get the kind of targeted, quality traffic that can make all the difference to the success of a business, especially when you're just starting out!
In other words, these are the types of visitors who are most likely to take action on your site, whether they make a purchase, or simply opt in with their personal information.
And I don't know about you, but I'll take more of those visitors any day of the week!
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
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How to "Socialize" Your Way to
| Looking for new ways to get improved search engine placement for your web site? Then maybe you should spend a little more time socializing online! I'm talking about getting more active on social media web sites like MySpace, Flickr, and Digg. Sure, these sites might be the online hangouts where people like to goof off during their "down time" at work... But they're also extremely popular web sites with high Google PageRank numbers -- and if you can get links on these sites to point to your site, it might get driven to the top of the search engine results page for your keywords! In a recent blog, I talked about how creating a keyword-rich article and distributing it on the Web can improve your ranking in the free search engines. It's an easy way to get relevant sites linking back to you, and it doesn't cost you a dime! Well, posting content on the social media sites is another great way to achieve these same goals. It's just that the type of sites -- and the type of content you post on them -- are different. And the best part about this strategy is that it involves hanging out at fun sites you'd probably enjoy spending time at, anyway! But before I show you how to "socialize" your way to improved search engine placement, let's take a closer look at exactly what social media web sites are. Discover how these popular online hangouts These days, social media sites are HUGE! In fact, they make up five of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands on the Internet, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. And this explosive growth isn't likely to end anytime soon. So if people are hanging out on these sites in ever-expanding numbers, don't you want to be there too? Just like in the offline world, "location, location, location" is the key to success! Now, there's been a pretty big buzz around the phrase "social media" lately. But what exactly does it mean? Social media sites are simply online gathering places where people share interesting, entertaining, informative, or just plain goofy content with each other. This content can take many different forms. It can be...
Members of these communities can comment on each other's contributions, engage in discussions, and find other people who are interested in the same things they are. Hanging out and participating at these sites can be a great way to make new online friends or business contacts. It's also an effective strategy you can use to drive more traffic to your business site -- not only from the social media sites themselves, but also from the improved search engine placement you'll get from having more high-PageRank links pointing to your web site! Social media sites can be organized into a few main categories:
How to attract the most eyeballs by posting Take a moment to think about what people do when they're sitting in front of their computer at work and want to take a quick mental break... If they're one of the millions of people who like hanging out at bookmarking sites, maybe they'll pop over to Digg to see what the daily top bookmarks are. Now... which headline do you think they'll be more likely to click on?
My bet is on the latter, because it sounds like a fun way to waste a couple of minutes and learn an unusual skill -- and besides, what office worker doesn't love coffee? Now imagine if you ran a small coffee-roasting business -- just think about the kind of exposure an article like this could get you, if it were featured on Digg's homepage. The trick to creating fun social media content that spreads through the Internet like wildfire (going "viral," as it's called) is to write entertaining articles, that are short, compelling, and eye-catching. In fact, lists are often some of the most popular articles on social bookmarking sites. People who visit these sites are usually looking to waste a few minutes online, and they don't want to read a bunch of heavy text. That's why lists are so great! They're easy to format and quick to read, and don't waste any time getting to the punchline. Media-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube obviously need different content because they're dealing with video and images. But the same principle of creating short, snappy, and entertaining content still applies. Many of the most popular videos on YouTube, for example, are short compilations of funny video clips -- like you see on the TV show America's Funniest Home Videos. But content that's entertaining AND solves people's problems can also be effective. "How-to" videos that teach people a specific skill are extremely popular in certain markets. Now I'm sure many of you are thinking, "How am I supposed to create an entertaining article or video when I sell a boring product like widgets?" The truth is, there are thousands of ways to create entertaining content for these sites -- if you use your imagination. Here are some examples and ideas to get you started:
The "dos" and "don'ts" of participating at social media sites WARNING: There's ONE IMPORTANT THING you have to remember when using social media sites to get improved search engine placement for your site! And that's the fact that these are SOCIAL sites -- people don't visit them expecting to be hit with a bunch of marketing messages. So if you want to get links at these sites to point to your own site, you have to do it SUBTLY. Think about it... If you were at a party and somebody started handing out business cards and immediately launched into a sales pitch for his product, you'd try to get away, right? Well it's the same thing on a social web site. That kind of behaviour is considered highly unethical and inappropriate by members of these communities. On Digg, for example, links will often get voted down as spam if they're submitted by the person who owns the site they point to. And on del.icio.us, if all of your favorite links point ONLY to your web site, you'll lose all your credibility, and no other users will add your links to their own list of bookmarks. So make sure that you're participating honestly and being low-key about your business. Be sure you share other relevant and entertaining links with the community, in addition to your own products and articles. Otherwise all your hard work creating content for these sites will have been a waste of time. Here are the main things you should be doing on social media sites:
Here are a few things you shouldn't be doing on social media sites:
By following these rules, you'll become part of the online community, and people will begin to value your opinion and see you as a credible source of information. This will allow you to become more powerful in the community, and your links and articles will carry more weight than the anonymous contributions of a new member. Final thoughts The key to getting the most out of these social web sites is to start small. Check out a few of the different sites. Then choose one or two that you enjoy hanging out at, and get a feel for the communities. By spending time at these sites, you'll discover what type of information is popular, get tons of ideas for new articles, and find out exactly what's on the minds of regular Internet users. Eventually, start creating some valuable and interesting content of your own, and submit it to these sites... then sit back and see what happens! By participating honestly and sharing some interesting links, videos, or articles -- as well as providing links to your own web site -- you might find that a lot of other people will start linking to your articles and your business site. If you do things right, play by the rules, and create some fun and interesting content, you'll be able to grow the number of relevant links pointing to your site -- and that just might lead to your ultimate goal of improved search engine placement! So, have YOU ever posted links on social media sites as a way to increase your traffic or get improved search engine placement? And if so, was the experience a success for you? Tell us about it -- we'd love to hear about YOUR marketing stories! | |
Praveen Kumar is a success coach who has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here To find the best home based business ideas and training.
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