Open Journalism For All - News, Documentaries And Information Services

If you own a business online, would like to increase
targeted traffic to your site but simply don’t have any free
time, hiring someone to submit your URL to niche directories
may be what the Dr. ordered.

I hope the following interview with Tim Mathews who owns
http://timmathews.com a Directory Submission Service helps.

Before we get started Tim tell us a little about yourself.

I am an avid web designer at heart. I have been in the
computer industry for about 10 years - back when AOL 2 was
the bomb, and if you didn’t have a 14.4 modem, you were
cruising slow. (Wow, how times have changed). I really enjoy
taking the mom and pop 100 product site and building it into
a powerhouse ecommerce site. I love building sites, then
getting them listed in the search engines and directories,
and watching the sales roll in for the client.

How did you get started in directory submission services?

I first stumbled into Directory submission services when I
was trying to get a companies site listed in the search
engines. I was trying and trying to get it listed, but no
use. After numerous reworking, I finally got the site
listed. I was then thinking… Huh, this was tough for me,
and I am a pro! I was wondering if others were having
issues, and alas, THEY WERE! From then, business has spawned
from current local clients to all the seven seas!

For those new to the internet could you explain what a
directory
submission service is?

A Directory Submission Service, in my opinion, is a company
that will submit your website to directories. Now, the
client must be careful when selecting a company. Many I have
seen say something along the lines of “We submit you to over
800,000 Search Engines and Directories”. This statement
alone lets me know that they are not trustworthy. We can all
fire up ANY free/shareware submitter and boast the same
statement. What I LIKE to see, when checking my competition,
is a listing of directories they will submit to. And, of
course, no one can guarantee inclusion.

What was your motivation for offering directory submission
service?

Well, to be blunt, I was thinking this could make us some
money. I was thinking of my stumbling in the submissions,
and how long and hard I worked to get sites listed. I
learned what to do, and definitely what NOT to do. I figured
it would be a great service.

What problems did you have to overcome to start your
directory
submission service?

Our main problems are the sites that boast hundreds of
thousands of submissions to directories… This confuses the
client to thinking there are this number of “separate”
directories. After explanation that there are far less, (We
submit to as few as 20 directories up to around 200 for some
clients), so you can see why this would be a problem.

How did you overcome these problems?

We overcame the issues by explanation of the services that
the “other guys” provide, and most importantly, we overcame
the problem with RESULTS. We do what we say, and get it
done.

What impact can using a directory submission service have
on
ones online business?

Directory submissions can make the business, LITERALLY.
Submitting to search engines is fine, and SHOULD be done.
Submitting to directories is definitely a necessity.

What kind of gains can one expect to make by using a
directory
submission service?

Once Directory listings take, you can expect to probably
double your traffic. Double traffic could mean double
sales/leads.

What could the downfall be of using a directory submission
service?

Well, un kept promises. Many “other guys” make big promises,
but deliver seldom few or none altogether. Do your research.
How long has the site been in business? Do a “who is” look
up and see when they bought the domain name just to be
certain.

Can you give 3 tips on successfully submitting to
directories such as DMOZ for example?

With Pleasure!

Tip 1.) MOST IMPORTANT
Proper Category Selection is KEY
You MUST submit to the applicable category. This is the most
overlooked, because we think we have a site selling Sports
Blankets, like http://www.blanketmall.com/tim and they
wanted to be listed into the “sports category” After
research, I decided it be best that they be submitted into
the Shopping: Sports: Theme Merchandise category.
If I would have submitted the site into the root of sports,
I can GUARANTEE it would have not been accepted.

Tip 2.) Wait.
Do NOT submit your site to ODP (dmoz.org) again in a month.
Give it 2 months to see results. If after 2 months, you are
not listed, rethink your submission, drill down to a deeper,
more relevant category, and resubmit.

Tip 3.) Do not hound the guides.
I have seen people talking about “direct relationships with
guides for category “****” They say to email the guide and
bug them. We disagree with this. If your site is properly
submitted, you will not have a problem. We have clients that
tried this tactic, and have never been listed. We submitted
them, and got them listed.

Thank you for the opportunity to give my feedback in this.
It has really been a pleasure. Thanks!

Brian Holte
Email: theebookking@shaw.ca
Copyright-Brian Holte

Have You Been Thinking of Creating E-books?
Brian Holte is a freelance writer/researcher and owner of
http://www.theebookking.com. He publishes a newsletter which focuses on brainstorming and
researching techniques for e-books.

Content is king and keywords count when it comes to attracting search engines but any old content will not do if you also want to keep your visitors coming back for more (more clicks on your Adsense adverts, more opportunities to buy your products…).

The typical content you get from many sites selling articles (the so-called Private Label Rights or PLR article sites) will have your visitors clicking away from your site faster than the speed of light.

What keeps your visitors on your site and turns them into repeat visitors is quality information.

Can you achieve that without

* toiling for hours researching and writing original articles

* using content from article sites which you pay for with the author’s link (leading visitors right out of your site)?

Yes you can, if you choose your PLR articles with care

1. Use quality articles

Make sure that the articles you select impart useful information. Did you learn anything from reading it yourself? Will your visitor find it helpful or get annoyed at the time they wasted clicking on your link?

2. Keep keywords natural

It’s a good idea to “seed” your PLR article with the keyword or keyword phrase you are trying to target with your web page to attract the search engines. But don’t add so many keywords that the reader thinks you don’t know how to write and the search engines suspect you of spamming them.

3. Add your own ideas

There are a number of dubious utilities around which will automatically add content to your articles “to make them unique”. Actually many add words which make no sense at all in the context of the article. All that means is you can kiss goodbye to your visitor - they won’t be back. If you use these content generators make sure the article still makes some sense.

Far better however is to actually take a couple of minutes to read the article and add to the information given if you can. If it’s a subject you’re not familiar with try and combine your articles in a different way or do a little research to add a new point. Then you really are providing value to your visitors with just a little extra effort.

4. Pay only for what you need

You will generally find that PLR articles are for sale in membership sites where you get hundreds of articles each month and thousands of members have access to the same articles. Unfortunately the vast majority of articles are poor quality and cover subjects which have no relevance to your websites! Instead use a PLR site which offers packs of quality articles to a limited number of people and will let you pay only for those packs you choose to use.

Copyright 2006, Janice Small

Janice is a regular contributing author to http://www.realcontentclub.com where you choose only the quality content you want that is relevant to your niche. Take a look today and download packs of quality articles for a few cents each.

If you are paying for online advertising in any form, you need
to know that you’re getting results. So before you place your
next ezine ad, let’s talk about tracking. There are many
different situations where you may want to track clicks such as
signature lines, banners, articles, ad swaps and text ads.

By coding your url’s with some kind of software or an online
third party service, you’ll know at a glance just how many hits
you’ve received from your latest venture. It’s really not as
hard as it sounds and there are many free services you can use
that won’t cost you a dime. Let’s take a closer look at a few of
them.

1) HyperTracker: http://www.Hypertracker.com

Offering two versions, a free and a paid service coined
“Professional,” it’s simple to sign up and start using. The Pro
version runs $10.95 a month and allows you to not only track
clicks, but actual sales - plus you can use your own domain in
the coded links. The free option is simply a stripped down
version - minus the advanced features and counting only clicks.
Complete reports can be mailed to you weekly or daily; your call.

2) StatCruncher: http://www.Statcruncher.om

Offering a 30 day free trial with no software to install, as
this is a third party solution. If after 30 days you like it and
decide to continue on, it will cost you only $49.00 a year with
no additional monthly fees.

3) LinkCounter: http://www.Linkcounter.com

Another third party service totally free that will mail you a
daily report of all activity on your links. You simply assign a
different coded link for each url you’ll be using. If you have
more than one domain you’ll need to set up a separate account
for each one

4) Adtrackz http://www.Adtrackz.com

This is an actual CGI script you purchase for $47.00 and install
on your own server. It only runs on Unix servers (so it’s not an
option if you’re using Windows NT). It gives you one click stat
reporting all in one place. Each campaign shows you the
referring url, what browsers your visitors used, hits per hour,
per day and more. Try it 30 days risk free.

5) ProLinkz: http://www.Prolinkz.com

This is another CGI Perl script that you install on your own
server. For Unix only; running $45.00 but for an additional fee
they’ll install it for you. Allows you to use your own domain in
the coded links.

By taking advantage of the above tools you’ll be able to tell at
a glance which ads were a good buy and just how much activity
your links are getting. These services and scripts allow you to
make the most of your advertising dollars so you know what’s
working and whats not.

So stop throwing good money after bad by implementing a link
tracking system today, you’ll make more informed advertising
decisions tomorrow.

Understanding your Website’s traffic logs is a crucial component
of your online marketing mix. It tells you what your visitors
do, of their own volition, so it’s “market research that cannot
lie!”

If you understand what you’re seeing, you can make some great
strategic and marketing decisions, not only for your Website,
but for your business as a whole.

Here are seven key marketing elements to study in your traffic
analysis:

1. General Statistics

Remember that a “hit” is recorded every time the visitor gets an
image or some text from your site — what you need to know is
unique user sessions, and how much time people spend on the site
– how “sticky” and engaging it is. If you have tons of traffic,
but the average time spent on your site is less than a minute –
you’ve got a problem!

2. Most and Least Requested Pages

So what’s really hot, and what’s not on your site? The most
popular pages give you great clues as to what to offer more of.
The least viewed pages may tell you that some of your content
isn’t as fascinating as you think, or this maybe a heads-up that
your navigation isn’t driving traffic as effectively as it
should.

3. Top Entry and Exit Pages

These are great reminders that not all your visitors come
through your home page, so you need complete navigation on every
entry point to your site. And if people are leaving from pages
that you don’t want them to, perhaps you need stronger calls to
action in those areas.

4. Single Access Pages

These are the pages where a visitor looks at the site then
leaves immediately. Since the job of your home page is partly to
filter the traffic that’s not right for you, there’ll always be
some of these. But if you have a splash page, and significant
numbers of visitors don’t stay through it… perhaps it
shouldn’t be there?

5. Cities, States and Countries

No, your site isn’t a huge hit just in Virginia — those are all
the AOL users! Unfortunately, because this information depends
on where the ISP is based, it can be pretty misleading. But if
you are getting a lot of hits from other countries, that might
be a hint for some second language content.

6. Referring URL’s

This tells you which search engines are sending you traffic, and
which of your advertising and linking strategies are working. It
also tells you about sites that may have links to you that you
didn’t know about — check these out — it’s a great
relationship builder to send a thank you — you might even get
some new business from it!

7. Top Search Keywords and Phrases

Once the search engines have listed your site, these tell you
what the really hot search terms are for your business. Pay
attention to these — they may have some surprises — one of my
clients recently wrote a book on a subject that was really
sought after on her site — until she saw the top keywords, she
had no idea it was so popular!

Are You Content With Your Web Content? Five Major Improvements That Will Increase Your Click-Thru Rate and Get More Traffic

1. Killer Homepage Copy.

Your homepage is THE sole determinant in how much traffic you bring in. If your visitors can closely identify with the emotion conveyed in your copy, they’ll mentally “bond” with you and be more likely to click through to your other web pages. If your copy isn’t doing the job, bring in a professional who will.

2. Simple, Logical Navigation.

If humans can’t even follow the links from one web page to the next, the search engine crawlers probably won’t be able to, either. When I first emerged on the web scene, I had no idea that the linked words in a paragraph of web copy are needed to lure the engines to other parts of your website. But now YOU know, so make this information work for your website’s rank!

3. Articles (formerly known as Deep Content).

A well-planned website is both logical and categorical in nature. Main pages should link to category pages that contain links that lead to articles. This is what drives search engines to index your website and add you to their roster of advertised pages. If this concept seems foreign to you, study the navigation of a major “hub” website like EzineArticles.com. Try to imagine building your site starting with the deep content pages and working your way back to the categories which lead to the homepage.

4. Free Downloads for Your Visitors to Enjoy.

Surprise! Those marketers aren’t giving you free information just because they’re super-nice (although they might be… I know I am!). They do it because the more people who download files from their websites means the more page views they get. This greatly improves search engine rank!

5. Frequently Updated Content.

Give your fans and the search engines something to look forward to. Every time you put up a fresh article, new e-book download, fun quiz or special promotion, you drives hordes of new visitors to your website. This is GREAT for your page rank and ultimately great for your business. You can add pages of content to your site by featuring articles from other authors, publishing your monthly newsletter pages live in an Index, or updating your Products page regularly with new items from affiliates of yours.

There are so many smart ways to keep traffic flowing steadily in to every page of your website for better rank and a higher placement on the search engines. These are just five of them. I hope they help you create a GREAT site for your business that keeps your fans on the edge of their seats because they CAN’T WAIT to see what you’re going to do next!

Are YOU Content With Your Content? Get Top Secret Marketing Tips from the Web’s Biggest Gurus and Expert Authors on The First Annual Web Content Awareness Day on FEBRUARY 9, 2006.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

OK boys and girls. Today we’re having a pop quiz.

I heard that groan. Don’t worry. This will be over in a matter of seconds.

Q1: “__________” is King.

Q2: Link “____________” and link “____________” matter oodles to Google.

The answers are provided in the following…

Are you hearing a lot of talk from marketers about writing and submitting artic|es to art:cle directories and other ezine publishers? I knew you were. There’s been a glut of articles on writing articles. For good reason.

Now I haven’t been actively writing and submitting articles until just recently, but the effects have been noticeable. So, what have I noticed?

In the last 4 weeks, I submitted three artic|es to a broad network of article directories and announcement groups. Yes, I did take one week off. So call me a slacker. The three article titles that I submitted were:

“How to Put Your Bookmark on Top Every Time.”

“When a Customer Has Done Everything to Get Your Goat”

“We’ll fix that later…”

I’m going to report the following numbers in real time as I’m writing this article. This relates to “Q2″ above. You can do this too because I’ll describe each step exactly. It’s real simple.

1) Go to http://www.google.com 2) Type the exact article title for each of the following titles and put it inside of quotation marks. (The quotation marks force Google to look for the exact phrase.) 3) Click the “Google Search” button, and… 3) Be am@zed.

Google reports:

“How to Put Your Bookmark on Top Every Time” - Indexed on 5,820 pages

“When a Customer Has Done Everything to Get Your Goat” - Indexed on 62 pages

“We’ll fix that later…” - Indexed on 554 pages

Now, am I going to tell you that in 3 weeks time I’ve managed to generate 6,436 inbound links to my website? Not. Submitting artic|es doesn’t do those kinds of miracles, but my artic|es are definitely out there for other webmasters and ezine publishers to use.

Unique visitor count to GoThrive.com has double since starting my article submissions, and as the artic|es get picked up and published, the inbound links will continue to materialize with time. Not a bad investment of time since the entire process of writing the article and submitting it takes no more than one hour per week.

Inbound links pointing to your website are a very good thing to have. This is part 1 answer to question 2 above.

Link Popularity.

The second part of the answer to question 2 above is equally important. You see, it’s not just how many inbound links are out there voting for your site, but it’s also important that they’re voting for the right thing.

Link Reputation.

Let’s say you have a website that promotes running shoes, and you write an article on the wonderful benefits of odor eaters. When you write your article, you’ll have the opportunity to include a resource box at the end of your article and this is where you can capitalize on your chance to build link reputation.

The idea behind “link reputation” is that the inbound links use keywords in the text that match the theme of the page to which the link is pointing.

One more time nice and slow. I don’t want you to miss this.

*** The idea behind “link reputation”… *** is that the inbound links use keywords in the text *** that match the theme of the page *** to which the link is pointing.

This is a fundamental SEO principle that you should keep in mind not only when writing a resource box for an article, but also when you’re designing your web pages.

So, to do this right, you’ll want your odor eater article’s resource box to have an odor eater keyword-laden link pointing to an odor eater page on your running shoes website. Does that make sense?

As the article’s author you’re in the perfect position to get the second part of the linking equation just right.

~ You decide what your resource box will say. ~ You decide what keywords are used in the link pointing to your website. ~ And you decide which page the link is directed to.

2 down. 1 to go.

Now for Q1. “Content is King.” There. I said it. There’s no disputing that all of the major search engines crave content. Enter stage left, Mr. Article Author.

If you’re writing artic|es and submitting them to article directories, you also need to be posting those artic|es on your 0wn website. When you do so, add about 20% unique content to your webpage so that it’s not exactly like every other webpage that’s been uploaded to the net. Search engines don’t like to see a lot of duplicate content, so take this little extra step to make sure that your page is unique.

Let’s review…

Q1: “_____________” is King.

A1: “C_o_n_t_e_n_t” is King.

Q2: Link “___________________” and link “___________________” matter oodles to Google.

A2: Link “P_o_p_u_l_a_r_i_t_y” and link “r_e_p_u_t_a_t_i_o_n” matter oodles to Google.

The service that I’ve been using for article submissions is SubmitYourArticle.com (http://www.submityourarticle.com), and I’ve got to say that I love it. I make one submission using SubmitYourArticle.com and my article is automatically submitted to an additional 22 article directories with only one click of the mouse. They offer a number of cool tools and if you’re looking for content for your 0wn website, it’s a terrific place to start.

Start today by casting a vote for your own website. Nobody will mind. In fact, you’ll find that there are large masses of ezine publishers and webmasters who’d be glad to vote for your website too.

Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. 17 Free Cool Tools…
http://www.gothrive.com

There are numerous factors to consider when evaluating the potential commercial success (i.e. profitability) of a website. A few of these include content, quality of the content, items being marketed, appearance, etc. I could go on forever about the various website building blocks needed in order to be successful, but without traffic (visitors), no website is going to be profitable.

You may think that the site you have created is top-notch, but if the only ones visiting it are your family and friends then chances are very good that you’re not going to make many sales (or whatever it is your site is designed to accomplish).

So how, as a Webmaster, do you tackle the seemingly huge task of getting traffic (that’s so vitally important to your success) driven to your site? To answer that, we first need to look at two types of visitor categories:

Non-targeted: A non-targeted visitor is defined as a person that is not truly interested in, or searching for, what your site offers. They may have stumbled across your site while searching for something else. While they may or may not purchase goods/services from your site, it should be assumed that they were not actively searching for what you’re marketing.

Targeted: A targeted visitor to your website would be a person that found your page using some type of search parameter. This person would have been actively searching for the content that your site offers. This person is much more likely to purchase from your site than the non-targeted visitor. Obviously, targeted traffic is what a website owner needs in order to be profitable.

Now here is the dilemma of the day: How do you generate traffic and then how do you determine if that traffic is targeted or non-targeted? Below I have listed some of the major ways of driving traffic to your website along with the type of visitor to expect from each one.

Search Engines: If you have optimized your site correctly, visitors you receive from the major search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo (and many of the lesser engines) should be targeted to your site. These people have actively searched out the keywords that have led them to your page. The best thing about this traffic is that it is free.

The downside of generic search engine traffic is getting your site ranked high enough so that people actually find your site. Most people will not look much beyond the first three pages of search results. So if you are not in the top thirty results for a certain keyword, the chances are good that you’re not going to see much traffic from them.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Pay-per-click, much like the generic search engine results discussed above, should be highly targeted traffic. The basic premise with PPC is that you place your ad with the different search engines, directories, etc. and then they distribute your ad according to your selected keywords. When a person clicks on your ad, you pay a set price. When done correctly, PPC can be an excellent way of driving targeted traffic. The downside of PPC is that you pay for every single click. Though many of the top PPC companies allow you to set up a monthly budget, it can still become very expensive.

Cost-Per-Action (CPA): Cost-per-action works much like PPC. The main difference between the two is that you pay only when the visitor performs a required task at your site (purchase, sign up, etc.) Of course the cost for this service is much higher than standard PPC. Also, CPA services usually require that you place a piece of code on your “Checkout” or “Thank You” page which alerts them to the fact that the visitor came from their service in order for them to charge you accordingly.

Traffic Exchanges: A traffic exchange website (Traffic Swarm, etc) is based on the idea of “You scratch my back, then I’ll scratch yours.” I.E. they will display your ad the same number of times that you’ve clicked to view someone else’s. Some offer ratios of 1:1 (meaning for every time you click on another ad, your ad will be displayed), while others offer differing plans. The downside of traffic exchanges is that most of the people clicking on the ads are doing it for the same reason you are – to get their ad placed. Therefore, any traffic generated through a traffic exchange will more than likely not be targeted. It is possible to make the occasional sale or sign up through these services, but they will probably be few and far between.

Article Submission: Writing & submitting articles about a subject that’s relevant to your website content is an excellent way to receive targeted traffic. This can normally be done for free or at a very low cost. An added benefit is that each time a website posts your article you will receive a one-way link to your website– which is highly favored by the search engines.

The process is really quite simple: 1) Write an article about a subject that visitors to your site would be interested in. At the bottom of the article place a “resource box” that contains a little blip about you and/or your website along with your link. (See my example below entitled “ABOUT THE AUTHOR”). 2) Submit your article to the many online article directories. This can be done manually or with software programs designed to automate the process for you.

If your article is well written, it may be placed on hundreds of highly visited websites. When a person reads your article and decides to click on the link you’ve provided in the resource box, you get the [usually] free targeted traffic. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Link Exchange: Once upon a time link exchanging was the BIG thing. I believe that has changed and no longer is as heavily-weighted by the search engines. The whole point of exchanging links was supposed to be because you believed your visitors would benefit from your link partner’s content. Link farms changed & abused all of that, so the search engine “points” given for backward links have been adjusted down. Don’t count them out completely as a way to drive traffic to your site, but don’t count on them solely either. Exchanging links with like-minded websites can still deliver some decent traffic, which, in theory, should also be the coveted targeted type.

In conclusion: As a website owner, targeted traffic is the name of the game. You can have the best looking site with the coolest graphics, but if no one can find your site then all your work isn’t going to do you much good.

Seek out highly targeted traffic for your website. Optimize your site for the search engines and then choose a few of the options listed above to start driving visitors to your site today. Once you get the visitors there…well, that’s another article for another day.

Copyright 2006 Craig Binkley

Craig Binkley is a husband, father and home business owner. Visit his Work From Home Directory located at http://www.workfromhomehelper.com for legitimate work from home opportunities and ideas.

This article tells you the methods used by yahoo mail site to get free targeted traffic, and how you can adopt the same method to get tons of free targeted traffic to your new or already existing business.

Without any doubt, yahoo mail site is getting a lot of online
traffic today, with about 2 millions visits per day and number 2 ranking in alexa survey, then you know that this site is a clear leader.

Most of the traffic are free, not because they are running an
affiliate program, but because of proper business positioning,
they provide what people always use and enjoy.

One of the phrases for assessing yahoo mail free e-mail services is “check yahoo mail”, which has become a hot profitable keywordfor webmasters.

Today you can;

The secret of yahoo mail success lies in “the approach from the customer” end. That is, customer satisfaction first, providing
solution first, then making profit later. More so, the products
are highly relevant and free. Thus everybody always check yahoo
mail.

You can reposition your business or start a new one; check yahoo mail style, by following the steps highlighted below;

(i) Provide Info/services in hot demand:
People love to check yahoo mail site because they can’t do
without yahoo products.

But what can you provide that will be in hot demand?

Think of your work experience, ideas, hobby, or just any
knowledge you know, and then start from there.

But more importantly, you need to search for information
connected with your chosen idea or knowledge that people search
for often, but are not really targeted by webmasters.

For example: “check yahoo mail” recorded 6843 demand(surfers) and 3917 supply(webmasters) last month. I will call check yahoo
mail a profitable keyword because it will draw a lot of visitors to your site, and their is few competition for it.

Every single idea is profitable if only you get an info linked
to it that people want. You can use a special e-commerce keyword research tool called searchit! for a good report.

(ii) Build a theme based site:
You need a professional site based on your chosen theme, that is, your profitable and researched idea, everything in your site must be relevant and promote your theme.

Using a tool called SiteBuildIt! you can build, host and market
your site all together at the same single price, with no
additional software, no knowledge of html and your site in the
first page of major search engines.

With a tool like this, you can concentrate more on building your business, while other aspects is being taken care of for you.

(iii) Use your site content to Presell Only:
Your site content should be presented in such a way that visitors only see what can benefit them, not sales letters. Check yahoo mail site and see what I’ am talking about, keep the aspect of sales to the background and provide information first, make yourself a solution provider.

When they come to love and trust you, they will buy from you.
Learn the art of e-persuasion from the book “How To Make Your
Content Presell”.

(iv) Choose your Monetization models:
After holding the attention of your site visitors enough to read your site content, you can now introduce him/her to products/services connected to the info he/she is seeking as the solution.

This way, you can make multiple streams of income by;

Check yahoo mail site to see how yahoo partner with other
websites to make multiple income. You too can do the same.

Tope Ola is a Business Building and Marketing Expert. His
website located at http://www.myss.net/multipleprofit.html
reveals the best tools and guides to getting tons of targeted
traffic, starting online businesses and making multiple streams
of income. You can also download free ebooks.

All too often I find site owners are confused (or in denial) about how to achieve the search engine rankings they desire on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). So, I am pleased to offer you my version of “Organic Listings 101.”

Several times each day I get approached by site owners wanting to be in the top 5, 10, top page for organic (free) listings. The organic results are those that display to the left and below “Sponsored Sites” or “Sponsored Results at Google, MSN and Yahoo!. These “Sponsored” advertisement boxes are part of Pay Per Click programs where site owners bid for positioning.

What we’re going to discuss today are the free listings that are gained by how your site is ranked based on a combination of unique variables (algorithm) of each search site. Which, to muddy things up further, evolve without notice.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”
~Aldous Huxley

Let’s first set the stage so that we have realistic expectations here. When I started my consulting practice back in the early 90s, it was relatively easy to get found. The volume of sites and the level of competition were not one iota of what they are today. Fast forward to 2005 and you have close to 12,000,000,000 (yes, that’s billion) pages with a good 10,000,000 being added daily.

So how do you get visibility in the SERPs? Shuffling or adding keywords in your Meta tags won’t do it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t the end-all-be-all either. You have to have a well rounded, smart long term marketing plan for your site that includes certain basics for you to rise in the organic rankings.

Issues for consideration to gain improved organic listings:

=> Look at your Web marketing plan as a long term effort. New sites are in Google’s sandbox for 6 months or more, and it will take time and effort to be viewed as more relevant than the sites that are already online in the free positions you seek.

=> Part of putting your plan together is to do a search with your top keyword phrases on the various search engines so that you are aware of the competition and the volume of sites already successfully ranking for the terms you are targeting. This gives you a real-world understanding of the level of competition you will be up against.

=> Understand that how your Web site ranks has nothing to do with how good you are at what you do. It has to do with how good your site is and how good others including the search engines think your site is. That requires a long term realistic marketing plan to grow your site to be the best most comprehensive resource on your product or service for your site visitors. It doesn’t happen overnight or just because you say you want it to.

=> Forget about trying to rank for one-word keywords-much too difficult and in some cases downright impossible. Concentrate and target 2-3 word phrases instead of one-word keywords and you’ll get more targeted visitors as well. There are several tools to assist you in investigating what keyword phrases your target market is actually using. Use these tools to your advantage!

=> Make sure each page within your site targets and is optimized for only one or two, 2-3 word keyword phrases each. Niche is what works for organic listings! The more you are about; the less you are about any one thing. Search results are based on numerous factors; one being relevancy for the terms the searcher is using. If you are targeting 10, 20, 30 terms per page, that page is not strongly about any given topic vs. another site that has a page or pages concentrating on just one or two phrases each. Keep in mind that less is more when it comes to targeting keyword phrases on a page by page basis.

=> To “top” the sites already out there, you have to do just that! Top them! What makes your site better and more valuable to your site visitors? If you don’t have anything unique and of quality or value to offer, you’ll never push those who already hold these positions out of your way.

=> Plan on adding new information to your site on an aggressive basis. Daily, weekly, minimally monthly! Resources, white papers, “how tos” not only add value but will naturally work wonders as keyword targeted pages. Offer the type of information those seeking your product or service will find useful and search for and that other sites will want to link to. Don’t even think of cheating and using content generating software…You’ll get nowhere with that approach. You need to have well written content of value; not keyword stuffed ramblings.

=> Plan on having lots of patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day and attaining great organic listings no longer happens in a day, a month, or even a year. Any business that hopes to succeed needs to take a consistent and informed long-term approach. This applies to organic listings ten-fold.

Yes, without a doubt all of the above recommendations require your time, effort and a realistic understanding of how organic listings are accomplished. But this is the reality of how great listings, over time, are attained. It is really quite simple-strive to make your site the best it can be; THE site for your product or service and your rankings will improve!

There are no short cuts or trickery for fast top 5, 10, top page organic results. If someone tells you otherwise, they are trying to use what you don’t know to get into your pocket book. Make a commitment to continually build your site to be the best it can be to your site visitors and your organic rankings will happen. Web sites and rankings are a work in progress after all!

Without implementing the above, you are left with only one choice in order to get visibility to those searching for your product or service. You will need to invest in a well planned Pay Per Click program and the corresponding budget necessary to reach your goals.

About the Author:
Judith Kallos is an authoritative and good-humored Technology Muse
who has played @ http://www.TheIStudio.com for over a decade. Check out her popular Software, Programming and Web Design
Cheat Sheets @ http://www.LearnAndThrive.com

I know what you’re thinking, oh great another article about generating traffic to my website. Well it is important for your website to have traffic. It makes absolutely no sense to have the most informative website in the world that no one knows about. This article lists ten low cost ways to generate traffic to your website. Enjoy.

1. Trade links with sites that have high ranking and content similar to yours.

While visitors are important, targeted visitors are really important. If your site is about dogs, it would be silly to trade links with a site that is for people who hate dogs. That would be counterproductive and just does not make sense. No, in order for your link trade to work, it should be with a site that covers the same topic that your website covers.

2. Publish a blog.

I really do not have time to go into all of the benefits of a blog in this article. Just understand that search engines love them and that other bloggers link to other bloggers frequently.

3. Publish your own newsletter.

Now I know what you’re thinking, publish a newsletter? That sounds like a lot of work. Well yes it is, but if you write your newsletter about something you’re interested in, it won’t really seem like work at all. Can’t write your way out of a paper bag? Don’t worry about that, there are lots of places online where you can get free content on a regular basis. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in article directory and you will be amazed at the number of results that come up.

4. Offer some free content relevant to your subject matter.

People love freebies. Make sure that your content is of good quality and related to your subject material. It would also be nice if you required the visitor to leave an email address before receiving the freebie, that way you can build your list that much quicker.

5. Swap ads with other ezine publishers.

Find ezines that match your topic and offer to swap ads with the publisher. Many publishers will agree to this type of arrangement for a short period of time, especially if it is something of value to their subscribers.

6. Participate in online forums

7. Publish your url on everything you distribute (books, business cards, brochures, etc.)

8. Study everything you can about generating traffic.

This is extremely important since the Internet changes minute by minute. Subscribe to ezines, read ebooks, read the forums. All of these sources will help you stay current on the latest Internet trends.

9. Ask successful Internet marketers as many questions as you can think of.

Many Internet marketers want to help you to succeed, especially if you are one of their affiliates. If they help you succeed, they succeed. Remember, the only dumb question is the unasked question.

10. When you see a good idea, use it.

This should almost go without saying, but if you see a great idea, that you can easily implement while doing your research then by all means use it. That is why you are doing all of this research in the first place, right?

Are you content with your advertising budget?
Schedule a coaching session with Frugal Solutions Expert, DeAnna Spencer.
She will design an affordable online advertising plan for you.
Contact her by sending an email to deanna.spencer(at)gmail.com
Visit this small business resource for more information.