How To Get Traffic On Blogs

Traffic Building Strategies for 2011

2011-10-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

There are lot of things has been changed in terms of after the blog has been started. Now a days SERP algorithm are more effective and more rely with on-site and social signals.

We will update this blog section soon. please be stay tuned to get more updates.

In this mean time, you can refer the SEOMOZ SEO factor 2011.

Repair My Credit Now (RMCN) Credit Services Information

2010-07-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Struggling to find the right credit repair service that tells you to solve your credit issues? Repair My Credit Now (RMCN) offer variety of services like changing your name to manage your financial needs that helps you in real time to solve your problems .

RMCN official website contains the real-time rmcn reviews that helps you to find the best credit services online. And you can find the member rmcn ratings that will gives the rmcn ranking information of what services ranks well.

You can also find the lot of information like
How do paternity issues and child support legal requirements affect your credit score?
Helpful consumer credit industry and identity theft reporting links.
If you have a bad credit history, it can be improved through diligent consumer credit repair efforts.
What you need to know before you cosign a loan for a family member or friend.
Do you really need to purchase that credit card fraud protection plan?
Should you spend your money on this kind of insurance?
How to repair negative credit card reports to credit reporting bureaus.
Credit Repair After Bankruptcy - Improving your credit following a bankruptcy.

For more detailed information you can visit their official website to find the abundant information about credit repair services online

Effective Usage Of 301 Redirect

2008-07-23T05:28:00.000-07:00

What is page redirection and why would you want to use it?

Let’s say you rename a page on your website, for whatever reason. Perhaps you decided to revamp your entire naming convention, perhaps you decided to restructure your site and need to move pages into different folders, or you just realized that you are missing valuable keywords.

Let’s elaborate a bit on the keywords issue, since it is part of your search engine ranking success.

Let’s say the page in question is about customized USB drives and you named it page1.htm. Then you read some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) articles and you found out that some search engines use words in the actual file name as search keywords.

Next time you do a Google search, take a look at the results, most will have words in the actual file name (in the URL section) bolded, denoting a keyword match. Your USB drives page will definitely benefit if named something like custom_usb_drives.htm instead.

Now that you renamed your page, you just created a symphony of issues for yourself, for your users and for your position in search engine results.

Linking issues

You will have to point every link on your site to the new page name. If your site is small, it should not be a big deal, but if your site is large, you will inevitably make mistakes, mainly forgetting a link or two.

This will result in visitors getting the dreaded “404 page not found” error when clicking on your links, robots (also know as crawlers or spiders) avoiding you, etc. Also, if you are heavily relying on visitors from search engines, then again, people will get a “404 page not found error”.

Let’s use the previous example, for a long time your page1.htm was indexed by major search engines. If someone types “custom usb drives” in a search engine box, your page shows up on the first search results screen.

That is fantastic, only if someone clicks on the link, they will be pointed to page1.htm, not to custom_usb_drives.htm, because the first page is the one in the search engine’s index. It will take time, sometimes months, before the search engines update their indexes with your new page name.

Lost Page Rank (PR) issues:

Google developed a proprietary algorithm that assigns a Page Rank (PR) to every page on the web. PR is a number from 1 to 10 (10 being the ideal) and is intended to be a representation of how useful and popular a given page is.

PR is influenced by many factors, one of the crucial ones being Link Popularity. Link Popularity is a representation of how many “quality” or “relevant” sites link to your page. Without getting into too much detail, it is increasingly difficult and time consuming to achieve a high PR for your pages, especially if you don’t have a really unique website with exceptional and highly sought after content.

If you are merely operating a commercial site, in a competitive market (such as selling custom branded USB drives, as in our example), then it takes a lot of time and hard work to build a good page PR.

When you rename a page and discard the old page, you also discard the PR of the page. Your renamed page will be seen as a totally new page, with 0 PR.

What is the solution?

I will start by enumerating some of the methods used by the non-initiated.

Not recommended solution 1: Duplicate content.

First thing that probably comes in you mind is: well, why can’t you just duplicate the page and let nature take its course. In other words, you will have two identical pages, one named page1.htm and one custom_usb_drives.htm.

This gives you time to update all links and the search engines will eventually index the new page.

This solution is not viable because search engines will penalize you quite badly, ‘thinking’ that you are trying to scam them by using the ‘duplicate content’ technique.

Not recommended solution 2: Custom error message.

You could create a custom error page. However, you will lose rankings on the next search engine update as the file will appear to be non-existent. As discussed above, it could be some time before the page with the new name will be indexed and will appear in people’s searches. Also, your web site visitors will be frustrated by the fact that they now have to dig through your site to find the desired information.

Not recommended solution 3: An HTML Meta redirect.

You could implement a so called Meta refresh in a blank or customized page that has the name of the old page (in our example, page1.htm) that points to the new page.

The redirect can be instant, or delayed by a predetermine amount of time. The delayed redirect has the advantage that you can place an extra message, such as “please be aware that the page you are looking for changed location….. etc., etc…. you will be redirected automatically to the new location”

In the past, this was probably the most used technique.

Without getting into the mechanics of the Meta redirect, which is basically a META tag statement you ad to your HEADER section, know that there are also Java Script techniques that achieve similar results.

What is bad about this is that this is a technique often used by spammers to trick search engines and it should be avoided, unless the page is in a section of your site that isn’t indexed (also known as spidered or crawled). Search engine spammers create a page that is optimized for certain keywords and phrases - it usually has no real content. The page is then picked up by some search engines, but when a visitor clicks on the search engine entry, they are redirected to another site, often unrelated.

Most search engines have filters to detect this. Using this form of search engine deception will see a site eventually banned or penalized by major players such as Google.

The recommended redirect strategy - 301 Redirect

A 301 redirect is the most efficient, visitor friendly, robot (spider, crawler) friendly and search engine friendly solution around for web sites that are hosted on servers running Apache. If you are not sure, check with your hosting provider.

A 301 redirect is just a set of commands you type into your .htaccess file.

When a visitor (whether human or robotic) requests a web page via any means, your web server checks for a .htaccess file. The .htaccess file contains specific instructions for certain requests, including security, redirection issues and how to handle certain errors.

The code “301″ is interpreted as “moved permanently”. After the code, the URL of the missing or renamed page is noted, followed by a space, then followed by the new location or file name.

First of all, you’ll need to find the .htaccess file in the root directory of where all your web pages are stored. If there is no .htaccess file there, you can create one with Notepad or a similar application.

Make sure when you name the file that you remember to put the “.” at the beginning of the file name. This file has no tail extension.

Some hosting providers offer redirect services through their “control panels”, so you don’t have to perform low level changes on the .htaccess file itself. Instead, they provide a user friendly interface for this.

Check with your hosting provider to see what the optimal way to perform a 301 redirect is in your case. I will continue the article with the barebones solution.

If there is a .htaccess file already in existence with lines of code present, be very careful not to change any existing line unless you are familiar with the functions of the file.

Scroll down past all the existing code, leave a line space, then create a new line that follows this example:

redirect 301 /folder/page1.htm http://www.you.com/folder/custom_usb_drives.htm

It’s as easy as that. Save the file, upload it back into your web and test it out by typing in the old address to the page you’ve changed. You should be instantly and seamlessly transported to the new location.

Notes: Be sure not to add “http://www” to the first part of the statement - just put the path from the top level of your site to the page. Also ensure that you leave a single space between these elements:

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved)
/folder/page1.htm (the original folder path and file name)
http://www.you.com/folder/custom_usb_drives.htm (new path and file name)

The same format applies not only to renamed files, but also to files moved to a different location.

How the search engines treat the 301

The 301 redirect is the safest way to preserve your rankings.

On the next indexing (crawling, spidering), the search engine robot will obey the rule indicated in your .htaccess file and index the new page name every time a link or its internal database tries to access the old page.

In the next update (again, this could take months), the old file name and path will be dropped and replaced with the new one.

Sometimes you may see alternating old/new file names during the transition period, along with some possible fluctuations in rankings as things settle. Don’t panic, this is normal.

Microsoft IIS servers

What if your site is hosted on a Microsoft IIS server instead?

If you have access to the server, do this: In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect. Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”. Enter the redirection page, check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”. Click “Apply”.

If you do not have access to the server, ask your host to point you into the right direction.

In conclusion, the best and the most transparent way (to both human and robotic users) to rename and move files on your web site, while preserving your search engine ranks is the 301 redirect.

Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adsense

2008-06-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Google AdSense is the current leader in content-sensitive web-based marketing. Webmasters can place Google AdSense JavaScript code on their web pages in order to allow Google's servers to show context sensitive advertisements (Google Adwords). The left hand side of this page shows an example of a Google AdSense skyscraper displaying a text or image ad.

Google's terms and conditions are very strict such that many web publishers cannot use adsense adverts on their sites. They are either denied from joining the Google AdSense program, or in a situation that is becoming more and more common do not wish to do business with Google. A number of publishers are also finding their Adsense accounts are being disabled for reasons that are completely beyond their control. The problem is that most of the alternatives to Google's Adsense are pretty useless. Most of the good ones (such as doubleclick) are only interested in very large volume customers and so are not interested in the little guy with his blog who wants to earn a small income on the side. For this reason I have compiled my Top 10 alternatives to Google's Adsense that are ideal for the small time publisher.

Has your adsense account been disabled? Then try these top 10 alternatives.

1) Clicksor

Clicksor is easily the current leader of the small publisher Adsense competition. They have payouts upto a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income. They are also, in my experience, much more tollerant than Google. Their terms and conditions suggest that you should only place one copy of their code on a page but as long as you only place a single pop-up or DHTML code on a page they seem happy to let you place many context sensitive ad blocks on a single site.

Clicksor also has a big advantage over a number of the lower ranked alternatives on this site in that their ads are truly context sensitive. Thus while you can provide keywords they have technology that will also show ads targeted to the content of your site. This means your visitors are exposed to ads of the same subject as they were searching for when they reached your site and thus vastly increases the click thru ratio and thus your sites earning potential. The context sensitive nature also saves you the hassle of having to specify keywords for all of your sites and decide in advance what people might be looking for.

The online stats provided by Clicksor are not perfect but they are enough for you to keep track of the trends with your site. They also allow you to add as many sites / domains as you want under a single account. You also only need the root page of your site approved. Once this is done you can place ads on all of your sub pages.

The payment schedule with Clicksor is also much better geared to the small site owner. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50.00 ($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal ($20.00 minimum for PayPal). Revenue totaling less that $50 (PP $20) will rolled into the following period. The pay period is based on a 15 day schedule so you can get paid much more frequently. Clicksor also do not require a Social Security (SSN) or Individual Tax Identity Number (ITIN) to join and so while this 'technically' does not help US site owners with their tax liability it does make it much easier for non US citizens to join up and start earning revenue.

Advert wise Clicksor features:

Multiple formats available including text, image and animated ads.

Text Links
Image Ads
Flash Ads
Animation Ads
Banners
Pop unders
Dynamic (DHTML) highlighting

Click here to visit Clicksor's website and sign up for an account to try it out. There is no obligation and no fees ever. Note, once you start adding the advert code to your site it can take up to 24 hours for Clicksor to get up to speed as it were so initially you may see some ads that don't appear to be relevant. Once their contextual engine kicks in, however, the relevance quickly improves.

2) Yahoo Publisher Network

Yahoo are currently playing catch up to Google and are trying to release their own context sensitive advertising service. This promises to be an excellent alternative to Google Adsense but in reality is likely to be a simple copy with the same restrictive terms and conditions as Google, including $100 minimums on payouts. At present the system is still in beta test and while you can visit their site and sign up to register your interest it appears at present that they are not accepting new advertisers. In fact most applicants won't even receive a reply. Thus until it goes live and it becomes clear what type of website owners Yahoo will be targetting I can only place it in second place.

Advert wise Yahoo Publisher Network will feature:

Display ads related to the content on your site. You'll earn revenue from qualified clicks.
Integrate other Yahoo! services into your web site, including Add to My Yahoo! (RSS), Y!Q and much more to come...
This beta program is just the beginning. Our mission is to deliver products and services based on the needs of the publishing community.

3) AllFeeds

Allfeeds is another alternative to Google Adsense particularly targetted to smaller publishers. They offer a huge selection of advertsing options including:
Text Links
Search Boxes
DHTML Popups
Buttons
Banners
XML Feeds

The payouts are not as good as Clicksor and Yahoo but if you have relevant keywords can be fairly good. The only real problem is that you have to get each individual page approved and provide a set of keywords for each page. This can be real time consuming and makes it difficult to accurately target your website's audience.
A good advantage of AllFeeds though, and the reason I have given it 3rd place is that their minimums for payout are small. Once you have earned just $25.00 they will send you a check. Alternatively if you use PayPal they will pay you everytime you reach just $10.00 in earnings. If you don't earn enough for payout in a given month then your earnings will simply be rolled over to the next month. It is free to join, there is no obligation, you can cancel at anytime and there are never any fees.

Click here to visit allfeeds' website and sign up for an account to try it out. There is no obligation and no fees ever.

4) FastClick

At first look FastClick would appear to be one of the better alternatives to Google's Adsense however, they are one of many online advertising companies that tend to favor the large customers. You'd think companies would have learnt from Google's success and accepted that the way to make money is to target both large and small. Remember Excite? They went the way of the dodo because they only targeted the top 100 companies rather than the small guys who can't afford large TV adverts and have to advertise on the Internet instead. Anyway, I digress. If you can get yourself accepted to FastClick (now called ValueClick) then you will probably be able to run some reasonably high paying adverts on your site but most small website owners will find that FastClick simply aren't interested.
Advertising wise FastClick (ValueClick) off an industry-average 65-percent monthly payout on all advertising revenue your website generates. Fastclick pays by the 25th of the month for the previous month by check or PayPal.
Formats include:
Text Ads
Image Ads
Interstitial
Pop-Under
InVue

5) Veoda

Veoda can be a useful alternative for small website owners since they don't require any minimum page views per month. They pay 60% of the revenues generated per click to you and upto 90% if your site has a high traffic rate. They payout at only $25.00 and unlike Google and Yahoo do not require any tax information making it ideal for small website owners who don't want to have to deal with registering their website as a small business. Something they would have to do if they earnt money through Google or Yahoo where social security numbers are required. The range of advertizers is sadly lacking but Veoda does have an intriguing range of different advert format options including:

Static Listings
Context Sensitive Ads
Text and Graphical Ads
Flash Ads
Animated Scrolling Ads
Flash Listings professional animated scrolling ads
Search boxes
Fly in Ads
Xml Feeds Data feed for external parsing

Click here to sign up for Veoda and try it out on your site today. There is no obligation, it is completely free and you can cancel at any time.

6) Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser can be a useful alternative to Google and offer some intriguing ad formats including what they refer to as free design. This lets you specify the look and dimensions of your text ads. While a useful feature I have not investigated how well it works but imagine that while it sounds good on paper it could result in lower priced ads being displayed. I.e. most advertisers will probably want to keep control of the layout of their ads and so turn off support for Free design ads.

Bidvertizer pays you either in $50.00 increments by check or $10.00 increments by PayPal.

Customize the layout of your ads: BidVertiser gives you a simple point-and-click tool to help you customize the layout of the ads to fit your site's look and feel, in order to retain the high quality of your website. Bidvertizer also offers the opportunity to block unwanted ads. The reports provided by Bidvertiser are adequate but not outstanding. The only real problem is that they can be picky with who they accept into their program and can be quick to ban users whose websites show what may be perfectly valid fluctuating visitor behaviour.

7) Chitika

Chitika takes a different approach to internet advertizing. Instead of displaying the 'industry standard' advert boxes with text and image ads that all look the same they instead provide active boxes that show targeted products from different manufacturers. If you run a blog for example and discuss a product you may find the chitika box showing links for this product and competitors products. If people purchase these products you get a paid a commission. This is refered to as impulse marketing in the form of eMinimalls. Feel free to give it a try although I think the ideal use of this service would be as a compliment to another advertizers service. E.g. you could show Clicksor context sensitive ads on your site and then compliment these with Chitika's eMinimalls.

8) TargetPoint

Targetpoint�s services are particularly publisher-oriented, you have absolute control over the appearance of your ads. They provide supervision over ad content. The payouts tend to be reasonable but they can be quite choosey regarding which sites are accepted.

Advert wise Target Point provide:

Adpoint generates content-relevant, revenue-evaluated ads.
Exitpoint helps utilizing the full capacity web exit traffic.
Imagepoint serves visual ads. Known to the rest of the world as Image ads.
Underpoint serves pop-under ad windows.
Searchpoint (beta) features enhanced search capabilities, which enhance your users� experience and generate additional profit.

Registration is free and they pay back a minimum of 60% of the total on-click revenue. Payment options include Bank checks, PayPal and Wire transfers (if eligible).

9) Revenue Pilot

RevenuePilot would appear to be a very good ad server alternative although I would be careful to take most of their claims at face value. They claim to offer the Industry's highest bid prices and largest payouts with CPC of $2.00 or more. I find these claims very hard to believe. Indeed why would an advertiser be interested in advertising with a client that essentially claims to be ripping them off. Either way the claims may be true in which case this could be a very lucrative advertising system for your website. Feel free to try it and make up your own mind.

10) ClickThruTraffic

Not the best alternative but if you can't get accepted by any of the above you can always try these guys. They claim that you will earn between 6 and 20 cents everytime a surfer clicks on an advertisement on your site but in reality I think you are more likely to see rates around the 0.5c to 2c range. However, feel free to try it out and see how you get on. Advert wise they offer text links, buttons and banners.

Lookup Page -The Online Reputation Management Tool

2008-06-20T02:08:00.000-07:00

Lookup page is the online reputation management portal where you can find and contact the reputed members world wide.

Lookup page comes with powerful online people search facility so that any one can find the reputed members on particular category by simply pressing the search button.

Look up page comes with the free ,business, standard,corporate members so that every one can choose their subscribing according to their needs.

Lookup page comes with lot of goodies so that professionals make their presence more visible over web.

Lookup pages are organized in well suitable manner so that any one can easily find their related professionals in easy way and also lookup comes with the built in search engine so that every one will find their queries easily.

Google AdSense Effective Ad Positioning

2008-05-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Some of us are quite successful with AdSense while others are still working hard to make the best out of their AdSense by experimenting with different Ad layouts, color blending and Ad formats. I would like to share some of my learnings and also put forth some best practices. Since every site is different in content, layout and industry it’s related to, please keep in mind that you will experiment with your site with tips mentioned here. Some of these tips may work the next moment you follow them and for some you will need to change their position and unit size slightly to adjust to your website.

Effective Ad Positioning

Placing the Ads in the places with greater visibility and maximum probability of clicking, yields best results. See the images below with colored blocks which kind of tell us that those are the areas with maximum visibility and higher chances of getting clicked. Placing your AdSense in the areas as per the images below may increase the chances of your visitors clicking on the Ads but remember there are other things also which must be kept in mind to increase the click ratio, such as color blending of Ads, keywords in content, number of impressions, visits etc,. And since every website is different, you may experiment and determine the best Ad position yourself.

Layout #1.

Ad positioning for a web site with header[top], footer[bottom], navigation bar[left], content in the middle. Good for either static or dynamic content on the page.

Layout #2

Ad positioning for website with lengthy article/content on the page. People when scroll down after reading the article will see an Ad and chances of clicking it to navigate out of the page is quite high.
AdSense Optimization Layout #2

Layout #3

Another way of placing Ad in the site with the skyscrapper placed on left. It more or less looks will like a navigation bar with links, right blending of colors increases click rate.

Layout #4

Placing the Ad Link unit on left hand side inside the navigation bar makes it look like a part of navigation and provides different topics on which people can click on. On the right and in the content, placing a square 125×125 or 200×200 ad format layout is always good. It increases the chances of someone clicking on it if it also serves image Ads.

Layout #5

Same as above but placing the square Ad in the navigation bar on the right hand side.

Layout #6

Same as #4 but with the square Ad unit in the content is placed on left. If you blend it well with the site color, you will see an immediate increase in the click rate.

Layout #7

One of the unusual site designs. I have seen it on a couple of websites which are highly successful with Ads. Of course, you can replace the skyscrapper on right with small units of AdSense or Ad units of any other Ad programs.

Layout #8

For a site with no footer, place a wide Ad unit as a footer. An Ad Links unit can be placed in the right or left navigation bar.
AdSense Optimization Layout #8

Please do focus on your content too! Your AdSense optimization will be more successful with more number of people visiting your site.

I hope these AdSense optimization tips would be useful to you and help you in your optimization efforts. In my next articles, I will focus on color blending techniques and avoiding Ad blindness. Please do drop in your comments, feedback, suggestions for articles.

Auto Social Poster 3.5 for Wordpress

2008-05-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Site Sniper Pro is the premier solution for deep site targeting to create powerful Google site-targeted ad campaigns. You can find hundreds of laser-targeted sites for your ads in minutes using Site Sniper Pro's exclusive deep-scan technology.

You get effortless, actionable information about potential target pages for your product or service. This search resulted in 921 pages found with more than 215 of them potential targets for an AdWords180 campaign. And I had less than 8 minutes of my time to get these results.

You can even see AdWords advertisers for your search terms. One of my sneaky tricks is to find AdWords advertisers with pages I can target. They pay for my laser-targeted advertising while I leach customers from my competitors ads! Awesome use for AdWords180.

Here is where you can see what Site Sniper Pro actually found and can use in your Google site-targeted campaign. It doesn't get any easier.

Here Are Some More Great Features:

*
Automatically convert your tags to Technorati links.
*
Ability to assign pre-set tags to all of your posts for a specific blog. This is a powerful option for those running niche blogs. Just enter a list of tags, and each time a new post is added to your blog, the plugin will grab some of those tags and use them. 100% hands-free!
*
Email Progress Reports. Each time you post to your blog, the Auto Social Poster generates and email giving you the status of each bookmarking post. It will tell you if your post failed or was successful.
*
You can potentially post to many bookmarking site that is running Scuttle. Scuttle is an open source bookmarking platform that allows anyone to create their own bookmarking site. You can find hundreds of sites using Scuttle by just doing a simple search on Google. That means you can potentially post to a lot more than the 10 sites listed above.

With This Tool You Wil Be Able To:

*
Automate bookmarking of your blog posts from hundreds or even thousands of blogs. No more tinkering with settings and doing your postings one by one. It's time to step up and become more automated like the big online marketers.
*
Add your new blog posts to an unlimited number of accounts. This is where you can blast traffic to your niche. Instead of just randomly dumping all of your URLS into an account like most other software, how about creating different bookmarking accounts that are used to post about different topics or niches. This is easy to set up with Auto Social Poster.
*
Give the bookmarking sites and visitors exactly what they want - fresh quality content, NOT hundreds of spammy web pages links.

Home page : http://www.autosocialposter.com/
Wordpress Plugin FAQ:

What is required to install and run this plugin?

You need the following:
1. Wordpress 2.1+
2. FTP Software (to upload the plugin)
3. Accounts at the social bookmarking sites. (these are all free)

What is your refund policy

You have 30 days to try this tool. If you don't like it I will refund your money, no questions asked.

Is this SPAM Software?

Absolutely not. We do not promote or condone spamming and our software is not spamware.

How does this add tags automatically?

When creating your blog post, you specify the keywords to be used as tags. You can also specify pre-set tags for all blog posts in advance.

Does Auto Social Poster create bookmarking accounts for me?

No, definitely not. You must do this yourself, but it takes less than a minute for each site.

We decided not to offer this ability because the sign up processes for most sites are constantly changing in an effort to combat spammers and automated registrations. Any system that automates account creations is just asking for problems down the road.

We are not spammers and do not wish to be perceived as such.We are not trying to generate throwaway accounts where you spam a few hundred domains and then get banned. We want to create lasting accounts, that build integrity over time. This is not a spam tool!

How can this be used to post to my blog automatically?

This is how I use Auto Social Poster: I have close to 100 quality content Wordpress blogs. On each one I have installed the Auto Social Poster plugin. On some of them I have RSS2Blog set up to post an different articles to each blog.When it does, Auto Social Poster takes over and does it's thing... I don't have to do anything except check my email report to make sure that everything was posted OK.

There are several applications that can add posts to your blog automatically. Just load up a bunch of good content, making sure you add your keywords to be used as tags and then you are ready to go.

Does your plugin also bookmark my website URLS?

No. Auto Social Poster does not bookmark the pages of your website. In most cases that will look like SPAM unless you are bookmarking only a few pages. Auto Social Poster only bookmarks fresh posts to your Wordpress blog.

Download

List of Free Directories For Blog Promotion

2007-10-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

	Google Pagerank	Prices	Description
-	Add Your Directory	-	Free	To Submit your directory Click Here
1	Alive blog directory	7	Free	Build on established Alive directory
2	MS blog directory	5	Free	Newest Blog Directory
3	BlogHub	7	Free	Great blogger portal. Directory, chat, tools
4	Botw - blogs	6	Free	Biggest directory opened doors for bloggers
5	Blogarama	0	Free	Good categorized blog directory.
6	Blogwise	7	Free	More than 65 000 blogs listed already
7	Portal. Eatonweb	7	Free	Perfect international blog directory
8	LsBlogs	7	Free	Fast approval, 1-2 days to list your blog
9	BlogMighty	5	Free	Another good blog directory
10	BoingBoing	8	Free	Directory for blogs and interesting websites.
11	Kmax	6	Free	Reciprocal directory for bloggers.
12	Findory	7	Free	Perfect way to find readers. Like BoingBoing
13	Add Url Blog	6	Free	Very simple blog directory. Live / real link
14	Blogtagstic	6	$ 3.00	Cheap paid directory with good pr (pr5-pr6)
15	Blogs by City	5	Free	Good if you target local people
16	Syndic8	8	Free	Smart social site
17	Blog Watch	6	Free	Real weblogs directory. Don't miss this one
18	All-Blogs.net	7	Free	All-Blogs.net is a human edited blog directory.
19	BlogFlux	7	Free	Register and submit your blog
20	Bloggeries	5	Free	One of the best designed blog directory
21	Blogdirs	5	Free	Very simple PHP blog index. Add your blog
22	The Blog Resource	5	Free	Regular directory for bloggers
23	BlogBib	6	Free	Old directory. Proved by time and bloggers
24	Insane Blog	5	Free	Free only for PageRank 3 or higher blogs
25	Finding Blogs	5	Free	Both free and paid submissions
26	Blogoriffic	6	Free	Blog directory, blogger network community
27	The Vital	5	Free	Blog and news search directory
28	Blog Advance	6	Free	Portal for bloggers with forum and directory
29	DirSpace	0	Free	Good weblog directory for non-profit blogs
30	Geek Philosopher	5	Free	You can register, submit blog, and update
31	Bookings	3	Free	Directory for blog and blog resources
32	LinkArchive	2	Free	Blogger free directory
33	Grokodile	3	Free	One of the best categorized directory
34	BlogHop	6	Free	Blog directory with really good traffic.
35	Blog Search	6	Free	High-class blog directory with many features
36	Blog Universe	6	Free	Fast submission and approval. Take a look
37	Blog Catalog	7	Free	Good network system for bloggers
38	Lefty Blogs	6	Free	Very original directory, you can rate
39	Yourwebloghere	0	Free	Google banned? From pr6 to pr0 last update
40	Kinja	7	Free	Pr7 blog guide, hurry up to abb your blog
41	Blog Ranking	7	Free	It is not blog rate system - regular directory
42	Poddop	4	Free	Good directory to list online web blog
43	Bloggernity	7	Free	One of the best blog directory and portal
44	Bloggertalk.net	0	Free	Blogger site, directory of blogs and resources
45	Blog Bits	5	Free	You must register as member to submit link
46	Technorati	8	Free	Very popular blog directory
47	Get Blogs	7	Free	190 categories, 11 000 blogs. Human edited
48	Wil's Domain	0	Free	Used to be good, now it banned by Google
49	Submit Blogs	4	Free	Admin: My blog was added really fast...
50	List My Niche	5	Free	Not a blog directory, but friendly to blog sites
51	Blog Listing	5	Free	Growing weblog directory
52	Link Blogs	3	Free	No submission form, e-mail to add url
53	Finding Blog	6	Free	Blog directory and blog resources website
54	One Million Blogs	5	$ 1.00	Link from homepage. Pixel blog site
55	World-Blog	4	Free	Homepage pr4, blog directory pr3
56	Directory BlogThat	5	Free	You don't have to be member to add
57	Top Weblog	3	Free	Very new dir. Free to add your website
58	One ... Bloggers	5	Free	Blog pixel directory. Add your picture
59	5 Star Blogs	5	Free	Blog directory and rating website
60	Top Blog Area	5	Free	Website to rate and vote for blogs.
61	2 review	3	Free	Peoplr review blogs, Getting more popular
62	Blog Top Sites	7	Free	Add your blog, awesome deep pagerank
63	Blogit	5	Free	Add blog and write. Good blogger community
64	Blogion	6	Free	Good directory to add blog, online journal
65	Blog Sweet	6	Free	Sweet blog directory, fast growing
66	Blog Listing	4	Free	Another good blog directory
67	Truth Laid Bear	7	Free	Top posts from thousands blogs and journals
68	Blog Pulse	7	Free	Work like Alexa.com, but you can be sponsor
69	Blog Code	5	Free	Directory - traffic exchange between bloggers
70	Blog Intro	6	Free	Browse blogs and rate them
71	Bulletize	5	Free	#1 growing directory for blogs and bloggers
72	Blog Finds	6	Free	Blog search directory
73	Surreal Blog	5	Free	Simple blog PHP directory, submit url
74	Blog Directory-Postami	5	Free	Regular directory for your online journal
75	Blog Web Directory	5	Free	SEO friendly blog directory for bloggers
76	All-Blogs	6	Free	All-Blogs - blog directory
77	Blogmopolis	6	Free	Virtual city of blogs, nice designed directory
78	DoYouLikeMyFace	2	Free	Pixel blog directory, submit picture and url
79	Blog N Blogs	2	Free	2006 directory to find and submit blog
80	Browse Blogs	5	Free	Easy and simple to submit your blog
81	Blog On USA	5	Free	Original directory. USA map blog directory
82	Blogger Team	5	Free	Portal with nice blog directory attached
83	Quack Track	5	Free	Huge index of blogs. Add your weblog
84	BlogDup	5	Free	International index of blogs, good for local
85	Blog Announce	0	Free	Newest free directory
86	BloggerHq	3	Free	Blog and blogger directory. Grow fast
87	Bigger Blogger	4	Free	Really big blog directory
88	Nubbit	5	Free	Nubbit: Blog directory for everyone
89	Blog Folders	3	Free	Simple directory of blogs
90	Creative-Blogs	4	Free	Good pagerank in the future
91	Adgee	0	$ 1.00	Paid blog directory, for non-profit blogs $1.00
92	Blog Shares	6	Free	Blog portal, directory, ranking, market
93	Jenett	6	Free	Plog project website, very original one
94	Blog Crowds	2	Free	Will be big, awesome designed and idea
95	Kings Of The Blogs	1	Free	Wait next Google update for this directory
96	MVblogs	1	Free	Directory of the most valuable blogs
97	Blog Hijinks	0	Free	Newest categorized blog directory
98	Blog Lookup	0	Free	Watch this blog directory, submit site now
99	Bloggersdir	0	Free	Blogger directory
100	Blog Party	4	Free	PR4 blog directory, php, add your url
101	Chat To Us	0	Free	Chat to us - blog promotion portal with dir.
102	Nobel Prize Winner	0	Free	Just launched blog directory, be the first
103	Blogoozle	3	Free	Very beautiful directory, submit your weblog
104	Blogspotdirectory	4	Free	All kind of blogs, not only Blogspot
105	Blogging Abroad	3	Free	Search engine friendly directory
106	Blogger Finder	3	Free	Simpliest blog directory ever
107	2 Search Blogs	3	Free	Reciprocal blog submission for this directory
108	Blogs Collection	3	Free	Collection of the best blogs
109	BlogDust	4	Free	Blog directory for all types of blogs
110	Search4Blogs	5	Free	Huge portal for all kind of blogs
111	Blo	7	Free	Always updated news and blogs directory
112	Blogphiles	5	Free	For people who really loves their blogs
113	Blog Directory Submit	5	Free	Reciprocal directory for your blog
114	Blog Web Directory	5	Free	Good chance to get good pr link
115	Seaitinfo Blog	2	Free	Small directory for bloggers
116	Search for Blog	2	Free	Small categorized blog directory
117	My Blog 2 You	2	Free	Newest blog directory for webmasters
118	Reaper-X	0	Free	Free blog directory
119	BlogLines	9	Free	Large directory, search engine, portal
120	Blog Showoff	0	Free	Your link can be on frontpage for an hour
121	Easy Word Press	0	Free	Solid blog directory - club for all topics
122	Blogz.bz	0	Free	Blog directory for all kind of blogs
123	Blog-Directory	7	Free	Thousand blogs...
124	Ratingz	6	Free	For all types blogs and communities
125	BlogChild	4	Free	E-mail webmaster for submission
126	Blogs-Collection	0	Free	Admin: Best of the newest directories
127	BlogWidow	6	Free	All kind of blogs good for this directory
128	Delightfulblogs	6	Free	Best designet, perfect blog directory
129	Diarist	6	Free	Oldest directory of online journals
130	I like Blogs	4	Free	Website of blog pixels
131	Search4Blogs	4	Free	Very old blog directory to submit resource
132	Weblog Start4all	5	Free	Dutch, accept all blogs, that's why here
133	Today	4	Free	Not the best directory but nice domain
134	Wutzle	4	Free	Blogger directory and forum
135	Blog Explosion	7	Free	Register, submit blog. Perfect traffic for blogs
136	Blog Popular	0	Free	Many categories. Good blog tools
137	Blog Z	3	Free	Directory and ranking system
138	Blogs Boom	0	Free	Nice newest portal. Directory, tags, rank
139	The Million Blogs	4	Free	Multi lingual blog pixel directory
140	Blog-Search	4	Free	For all kinds of blogs
141	Blog Directory	3	Free	Links, Rss, Video blogs, photo blogs...
142	Directory Weblog	0	Free	Simpliest blog submission
143	Kookkoo	3	Free	Niciest directory. 5 stars!
144	Blog-Directory- Submit	5	Free	PHP Nuke based blog community
145	Blog Site Zone	1	Free	Promote every category! Could be big soon.
146	Blog-Stuff	0	Free	Has blog exchange directory
147	Photarium	0	Free	Blog of blog directories.
148	Geeks With Blogs	7	Free	Blogger community for geeks
149	ManhattanService	3	Free	Our directory of blogs
150	High Class Blogs	6	Free	Directory, news for bloggers.
151	BlogLinker	6	Free	Automatic link submission
152	FuelMyBlog	3	Free	Newest blog social network
153	BlogDrive	0	Free	Regular blog directory
154	Blogsdr	4	Free	Good SEO friendly directory
155	Total Blog Directory	1	Free	Newest Blog Directory
156	BlogBunch	4	Free	From PR3 to PR4 last update. Growing fast

Free Ways To Increase Web Site Traffic

2007-09-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

Free Search Engine Submission

The first and fore most steps to be done to increase website traffic in free way are to submit their sites to search engines and directories. Most of the major search engines accept the site submissions for free. Google, Yahoo, Gig blast, Askjeeves are the some of the search engines that accepts free submission; you can find other search engines by searching.

Free Directory Inclusion

Directories also plays important role for increasing traffic. But choosing the relevant directory has become tedious job today. Actually free directories are not absolutely free, Some directories insists some pay for consideration of listing and some requires reciprocal link exchange. And also site listing takes some time, in free directories due to their huge requests

Alternatively you may start a new directory service and it drives huge traffic.

Participating In Forum Activities Or By Answering other questions

Participate in forum activities will drive huge traffic to sites. Yes every one have question about some thing and they will surely look in for assistance in places like forums. Choose your interest and relevant topics you want to share or get assistance form that forum. Most of the forums allows your signatures can be put through your posting. But Please be sure that your referenced site have enough content that the visitors can expect.

Yahoo answers are the huge traffic generating source to sites by the way of questioning or answering.

Sponsor Templates or Web tools

Sponsoring web tools will surely improves the traffic. Adding some tools like keyword suggestion, Back link analyzer, Page rank prediction, free space, and free articles etc.

Sponsoring templates for famous blogs like Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad will drives huge traffic to blogs today.

Otherwise you may sponsor some thing for social activities or by volunteering for some organizations like blue gross, cyber crime and etc.

Get Reviewed Or Do Some Review For Other Sites

You can participate to reviewing other sites. So many requests are made today to review their sites. Otherwise you can request others to review your sites.

Get Awards Or Sponsor Awards

If you have the good content you may apply for web awards program. Getting awards are the greatest reputation and it provides solid customer base.

Other wise you may give awards for other site. This will also drives traffic to sites. You can compensate the expenses by getting sponsors.

Requesting For Being Guest Author Or Requesting Link

Take Participate in other site or blogs activities like guest author, guiding for site design will improve the traffic to your sites. By these method both of them get reasonable traffic to each others.

Otherwise you may request for link requests from other sites. But be sure that you have got links from relevant site and your link has not placed in over crowded links place.

Article Writing Or Publishing Press Releases

Article writing is the one of the effective method of getting back links today. Back links are back bone for developing page rank to sites. By this article writing you can improve ranking as well as your writing skills. In my point of view Article writing is the one of the affordable and best method to be practiced to drive traffic to sites.

Affiliate Programs Or Partnership Programs

You may get traffic by joining affiliate programs .By these method you can get both traffic and money.

Social Networking Social networking is became the latest trend develop traffic to sites. By using this social networking you can build relationship with other participants. My space, Netscape, Orkut are the some of the social networking sites available on net.

Content is King

Last But not least, Content is king for all the time. Most of the internet users came to internet for information. So any sites will not concentrate on the content will surely loose the customer in longer run even though if it has huge traffic.

And also the low traffic sites can increase their traffic by the way of improving content.

What is SEO Copywriting?

2007-09-21T18:28:00.001-07:00

SEO Copywriting, or to give it its full name, search engine optimization copywriting or search engine copywriting, is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms.

As well as the viewable text, SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text.

The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques.

Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements.

SEO Copywriting strengths

One thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines.

It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not.

SEO Copywriting weaknesses

Competitive search terms
The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed.

Suitable sites
Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines.

Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms
SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms.

Tied to a copywriter
What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made.

Slipping in the rankings
If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the #10 page will slip to #11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what?

If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter.

Summary

SEO Copywriting is good when:-

there are not many search terms to target
the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness
money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website
you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter)

Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful.

NOTE:
Competitive search terms are not necessarily those where millions of results are returned. They are those where people are competing hard for the top positions. There's a big difference.

Copywriting Tutorial

This article is about SEO copywriting and not about copywriting in general. Copywriting is a specialized field, which has the ability to make a website successful - or not. Those of us without that skill can flounder along or we can enlist the help of one of the best in the business. This copywriting tutorial is the best that I've found on the web, and I thoroughly recommend reading it.

SEO copywriting and normal copywriting don't always mix very well, but it is worth taking the time to integrate them as far as is possible. After all, SEO copywriting will help to bring people from the search engines to the website but, if the website fails to sell itself or its products to those people, there isn't much point in them coming

courtesy: webworkshop.net

Random Articles: Lookup Page

Lookup page is the online reputaion management portal where you can find and contact the reputed members world wide.

Lookup page comes with powerful online people search facility so that any one can find the reputed members on particular category by simply pressing the search button.

Look up page comes with the free ,business, standard,corporate members so that every one can choose their subscribing according to their needs.

Lookup page comes with lot of goodies so that professionals make their presence more visible over web.

High AdSense Earners and their revenues

2007-09-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

All of us know there are many sites making good money from contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network. But their owners do not hurry up to disclose their revenues. On the different Internet forums you can see the posts like this one - $520 today!!. So we can see - it is possible to make money with Adsense and YPN, just not all information goes to public.

I have composed a list of successful AdSense publishers and their revenue values, gathered from different sources. List is sorted by AdSense earnings.

Freeweblayouts.net

Site	www.freeweblayouts.net
Adsense revenue	$100,000/month
Alexa rank	4,212
Page rank	5

David Miles Jr. and Kato Leonard, two 20-year-olds in Louisville, say they collect $100,000 a month from their year-old site, Freeweblayouts.net, which gives away designs that people can use on MySpace social-networking pages. One couple blogged about their home reconstruction and made money to help pay the mortgage on their new house. Jock Friedly's business, Storming Media LLC, allows users to download public documents; he used the money his Web site made on ads for new online ventures. [1]

Ask the builder

Site	www.askthebuilder.com
Adsense revenue	$1400/day
Alexa rank	21,818
Page rank	6

People seeking authoritative advice on everything from sealing asphalt to installing crown molding often turn to AsktheBuilder.com for the information they need. There, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist Tim Carter delivers practical tips, in-depth how-to's, and product information for handymen and handywomen across the country. [3]

Weblogs, Inc

Sites	www.weblogsinc.com www.engadget.com www.luxist.com www.autoblog.com
Adsense revenue	$3000/day
Stats	60 million pageviews/month overall
Alexa rank	6,027
Page rank	7

Weblogs, Inc. is a publishing consortium of 100 independent bloggers who produce more than 1,000 blog posts a week across over 75 industry-leading blogs, including the popular consumer technology blog Engadget, luxury goods blog Luxist, and car-focused Autoblog. Written by experts and enthusiasts, each one has a distinctive following in its subject area. Readers are able to sort and search stories by topic, can engage in discussion via comments, and rank stories of interest to them. Collectively, Weblogs Inc. blogs get over 60 million pageviews a month. Bloggers are paid a stipend and also receive a portion of advertising earnings related to their blog(s). [2]

SeatGuru

Site	www.seatguru.com
Adsense revenue	$10,000 to $20,000/month
Stats	175,000 unique visitors/month 650,000 page views/month
Alexa rank	15,896
Page rank	7

The biggest moneymakers tend to be people who started sites to document their passions. Matther Daimler, 28, developed an obsession with finding the most comfortable seats on the long airline flights he took for business. He would look at a better-situated traveler and think: "He has more legroom. I want that seat next time."

In 2001, he took to cataloguing on his SeatGuru site all the seats on his usual United Airlines flight, rating them for best legroom, the most recline, access to video and audio entertainment, and proximity to different types of laptop power sources. Soon, at the request of people who read his site, he started taking information on other flights. He now keeps track of seats on 34 airlines. [1]

Today Daimler sees about 175,000 unique users and 650,000 page views a month. AdSense ads are his only source of revenue. Not only has SeatGuru attained the original revenue Daimler hoped for, it has exceeded it. As Daimler says, "AdSense really marked the turning point that changed my hobby into a business."

The AdSense support team also recommended Daimler try the 160 x 600–wide skyscraper ad unit. He converted a portion of the site to run ads in this format and tracked that portion using AdSense channels. Once more, he says, "there was an improvement in both CTR and earnings, so the entire site now uses that format, and has seen the same increases." Now Daimler looks forward to experimenting with channels for colors, position, and ad formats. [4]

Woot, Inc

Site	www.woot.com
Adsense revenue	$450/day (?)
Stats	More than 300,000 registered customers
Alexa rank	946
Page rank	7

The company's "one day, one deal" closeout site woot.com has garnered plenty of attention (and more than 300,000 registered customers) since launching in July 2004. Time magazine named the company one of the "50 Coolest Websites" in 2005. When woot.com posts its latest deal each day at midnight, Central Standard Time, customers flock to the site to buy the latest "Woot." [5]

Podcast Directory

Site	PodcastDirectory.com
Adsense revenue	$30,000 to $40,000/year
Alexa rank	28,535
Page rank	6

Take Andrew Leyden, former House Commerce Committee counsel and founder of a dot-com venture that failed, who started PodcastDirectory.com, a search engine for podcasts. As the site's popularity rose from a hundred hits a month in 2004 to nearly a million now, Leyden started making the equivalent of an entry-level government worker's salary - $30,000 to $40,000 a year - simply because people clicked on ads. That allowed him to work at home in Chesapeake Beach, Md., trying to make more money by attracting still more traffic to his site.

"I went from literally 26 cents a week or something like that to several dollars an hour," he said, by using Google's AdSense software, which solicits bids from marketers who, in turn, pay to run ads on his site. "I get paid while mowing the lawn. I get paid while cleaning the garage. I get paid driving my wife to her office, buying groceries, seeing a movie, playing video games, or just surfing the Internet. That's really the nice thing about AdSense: No matter what I'm doing, people keep clicking and I keep getting paid." [1]

Broadband Wireless Exchange

Site	www.bbwexchange.com
Adsense revenue	$3,000/month
Stats	30,000 - 50,000 page views/day
Alexa rank	107,656
Page rank	6

As with any web publisher in a specialized market, this approach suits Hoskins' business model very well. In running a Google AdSense skyscraper (a vertical format that features up to four ads), Hoskins reports he's seeing an additional $3,000 a month in revenue. "These ads run in places that would have gone unsold – and we get revenue we would not have otherwise," he says. "Google has dramatically improved our ability to provide readers with extremely targeted ads. We have tens of thousand of pages that can now serve up advertisements directly related to the content our readers are researching." [6]

Tips For Keep Your Pc Safe

2007-09-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

My #1 piece of advice to anyone surfing the web is to dump Internet Explorer. IE is a dated piece of software that has countless security vulnerabilities. As the market leading web browser it is also the target of most malware attacks and the source of many malware infections on Windows based platforms. I have been using Mozilla Firefox since version 0.7 and cringe whenever I am forced to use IE (generally when on vacation or using someone else’s PC). I have also used Opera and found it to be a well thought out browser. However, for pure extendibility I find Firefox wins hands down. You should really try one of these browsers - they copy over all your settings and bookmarks and I guarantee you will be impressed by the experience.
Keep your operating system and applications up to date. Software vendors often update their products fixing bugs, adding functionality and removing security vulnerabilities. It is important that you regularly visit vendor websites or use in-built functionality to keep your products up to date. Most importantly for Microsoft users, you should visit Microsoft’s Update Site every month to download the latest patches. I know that many Irish computer users are limited to dial-up connections but if so you might consider leaving your computer on-line overnight some Saturday night so that it can properly update. The call charges shouldn’t be so obscene at that time.
Regularly scan your computers with up to date Antivirus software using the latest definitions available. Most Antivirus software will allow you to schedule scans that run automatically. I have included an Antivirus Software section below with information and my own experience with many of the applications available. You should also install some form of AntiSpyware application - there are many free and purchased solutions available (see AntiSpyware section below for more details).
If you are not behind a corporate firewall then you should consider installing a software firewall on your PC. Windows XP ships with the Windows Firewall but it is quite limited in the protection afforded (although, of course, better than nothing). You can find out about various software firewalls below.
Something that I don’t see mentioned often is the use of anti-spam software on the mail server. If your e-mail is provided as part of a hosting package you may also have access to anti-spam software. Spamassassin is commonly bundled with Cpanel (you can find it in the Mail section on Cpanel) and uses both filters and heuristics to determine the likelihood of e-mails being spam. You should ensure that it is activated. You won’t lose any e-mail unless you explicitly set this option, but any mail that SpamAssassin believes is spam will be converted to plain text with a warning message in the title. Attachments, which are a common source of malware, will also be converted to plain text and displayed in-line in the message - in effect these attachments become far more difficult to execute by the casual user which reduces the possibility of infection.

In terms of the security software available here is a list of both free and paid applications that will help your PC remain healthy:

Spyware Removal and Protections
- Firefox - as mentioned above dump IE and install a decent browser. You would be amazed at the extra protection.
- Spybot Search & Destroy - a FREE and handy spy-ware detection and removal tool that has become more advanced over its lifetime. I have used this for many years now and highly recommend it. (oh, and curiously the company is run out of Greystones, County Wicklow!);
- Spyware Blaster - another FREE tool that basically prevents you from visiting bad websites known to distribute malware. While simply a prevention tool which doesn’t offer the protection afforded by more advanced software, it can be a useful piece of software and best of all it’s free;
- Microsoft Defender - yet another free application (still in Beta but free for now anyhow) this software integrates technology acquired through Microsoft’s acquisition of Giant Software some years back. I rarely use this app as I find that scans take hours and are very resource hungry but technically this is probably the best free anti0spyware tool.
- Lavasoft Adaware - available in both professional and free editions this software includes a scanner and removal engine. I have used this in the past but cannot say what the detection rates are like currently.
- Webroot Spysweeper - this is probably my favourite anti-spyware software. While not free, Spysweeper provides detection and removal technology that sets the benchmark in this area. The one proviso I would give is that since updating to version 5.05 my system has had some serious instability issues.
- Ewido - Ewido is probably not so well know but I have heard increasingly good things about this software. As with Spysweeper this software requires a subscription.
If you can afford to buy Anti-Spyware software I would advise Spysweeper, however if you choose to install the top four apps above I reckon you will probably have a good level of protection.
Anti-Virus
- Eset Nod32 - again a brand name probably not well known outside experienced users, but this Czech antivirus really works well. Viewed as one of the best AV tools around, the only downside is that Eset NOD32 is slightly more technical in terms of the configuration options available. I have used Eset Nod32 and highly recommend it.
- Kaspersky - this time from Russia but widely viewed as having the best detection rates in the industry. I have tried Kaspersky but had to uninstall due to persistent BSODs. Pity because I read very good things about this AV.
- BitDefender - I have not personally used this AV but again i have heard very positive feedback about its abilities.
You may well wonder where are the Norton’s, the McAfee’s etc. The reason I don’t mention them is that, while providing sufficient protection for casual users, it is well known that they have the worst detection and removal records. I have included links to some review and comparative sites that you can have a look at.
Firewalls
- Agnitum Outpost - widely viewed as the most effective software firewall for personal use. I believe that previously they also offered a watered-down free version but checking their website I can find no reference to the free version anymore.
- ZoneAlarm - I have used this particular firewall for a number of years and found the protection to be comprehensive. There have been some previous issues with the software corrupting certain Windows features but these seem to have been ironed out with the latest release. The only thing stopping me going to Agnitum is that ZoneAlarm hasn’t caused me any problems. I can recommend this product if you are looking for a good software firewall. They also offer a reduced feature free version which you could try.
- Look ‘n Stop - I have only heard of this product recently but everything I have heard seems to be positive. Maybe worth a look.
Again you may wonder where are the brand name Firewalls. Well again my answer is that the Norton’s and McAfee’s etc don’t offer the protection of the best products available.

NB ALL-IN-ONE SECURITY SUITES - My advice on this is that most security suites seriously degrade the performance of your PC. If you need the simplest user interface then one of these products *MAY* be for you. However, if you can suffer multiple products you will should reap the rewards in performance terms.
AV Reviews and Comparatives
- AVComparative.org - website giving impartial reviews and comparisons of all the major commercial AV software available. You might be surprised how well (or how poorly) some of the big names do.
- Wilders Security - online community dedicated to computer security issues. The website is an excellent resource for finding solutions to really nasty PC infections that many AV products cannot remove. You can also find user reviews of security software.
Online Anti-Virus Scans
- Trend Micro HouseCall - a good free online scanner. This will detect but not remove malware from your PC. If the scanner finds malware they will try to sell you their full software.
- Panda ActiveScan - another online scanning engine with same removal limitations as Trend Micro HouseCall.
- Kasperksy - yet another online scanning engine. Probably better detection rates than previous two.
These scanners can be useful if you do not have up to date AV software installed and are worried about malware on your PC.
Single File Submission Tools
- VirusTotal - this is a great tool for scanning single files that may be suspect. It uses multiple AV engines and reports the results usually within seconds.
- Kaspersky - using the same tool as for online scanning except for single files that you submit to Kaspersky. Usually returns results instantly.
Great for confirming single file threats that AV software flag as suspicious.
Port Scanner
- GRC - a great tool for testing leaks in your firewall.
You can use a port scanner to determine if you PC has left any ports open and vulnerable to attack.

Phew! Well I hope the above is useful and maybe, just maybe, prevents someone from getting a nasty malware infection.

Courtesy:http://www.redcardinal.ie

Registering Valuable Domains for Resale Profits

2007-09-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

One of the questions that we most frequently hear from new and potential domainers is this one:

"Is it really possible to make money by registering new domains and then reselling them?"

The answer is a definite and resounding yes. The Daily Domainer knows of many domains that were freshly registered in 2005 or 2006 and later sold for thousands of dollars. And DomainRookie just had an article on how he sold seven hand-registered domains for $5,240.

Below you will find our Top 15 Tips For Registering Valuable Domains For Resale Profits.

Know who your buyers are. You are registering domains to sell them, not because you like them or because you believe you might use them yourself in the future (when you finally have some time). Don't register a domain if there aren't at least 5 to 10 different individuals or companies out there who you can clearly envision paying $500 or more for the domain. Registering anything else is usually a waste of time and money.
Aim for the sky, but be realistic. There are many excellent domains still available that would be perfect for a blog or vanity site. However, most of the potential prospects for these domains aren't going to pay $500 or even $100… they will simply pick a different domain that's still available. The same applies to the myriad of "brandable" but meaningless fantasy names which are frequently offered on domainer forums but rarely sold for any meaningful price.
Limit registrations to one year only. If you can't sell a domain within one year it might not be worth as much as you think. Once the first year is over, consider carefully whether a domain is worth renewing.
Spread out your registrations over several weeks. Don't make the mistake of investing your entire budget the first day. You'll inevitably register many worthless domains! Choosing domains for resale is a creative and thought-intensive process. Your mind needs to be fresh and your thoughts need to be clear. Also, you become more experienced every day.
Be selective and choose wisely. As soon as you have created a list of domains you feel you absolutely "must" register, pick the top 20% domains from the list and discard the others. Then, use a domain registrar that allows you to return unwanted domains for a refund within 5 days. Make ample use of that possibility; many domains lose their appeal after a few days and you will wonder why you registered them in the first place.
Stick to .com domains only. They are vastly superior in value (worth 5 to 10 times as much) compared to most other extensions. Many buyers are looking for .com domains only and you will lose many prospects if you own any other extension. (There are some exceptions to the rule. Several domainers specialize in country domains and a few of them make quite a good profit.)
Don't use any numbers in your domain. They devalue it massively. (Exception: 3 number .com domains such as 101.com or 777.com, and 4 number .com domains related to years, such as 2007.com, 2008.com etc., but all of those are taken already!)
Don't use hyphens (-). They used to be somewhat popular in the 1990s, but nowadays they are considered to devalue a domain. The general assumption is that domains with hyphens lose lots of traffic to the equivalent domain without the hyphen. For example, if we had registered Daily-Domainer.com instead of DailyDomainer.com, the former would lose some traffic to the latter.
Don't register typos for resale. It's very difficult to sell a typo domain unless it has a lot of traffic. If it has no traffic and you try to sell it to other domainers without providing detailed traffic stats, most of them will (probably rightly) assume that the domain has no traffic. Also, if you offer a trademark typo for resale you might attract unwanted attention from the trademark owner. It's not worth it.
Develop a feeling for what the market wants. Check out domainer forums, completed domain auctions on eBay, DNJournal, the "recent sales" statistics on Afternic.com and Sedo.com, as well as the Daily Domainer's reports on recent domain sales to see how much money other domains are selling for, and what kind of domains buyers are looking for.
Employ your subconscious mind. Before you go to sleep at night, focus your thoughts on domaining and ask your subconscious mind to provide you with inspiration. You might wake up with a surprisingly good idea for a domain that is still available.
Use affirmations. Tell yourself over and over that you immediately recognize valuable candidates for registration when you go through lists of available domains. After a few weeks of practice you will be able to quickly scroll through domain lists and the most valuable domains will appear to literally jump off the screen.
Don't get too greedy. If someone makes you an offer for $1,000, try to get $5,000, but if the buyer doesn't increase his offer, take the $1,000. Where else can you turn $6.95 into $1,000? (Tyler Cruz just wrote a great article on why people overprice domains.)
Reinvest your profits into new domains, and eventually into long-term income sources such as generic domains or active websites. Of course, if all you want is to make a few hundred dollars extra, you can achieve that goal even if you repeatedly consume most of your profits each month. But many domainers have become millionaires by aiming high and repeatedly reinvesting most if not all of their returns.
Read between the lines. Most domain millionaires (with a few notable exceptions) rarely talk about their success nor will they share their real secrets for fear of competition. As you gain experience you will develop your own proprietary strategies and increase your potential of making more money than you dreamed possible.

courtesy: http://www.dailydomainer.com

102 Ways To Make Your Site A Back-Link Superstar

2007-09-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

102 Ways To Make Your Site A Back-Link Superstar

Provide more value than other blogs and sites. This is by far the most neglected area by all of us! We want to market our sites like crazy, but conveniently forget that we need to offer more to our readers. We want to have 300,000 hits a day but we only want to write five 300 word articles per month. Steve Pavlina said that it should be easy to make a million dollars if only he could figure out how to provide a million dollars worth of value. Sites that have that kind of value don’t have any problem getting the link love.
Add a blog to your site. Blogs are capable of getting a lot more back-link love than regular websites. There are several reasons for this:
- Blogs are tracked in real-time. Blog search engines publish the most recent blog entries they can find. This means your new entries get linked to instantly.
- Blogs are much easier to update than regular websites. You can create a lot more content in the same amount of time. There is no need to design a new page for a new article. You simply write a new article and publish. Your increase in content will increase your visibility and ability to get links.
- Blogs get links from other blogs. If you run a regular website that isn’t a blog, you will have a harder time getting links from bloggers. Bloggers mostly read and follow blogs!
If your site is or has a blog, well done. If you have no idea how to setup a blog you should visit the following entry of this site, “5263 Words On Starting A Profitable Blog.“
Post relentlessly. The more you are able to post, the more you will appear in blog search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Blog Search Engine. Note: People aren’t going to link to posts that are garbage so don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. If your site isn’t a blog, update often and then go back to #2 and add a blog.
Make sure that your blog is set to ping. If you’re using a WordPress blog you will find this in your admin section: Go to Options and then Writing. Make sure that you have some blog search engines in the Update Services box at the bottom. The ones I’m using are:
Use Technorati tags (follow the link to the left for a lesson on what they are and how to implement them. Opens in a new window.). Getting into more categories in Technorati and other blog search engines will get you more links from them, exposing you to other bloggers and webmasters that can link to you. To easily create Technorati tags, use this simple tool: Tag Generator. All you have to do is type in the keyword, and the tool will make the code for the tag.
Create authority posts. An authority post by my definition takes at least 10 hours to write. These are posts that people are likely to be linked to. My post, “5263 Words On Starting A Profitable Blog” has already been linked to quite a bit. Authority posts are more thorough than most other posts. They’re usually longer than other posts. Authority posts must be easy to find (follow this link for a lesson on where you should put your authority posts) on your site, getting them more exposure than other posts.
Have your friends tag your best work in Digg. (Digg is a site that allows people to vote whether they like and article or not.) Your friends can get the article moving in the right direction. There are also other social bookmarking sites that are very popular. Here are a few of the biggies: Reddit, Netscape, Del.Icio.Us, and StumbleUpon. This won’t do a whole lot of good if your article isn’t good, but if it is it can bring you thousands of visitors per day, which will link to a good amount of links.
Encourage readers to Digg authority articles. If they like the article or post, they will vote for it for you. It only takes a few seconds.
Make your articles easy to Digg. If you look at the end of this article, you will find a button for Digg, Reddit, and some other imporant social bookmarking sites. These can make a huge difference and can add to a lot more exposure and links. To install those buttons I used the Sociable plugin for WordPress.
Creating list-posts. Examples: “Top 10 Ways To Stop Being A Lazy Pig”, “Top 5 Internet Marketing Gurus”, “Top 25 Reasons Why 99% Of Bloggers Don’t Make It”, “99 Ways To Make Your Blog Or Site A Backlink Super Power”. People love linking to that stuff. Place your list-post in a prominent location on your site (follow this link for a lesson on where you should put your authority posts) or people will never find it.
Recognize your field’s gurus. Link to them often. They are going to watch closely the source of their traffic and will definitely see if you’re sending some their way. If you send them traffic, they may start reading your site. If they find something they like, they might link to it. One link from a guru in your field could mean more than 100 weaker links. Gurus are usually pretty generous in spreading the link love. That’s a hint, hint to Darren Rowse, Shoemoney (Jeremy Schoemaker), John Chow, and Steve Pavlina, all of which I read daily.
Publish an RSS feed. An RSS feed is a news feed that people can subscribe to. They can see if you have written new entries on your site without having to go there. Many webmasters stay up to date by reading RSS feeds from the sites in their industry. If you don’t have a feed, these webmasters will never see your updates. If you have a WordPress blog, it creates an RSS feed for you. Other sites will naturally syndicate the feed. (They will post it in their site) Some of them will link to you as the source.
Setup your feed on feedburner. This makes your feed subscriptions easy to track and allows you to encourage users to subscribe. After you have quite a few subscribers, it makes getting additional subscriptions easy.
Comment on other blogs. Always fill in the URL box so that the owner can find your site. Good comments will spark more interest than dull ones. Answering other people’s questions in comments gets them excited - one of the most effective ways to spark an online rambling about you and your site.
Respond to comments left on your blog. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been able to get full write ups about this site just because I responded to people’s questions and comments. When people’s questions are answered, you become the authority. People can’t help but link to the authority.
Respond to your email. Be kind to people. Be cool to people. Help them with their questions. If it’s a hard question to answer, post the answer on your site so that you get the content. Email the person that asked and give them the URL to their answer. Being helpful to others will earn you respect and link love.
Link out to other blogs like crazy. If you link to interesting articles on other blogs, they will link back to interesting articles that you have. Bloggers usually check their site stats every 30 seconds, they’ll see that you have linked to them. (It’s an addiction!) Many people don’t want to link out because it spreads their pagerank thin. Would you rather have pagerank or money? I, personally would rather have money. Pagerank will come. It won’t do you any good to have high pagerank if you don’t have any traffic, and most people don’t realize that the two aren’t as tied together as it seems.
Offer to be a guest blogger. If you can write for someone’s site, you will certainly be able to link to related resources on your site. If you’re going to do this one, write a killer article and submit it to an A-lister (leading blogger in your field) who has a high-traffic site.
Timestamp your posts. (Timestamping is adjusting your post entry so that it is posted on a certain day, at a certain time. You can finish an article on Saturday and set it to post on Monday.) There are more visitors at Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Digg on weekdays. Never publish an really good article on a weekend, you’ll be off the front page of Technorati before all the visitors are there. If you’re using a WordPress blog, there is a Timestamp option on your “Write Post” page. You can set the date and time you want the article to publish, and then click publish. It won’t show up on your site until that date and time.
Show related posts in your blog entries. A blogger might find your site via one article but find a different one that they’re really interested in. Showing your related posts can help them to be found more easily. Interest+Visibility=Links. If you’re using WordPress, you can find out why and how to use the related posts plugin here.
Use deep-linking. Deep-linking is when you link to older posts or pages in new posts or pages. This article links to quite a few of my older articles that I think are good resources for the people reading this one. This can help your readers and expose your good work to them.
Use meme trackers to find hot topics. Meme trackers are sites that track information published on blogs and news sites, and provide information about which topics are the hottest. The big meme trackers are Memeorandum and Techmeme.com. Technorati also has a type of meme tracker. They show you the hottest tags in real time. When you find hot discussions, contribute to them. Your opinions can bring valuable visitors to your site, and will get linked to from other opinions on the topic. If you’re posts are tagged properly, people will be able to find them easily, so make sure you use tags on your articles, as you learned earlier.
Do blog reviews. (Follow the link to the left to find a list of blogs that do review exchanges.) Tons of webmasters will link to you in exchange for reviewing their site.
Do link exchanges. You never know if a sitewik or blog will exchange links with you, unless you ask. Since most bloggers won’t have traditional link pages (thank goodness), you should probably find one of their posts that is interesting, and link to it in one of your articles. Ask them to do the same.
Add a page that invites people to link to you. Offer to link back. Ask them to link to an interesting article on your site and tell them that you’ll link to an interesting article on their site. Create a contact form so that they can let you know quickly and easily that they have taken you up on your offer. You have to be willing to help others or this method will never work.
Trade blogroll links. Some bloggers will trade sitewide (this means on every page) or blogroll links. I would only do it if I felt that the site truly had something special to offer to my readers.
Ask me to do a link exchange. Better yet, link to me first and then ask me to linkback. I will! Even better, link to me everyday and don’t ask for me to link back. You can get a link from me here.
Get a MyBlogLog account. MyBlogLog.com is like MySpace for bloggers. It it a place where bloggers go to meet each other and find new blogging friends. You can link to your blog(s) from your profile page, and other bloggers will have a chance to check out your work, which could lead to additional links.
Start a MyBlogLog.com Community. You can create your own community that members can join. Be extra social and invite members to join your community. This exposes a lot more bloggers to your site.
Do article exchanges with webmasters on your field.
Do a scheduled, recurring guest blog exchange with someone from your field. Writing for each other can give you both exposure to a new group of individuals that are interested in your field. You can link to resources on your own site each time.
Read your posts before publishing. Edit, edit, and edit again. Make sure they’re right before you show them to the world. Make sure your writing is easy to read and grammatically correct.
Run spell check. This probably sounds stupid but I’ve been called out in my comments a few times and I doubt that I’ll get any links from the people that noticed my spelling errors.
Learn more about your field. If you’re site doesn’t have any good material, you probably won’t have much luck getting links from other bloggers.
Create walk-throughs. I created a walk-through for one of my cell phone sites that teaches people how to connect their Motorola Krzr cell phone to their computer. People love me for it, and I got links from Cnet, Mobiledia, and HowardForums because of it. These are 3 of the biggest cell phone sites! You can walk people through installing ads, writing a good post, starting a blog, baking banana bread, riding a bike, or anything related to your field.
Use giveaways. Hold a raffle where you give away something cool. The participants have to link to you in order to get in their name into the raffle. If you gave away an Xbox 360 you would probably get a lot more links than you would if you gave away a snickers bar. (This method is only down this far because it costs money, otherwise it would be very near the top because it works like crazy)
Write articles tailored to beginners. Most people in your field are beginners! Most bloggers in general are beginners. You can’t connect with them by writing about PHP scripting and dynamic server protocols. You have to assume that your readers know nothing about the topic without talking down to them. They will show you their appreciation.
Submit articles to article sites like: Article Dashboard, GoArticles, and Article City. They will also allow you to place a link to your site at the bottom of the article. You can write an article about anything in your field. Most article sites like the articles to be about 500 words.
Submit stories to news sites. Even huge sites like ESPN.com accept stories from free lancers.
Review products on your site. Most brands are trying desperately to get more exposure. If you provide a thorough, fair review of a company’s product, it might get linked to. For best results review products from new, up-and-coming companies.
Review products on other sites like ePinions. You can quickly establish yourself as an expert by writing thorough reviews of products in your field. Some of the traffic that hits your review will follow the trail back to your site, leading to links.
Write testimonials for sites whose services have helped you. The testimonials themselves will often turn into links, and the webmasters will surely check out your site.
Write a testimonial for me. I’ll let you link to yourself in it. You can see other testimonials that people have left here.
Write and submit a press release. Sites like PRWeb will publish them and link to you.
Alert webmasters in your field when you write solid content that will be useful for their readers. Don’t bother webmasters by updating them on every little thing you add to your site. Alert them when you have authority articles.
Alert friends when you create something that will help them. If you’re helping them they should definitely give you some link love.
If you don’t have any friends, get some fast.
Write to help others. If you can help other people to find more success, you deserve a link from them. You will probably get one.
Mentor other aspiring bloggers. I help out quite a few friends and most of them have me on their blogroll. They also link to me from time to time, and read my site often. Some of them will probably get really big eventually and those links will pay off enormously!
Try to meet other bloggers offline. Every city has bloggers and other internet marketers. These relationships can lead to ‘mutual plugging’ and idea swapping.
Create surveys. A good survey can make a person (or a group of people) feel important and could lead to some free marketing from them.
Poll your readers. People like to participate in polls and are super interested in the outcomes. Many times they will link to the outcome post of a poll just because they participated in the poll.
Comment on online newspapers. Most of the links you make won’t have direct SEO benefit thanks to the “no follow” command, but the writers will follow the trail back to your site.
Interview other bloggers. Many bloggers want to be famous! They will jump at the chance to be interviewed. Add a page to your blog that let’s people in your field know that you are interested in interviewing them. Tell them how to sign up and they will. I can almost guarantee that they’ll be linking back to the interview once it’s published.
Cite the source of your information. This good will often sparks reciprocation. Webmasters and bloggers love to be talked about.
Use forums and discussion boards. I sometimes try to find something that people are really confused about. If you answer their question they will automatically start to wonder who you are. Most of the time I have to research the problem myself to be able to answer them. The best way to answer their question is by creating a short walkthrough on your site that teaches them. Show them where to find it and you have yourself a link. That technique will also work on the next few suggestions.
Ask your local, public library to link to you with their website.
Answer people’s questions on Yahoo! Answers. You are able to link to resources on other websites that will help answer people’s questions. If you don’t already have a resource on your site that will help answer a question, create one. Link to from Yahoo! Answers. You have a link, and some more valuable content for your site.
Answer questions on Google Groups. Very similar to the one for Yahoo! Answers.
Submit to free web directories. The biggie is DMOZ. (Don’t even bother unless you have at least 100 posts on your blog.) Directories are lists of thousands of sites. One of them should be you!
Submit to blog directories like BOTW. Blog directories are thousands of blogs, listed in categories.
Submit to paid directories. Don’t do it unless you have to budget. The biggie is Yahoo! Directory.
Write controversial content. Sometimes you can really get people talking by criticizing famous people and brands.
Write about celebrities. People eat that stuff up and if you write something that people don’t know, you will get links from all over the place.
Write about the leaders in your field. Tell others why you think they’re successful.
Attack the leaders in your field. (This one I would never do.) Write why they should do things differently. I’m sure I could get a load of links by attacking Darren Rowse, Shoemoney (Jeremy Schoemaker), John Chow, and Steve Pavlina, but I wouldn’t do it because I have too much respect for them. That said, I have to admit that I could get some serious traffic by getting some dirt on them or attacking their business practices.
Write in English. English is the major language of the internet and blog written in English cater to a much larger audience.
Install a text translator on your site. (I haven’t done this one yet but it’s one of my ideas for the near future.) Surely people that blog in other languages would tell their readers about www.mysite.com that has a version that they can more easily read. I would love to have a version of this site in Chinese, which is the second biggest language of the internet. It will eventually be the biggest.
Create a contact page with a contact form. If people don’t have to open up their email to get in touch with you, it will be easier for them to ask you for a link exchange.
Create a testimonial page. Allow people to link to themselves in their testimonials. Add your site to our list of sites that want testimonials.
Create a Wikipedia page about yourself or your business. Wikipedia links don’t count due to a “no follow” command, but you will gain some exposure that will surely lead to additional links.
Create a Squidoo page about yourself.
Join the Better Business Bureau - for this one you have to have a business!
Join local clubs that have websites. Maybe give them a few pointers for their site and find out if they list members. Include a link on your member’s page.
Check for local government directories - it should be easy to get into local, online listings.
Donate to an online charity. They usually list contributors. Make sure you donate using the name of your site.
Place an ad in Craigslist. (Craigslist is a very large, online classified site)
Market your site as a free resource for local businesses. I told an attorney friend of mine about this site so that he could get some promotional ideas for his company’s site. Sure enough he linked to me.
Better yet, hire a publicist. They can probably get you on the news so that lots of people and businesses can use you as a resource.
Hire a link building consultant. Andy Hagans is a great one. This one is down this far on the list because it costs $ and isn’t guaranteed.
Hire a starving student and pay them $8 an hour to do everything on this list for 8 hours a day.
Get some interns that you can teach to build links. Create an LLC called MyCompany Marketing, LLC. Set up an internship program with the marketing department at the local university or college. Get 2 students to work 4 hours a day doing everything on this list for free.
Get some interns to write for you. Start a second LLC called MyCompany Publishing, LLC. Set up an intership with the journalism department at the local college and get a few free interns (writers) for your blogs. That way you can start a few new blogs that you can use as valuable resources to get links from.
Start a few more blogs. You can create free blogs on Blogspot if you want. Give your main blog a link once in a while. There isn’t any reason to make 1,000 links with it, just link once in a while. Maybe you could even update the blogs once a week. Who knows, you might make some money with those as well.
Encourage your friends to start blogs. Some of my friends have started blogs and I have links from all of them. I actually didn’t really encourage them, but they asked me and it has worked out great for my blog.
Create images and tools that people can use on MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites.
Link to your blog from your MySpace page. If you don’t have one, set one up. Try to get a lot of friends in there, because the more friends you have in MySpace, the more traffic your space will get.
Ask your friends to link to you from their MySpace pages. These links won’t be majorly valuable from an SEO standpoint, but could bring some extra visitors, which lead to additional links.
Create a new MySpace page for your site. Become friends with other pages like yours.
Create a WordPress template. I’m not a designer, but if I was I would create hundreds of these. If a person uses your template they will be linking to you with every page of their site. There are millions of pages in the world running WordPress.
Create a Mambo template. Mambo is a content management system like WordPress that allows users to create websites.
Hold and sponser a writing contest in your field with a giveaway to the winner. Make the contestants publish the article on their sites while linking to yours.
Create a certification program for sites in your field. Design a trophy that people can use to display on their sites if they pass the certification. Host the image. (This means that you will not allow them to download the trophy picture. They will just install a peice of code that you will give them that will reference the trophy picture from your site.) You need to save the image on your site and them use this code to give them:

Insert the URL where your image is saved where it says, “yourimageurl”.
Buy links. You can email webmasters asking them to link to you in exchange for hard green. You can also use a service like Text Link Ads to purchase and rent links.
Rent links. Same as buying links except the links won’t be permanent. Usually you pay monthly for this type. Check out Text Link Ads for details.
Buy posts from other bloggers. You can offer to pay them directly to post about your site, or you can buy posts through services like Pay Per Post and ReviewMe.
Start a design company. Add the design service to your site. You can create small sites for individuals and people, adding designed-by links at the bottom of their pages.
Donate sites to non-profit organizations. Non-profits usually get a lot of links from government sites, and so they would be ideal to design for. Make sure to include a “design donated by MySite.com” at the bottom.
Setup blogs for other people. Make sure you include, “Designed by MySite.com” or “Inspired by MySite.com.” Help them to achieve success and their links will become a lot more valuable.
Help students that are taking HTML classes in college. Your help can probably be traded for ridiculously valuable .edu links on their student accounts. Make sure you link to their little student sites so they get indexed. You may want to link to them from another site you have, or from a forum. I’ve missed the boat on that one a few times with friends that I actually helped. Oops!
Donate some time every week to hold Q and A sessions for beginners in your area. They’ll link to you naturally, or you can ask them to.
Encourage friends to bring friends to Q and A sessions. Help them all out. You may get some good ideas yourself and some links from your group.

List Of Blogs that Provide Search Engine Followable Links

2007-09-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Here You can find 200 blog or sites offers followable links for their comments .

The Better way to get Free Back Links and also it will crawled by search Engines. Enjoy the back link juice.

Note:

I request the readers to put their comments on the below blogs after reviewing the pages or posts. I request the readers for post their comments relevant to the topics for support the bloggers.

Share Resources. Stop The Spam.

PixelHeadOnline
DarkSEOProgramming
Kupuk
SparkInternetMarketing
Scratch99
Revellian
DayJobNuker
EcoShopper
EricBramlett
Logon
JakobDK
Allscm
TriathlonTraining
YourWebsiteProfit
HowToWakeUpEarly
LondonerLife
VandelayDesign
LaughOutLoudDogs
RonaldoCamacho
BillHartzer
FootbagShop
Terinea
NeoMeme
DavidPaulRobinson
Marenda
AMonthInVenice
SavingMoney
WomanStartYourBusinessNow
SunlightFlavor
TheBuffaloRiver.com
LifeSnippets.net
JoeBartender
OneMansGoal
MeloVillaReal
Web360
Jakeldaily
TallFreak
BaseballInvestor
DigitalBurn
TheDarkLightOfLove
LifeInTheRough
Sandossu
TheDailyFuzz
ErikKarey
BothMadAndGenius
ThreeSticks
RobertaFerguson
MarketingASolicitor
FruityOaty
PilotJohn
Mrgtp
RobNeville
NetMonetization
Salatti
LakeTrees
BowerBirdBeads
BloggersJourney
LosingProposition
EndangeredSpaces
SecretsOfUnlimitedProsperity
Amorphism
Health-HundredDayHeadstart
Jenny’sCorner
TheBrokenBow
Big Bucks Blogger
TheDietDiary
Wealth Health Blog
JadeHat
Nice4Rice
Hem
News Notion
RealityWired.com
BrilliantCheers
Achille
OnTheWebEd
JonLee
ChrisHoyt
JulieAnnBonner
LinkItForMe
RamblingThoughtsBlog
BlogThatOutside
Tobsy
NOWG
CatchAFallingStar
SweetAgring
LayerCake
ErikSvend
PajamaProfessional
Hem
MyOpinionsAreImportant
HeckOfIt
RoadLessTravelled
The Fit Shack
Foximus
BetShopBoy
5xMom
Derek Semmler
Linguistics Zone
Zr5
SmartWealthyRich
How To Split An Atom
The Alternative Self-Employment Blog
A Politically Incorrect Entrepreneur
CrayonWriter
BlogRaters
TagsKitchen
TradeMacro
Mother’s Home
Brian Pratt
Best Real Income
1000MileJourney
3DayMom
A Writers Words, An Editors Eye
Aaron Roselo
Advertising for Success
And to Think
Andy Beard
Ang’s Chicken Coop
Are we there yet
Army Mom:New Jersey
Article Writer, The
Ask Jason
Ask Jason Business
Axplay
BenSpark, The
BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo
BiggerPockets
BlogAboutMoneyOnline
BloggingTips
Blogocola
Blogozine
BMonaco
BodyFitnessInfo
BrownSista

Buy better - Have a Better Life
BuyMeBlog
Buzz Queen, The
By the Sea
Cade’s WriteToRight
CampingCoop.org
Candid Quips
Charmed and Dangerous
Clapping Trees
Colloquium
Comedy Plus
Community Building Blog
Curious Cat Science
Confessions of a Housewife
Confessions of an Everyday housewife
CoolAdzine for Marketers
Craftblog
Crafts 4 Dummies
David Dairey
Dont Fear the Truth
DorisGoShopping.com
Down Memory Lanes
Ecomm Tips
EMoneyMarketing
Endangered Spaces
Fibromyalgia Experiment, The
Finding Life\’s Enchantments
FitForFreedom
Flatwater Tech
Fools Wisdom
FootPrints On the Moon
Fuzzy Future
Jonlee
Jones PC
JOIN - Do Follow Bloggers **
Julies Journal
Just Not Martha
Kansha Shite
Knitting Fiend, The
Last Blogger
LeaveAmerica
Life in the Fast Lane
Life Is Risky
Life Learning Today
Life Of A School Bus Driver, The

Life Passion Travel & More
Life through eyes of Krissy
Lifecruiser
LittleAmerica.us
Live Life Organics & Your Health
Magical Rose Garden
Marketing Blagger
Master Cleanse
Midlife Musings
Mom is Nutz
MomReviews.net
Mothering Many
My Credit Group
My Dandelion Patch
My Home Recipe
My Muddled Mind
My Opinion Counts
My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings
Nanashi-Inc.net
New Century Politics
No Average Mom
Odd Planet
On the Horizon
Open Road Biker
Patrick Says v2.0
Paula Mooney
PBriscoe.com
Pegs AZ Life
Pencil Thin
PimpMyPageRank
Pink Poison Store
Pond, The
Ramblings Of An Undisturbed Mind
Randa Clay Design
Raw Vegan Momma
Reasoner, The
Rotten Bananas
Sassy Southerner, The

Scribble On The Wall
Scuttlebutt Pipeline
Selena’s Travel and Culture
SelfHynosisProgram
Shopping Flavor
ShowMeHealthBiz
ShowMeMoneyBiz.com
Simple Kind Of Life
Simplify Every Obstacle
Skeets Stuff
Sophistishe.Org | Personal Blog
SQKIKs Simple Tech
Super Blogging
Sun-Flower Family, The
Table for Five
TeaScoop
TechieZone
Teenage Angst Regression
Texas RV Travel blog
Thermal
TimeForBlogging
Tricia\’s Musings
Utterly Geek
Wanders World
Web Files, The
WebStyle
Whatever I Feel Like
Wild & Crazy Ride
Winding Threads
Wired Kayaker, The
Women Mumbles
Work At Home Mom Revolution
Yoga Blog

The Followable links are submitted by bloggers that supports free back links.

Some links on that page is yet to be checked .Some visitors notified about some no followable links.

So i think Some blogs may use no follow links but not many.

Please notify me about the no follwable links that you have noticed in this list .

And if you offer followable links for your commenting section in your site or blogs.Please notify the details to me i will add your link with this list.

If You face any in convenience i am sorry for that.

Thank you for your support.

My mail id is : howtogettrafficonblogs@yahoo.co.in

courtesy: http://courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow/

13 Free or Cheap Effective Advertising Methods

2007-09-05T18:42:00.001-07:00

Advertising is the life blood of any business, no matter how big or how small. No advertising usually means no business. Large companies have an almost unlimited source of advertising dollars. Small business owners on the other hand, are limited in the amount of money they have for advertising. So, the problem is how to make ones advertising dollar get the most bang for the buck. It's not enough to advertise. Your advertising must be effective. So, once you have a website or an ad to advertise, check out the following ways to advertise for little or no cost.

1. Advertising coop- Many businesses, especially work at home businesses, offer advertising coops. They will send people to your business for a fee. Usually the fee is relatively small. This is nice because you already know that these people have at least some interest in your business. Although they may not spend a penny with you, you at least get the exposure.

2. Website-The age of the internet has expanded the possibility of owning your own business to an almost unlimited number of people. It also has expanded the advertising audience to a tremendous amount of new people, world wide, who otherwise you would never have been able to reach. Although websites will cost you to get hosted, you can advertise it many ways for free. Things like link exchanges and article submissions allow you to get exposure to your website with no cost except for you time. And as we will see in a moment, your website can be advertised many other ways for free. The advantage of a website is that it centralizes all your business and products into one central location. It gives you somewhere to send people so that you don't have to do as much selling because you let your website do the selling for you.

3. Answering Machine-Change the message on your answering machine to reflect the fact that you are now in business for yourself. You could say something like," Hello. You have reached the home office of John Doe of My Business.com….." That way when you call that person back, they may ask you about your business and thus the door is open to discussing your business.

4. Put a sign in your front yard or in the yard of a friend or relative with your name and website address on it. This is a good way for your neighbors to find out about your new business as well as any people that ride by your house.

5. Place a magnetic sign or bumper sticker on your car. Now, when you are riding down the road, sitting at a stop sign, or leaving your car parked at the mall or grocery store, you are getting free advertising.

6. Wear your ad-Place your website on a sweatshirt, tee-shirt, or a hat. So, when you are out in public, people will see you ad and again it will open up the door to discussing your new business.

7. Flyers-There are many places that will allow you to place a flyer about your business. Businesses like grocery stores, libraries, laundromats, hair salons and others will let you place a free ad on their public bulletin board.

8. Business cards-Don't leave home without them. You never now when the chance to hand one out will happen. You may see an old friend, meet someone looking to get out of the 9-5 rut or who is in need of a new opportunity.

9. Free Classifieds-Use the internet and the many free classified ads on it to advertise your business. A search using "free classifieds" will give you an almost limitless number of places to submit your website and ad.

10.Ezines or electronic magazines are also a good place to advertise your business. Some charge a fee for placing your ad in the best location, some let you advertise for free. Again a web search will allow you find numerous ezines to place you ad in.

11.Place your web address in your e-mail signature.

12.Place a flyer or business card in your out going mail.

13.Word of Mouth-The least expensive form of advertising and maybe the most effective way to advertise your business is word of mouth. Simply tell those you come in contact with that you are in business for yourself. They will tell others and they will tell others and it can go on and on. Sooner or later someone will take a look at what you are doing.

Obviously, there are many more ways to advertise your business for little or no money. The point is you don't have to have the big bucks to successfully advertise you business or product. There are many people who have started and become extremely successful in their business on a shoe string advertising budget. There is hope for the small business owner. All you need is a website or add, a little creativity, a little time, and you too can advertise your way to success without going to the poor house.

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Mac Poker Online is the dedicated site for mac os users .

Playing poker with mac poker is fun and easy. mac poker online provides various poker bonus and poker levels so that user can have their happy poker experience.

mac poker online provides various poker reviews so that viewers can easily fetch the exact one that suits his needs.

15 Website Elements That Attract Visitors

2007-09-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

1. State the website's purpose up front and clearly of the site. Do this as quickly as possible. The visitor needs to know immediately if they have landed on the right site. They also need to know "what’s in it for me to stay here." If you don't provide this, they are gone. 90% of the sites on the Net don't do this.

2. Give visitors the ability to search for exactly what they are looking for, if they have something exact in mind. A "site search feature" satisfies this best. Allow the search feature to be prominently displayed and not hidden away somewhere. It is best place in the navigational system so that it shows up on every page. Sales letter only websites are an exception to this rule. Return visitors and visitors that have something specifically in mind, want the option and ability to find what they want fast. So give it to them.

3. Photos allow connection. Especially to people who process visually. Clip art gets them to pay attention, however, it doesn't create much of a connection. Personal photos connect within reason. Keep them less than three to a page. One photo always needs to be in the top portion of the screen on the first page. It doesn't need to be large, but attractive.

4. Ways to capture visitors information wherever possible.

5. Place items on the site that keep them lingering. Audio and video are one of these, yet there are other less time consuming and inexpensive ways to keep them entertained.

6. Articles. For solopreneur sites, your own written articles. For other sites, articles with various authors yet on focus.

7. Interactive elements. For example: response forms, quizzes

8. If you use a shopping cart, it must be fluid, no hiccups. PayPal is not a shopping cart, it’s a hiccup. All auto responders must be well written and positive. If someone purchased something, they need the energy of "thank you."

9. Give offers that are of value.

10. Clear path of where a newcomer can start if it is their first visit.

11. Newsletter that is consistent with the 80/20 rule. 80% value and 20% marketing.

12. E-courses of value.

13. Well-written e-books: 50-75 pages, plus valuable information (info not found anywhere else). Length doesn't do more than provide perceptive value. Once purchased and the vastness is only fluff, then your credibility is shot. Complimentary e-books meet the same requirements.

14. Give them other ways to receive more on...you if you are the focus...or the information if that is the focus.

15. Automated referral system. If you want referrals for your products or services, make it easy for you to get them. Set it up so it’s as automatic as possible, and clear and easy for someone to send you a referral. Be clear on what and how you want to give for that referral.

Free online Seo Tools - best backlink tools list - backlink checker

2007-08-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of free SEO back-link tools (also known as backlink checkers) every webmaster should try. All the tools listed here are free, can be used online and don’t need a registration. A good back-link tool has to be fast, reliable, show all back-links to your site and retrieve as many information as possible from that back-links (tools showing only the number of backlinks can’t be considered real backlink checkers). The retrieved information should also be clear and easy to read, that’s why I included also the ”graphics” in the score of each. I gave a score from 1 to 10 to the speed, reliability, graphics of each tool and to the useful information you can get by using them . Let’s see who is first IMHO.

1) Rankalert Backlink tool

1. Speed: 10/10
2. Reliability: 8/10
3. Graphics: 9/10
4. Information: 7/10

SCORE: 34/40

some more information:

* very fast
* shows PageRank of backlinks
* backlink count (very precise)
* nice graphics
* showing detaild information about 1.000 of your backlinks

2) Build Reciprocal links - Backlink Checker Tool

1. Speed: 5/10
2. Reliability: 9/10
3. Graphics: 10/10
4. Information: 9/10

SCORE: 33/40

some more information:

* not very fast
* shows PageRank of backlinks
* shows only information about the backlinks you can get using “link:” function in Google
* awesome graphics
* shows Alexa rank for each backlink
* generates a report with number of backlinks and their PageRank (example: 100 PR0, 50 PR1, 30PR2 and so on)

3) Iwebtool Back-link checker

1. Speed: 9/10
2. Reliability: 3/10
3. Graphics: 8/10
4. Information: 7/10

SCORE: 27/40

some more information:

* fast
* shows PageRank of backlinks
* backlink count (not very precise)
* nice graphics
* showing detailed information only on some of your back-links

This tool is ranked 2° in my list ONLY when it’s working. Iwebtool is recieving a huge amount of traffic ever day and the tools are not working well most of the times you try them. Backlink count is not as precise as the one of the Rankalert tool and often it’s not working. Anyway it’s a great tool

4) Seo-consulting backlink checker

1. Speed: 2/10
2. Reliability: 6/10
3. Graphics: 6/10
4. Information: 9/10

SCORE: 23/40

some more information:

* slow
* shows PageRank of backlinks
* backlink count (not precise and tool won’t show more than 2.000 backlinks)
* generates a report with number of backlinks and their PageRank (example: 100 PR0, 50 PR1, 30PR2 and so on…awesome feature)
* Shows unique Ip’s of backlinks
* always working

5) Webuildpages backlink tool

1. Speed: 1/10
2. Reliability: 5/10
3. Graphics: 4/10
4. Information: 5/10

SCORE: 15/40

some more information:

* very slow
* no PageRank shown for found backlinks
* shows anchor text of the backlinks
* Not working perfectly (when it searches for the anchor text it will often display “TIME OUT”

More tools will be added as soon as I find tools that deserve to be listed here. Of course don’t forget to use the Yahoo Site Explorer and the Google Webmaster Tools to check your backlinks.

If you have a Backlink Checker and you want to get listed here, send me an email with the URL so that I can review it or comment this post with your URL.

Web site Buying Tips

2007-08-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk recently on the merits of buying a website, particularly an old established site. It is generally accepted that because of Google’s age effect, it is ‘easier’ to simply buy into a market rather than starting from square one. I would agree with that. So if you are out there actively hunting for sites to acquire, here are a few tips that will help you avoid the pitfalls.

Domain Background
When you are looking into a site, one of the first, if not the first, thing that you should look into is the history of the domain. First of all you need to find out what age the site is, keeping in mind the general rule of thumb that the older the site is, the better it should perform. Check the status of the domain and whether it has ever been blacklisted or expired. If you find that the domain has expired in the past and was picked up after deletion, then think carefully on whether you want to proceed with the sale or not. A domain that has expired can be tricky to work with as Google seem to wind back the clock and dump it back in the sandbox. While checking the background of the domain, check whether the owner / administrator address matches the details of who is selling and if not, ask the seller a few questions.

The best place to run a background check on a top level domain is at Whois.sc. For the more obscure UK domains use Nominet.

Check Existing Search Engine Placement
Assuming that the site passes your domain background checks, you will want to find out what it ranks for. The easiest way to do this is to request access to stat programs. Look out for the number of referrals from Google, Yahoo and MSN. Ideally the site will be getting steady traffic from all 3 top search engines, with Google sending the most. If you find that most of the traffic comes from Yahoo and MSN, then it is fairly safe to assume that it is still sandboxed in Google. If there is very little traffic coming from the top 3 search engines then the site may be penalized, or it is so badly optimized that it simply isn’t ranking well.

Aside from the amount of traffic coming into the site, check out how many pages have been spidered and indexed by the main search engines. Typically you will find that an established site will have most, if not all, of it’s pages in Google. Yahoo and MSN will have most, and possibly all the pages. However, do not be surprised if Yahoo and MSN have failed to pick up as many pages as Google. Using the site:www.example.com command will show you all the pages indexed in te engines.

Use WeBuildPages’s Cool Seo Tool/ to find out exactly how the site ranks in Google, Yahoo and MSN for it’s targeted phrase.

Linkage Data
Before you buy a site you will need to find out exactly what is happening in terms of who links to the site, and who the site links out to. Use Aaron Wall’s excellent LinkHounds or WeBuildPages’s Neat-O backlink tool to find out who is linking to the site. LinkHounds uses Yahoo and MSN to find who links to your site, or to an individual page within your site. Do not rely on Google to find inbound links for a site, they only show a sample of links that they know of.

Here’s a few things to look out for with regards inbound links.

* Ask the seller if they currently have any paid backlinks.
o If so, how much do they cost?
o How long have they been up?
o Where are they linking from?
* Is the site linked from DMOZ or the Yahoo directory?
o A link from either, or both is desirable.
o
o If linked from Yahoo, was it included before the subscription model was introduced? If not, when is the due date for the next payment?
* Is it linked from other good directories?
o Has it been added to GoGuides, JoeAnt, Skaffe, BOTW?
* Does the site have any backlinks from authorities?
o Look for .edu / .gov / . ac.uk links.
* How many reciprocal links does the site have?
o Will they will stay up after the sale (if from the seller’s network)?
o Do the reciprocals come from highly relevant sites?
o Does the seller have a monthly arrangement with a link builder?
o Is the site a member of any link networks?
o If so, how would leaving the network affect ranking?

The linkage data is one of the most critical elements of a site because this is what will make you the money in the month’s ahead - without a good foundation of links a site cannot rank well for competitive terms. You will also want to carefully weigh up the site’s linkage data. What we have seen with the Google Jagger Update is many sites vanishing because of a reliance on reciprocal links. Ideally the site you wish to purchase has an established network of links to both the home page and deep pages from topic hubs, directories, blogs and authorities.

Alternative Traffic Sources
Aside from getting organic traffic from search engines, directories and links from individual sites you will need to find out if the seller uses PPC campaigns to drive traffic. You will find that many affiliates drive traffic to their sites by paying for cheap clicks using AdWords or Overture Yahoo Search Marketing. If the site does get a proportion of traffic from PPC, then there are a few questions you need to find answers to.

* What is the monthly spend on PPC?
* What is the ROI on PPC traffic?
* Did / could the site perform well without PPC traffic?
* If the site only gets paid traffic, is it worth the asking price?

While many sites are highly profitable even after paying for their traffic, you will need to ask yourself if this fits with your current financial situation. Would you be prepared to pay for your traffic? While this sounds crazy to some, there are significant benefits to this model.

* Much less reliance on organic search ranking - the site is less affected by index updates.
* You can control exactly what you want to spend and model targets around that.
* By not relying on free organic search traffic you can plan ahead with confidence.
* When your site does rank for it’s targeted phrases, the extra traffic will be a bonus.

Establishing Proof Of Revenue
If the site makes money you will want proof of how much it actually makes. This is specially important given the fact that most sellers base their asking price on how much the site makes per month. Typically a site will sell for between 10 - 12 times it’s monthly net profit. In an ideal world you could get access to the seller’s AdSense or Chitika account, but as this would give away what other niches they are playing in this practice tends to rarely occur.

The best way to ascertain the nt profit is to have the seller take screenshots of his AdSense / Chitika / affiliate account. Make sure that you are supplied with the channel stats for at least the last few months. If you are involved in a large sale, then you may be asked to sign an NDA in order to view more sensitive data pertaining to the website.

Why Is The Site For Sale?
Ask the seller exactly why the site is for sale and make sure you get a clear and unequivocal answer. If there is any hint of something being hidden then take a step back and keep asking questions until you are either satisfied with the truth or are no longer interested. Make sure you find out exactly why the site is for sale so that you don’t get caught up in an existing argument, such as a legal issue regarding content copyright. It also helps to search for posts by the sellers user name on forums such as Digital Point, SitePoint, WebmasterWorld or SearchEngineWatch.

Payment
Once you have been satisfied that the site is legitimate then you need to agree on payment terms. Many sellers will be happy to take PayPal on smaller sales, but larger transactions are probably best dealt through a third party escrow service. The usual timeline for the transaction itself looks something like this, but of course is subject to flexibility depending on your circumstances.

1. Price agreed.
2. Seller tranfers the domain.
3. Buyer sends payment.
4. Seller receives payment.
5. Seller emails buyer a zipped archive of files, or;
6. Sets up the database on your server.
7. New owner updates the nameservers.

After The Sale
It is very easy to just buy a site, transfer it to your server and let it sit for a while without doing anything to it. Just do not forget to change your affiliate id or AdSense publisher id, otherwise you could have paid for the site but the ex-owner is still making the money from it!

It is debatable whether you should update your whois information because some say that changing the whois may possibly result in the site being sandboxed. In the past I have had no problem changing the whois but I have always been careful about changing the site’s content, as should you. Do not think that you can buy an established site on baby food, then whack up a lot of AdSense optimized articles on debt consolidation and credit problems without running the gauntlet.

35 Tips for Online Success

2007-08-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

1. Don't overload your site with flashing lights and slow loading graphics. Keep it simple and to the point.

2. Put a little of yourself into your site and make it unique.

3. Have your contact information listed on every page.

4. Make every page of your site consistent. You want your site to be easy to understand and navigate.

5. Provide a lot of useful content and resources. Don't just make your site one big ad.

6. Make yourself available to answer questions and to help your visitors when needed. 7. Answer all email inquiries in a timely and courteous manner.

8. Make it very easy for people to order your products. The easier to order, the more orders you'll get. http://www.paypal.com http://www.clickbank.com

9. Publish an ezine. This will enable you to keep in contact with your readers and form a a very important relationship.

* http://www.myownezine.com/tutorial/index.shtml

* http://www.ezine-z.com

* http://www.ezineuniversity.com

10. Use an autoresponder for follow-ups.

* http://www.getresponse.com/?34218

* http://www.sendfree.com

* http://www.aweber.com

11. Write and submit articles for publication in other ezines.

* http://www.MakingProfit.com

* http://www.vectorcentral.com/articles-form.html

* mailto:ArticleReview-subscribe@topica.com

* mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com

* mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com

12. Participate in ad swaps with other publishers.

* http://www.freezineweb.com/ad-swaps1.html

* http://www.yoursalesoffice.com/Ezine_Joint_Ventures.html

13. Set up a links page and exchange links with other websites.

* http://www.reciprocallink.com

* http://folksites.com/linkconnector/reciprocal.html

14. Build your reputation and yourself as a foundationfor your online success.

15. Follow-up on all sales and inquiries.

16. Develop contacts and relationships with other publishers and netpreneurs.

17. Learn how to write your own ebook to sell or give away.

18. Join discussion lists and message boards and network, network, and network. Enjoy some new friendships along the way.

* mailto:ideasbypost-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* mailto:hbj_chat-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* mailto:digital-women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* http://theebookcatalog.com/forum

19. Find and join some good affiliate programs to help you learn marketing and selling and to add to your income.

* http://www.associateprograms.com

* http://www.affiliatebroadcast.com

20. Do not spam! If you are unsure if something is spam, find out before you proceed.

21. Purchase your own domain name.

22. List your ezine in several popular directories.

* http://www.ezinelocater.com

* http://www.atozines.com

* http://www.bluechiptraffic.com/ezines/

* http://www.worldmegastore.com/newsletters.php

23. Be true to yourself and your customers. This will establish trust which is essential to your success.

24. Include some original material in your ezine. If you are not yet writing articles, write an editorial for each issue. Let your readers get to know you.

25. Do not insult other people. ALWAYS treat others with respect.

26. Subscribe to several popular ezines. Read and learn from them. The good ezines are loaded with information and resources.

* http://www.bizybodies.com

* http://www.forwardproductions.com

* http://rimdigest.com

27. Participate in joint ventures with ebook authors, ezine publishers, etc. This is a good way of making more money and providing resources for your subscribers. Always review the product before you promote it.

28. Never stop learning!! There is an endless amount of information to learn when running an online business. Do not ever think that you know all you need to know.

29. Be open to new ideas and be willing to take risks.

30. Learn from others who have been there already. Most of the publishers and netpreneurs are willing and happy to help Newbies.

31. When publishing an ezine, stuff it with useful content and resources. Give your readers what they crave - information! Don't throw 30 ads together and call it an ezine!

32. Thoroughly check out all opportunities and offers before joining or buying. There are a lot of scammers out there.

33. When writing articles, write as if you are teaching. Don't turn the article into a sales letter for one of your products.

34. Back up all your information and work, so you do not lose it. This is very important!

35. Do not think you have to read, buy or use every product, ebook or program out there.

36. Choose a business that will bring out your passion and commitment. Running an online business can be a very rewarding and fulfilling experience.

How To Make Google Think You Have An Authority Site

2007-08-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

Google is definitely favouring authority sites over smaller niche sites. You only have to do a couple searches to see that the same sites are dominating the SERPs. These sites are authority sites, or sites that Google deems to be industry leaders. For example, if you search for anything sports-related, you’re bound to see ESPN a lot. If you search for celebrity gossip and news, you’ll keep seeing Perez Hilton and TMZ. If you search about blogging, you’ll see Darren Rowse’s picture often.

So, how can you get Google to think you have an authority site? How can you make Google think you have the next Internet Movie Database or Next Day Pets? Even you have a little site with a couple backlinks and a trickle of visitors, you can follow these tips to make your site look like an authority site to Google.

On-Page SEO

Have you heard of latent semantic indexing, or LSI? If you haven’t, listen closely because LSI is the biggest SEO secret since meta tag spamming. Why is LSI such a huge development? LSI is important because it changes how you should write your content. Because of LSI, conventional SEO writing and keyword density are on their way to graveyard. Yes, those SEO ghostwriters that you’re paying $5 for 500 words may hurt your site more than help it.

What is LSI and does it really exist? Here is a quote from Aaron Wall, one of the well-known experts in the search industry:

Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifically matching search query text.

By placing additional weight on related words in content, or words in similar positions in other related documents, LSI has a net effect of lowering the value of pages which only match the specific term and do not back it up with related terms.

What does this development mean for your website? Basically, if your content is filled with expert verbiage and related terms including relevant synonyms, Google will think you have quality content. You’ll rank for more long-tail phrases. Also, as an added benefit, your content will be more readable and less boring.

You can use the Adwords tool to see what Google considers related terms for your target keyword phrases. To use this tool, type in the search terms you want to rank for, write down all the synonyms and related terms, and insert them in your content. Writing with LSI in mind will help your gain trust with Google.

And as search engines continue to improve their algorithms, LSI will make an even bigger impact in the SEO landscape.

Off-Page SEO

LSI also affects link building, specifically anchor text. Just like you need to add related terms to your content, you also need to add related terms to your anchor text. John Scott, in his excellent link building article, writes:

One of the easiest filters for a search engine to put in place is one which detects and devalues links with identical anchor texts.

Therefore, vary your anchor text. If you’re targeted term is online dating, use other phrases like

online dating profile
online dating site
guide to online dating
best online dating
meet people online

Even throw in a couple anchor text without the targeted term. For example, link with

personal ads
online personals
singles
romance
boyfriend
girlfriend

By varying your anchor text, your backlinks will look more natural to Google. And we all know Google loves natural links and hates artificial links.

If you think about it, most authority sites’ anchor text are not keyword targeted. Instead, the majority of their backlinks come naturally from people who link with whatever anchor text they choose.

While we’re talking about backlinks, it’s a good idea to vary the type of websites you get backlinks from. Get links from blogs, forums, static sites, wikis, web directories, bookmarking sites, social voting sites, article directories, press release sites, low PageRank sites, high PageRank sites, etc Also, get sidewide links and single page links. Again this looks more natural to Google, which further makes you look like an authority.

The Key To All This Is…

… remarkable content. Content that will snag bookmarks. Content that will attract links. Content that will invite discussion at the water cooler.

Many of us need to take some of our pay per click and paid links budget and use it to hire an excellent ghostwriter or two. The ghostwriter can write something remarkable - 5 part blogging series, short report, white paper, or manifesto. Then, write about it on your site and make it go viral by submitting it to social networking sites, emailing relevant bloggers, and issuing press releases. Well written and well marketed linkbait goes a long way to getting a bunch of natural links. Also, you will begin to have the kind of branding and exposure authority sites have.

With the advent of LSI, the growing popularity of social voting/bookmarking, and the growing number of new websites, remarkable content has become more important. LSI rewards good content with higher rankings. Social sites cause great content to go viral quickly. And remarkable content helps you stand out from the huge crowd of websites in your niche. As the internet marketing saying goes, “Content is king.” Well, it’s also becoming queen, jack, and ace.

By focusing on producing excellent content, not only will your site look like an authority site, it will become one.

So, if you’re the expert in your niche, outsource your SEO/marketing and spend more time producing quality content. If you’re not the expert, hire an expert or two to write for your site and market their content like crazy.

Community - The Authority Site’s Biggest Asset

While you’re producing great content, start planning to make a great community. You’ll need great content first, because that will attract internet users to participate in your site. Blog comments, trackbacks, forums, ratings, polls, wikis, and reviews make your site more sticky, active, and attractive. Anything user generated will make your site look good to Google. Your site will be updated more often which will results in better spidering, indexing, and rankings. And your branding will go through the roof as more people join your community.

Once you build a thriving community, you will truly have an authority site. Your site will be hard to compete against. And if you ever want to sell, your site will be worth a lot of money.

So, there you have it. A quick and dirty guide to authority site nirvana. Will it take some work? Definitely. But remember you’re not building a small town. You’re building Rome. And you know what they say about Rome, “It wasn’t built in a day.”

Be patient. Work hard. Work smart. And you’ll reap the rewards

Blogging Exercise: Find Good Blogs To Comment On

2007-08-18T07:36:00.001-07:00

Let’s try an exercise.

1. Pretend you have a gardening blog.
2. Find 5 blogs within the gardening niche. Try to find blogs worth commenting on.
3. Rank the blogs. Which blog is the best to comment on? Which is the worst?
4. Publish a quality blog post about your experience. Write about how you found the 5 blogs and also give reasons for your rankings.
5. Leave a comment with a link to your blog post.

Why the gardening niche? I want to challenge myself. I know nothing about gardening. Also, I want to increase my creativity. One of the best ways to do that is to get out of my comfort zone.

It will be interesting to compare how we find and rank blogs. Will we find the same blogs? If we do, will we rank them the same way?

This exercise will take some time, so I’ll reward everyone who participates with 2 free links. One link to your homepage and another link to your blog post. I’ll even let you choose the anchor text of the homepage link.

5 More Principles For Picking Blogs To Comment On

2007-08-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

Do follow - If you’re leaving comments, you might as well get some link juice. Unless you want to brand your name, it’s a good idea to use proper keywords as your anchor text. Because the comments are do follow, your anchor text will be read by Google. Here are two places to find do follow blogs: Do Follow Blogs Directory and 160 Do Follow Blogs. Also, you can do a search on do follow blogs.

Blogger links out - Scan through some blog posts and see how often the blogger links out. A blogger that links out a lot understands that blogging is not an insular activity but a conversation. This blogger will more likely read his comments and visit his commenters’ sites.

Some bloggers (like Mr. Gary Lee and John Chow) link out to their top commenters.

Right now, I have a free link offer where I’ll link out to you if you answer a forum question on your blog. It’s an easy thing to do. Plus, it helps you write useful content.

Traffic - Obviously, the more traffic, the better. Here are some ways to judge traffic. Look at RSS subscribers. Check out the number of blog comments. Compare blogs’ traffic with Alexa.

The best way is to determine traffic volume is by testing. Get a free traffic stats program like Google Analytics. Then, leave comments on different blogs and see which one drives the most traffic.

Number of comments - I know I just talked about blog comments, but you may not want to comment on a blog that receives 25+ comments per post. It’s hard to get your comment noticed if there are 25 other comments. If you do comment on these blogs, try to be one of the first to comment. The early comments get more traffic than later comments.

Consistent updates - It’s better to leave comments on blogs that post regularly. Each blog post is an opportunity to leave an insightful comment and get noticed. If a blogger posts once a week, you only have 4 chances a month to get noticed. Find bloggers that post multiple times a week.

Recap

From my previous post and this post, here are my 10 principles for picking blogs to comment on.

* Same niche
* Quality of content
* Same principles
* Enjoyment
* Fits your personality
* Do follow
* Blogger links out
* Traffic
* Number of comments
* Consistent updates

What principles do you use to choose which blogs to comment on? You can add to my list or talk about one of my principles.

Measure Your Blogging Productivity With Blog Points

2007-08-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

Measurement is one of the most important business principles. A well-known business saying goes something like this: If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage or improve it. And much of business is managing and improving.

What if you’re a blogger? How can you measure blogging?

I found this interesting system of measuring blogging productivity. It’s called The Passionate Blogger - Blog Points System.

Basically, you set a goal to reach a certain number of points each day or week. Then, you strive to earn points in these following ways.

* write a long blog post — 10 points
* write a short blog post — 5 points
* comment on a site I’ve commented on before — 2 points
* comment on a site I’ve never commented on before — 5 points
* respond to comments on my blog — 1 point
* install a new feature/plug-in, etc. — 10 points
* email another blogger with a link to a relevant post — 2 points
* IM conversation with a blogger in my niche — 3 points
* answer a reader’s question via email — 2 points
* submit post to a blog carnival — 5 points
* partner with another blogger — 10 points
* create promotional things for your visitors to use — 5 points
* create a plan for a blueprint or series of articles — 20 points
* submit a post to Digg and/or StumbleUpon — 1 point
* set up a profile on a social networking site — 10 points
* submit your site to a directory/search engine — 2 points

This blog points system is also in Excel spreadsheet (Excel file). Since it’s in this format, you can easily modify the points per activity and add or delete blog activities.

How do you measure your blogging productivity?

Source: Passionate Blogger - Blog Points System

How To Create A Monopoly Online

2007-08-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Find a low-competition market.
Don’t start a blog about blogging and except to create a monopoly. The competition is too high, both in quantity and quality. Many people are blogging about blogging. Two of the blogs, Problogger and Copyblogger, have over 20,000 RSS subscribers.

Research markets that you’re interested in and find one that’s untapped and underdeveloped. If you have a hard time finding one, try narrowing the market. For example, instead of creating a blog about making money through blogs, create one about affiliate marketing through blogs.

Here’s another example. If you have a passion for personal finance, don’t build a site about personal finance. Instead, build a personal finance site targeting a more specific market like college students, moms, or young professionals.

Pick a profitable market.
You want to make money, right? :) Most industries should have statistics about their market. Find out if the market has grown over the last couple of years. Find out how much money is spent in the market.

Create a lot of bookmark-worthy content before you launch your site.
The reason for this is that you want to spend much of your time marketing your site instead of creating content. Create content that people will want to link to and bookmark.

Launch big.
Send out press releases. Email bloggers. Visit forums. Contact webmasters with related sites. Submit your best stuff to social media sites. Interview the major players in your industry. Your goal is to launch so big that possible competitors will be intimidated and not want to compete with you. You want to create the perception that your site is an authority and reference point in your niche.

If you did your market research well, you should get a lot of links and traffic because you’re targeting an untapped market.

Keep learning about your market as it matures and grows.
Build and strengthen relationships with the important people in your niche. If you have a blog, offer to blog about their companies for free. In return, you should be able to get insider news from them. This allows to break important news before other webmasters, further establishing your site as an authority. Also, keep up with the latest trends and developments of your market.

Continue publishing quality content.
Take what you’ve learned and use it to publish more quality content.

Don’t tell other online business people about your site.
Oftentimes the biggest advantage is the knowledge of an profitable, low-competition niche. I know of wealthy internet marketers that will not give away their niches. Learn more by reading Aaron Wall’s short post, The Importance of Hiding Success on a Competitive Network.

5 cool ways to use Yahoo! Pipes

2007-08-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve had some time to play with Yahoo!’s new RSS mixing service, Pipes, and I’m impressed with the possibilities. Unfortunately, there’s still a hefty number of bugs, and some features are sorely lacking (experienced coders will probably be most annoyed by being forced at working in a visual environment and not being able to look at the actual code). Still, even in its current state Pipes is offering a myriad of interesting possibilities. I will, of course, leave out the simple stuff which you can do with any RSS mixer, and focus on remixing that can only be done with Pipes. Without further ado, here are five cool ways to use Pipes.

1. Playlist images

What is it and how it’s done? This pipe takes a user input - a Last.FM username - then grabs the last 10 played tracks for that user, and replaces this input with 5 Flickr images for each feed item, hopefully related to the musician in the playlist.

How useful is it? It’s pretty cool. You don’t have to do much, just use Last.FM as you would regularly do, and this pipe will show you related images. It would be even better if I could do the same thing for videos or album covers, however I don’t think it can be done at this point (what’s lacking is the ability to analyse feed content, and pass this analysis to two different pipes). If anyone has an idea how to do this, please let me know.

Problems? See the connection that leads nowhere in the left side of the workspace? It’s a bug. It doesn’t do any damage, it’s just a visual glitch. Also, I chose a name of an actual Last.FM user as default simply because this user’s last tracks feed returns some results, which often isn’t the case. I hope he/she doesn’t mind.

Link: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ONlam5K62xGFsczFr8cPhQ/

RSS: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ONlam5K62xGFsczFr8cPhQ/run?_render=rss

2. Related stories

What is it and how it’s done? This is not my idea nor my pipe, but it’s more advanced than anything I could do so I’ve decided to include it here. The author does a Technorati search to find articles related to articles on his blog, and includes the links via some Ajax code. You can see the blog (with the related stories underneath each article) here, and the code is here.

How useful is it? Similar functionality exists, for example, in Wordpress plugins, but the great thing about this approach is the fact that you can easily change the source of the related stories: it doesn’t have to be Technorati, it can be anything. In other words, it’s a really useful multi-purpose blog plugin.

Link: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/AHaR2Y242xGwcHpiZFUMqA/

3. News in English

What is it and how it’s done? Reddit, Netscape, and Digg are not enough for you? Aching to read what the Europeans are voting on, but you just don’t have the language skills? No worries. In this pipe, I’ve taken the top 10 items from Spanish site Meneame.net, as well as German and French versions of Wikio, and created a single feed in English.

How useful is it? Well, it’s not bad. I’ve taken a silly example, but being able to take feeds in many different languages and turn them into one feed in a language of your choice will surely be very useful for many users.

Link: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/2E8akQO62xGrchCW0kqv4w/

RSS: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/2E8akQO62xGrchCW0kqv4w/run?_render=rss

4. The travel fanatic

What is it and how it’s done? Planning a trip? It takes research and time. Or maybe you can do a single pipe which will give you all the answers you need in a second? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the travel fanatic. Seemingly most complex of all the pipes here, it’s actually quite simple to make. It combines Flickr images, Yahoo Answers, and Yahoo News related to the location. (Various other feeds could be added, but I chose only these three for simplicity’s sake.) This results in a very comprehensive feed with a lot of information on the place you’re planning to visit.

How useful is it? Pretty damn useful, I would say. With a bit of tweaking this single feed replaces what would previously be an entire service.

Link: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ZGq6pJm62xGxnbZme_gC8A/

RSS: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ZGq6pJm62xGxnbZme_gC8A/run?_render=rss

5. Fligg, Fleddit and Fletscape

What is it and how it’s done? Browse Digg through Flickr. The idea comes from this Pipe, which lets you browse through New York Times stories by replacing each story with a several related images from Flickr. I’ve simply replaced it with Digg, so credit for this goes to the author of the aforementioned pipe. However, I also wanted to do something different, so I chose to include both the stories and the related images, with mixed success.

*Update: For Reddit and Netscape lovers, I’ve added Flickr browsing for these sites also.

How useful is it? Not very. The description of Digg stories is analysed via the content analysis module, the result of which is used to fetch a single image from Flickr. Most of the time it’s completely unrelated, but sometimes it works. Nevertheless, it’s a fun way to read Digg stories.

Problems? Yes. I was unable to sort the feed in such a way so that the actual image from Flickr appears after the Digg story to which it’s related. It would be simple to do if Pipes supported some counter which would add a new field with a number to each feed, which could be used for sorting, however I haven’t found a way to do it. If someone has an idea, please let me know. At this point it’s not all that useful, but I’ve decided to include it because it shows the kinds of problems you can run into when you try to do some complex piping.

*Update: someone smarter than me figured it out, and posted it in the comments under the name “hapdaniel”. So, here’s the pipe that sorts the Digg and Flickr items one after the other: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/mIJDNLm92xG2nAguFG_cUw/

Link: (Digg, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/OhruDKC62xGVgXkcjwtvUw/

RSS: (Digg, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/OhruDKC62xGVgXkcjwtvUw/run?_render=rss

Link: (Reddit, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/DiJJptm62xGe58jaHxeTaQ/

RSS: (Reddit, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/DiJJptm62xGe58jaHxeTaQ/run?_render=rss

Link: (Netscape, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/PP2brtm62xG1dhzxE2_cUw/

RSS: (Netscape, only Flickr images)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/PP2brtm62xG1dhzxE2_cUw/run?_render=rss

Link: (both Flickr images and Digg stories)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/qux2krm52xGJarAmZoQMOQ/

RSS: (both Flickr images and Digg stories)

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/qux2krm52xGJarAmZoQMOQ/run?_render=rss

Online Marketing Strategies: How to Build Your Online Business

2007-08-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

To succeed in setting up your online business, you need focus and direction. You can't afford to get sidetracked. Use these Marketing Tips and start going forward in the right path. Hope this helps.

Marketing Strategies

1 Tell people the point or focus of your web site. Explain to them what things they can do or which goals they can accomplish while visiting your site. For example, you could say, "Read 250 Free Net Marketing Tips So You Can Increase Your Sales! Plus Check Our Wide Selection Of Online Marketing E-books!"

2 Educate yourself with new strategies to increase your sales. You could take classes, subscribe to e-zines and magazines, read books or e-books, etc. Internet business and technology move at lightning speed. You need to keep up so you don't get left behind.

3 End your slow sales periods by planning ahead. Plan to add extra bonuses, hold a sale or package your product with other products. For example, you could say, "Buy one, get one free!" Another example would be, "Buy over $20 worth of products and get 5 free bonuses!"

4 Make more commissions from the affiliate programs you join by giving your own endorsements for the products. They usually pull more sales than ads. For example, you could say, "This e-book sent chills up my spine! I highly recommend buying it!" Another example, "All I have to say is, 'Wow! It's that good!'"

5 Take advantage of popular fads. If something is popular at the current time, put up a web site about it. Just promote your main site on the fad web site. You could also send off a quick article or press release about it to get free publicity. You could also do this with popular search engine keywords and phrases.

6 Increase the perceived value of your free things or bonuses by including the retail dollar amount the freebies would normally sell for. For example, you could say, "Bonus 1# Marketing Tips Newsletter (a value of $120)." Another example, "Get 7 Bonuses With A Retail Value Of $345! That more than pays for your purchase!"

7 Create your own web ring. You will gain highly targeted traffic to your web site and others will link to your site because they'll want to join the ring. For example, if you were selling products to net marketers, you would want to start an online marketing web ring. You would then draw your target audience.

8 Record all your new promotional ideas, good or bad, into an 'ideas' journal. Sometimes you can combine ideas to create new ones to increase your sales. You never know when you, or someone you know, needs a new, profitable idea. Plus you could also sell your ideas to other business owners.

9 Buy advertising space on discussion board web sites. They are usually arranged by subject; that makes them highly targeted. For example, if you are selling gardening tools, you would want to advertise on gardening, farm, tool and lawn-related discussion boards.

10 If your online business has enough global potential, thenconvert your web site and free e-mail newsletter into different languages. This will increase your overall target market. You just won't be targeting just one language, you'll be targeting most of the major ones. Plus it wouldn't hurt to learn a few different languages for this new global economy.

Relations with your Prospects and Customers

11 Make your visitors feel comfortable at your web site. Give them your main business address. Your visitors may not trust you if you're using a P.O. Box. If you want to make them feel really comfortable, give them your business, home and cell phone number. Then they will know they can get hold of you if they need help.

12 Include a FAQ on your web site or via e-mail on an autoresponder. This will give your customers extra convenience without having to contact you. Of course there are some questions you can't answer by using Frequently Asked Questions. You will get questions that you never thought of, but you can just keep adding them to your list.

13 Allow people who do not have time to explore your site to download portions of your web site in e-book format. This will allow them time to view it offline. Just compile it like you would a normal e-book. You could also turn it into a viral marketing tool by allowing people to give it away to others for free.

14 Upsell to all your customers. You could sell add-on products, deluxe products, extra parts, related products, add-on services, etc. You could offer them add-on products before or after they reach your order page. Just make sure the upsell products are compatible with the main product you're selling.

15 Offer your customers back-end products. It is easier to sell to existing customers. If you do not have a back-end product, join an affiliate program. You could offer that product as a back-end offer. Just make sure it's the right product for your target audience.

16 Increase the perceived value of your product. You could offer an affiliate program, give away free bonuses or use famous endorsements on your ad. Another way is to offer a sample or trial of your product or service. If people like it or it works, that will increase the perceived value because it gives them 100% personal proof.

17 Create a bond with your visitors by bringing up likes or dislikes you have in common with them in your ad copy. Just make sure you do your research. For example, you could say, "I hate it when you have to wait in line for a long time at the drive-through." Another example, "I really like it when I have extra money to spend."

18 Remember your customers are always right, even if they are not. They are the lifeblood of your business. Resolve all conflicts quickly and painlessly. There are many businesses which are solely profitable from repeat business. You don't want to always have to rely on converting prospects into customers.

19 Remind your visitors to promote your web site. Use phrases like: "Refer Our Web Site To A Friend" or "Link To Our Web Site". Offer them incentives for referrals. You could give them free e-books, reports, software and other informational products. You could also offer them discounts on other products you sell.

Web site Tips

20 Make your testimonials more powerful. You can have people include pictures, handwritten signatures and normal net contact information with each testimonial. Other ideas would be to have people produce an online audio sound bite or video clip of themselves, home or cell phone numbers, proof of their credibility or authority, etc.

21 Speed up your Internet access. You can get your online business tasks done faster, which will help you stay ahead of your competition. It can speed up your research, online marketing tools, Internet utilities, software downloads, etc.

22 Tell people the point or focus of your web site. Explain to them what things they can do or which goals they can accomplish while visiting your site. For example, you could say, "Read 250 Free Net Marketing Tips So You Can Increase Your Sales! Plus Check Our Wide Selection Of Online Marketing E-books!"

23 Team up with your weaker competitors to beat your stronger ones. You can create win/win joint venture and cross-promotion deals with them. You could share marketing and advertising costs, create new products and services, share skills and strategies, trade leads, etc.

24 Design your site so it will be worth bookmarking. Your visitors will bookmark your web site if it's full of free, original content like articles, e-books, etc. You could survey your target audience to see which web sites or what type of sites they visit a lot. Then you could place those links all in one section of your web site. You could advertise it as a start page.

Advertising and Newsletters

25 Start a free e-mail newsletter to create your own opt-in list. Create a title that grabs the reader's attention. Submit it to free e-zine directories on the Internet. Advertise it on your web site. Offer a freebie or other incentive for people to subscribe. Give your readers mostly original and quality content.

26 Use permission marketing to increase your sales. You simply ask people to sign up to your e-mailing list. They'll already be interested in your messages or ads because they've visited your related web site. You could also offer them incentives for signing up like freebies, discounts, expertise, content, etc.

27 Place your ad in targeted e-zines. Ask the owner if you could place your ad in a higher position in exchange for a percentage of the ad's profits. You could also negotiate a lower ad price in exchange for you giving them affiliate commissions or an ad in your e-zine.

28 Make your classified ads stand out in a crowd. Use all capital letters in the headline, divide letters with extra spaces, add in text symbols, etc. For example, you could write, "WIN a VACATION to Las Vegas!" Another example would be, "Win A ($) Trip To Las Vegas!"

29 Use a lot of headlines and sub-headlines on your web site. This will hold people's attention and keep them at your web site longer. Sometimes people don't have time to read a whole sales letter. This'll allow you to sell to people who are skimmers. Plus it will get the reader's full attention at the same time.

Promopeddler - Online Corporate gifting Portal

Looking for presenting gifts your work mates and want to make surprise promopeddler.com is the right place to start with .

Promopeddler is the online portal for purchasing promotional products ,corporate gifts. and
promotional items.

Promopeddler is designed in a well organization so that everyone find their products easily what they search for to gift some thing.

Promopeddler is following the personalized service for every order so that every customer is important and they can feel happy and safe shopping.

promopeddler is servicing over Fortune 500 companies for offering corporate gifts or promotional items for their employees.

Plug Ins For FireFox - Top 10 Plugins

2007-08-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

1. Web Developer Toolbar - Andy over at Oyster Web convinced me to try this toolbar years ago. And what a find it was - header responses, disable javascript and meta redirects (spam detection ahoy), CSS live on screen, view css option and more are all simple with this great little plugin. There is a version for IE but I ain’t going to link to it as I’m on an anti-Microsoft binge after excel just lost a whole pile of data yesterday!
2. User Agent Switcher - Great for testing domains that you know are cloaked - so if your SEO company has fixed your website and for some reason you have no cached versions of pages better get yourself this and check that they are not spamming your sites with links to everyone on their network!
3. Screengrab -Allows you to grab whole web pages - not just the visible section. Great during testing and for sending screen grabs to clients. Nice, elegant and simple solution.
4. Netcraft Toolbar - good for safety online - the netcraft toolbar for firefox has some nice anti-phishing security. Put it on my Dads computer as he keeps clicking on links in emails that take him god knows where. Also has nice little geotargetting window - great for ensuring quickly that .com, .net, .biz sites etc are hosted in the correct location for their geotaregtting.
5. ColorZilla - grab colors from websites in a flash. I aint a website designer - Colin says all my sites look the same. But grabbing colors quickly is useful even for rubbish web designers such as me. Works just like the color dropper thing in Fireworks and Photoshop.
6. Search Status - Page Rank. Alexa Rank and Dmoz listings checked for every page you visit. First and Last are good Alexa rank is bit of waste of time but good none the less. Displays of Rank can be numerical or in little green fairydust bar, Alexa is a little blue fairydust bar.
7. Live HTTP Headers - Great little tool for viewing HTTP headers as they come in - want to check if that redirect is a 301 or a 302, if that error page is returning a 404 header or which images/scripts you’ve left in your web code don’t exist. Just boot this little baby up and away you go.
8. IE Switcher - Some people still build pages that I cant vies in Firefox something to do with IE using a box model and Firefox now (and yeah I have no idea WTF that means either) but can be a pain. Just clicking on little icon turns Firefox into IE display mode and I can see the pages again
9. Groowe Toolbar - All your favourite search engines toolbars in one - unfortunately no Google PageRank but good none the less. MSN, Yahoo, Google all by one little drop down saving you untold screen real estate.
10. Total Validator- HTML Code validation tool. Good for checking your html is correct and valid. And also for doing reports on code quality quickly. As it highlighs all the issues in one place and you dont even need to pay for it - and is far quicker than waiting on the W3 validator.+

If anyone has any other useful little Firefox plugins let us know.

Note:

The placement of the tools are not in the particular order.

Search Engine Optimisation Scotland

Kenkai.com - SEO, Web design, Website Redesign, Scotland, UK

Edmonton SEO - Edmonton based SEO consultant optimizes your business website with an outstanding search engine optimization result in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Also specializes in Google AdWords and website designs.

How To Get Backlinks and Increase Traffic To Your Site-Blogs

2007-08-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

Getting back links are the one of the important way to increase the page rank of the sites. Because most search engines calculating their page rank according to the no of back links and the percentage of keyword density present in the WebPages.

Initial traffic:

Getting the back links is one of the complex task in SEO. Because most of the back link providers expect the same traffic or Quality of back links returned to their websites from the receiving sites. This will be the great challenge for beginners who have just started the blogging. In that situation these webmasters should look for the alternate paths for getting back links. So it was wise to request the back links after getting a reasonable traffic. So adding the url to various directories and search engines are the foremost task to gain traffic.

Choosing Relevant& Qualified Back link Providers

Choosing the relevant& qualified back links providers, is the another important task for the getting back links. Because wrongly placed back links will not provide right results. Getting links from the sites/ blogs which has no enough page rank will not increase the page ranks. For E.g.

site A has the page rank of 0.And it gets 50 back links from 0 page ranked sites will not increase the page rank. But getting the links form page rank 4 or more site will surely increases the page rank of the sites. So getting links from high page ranked sites will provide the expected page rank.

Links from Commenting

Most of them believes that by putting their comments with their hyperlink will provide the enough page rank. But it was not Almost true, Most of the links provided through these comment section will not followed by search engine crawlers. So these links will not considered as valid back links. But by these hyperlink the visitors can navigated to the commenter's pages.But it was very few. By checking the properties of the links will provide the clear idea about whether it is crawlable or not.

Avoid links From Over Crowded links

Don't put your links where over crowded links are placed .Because the page rank was shared among the links. That results that pages will provides very small amount of page rank to sites. It just like sharing the apples with no of peoples. If no of peoples are increased, then every one gets small piece of apple. So try to get links from qualified and less links placed sites.

Avoid link exchange Programs:

The Mistake done by most of the webmasters to get back links are, getting links from exchanging programs. Most of the exchanging programs are only dedicated to exchange their links to each other. The most of the users participating in these programs are webmasters and they are not real end users. And another important point is major search engines ignore these kind of link exchange from crawling .They are constantly improving their crawling techniques to maintain their standard. So getting thousand links in overnight from these kind of link exchange programs will not give the results in longer run.

Social networking

Social networking is the one of the famous tool having today to get back links. Participating in these social networking activities will provides quality and direct links to your site. In most fo the social networking groups users can view and share their links. These will improve the page rank and drive more traffic.

Article writing

Article writing is the one of the best way to get valid back links. Article submissions will provide the direct back links to sites. Today various service providers are available to post your articles and get back links to your site. Writers can put their signatures on that articles and get back links.

Marketing Articles

Free internet marketing articles, tips, news, directory and more. Learn about Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Marketing and Email Marketing.

Easy Introduction on Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

2007-08-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

Increasing traffic to your blog is fundamental to your blog's success on the Internet. As you'll soon find, it isn't all that hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does take time.
Post Frequently to Your Blog
The first and most important rule for increasing traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post some more. Posting new and unique content on a regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.
Building Inbound Links
Another critical method for getting traffic to your blog in through by establishing links to your site on other people's webpages. This servers two purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone else's site can be clicked on thus bringing a visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites pointing to your site factor into the equations that Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in which sites are listed in searches conducted on their site. These types of links are referred to as "inbound" links.

When you try to develop inbound links it is important to make sure that the links are relevant. For example, if your blog is about cars then it doesn't do a lot of good to have an inbound link from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or, at a minimum, sites that target the same type of people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.

To begin developing inbound links, do a search for other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your blog is about cars then search "cars" in Blogger Search or Technorati (two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse through the results that you get and make a list of those that you think are well designed and interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs you will most likely have to give something in return and usually the easiest thing to give is a link to them. So from that list add a link on your blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then, after doing so, email the owner of each of those site and write something along the lines of:

"Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy Cars, a blog about cars. I've recently added a link to your site on my homepage because I feel that my readers are in a very similar demographic to that of your site. If you get a chance check my site out and if you like what you see please link back.

Thank you, John"

Remember that these blog owners don't owe you anything for you linking to them, but often if you ask nice you'll get a link back.
Submitting Your Blog to Blog Directories
Another way to build inbound links to your blog is by submitting your blog to blog and web directories. These directories contain literally thousands of websites and very rarely will someone come to your site by clicking on a link in one of the directories. However, including you blog in these directories can in many case help your ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don't spend too much time doing this but if you have a little free time they are worth looking into.
Write Interesting Blog Content
Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent content. The most powerful way to get people to your blog is to write content that your readers want to read. This will not only make people want to come back but it will also make them want to tell others about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to their blog once but getting someone to come back again and again, that is the key to increasing your blog traffic.

So post often, build links so people can find you and then make sure to keep it interesting. They'll come...for now, work hard and be patient.

Source: http://blog-traffic.blogspot.com

Search Engine Optimisation - Search Engine Marketing

Search engine optimisation specialists in Australia. Our search engine optimisation services include website optimisation and search engine marketing through various pay per click search engine marketing services. Each page of the directory was created to do extremely well in search engines by our highly successful search engine positioning specialists with proven top ranking results.

Content Is King

2007-08-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

According to the Nielsen-measured, Online Publishers Assn (OPA) sponsored Internet Activity Index, Internet users are spending more time with content sites, less time with "communications" and marginally more time with search. According to OPA president Pam Horan's prepared statement, "The index indicates that, over the last four years, the primary role of the Internet has shifted from communications to content." During the period studied, search increased from 3 percent of time spent (2003) to 5 percent (2007). Social networking sites were also found to gain in the survey.

Free Blogger Templates

2007-08-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

Check out the Blogger templates and improve the visual appearance of your blog.

Thur's Templates

Solucija CSS Templates

Free Templates - Blogspot

Aman's Blogger Templates

Noipo.org Templates

Blog's Gone Wild - Free Skins

Templates for Blogger, Blogsky, Persian Blog and Movable Type

http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name/

Free blog templates, original skins and new designs for Blogger

Point of Focus Blogger Templates

Blog Styles

BlogFrocks

not (that) ugly Templates

Love Productions

Diaphaneity Templates

55 Social Bookmarking Sites to Promote Your Blog Articles

2007-08-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

If you would like a quick and easy way to submit your latest entry in your blog, social bookmarking sites are a good place to start. Many of these sites will show your site on their home page as soon as you submit it. It’s up to everyone else that uses each of these sites whether your site stays there or gets buried.

Don’t bother submitting your latest blog article if you plan on spamming. You’ll do nothing but irritate everyone and they will quickly flame you and nuke your story. They may even show up on your doorstep. :) Well…let’s hope not. Anyway, you know the drill - provide high quality content and if it’s good enough you may find yourself getting bombarded with traffic. What’s good enough? Well, perhaps check the section of each of these sites to see what is popular.

You will need to register for each of these sites before you can submit anything. And without further ado….here is a list of 55 social bookmarking sites I have compiled. If I missed any, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

30daytags

BlinkBits

BlogHop

BlogLot

BlogMarks

BlogMemes

BlogPulse

BmAccess

browsr

Fark

CiteULike

clipclip

clipmarks

Complore

Connectedy

Connotea

de.lirio.us

del.icio.us

digg

diigo

fantacular

Feedmarker

Feed Me Links

Furl

Gibeo

GoKoDo

Google Notebook

IceRocket

Kaboodle

linkaGoGo

linkfilter.net

linkroll

Listible

Lookmarks

ma.gnolia

Netvouz

Newsvine

openBM

RawSugar

Rojo

Rollyo

Scuttle

Shadows

Simpy

Sitetagger

Smarking

Spurl

StumbleUpon

taghop

TailRank

Ticklr

unalog

Yahoo My Web 2.0

yoonoo

Generate Traffic in 30 ways

2007-08-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

1. Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site.

2. Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Consider writing posts with resources or explaining how things work. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page.

3. Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources. (check the List of Ping Services)

4.Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog.

5.Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.

6.simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.

7.Submit articles to blog carnivals (http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to your niche. Your article almost always gets posted, and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.

8.Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup.

9.Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.

10.Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience, ask questions and call to action.

11.Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.

12.You must be active to generate traffic. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it will certainly attract readers.

13. Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many communities as possible that are related to your topic.

14. A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.

15.Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).

16.Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes
just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost
ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.

17.Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.

18.Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs” but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.

19. Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.” Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.

20.I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic.

21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for
additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site.

22. I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like” community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.

23. Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.

24. Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.

25. Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.

26. Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.

27. A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.

28.Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now.

29. Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works.

30. Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO Tips, SEO eBook
Search engine optimization tips, free SEO ebook with tools and resources on developing spider friendly website.

Build Links in 30 Bad Ways -Not To Be follwed

2007-08-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both.
Directories

1)Submit your site to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links.
Forum Spam

2) List 100 Web sites in your signature file.

3) Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area.

4) Post nothing but "me too" posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file.

5) Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is.

6) As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day.

7) Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website.

8)Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on.
Blog Spam

9)Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords.

10)Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.

11)Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments.

12)Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash.

13)Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic.

14)Don't even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them.
Garbage Link Exchanges

15)Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank.

16)Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.).

17)Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!.

18)Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.
Spam People in Person

19)Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing.

20)Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not.
Be Persistant

21)Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website.

22)Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website.

23)Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog).

24)If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in.
Getting Links by Being a Jerk

25)Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)

26)Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.

27)Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money.

28)Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say "excuse you, jerk".

29)Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site.

30)Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more "hilariously dumb" than it is a "bad linking practice".

Build Good Links in 71 ways

2007-08-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Love for Lists

1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint).

2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)
Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At

6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)

7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.

8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
PPC as a Link Building Tool

9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.
News & Syndication

10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.

11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.

12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.

13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.

14. Trade articles with other webmasters.

15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.

16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].

17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.
Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking

18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.

19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.

20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.

21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.

22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.

23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.
Local & Business Links

24. Join the Better Business Bureau.

25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.

26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)

27. List your site at the local library's Web site.

28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.

29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.

30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.
Easy Free Links

31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.

32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.

33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.

35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).

38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.
Have a Big Heart for Reviews

39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.

40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.

41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).

42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.

43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.

44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.
Blogs & the Blogosphere

45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.

46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.

47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.

48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.

49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Design as a Linking Element

50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.

51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.

52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.
Hire Help

53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.

54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.
Link Trading

55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.

56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.
Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements

57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.

58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.

59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.

60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.

61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.
Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)

62. Sue Google.

63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
Freebies & Giveaways

64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.

65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth?

66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!

67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.

68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
Conferences & Social Interaction

69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.

70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.

71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.

Increase Website Traffic in 20 ways

2007-08-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

1. Choose the Right Blog Software
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution - one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases, WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that's easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route.
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2. Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are - Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or Wordpress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page - this is the best solution).
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3. Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
First and foremost, you're writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. Title tags that are short, snappy, on-topic and catchy are imperative. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. A great way to do this is to write the post and the title first, then run a few searches at Overture, WordTracker & KeywordDiscovery to see if there is a phrasing or ordering that can better help you to target "searched for" terms.
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4. Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
Whatever industry or niche you're in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that's already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention. A great way to find out who these people are is to use Technorati to conduct searches, then sort by number of links (authority). Del.icio.us tags are also very useful in this process, as are straight searches at the engines (Ask.com's blog search in particular is of very good quality).
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5. Tag Your Content
Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. I actually recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you're targeting. There are other good places to ping - del.icio.us and Flickr being the two most obvious (the only other one is Blogmarks, which is much smaller). Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a "bump" towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon (which requires that you download the toolbar, but trust me - it's worth it). You DO NOT want to submit every post to these sites, but that one out of twenty (see tactic #18) is worth your while.
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6. Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later)
There's something sad about a blog with 0 comments on every post. It feels dead, empty and unpopular. Luckily, there's an easy solution - don't offer the ability to post comments on the blog and no one will know that you only get 20 uniques a day. Once you're upwards of 100 RSS subscribers and/or 750 unique visitors per day, you can open up the comments and see light activity. Comments are often how tech-savvy new visitors judge the popularity of a site (and thus, its worth), so play to your strengths and keep your obscurity private.
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7. Don't Jump on the Bandwagon
Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren't. Just because there's huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends - this is because they're already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you're launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable - not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related).
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8. Link Intelligently
When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there's a fine line between overlinking and underlinking. The best advice I can give is to think of the post from the standpoint of a relatively uninformed reader. If you mention Wikipedia, everyone is familar and no link is required. If you mention a specific page at Wikipedia, a link is necessary and important. Also, be aware that quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etitquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It's almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous. And link condoms? Only use them when you're linking to something you find truly distasteful or have serious apprehension about.
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9. Invite Guest Bloggers
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowedging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers. Just be sure that you really are getting a quality post from someone that's as close to universally popular and admired as possible (unless you want to start playing the drama linkbait game, which I personally abhor). If you're already somewhat popular, it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus. One note about guest bloggers - make sure they agree to have their work edited by you before it's posted. A disagreement on this subject after the fact can have negative ramifications.
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10. Don't overcrowd Advertising (Until You're Popular)
I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That's not to say that contextual advertising can't work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don't get me wrong - it's unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you'll have the same impression - low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don't. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they're sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link - you definitely don't want that limitation while you're still trying to get established.
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11. Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Blogs that contain nothing but line after line of text are more difficult to read and less consistently interesting than those that offer images, interactive elements, the occassional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs. Even if you're having a tough time with non-text content, think about how you can format the text using blockquotes, indentation, bulllet points, etc. to create a more visually appealing and digestable block of content.
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12. Cover Topics that Need Attention
In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it's particularly easy to leverage with a blog. If everyone in the online Nascar forums is wondering about the components and cost of an average Nascar vehicle - give it to them. If the online stock trading industry is rife with questions about the best performing stocks after a terrorist threat, your path is clear. Spend the time and effort to research, document and deliver and you're virtually guaranteed link-worthy content that will attract new visitors and subscribers.
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13. Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software can tell you which posts your audience likes best, which ones don't get viewed and how the search engines are delivering traffic. Use these clues to react and improve your strategies. Feedburner is great for RSS and I'm a personal fan of Indextools. Consider adding action tracking to your blog, so you can see what sources of traffic are bringing the best quality visitors (in terms of time spent on the site, # of page views, etc). I particularly like having the "register" link tagged for analytics so I can see what percentage of visitors from each source is interested enough to want to leave a comment or create an account.
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14. Use a Human Voice
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it's most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you'll be in a good position to succeed. It's also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We've certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans - be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly - if there's a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there's no going back.
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15. Archive Effectively
The best archives are carefully organized into subjects and date ranges. For search traffic (particularly long tail terms), it can be best to offer the full content of every post in a category on the archive pages, but from a usability standpoint, just linking to each post is far better (possibly with a very short snippet). Balance these two issues and make the decision based on your goals. A last note on archiving - pagination in blogging can be harmful to search traffic, rather than beneficial (as you provide constantly changing, duplicate content pages). Pagination is great for users who scroll to the bottom and want to see more, though, so consider putting a "noindex" in the meta tag or in the robots.txt file to keep spiders where they belong - in the well-organized archive system.
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16. Implement Smart URLs
The best URL structure for blogs is, in my opinion, as short as possible while still containing enough information to make an educated guess about the content you'll find on the page. I don't like the 10 hyphen, lengthy blog titles that are the byproduct of many CMS plugins, but they are certainly better than any dynamic parameters in the URL. Yes - I know I'm not walking the talk here, and hopefully it's something we can fix in the near future. To those who say that one dynamic parameter in the URL doesn't hurt, I'd take issue - just re-writing a ?ID=450 to /450 has improved search traffic considerably on several blogs we've worked with.
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17. Reveal as Much as Possible
The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that's usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit. Make a decision about what's off-limits and how far you can go and then push right up to that limit in order to see the best possible effects. Your community will reward you with links and traffic.
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18. Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Not every post is worthy of making it to the top of Digg, Del.icio.us/popular or even a mention at some other blogs in your space. Trying to over-market every post you write will result in pushback and ultimately lead to negative opinions about your efforts. The less popular your blog is, the harder it will be to build excitement around a post, but the process of linkbait has always been trial and error - build, test, refine and re-build. Keep creating great ideas and bolstering them with lots of solid, everyday content and you'll eventually be big enough to where one out of every 20-40 posts really does become linkbait.
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19. Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days
If you do have linkbait, whether by design or by accident, make sure to capitalize. When you hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, Boing Boing, or, on a smaller scale, attract a couple hundred visitors from a bigger blog or site in your space, you need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to follow up on a high traffic time period with 2-3 high quality posts that show off your skills as a writer, your depth of understanding and let visitors know that this is content they should be sticking around to see more of. Nothing kills the potential linkbait "bump" faster than a blog whose content doesn't update for 48 hours after they've received a huge influx of visitors.
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20. Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
When you're writing for your audience, your content focus, post timing and areas of interest will all become associated with your personal style. If you vary widely from that style, you risk alienating folks who've come to know you and rely on you for specific data. Thus, if you build a blog around the idea of being an analytical expert in your field, don't ignore the latest release of industry figures only to chat about an emotional issue - deliver what your readers expect of you and crunch the numbers. This applies equally well to post frequency - if your blog regularly churns out 2 posts a day, having two weeks with only 4 posts is going to have an adverse impact on traffic. That's not to say you can't take a vacation, but you need to schedule it wisely and be prepared to lose RSS subscribers and regulars. It's not fair, but it's the truth. We lose visitors every time I attend an SES conference and drop to one post every two days (note - guest bloggers and time-release posts can help here, too).
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21. Build a Brand
Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building. As Zefrank noted, to be a great brand, you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member. Exclusivity, insider jokes, emails with regulars, the occassional cat post and references to your previous experiences can be offputting for new readers, but they're solid gold for keeping your loyal base feeling good about their brand experience with you. Be careful to stick to your brand - once you have a definition that people like and are comfortable with, it's very hard to break that mold without severe repercussions. If you're building a new blog, or building a low-traffic one, I highly recommend writing down the goals of your brand and the attributes of its identity to help remind you as you write.

Best of luck to all you bloggers out there. It's an increasingly crowded field to play in, but these strategies should help to give you an edge over the competition. As always, if you've got additions or disagreements, I'd love to hear them.

p.s. Note to self - starting long blog entries at 11:30pm is not conducive to a good night's sleep. A

Increase Website Traffic in 15 ways

2007-08-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

1. Keyword Rich Content - identify a few keywords for your article that you’re hoping will get indexed highly by Google. Don’t pick too many but consider the questions

* How do I want people to find this post in Search Engines?
* What will they type into Google if they want information on the topic you’re writing?
* How would I find information on this topic in the Search Engines?
* What results come up when I do plug these keywords into Google?
* What other keywords are other sites using?

The answer to these questions will give you a hint as to what words you’ll want to see repeated throughout your article a number of times.

These keywords will need to be the most common words used in your article. Use them in some or all of the following ways:

* Keywords in post and page titles (read my post on using keywords in titles)
* Keywords in URL of page (blog herald wrote on this a while back)
* Keywords in outbound links (read this article on the pros and cons of outbound links)
* Keywords in bold tags (try do it at least once)
* Keywords in heading tags (there is debate over exactly how to use them but it’s generally accepted that h1 tags are important and that h2, h3, h4 etc tags also have an impact. Having said that I’ve seen some pages rank very well in search engines without using heading tags. There are many tutorials online about heading tags - here’s one.)
* Keywords in image alt tags (here’s how)
* Keywords in the general throughout the text of your post - but especially early on in the first few sentences
* Keywords in meta tags (they seem to be less valuable these days but many still believe they are useful with some search engines - here’s a Guide to meta tags)

Of course you can go over the top with keywords in posts and let it destroy your content - but if it fits with what you’ve written tweak it to include the words you are targeting a couple of extra times. Most SEO experts recommend getting your keyword density up to between 5-20% - I think 20% is probably bordering on massacring your content.

One last word of warning and disclaimer on keyword rich content (because I can just hear the comments on this post already) - don’t sacrifice your readers experience of your site just for the sake of SEO. Yes keyword density can be important in climbing the search engine rankings - but more important is that your content and design are user friendly and helpful to readers. There is nothing worse than a site that is stuffed with keywords - these sites come off as cheap, nasty and spammy - don’t fall for the temptation.

2. Themed sites - One of the growing theories of SEO is that you are more likely to rank well if you have a substantial amount of pages on a similar theme. ie a niche topic blog will probably rank higher than a general one that covers many topics. Build a blog with over 200 pages of content on the same theme and you’ll increase your chances of ranking well as SEs will see you as an authority on the topic. The take home advice here is to keep to some kind of a topic/niche/theme for your blog. It is also probably another argument for categories and tagging posts that relate together strongly.

3. Site Design - Search Engines like well laid out, well coded and easily to navigate sites. Make sure your pages validate (I need to work more on this) and that they are viewable on all major browsers. Search Engines don’t tend to like too much Flash, Frames or Java Script in your site - keep it simple and clean and their robots will index your site a lot faster and more accurately. Also try to keep your blog free from dead links (a challenge for those of us with older blogs with big archives).

4. Interlink your Site - The way Search Engines index your blog is to send little robot crawlers to your site to track what you’ve written and follow the links. Make it easier for them to get around your blog by using internal linking wisely. Most SEO experts recommend that you provide some sort of Site Map that means every page on your blog is just a link or two away from every other one. One way to do this for bloggers is to make sure that your category pages are in your sidebars as I do in this blog. Also make sure every page links back to your main page and any other important pages on your site. If you’re writing on a topic you’ve previously written about consider linking to what you’ve written before or use a ‘other relevant posts’ feature at the base of your article. You’ll see in my menus at the top of the page a number of my key categories and articles. One of the impacts of having them highlighted in this way is that they have become some of the most highly ranked pages on ProBlogger simply because they are linked to from every page of this blog.

5. Update regularly - The more you update your blog the more often Search Engines will send their crawlers to your site to index it. This will mean your new articles could appear in the index within days or even hours rather than weeks. This is a natural benefit of blogging - make the most of it!

6. Outbound Links - There is debate over how SEs treat outbound links from your blog. I’m in the camp who believe that relevant outbound links enhance your site’s ranking in search engines. I always link out to quality relevant sites that I think my readers will find useful and have a little anecdotal evidence that seems to support the theory that this is healthy for the way SEs index you (check out Waynes article on the topic for more info). Linking to sites outside your own blog does mean you end up sending traffic away from your blog so you need to count the cost of such a strategy. Note that you should always try to link to reputable and relevant sites to your own page. Also keep in mind that too many outbound could have detrimental impact upon your blog. Like in most things in SEO - moderation is the key.

7. Choose your domain name wisely - there are numerous factors to keep in mind when selecting a domain name. For one you might like to include your keyword in it if possible. Secondly you should do a little research to see if someone else has previously used the domain. This could have both positive and negative impact. If it was a quality site with inbound links you might reap some benefits but if it was a banned spam site you could still be banned from Google for a long time. One service you might want to use to check expired domains is Way Back Machine at Archive.org.

8. Register your Domain for a Lengthy Period - a recent patent by Google indicates that it now looks at the length of your domain’s registration in ranking it. It does this because many spam sites have short registrations and a longer one indicates that you’re building a site with substance and are in it for the long haul.

9. One topic per post - the more tightly focused the theme of a page the better when Search Engines come to rank it. Sometimes you might find yourself writing long posts that end up covering a number of different topics. They might relate loosely but if search engine ranking is what you’re after it could be better to break up your post into smaller more focused pieces.

10. Write optimal length posts - there is some thought going around the Search Engine Optimization community that pages that are too short can get passed over for high rankings. I try to keep posts at least 250 words. Of course there are some posts on my blogs that are shorter, but if I’m writing a post that I want to rank well I try to give it some meatiness in terms of length. On the other hand don’t make it too long either - because in doing so you make it difficult to keep your keyword density up and could end up with a less tightly focused page. Research also shows that longer articles can have a pretty steep drop off rate in readers after the text gets below the ‘fold’ or to the end of the first screen of article .

11. Avoid Duplicate content - Google warns publishers in its guidelines about having the same content on multiple pages. This goes for both multiple pages that you own but also pages that others own. This is because a tactic of spammers is often to reproduce content on many pages and/or to steel content from other sites. There is some debate over what duplicate content does and doesn’t include (for instance many bloggers use ‘free articles’ as content on their blogs - these articles often appear on hundreds and even thousands of other sites around the web and to me could be seen as duplicate content) - my advice is to be very careful about how many places your content appears. I do republish occasional posts (or parts of them) but try not to do this too much and attempt to add elements that are unique on each occasion that the posts are republished).

12. Ping - services like Pingomatic (there are numerous others too) will ping a variety of websites for you to notify them that you’ve updated. In doing so you’ll also be letting search engines know that you’ve updated which will trigger their robots to come visit your blog. I’d also suggest pinging Google’s blog search tool.

13. Submit your RSS to MyYahoo - submitting your RSS feed to MyYahoo seems to help with getting indexed on Yahoo. Read more about this at Getting Yahoo Traffic for your Blog. Some also think that doing the same thing to Google’s Personalised pages could have a similar impact.

14. Quantities of Content - I always get into trouble when I write about having lots of content - but I think its true that bigger sites tend to rank better than smaller sites - whilst it is possible to rank highly with a small site - it’s probably not the norm.. Search Engines will see your site as more comprehensive the more content you have. You also better your odds of being found in Search Engines if you have more pages. By no means am I saying just to put up random junk content - be careful about this - rather work at building a comprehensive and large site over time.

15. Submit to Search Engines - You can do all the best onsite SEO strategies in the world and still get no where because the Search Engines have not found you to start with. Each search engine has a way of letting it know about your site - submit your URL to be included in the index. Please note that this takes time and perhaps a quicker and more effective way is to get linked to by a site already indexed by the search engine. I’ve written a post about his previously here.

You might also like to tryout some of the services around that offer to submit your sites to search engines for you - I’d be wary of paying for this sort of service though. I never have and seem to do ok.

Feel free share your comments, experiences and questions with us.

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howtogettrafficonblogs@yahoo.co.in