Effective Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of various techniques that help your site rank higher in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). It is a long process, which involves keyword selection, HTML source code (Hyperlinks, Meta tags, Alt tags...) configuration, content (all "visible" text of your pages) optimization and restructure of the whole web site.

Search engine optimization is very powerful weapon in internet marketing world. If used correctly, it can be the only marketing tool that you'll ever need. Many businesses have realized that and have employed search engine optimization firms to help their sites rank higher. Top placement in search engines can be very lucrative for any web site owner.

There are hundreds of millions of people all over the world searching for information everyday and this number is growing at exploding rate. As some studies say, 85% of people go to search engines and 80% of them look only at first 3 SERPs when they search for information.

Having this in mind, it's absolutely essential to have a web site at the top of SERPs by selected keywords and keyphrases. High search engine rankings will bring enormous amount of traffic and will boost your company's sales tremendously.

Keyword Research

The first step in proper search engine optimization process is researching keywords and keyphrases that describe your site. Doesn't matter if you already have one or just planning to have, keyword research is a must thing to do. Basically, it means choosing the words and phrases that describe the content of your site.

It is pointless to have a web site about "search engine ranking" and be found by keywords like "web design" or "website hosting". Visitors will click away, because they won't find what they're looking for. Before starting any optimization, define your keywords first. What people type in search engines to find your web site? What would you type in search engines to find your site?

After researching, you should optimize your pages for those selected keywords.

Search engine optimization is not only about gaining high rankings, but also about gaining targeted traffic. Try to attract people who are interested in particular information or services that can be found on your site. Then find the right keywords and optimize your pages properly.

On-Page Search Engine Optimization

After doing a keyword research, you should start creating or optimizing your existing site. On-page search engine optimization, as many call, is a process of optimizing html code, content, internal linking structure of your site. In other words, everything that is inside your web site.

On page search engine optimization includes:

1. Title Tag - It is one of the most important parts of a page. Page title is seen in bigger font in SERPs. It's crucial to put your most important keywords in title. You should put meaningful sentences there, not only a bunch of keywords. Keep in mind that if a visitor is not convinced of your title, he'll click on your competitor's link. So spend some time on creating good titles for your pages.
2. Meta Tags - Meta description and keyword tags should be different on all pages. Also, keep in mind that repeating the same Meta keyword tags could harm your rankings. It's called keyword stuffing and is treated as search engine spam.
3. Headings, Bold and Italic Text - As search engine optimizers claim, SE's give some weight on Heading Tags, bold, italic and underline text. So try to surround your important keywords with these tags.
4. Internal Linking - When you link from one page to another in your site, put your keywords in the anchor (Text that you see in a hyperlink) text.

Like Your Keywords. Keep in mind that those keywords should be found on a page where the hyperlink leads.

There are more factors determining site’s rankings, but those tips above should help you in your on-page search engine optimization process.

Off-Page Search Engine Optimization

This term describes everything that is outside your web site. That means all other factors used in search engine optimization process that determine your rankings. Very important off-page technique used right now is link popularity, which means all links from other domains pointing to your web pages.

It’s almost impossible to rank high for competitive keywords if you don’t have a decent amount of external links pointing to your site. All search engines have chosen to include link popularity factor in their algorithms when ranking sites. Links are the only way to reach top SERPs for competitive keywords.

Try to gain as much incoming links to your site as possible. It’s tough to gain only incoming links, so start link exchanges, though it’s very time consuming. But don’t try to get links from FFAs (Free for All pages) or link farms (pages containing many links to other unrelated web sites). Get useful links from related and quality web sites, which will benefit your users and search engines.

Remember that links are dominant factor when search engine spiders consider your rankings. On-page search engine optimization is important, but off-page is absolutely must for top positions. Without good inbound (links to your site) links, it’s very hard to get on the top of search engine results pages.

Unethical Search Engine Optimization Techniques

When you begin search engine optimization process, avoid unethical SEO techniques. They worked long time ago, but now are treated as search engine spam. If you use them, your site may be penalized or even dropped from search engine listings for a long time.

A couple of spammy SEO techniques are below:

1. Mirror Websites - These are sites with identical content but different URL's.
2. Doorway or Gateway Pages - Doorway pages usually contain little real value to the visitors and are optimized to rank highly within the search engines only.
3. Keyword Stuffing - Keyword stuffing means using the same keywords in Your META tags or elsewhere in the content over and over again.
4. Link Farms - These were mentioned earlier. A link farm is usually one page that consists of 50 to 100 or more links to websites that have nothing in common with the content of your site.

When a search engine catches you using illegal search engine optimization techniques, it blacklists your website and blocks your domain name or IP (Internet Protocol) address. You will have many problems while getting on board again. If you don’t want to be blacklisted by major search engines, try to avoid those techniques mentioned above.

Summing Up

Search engine optimization is a never ending game. Webmasters are trying to trick SEs and get higher positions. Search engines are trying to get rid of optimizers and provide the most accurate results for the searchers by complicating their ranking algorithms. If you want to win this game, you must learn as much as possible, test as much as you can and be up-to-date with the newest search engine optimization techniques all the time.

Ten Unique Search Engine Optimization Techniques

In this article I discuss ten controversial search engine optimization techniques that should be used with caution, or even avoided altogether.

1. Duplicate Pages

In general, search engines ignore duplicate pages. In extreme cases, they may ban a site.

2. Invisible Text

Search engines consider the use of text that is the same color as the background color as spam. So stay clear of using invisible text.

3. Keywords In Comment Tags

Hardly any, if any, of the major search engines index comment tags, so don't waste time adding them for optimization purposes.

4. Keywords In Hidden Value Tags

Keywords in hidden value tags are considered spam by all of the major search engines, so don't waste time with this practice.

5. Keywords In Style Tags

Very few search engines index the content of

6. Link Farms And Link Exchange Programs

Search engines consider link farms and link exchange programs as spam, as they have only one purpose - to artificially inflate a site's link popularity, by exchanging links with other participants.

Do not confuse link farms and link exchange programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links with individual sites, and certainly an accepted technique for improving your site's link popularity.

7. Links Only Pages

I recommend adding text descriptions to link pages and site maps. Some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages.

8. Meta Refresh Tags

In general, meta refresh tags set for under 30 seconds are considered as spam by search engines. As such, most search engine optimizers use JavaScript redirects.

Having said that, I recently read an article that said the Fast and Inktomi search engines recommend using meta refresh tags, instead of JavaScript redirects.

Are you confused? I certainly am!

So to be on the safe side, I suggest sticking with JavaScript redirects, until there is conclusive proof that search engines accept meta refresh tags.

9. Tiny Text

Many of the major search engines consider tiny text (i.e. font size 1) as spam. Some use of tiny text is fine. Search engines don't like web pages that use a lot of tiny text. The reason is because some webmasters have used it to fool search engines by "hiding" dozens of keywords in a web page.

10. Cloaking

Cloaking is the practice of serving search engine optimized pages to search engine spiders, while at the same time serving un-optimized pages to site visitors.

Cloaking is one of the most controversial strategies in search engine optimization. Major search engines publicly state that they consider all cloaking to be spam. However, many professional search engine optimizers have been using cloaking for years, with much success.

Until there is conclusive proof that search engines do indeed ban sites that use cloaking, I suggest you take care if you decide to use cloaking.

If you want more in-depth information on these and other search engine optimization strategies, read my Search Engine Optimization Guide.

Conclusion

There are many controversial search engine optimization techniques. There are people who despise the use of certain techniques, such as cloaking. But the fact of the matter is that there are no right or wrong ways to optimize a web page.

What might be considered as spam by one search engine may be accepted by another. What works today may be banned tomorrow.

The art and science of marketing is about testing to see what works and what doesn't. I recommend taking the same approach with search engine optimization. After all, it is just another form of marketing.

Top 13 Tips To Creating A Professional Looking Newsletter

In this article I show you my top 13 tips on how to create professional looking newsletters.

1. Design Scannable Newsletters

According to recent study by usability expert, Jakob Nielsen, about 50 percent of readers skimmed or partly read the newsletters. Only 23 percent of readers read the newsletters all the way through. The remaining 27 percent were never opened.

So make the text easy to scan by:

• using short paragraphs
  
• using bullet points
  
• including plenty of white spacing between topics
  
• highlighting topics with uppercase or bold text in HTML newsletters
  

2. Insert Line Breaks

Improve the readability of your newsletter by formatting it with hard line breaks at 60/65/70 characters per line. You can use a text editor, such as TextPad, and set it to insert hard carriage returns at the end of each 65-character line.

3. Include Newsletter Title In The Subject Field

Include your newsletter title at the beginning of the subject field. This will help the reader differentiate your newsletter from junk emails. It will also allow them to filter your newsletter into a separate folder with the use of filters.

4. Make Your Subject Field Sell!

Advertise the most enticing story of each issue in the subject field. You literally have seconds to grab the readers attention, so make it count.

5. Include A Table Of Content

Include a table of contents at the top of the newsletter. This will allow readers to scan the topics to see if anything in the newsletter catches their interest.

6. Fix Long Links

Long hyperlinks may be broken when you format emails using hard line breaks at 60/65/70 characters per line.

To fix this problem, deselect word wrap after you have inserted the carriage returns. Then manually edit the links to ensure they are on one line. When the email is sent, a link may still wrap onto two lines. But now it will be clickable.

7. Avoid Spam Filters That Flag The "Unsubscribe" Word

Do not use the word "unsubscribe" in your removal notice. A number of spam filters flag emails containing that particular word as possible spam. The reason is many spammers now offer "unsubscribe" functions that don't actually do anything.

8. Avoid Spam Filters That Flag Chain Letters

Some spam filters are flagging emails that asks readers to forward the newsletter on as chain letters.

Avoid using the word "forward" and any of the following words in the same sentence, "all, anyone, every, friends, many, others, people." Instead of "forward," try using "pass," "share," or "send."

9. Reduce Remove Request Emails

There are two methods to reducing the number of remove email requests from your subscribers:

• Include a removal notice at the top and bottom of the email.
  
• Place the bottom removal request at the very bottom of the email, rather than a few paragraphs from the bottom.
  

10. Design User-Friendly HTML Newsletters

Most people use an 800x600 screen resolution, but the email preview pane is usually much smaller than the full screen. So format your HTML table widths at 500-600 pixels at the most. Better still, use a relative (percentage) width table, which will allow your newsletter to be resized when viewed in different sized windows.

11. Create AOL Friendly HTML Newsletters

AOL try to protect their users by eliminating potential security hazards. As such, AOL email clients do not support the following HTML objects:

• ActiveX
  
• Audio
  
• External Style Sheets
  
• Frames and IFrames
  
• Java
  
• Meta Refresh
  
• Scripts: JavaScript, Perl, VBScript, etc.
  
• Tooltips
  
• Video
  

In addition, the following HTML tags are the only ones supported by AOL email clients:

• Big: Big
  
• Body: Body
  
• Bold: B
  
• Break: BR
  
• Center: Center
  
• Font: Font
  
• Header: H1, H2, H3
  
• Hyperlink: A
  
• Italics: I
  
• Paragraph: P
  
• Small: Small
  
• Strong: Strong
  
• Subscript: Sub
  
• Underline: U
  

12. Include AOL Clickable Links

AOL users can't click standard hyperlinks or email links. For links to work in AOL email clients, you must format them using HTML. This is why you sometimes see both standard and HTML formatted links.

13. Spell Check Your Writing

Last but not least, always spell check your newsletter. Text editors, such as TextPad, include a spell check function.

If yours doesn't, then copy and paste the text into Microsoft Word (assuming you have it). Make sure you have the "Check spelling as you type" option switched on.

To set this, select "Options" under the "Tools" in the top menu bar. Then select the "Spelling & Grammar" tab. Under "Spelling" check the "Check spelling as you type" check box and click "OK." Word will underline all of the words that contain spelling errors.

How To Get Free Links From Yahoo! Full Coverage

In this article I show you a little known technique on how to submit your web site to the Yahoo! Full Coverage sections.

If you've got great content, use this little known tip to get a link from a popular section of Yahoo!.

Yahoo has "Full Coverage" pages on hundreds of news topics. Under those topics, they list useful sites. They're not the same as those listed in the Yahoo! Directory.

Yahoo! will consider suggestions for original content news and op-ed (opinion/editorial) articles, and for related web sites of a non-commercial nature. Do not submit syndicated or wire service content.

You may submit content to the following areas:

• Full Coverage on Yahoo.com
  
• Full Coverage on Yahoo! Asia
  
• Yahoo! Movies Full Coverage
  
• Full Coverage on Yahoo! Canada
  
• Yahooligans Full Coverage
  

To submit your site for review, click on the "Submit links or send feedback to Full Coverage" link at the bottom of a page in the Full Coverage section, and you will end up on the "How do I submit a link to Full Coverage?" page.

If your content is deemed worthy by a Yahoo! editor, they might just link to it. In addition, Full Coverage editors may also post links to specific articles on your web site.

Inclusion into Yahoo!'s Full Coverage section will almost definitely increase your traffic, boost your credibility, and search engine link popularity of your site.

But be warned. You MUST be submitting great content. Inclusion into the Yahoo! Full Coverage section is pretty much reserved for the very best content.

It is for this reason that few submissions are ever successful. But it's always worth a try, right? Good luck!

Three Ways To Get Listed In Google

In this article I show you three ways to get listed in Google, including one method that is virtually guaranteed to work.

I'm constantly surprised by what I find when dealing with search engine optimization clients.

One of those "surprises" is coming across sites that aren't listed by Google, even though they have been live for many months.

For most Web sites, Google refers more traffic than any other search engine. So it's imperative that your site is indexed in Google.

As of September 09, 2003, Google claims to index Searching 3,307,998,701 web pages. Yet somehow sites still fail to make it into the Google index!

There are three simple methods to getting listed in Google, but only one of these is guaranteed... well almost. ;o)

1. Submit Direct To Google

The first method is to submit your web site via Google's free submit your site form. Just submit your home page and Google's crawler, Googlebot, will crawl the rest.

However, Google does not add all submitted URLs to their index, and there is no guarantee as to when, or if, your site will be indexed.

2. Get Linked From A Site That Google Crawls

The second method is to get a site that Google already crawls to link to your site. So when Google recrawls the web site, it will find the link to your site and crawl and index it as well.

This is Google's preferred method of finding sites to index.

To get another site to link to yours, simply look for a site that links to your competitors and ask them to link to yours. You may have to offer a link back to their site in exchange.

You may like to read my link popularity article, "How To Quickly Improve Your Link Popularity." In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners.

3. Submit Your Site To The Yahoo! Directory & The Open Directory Project Index

The third method is to submit your web site to the Yahoo! Directory and/or Open Directory Project index, which is owned by Netscape.

As far as I know, this is the only guaranteed method of getting into the Google index.

Google has agreements with Yahoo! and Netscape to include the sites indexed in their directories in the Google index. So submit your site to either, or both (recommended), of these directories.

For more information, visit Yahoo!'s How to Suggest Your Site page and the Open Directory Project's How to add a site to the Open Directory page.

Once your site is included in either of these directories, it will appear in the Google index in about 4 to 8 weeks.

So now you have no excuse for not getting indexed by Google. ;o)

Free Ways To Promote Your Website

Free Ways To Promote Your Website

Discover the keywords that will skyrocket your website traffic!

Website traffic - I guess this subject is one of the most popular subject in the web marketing. If you just started with your website and haven't got too much cash to spare on advertising, you need to find ways to get some free web site traffic. I'll try to share here with you some of the ways to start driving visitors to your website. 

Let's be honest, none of this ways will bring you thousands of visitors in a day. But most of this methods will help you to announce your website, start getting some visitors and build up good traffic in future.

Search Engines: It is the most important traffic source for you. This can your biggest source of traffic now and ever if you optimized& submitted your site properly. There are thousands of search engines on the web, but in reality you need to set the priority to get submitted to the main ones first: AltaVista, Excite, Yahoo, Hotbot, Lycos, Northern Light, Infoseek, Webcrawler. Then you can use some Free web based submission tools to submit to smaller search engines. See for example INeedHits site

Don't forget about the directories. Submission to directories almost always have to be done manually. The most important directories out there are: Yahoo, Magellan, DMOZ

Exchange links with other sites. You might not get a huge traffic flow from this, but link popularity is important to your search engines ranking. Read more about this in our article about link popularity.

Publish your ezine: If you are planning to start a newsletter or ezine on your website make sure you register it with ezine libraries. There are plenty of Ezine directories on the Net. Take a look at a few of the more popular ezine directories to get an idea of just how many ezines there are. Submitting your ezine to this directories can help you to get new visitors to your site, interested in what you have to say.

Write an Article – hundreds of webmasters around the Net are trying to find a good content for their website. If you can share your knowledge with them it can benefit you both. When you wrote an article, submit it to ezine articles directories. Articles can re-printed by webmasters for free if they include author's info & links. So you'll get free links pointing to your sites and this links can be very effective, because if you what you wrote is an interesting content then people would want to hear more of what you have to say.

Free Classifieds. Hmm.. not exactly the best source for web traffic, but why not give it a try. After all it's free and even if you get only few visits from them it would be still worth it. Especially if you use automated tools to do submissions for you. Read more on the subject in our article about classified ads

Banner exchange: Exchanging banner impressions with other sites or within a network. This is 2 way street, if you don't have a lot of traffic and can't provide good number of banner impressions, then you will not get a lot of your banner impressions. However many banner exchange networks will give you free impressions as a sign-up bonus. It can be something from 5000 to 25 000 impressions. You can use them to start the ball rolling and get some traffic to your site. We are giving some valuable info on the subject in our article about banner exchange.

You do need to have a banner for your website to participate in banner exchange. Since we are talking about free staff, here is a good place to get a template for your banner which you can customize yourself - FreeBanners.org.

Signature file. A short message that you can include at the end of your e-mail messages, which can contain description of your website and services. It can have a good effect and free too

So here are few ways to start getting visitors to your website. All of them are free and you can start working on your web site traffic right now!

How to Drive targeted Traffic to Your Website and Earn Lots of Cash in the Process

To increase your traffic and profits using paid advertising methods, you need to know that while there are lots of methods, some hardly work. In this series, all we are looking at are tactics that will produce results. You will not get anything that does not work here. So, in this edition, we'll be looking at three methods of paid advertising that keeps working: 

* Paying to Build Email lists popularly known as subscriber lists. 

* Paying to get listed in directories. 

* Purchasing of Text links 

* Advertising on EBay 

If you cannot build your list yourself, you can get companies that will either help you build or who will sell lists to you depending on how much you are willing to spend. All you need do for this is simply search the web for those who sell email lists. I must warn you here that this is extremely risky because sometimes, these emails could be harvested, or gotten from third party companies and could have been sold to thousands of people who also require the same service. What usually happens in the end is the email list never produces results because they have been spammed continuously. If you decide to buy email lists, go to the forums and ask around for recommendations on any reputable email list broker. This will help reduce the risk involved and after searching, you are likely to come up with a very reliable email list provider. 

Directories are a very viable way of generating website traffic. All you need do is visit these directories, look for their "add a link" link and enter your website address and description. The problem with this is if you use the free method, your link may not be listed until about 2 weeks and even then, may not attain top positions on the page. I mean what is the use of a link that is placed on page 10 of a directory. Unfortunately too, browsers usually don't go further than page 3 of a directory. If they can't find it there and then, they just assume it doesn't exist. This is where it pays to pay for link inclusion. Yahoo has one of such services. For a meager $299, you will get your link reviewed between 72 hours and appearing in top positions in the yahoo directory. This will singularly boost your website traffic as people searching for what you might have to offer, see you link quickly and click through to see what you have to offer. 

If you also want to increase your traffic, eBay is the way to go. EBay has an estimated volume of 2 million visitors everyday, all buying and selling products and services. All you need do is visit www.ebay.com and sign up. Then, go ahead and start advertising your products in the right categories. This is usually done by placing bids on products that you intend to buy or listing your product. If your advert is placed in the right category, you'll get lots of visitors clicking through to visit your website and see what you have to offer. Use them to your advantage and profit maximally from them using tips previously discussed in other series. 

Aurelius Tjin is The Publisher of The 'Unstoppable Profits Blog' With Over 22,000 Readers. Discover His Secret Strategies To Skyrocket Your Internet Marketing Business. To Get Free Internet Business Videos, Tips, and Strategies Go To http://www.aureliustjin.com

How to Create Viral 7-20 Page Reports That Will Continually Suck In Money for You 24/7

Creating reports is not as hard as it seems to be. One thing you need to understand is that a report is nothing more than a compilation of thoughts on a particular topic. So, if you graduated from high school, you can put together a viral report with pages between 7 and 20 for a cheap fee. Some other big internet gurus have sold 15-paged reports for a whopping $150! Joe Vitale created a 10-page report within just 5 days without even creating a viral mechanism for it and sold it for $150 each; amounting to $15 a page. While some of us mere mortals may not be able to achieve this super human feat, it at least just shows you how profitable reports can be. In this article we'll be unveiling the secrets to creating viral reports that will keep grossing in sales for you long after you might have written it. It is really simple given the fact that it takes just about the same tactics to get it done. 

There are various ways to go about creating a viral report. It could be through transcription; that is you translate an audio recording into an ebook or report. Lots of marketers have done this, and sold at a lower price. Most folks cannot afford the expensive teleseminars hosted by the top internet marketers. So, this option is really a form of relief for most who cannot afford the expensive costs of the teleseminars. You could also gather a collection of articles or newsletters you might have compiled over a period of time and compile them into a report. This method is usually best for series. For example, if you owned the series we did on article marketing, you could easily compile it together, add one or two touches, create a good sales page for it with lovely graphics and catchy features and sell off for just $14 each. 

The third method could be as a result of finding out what questions are the most pressing issues at a point in time. Then find the solutions to those problems by doing some research on them and compile them into a well-written report. This method is highly profitable. You could write a 15-paged report and sell for just $29.99 and it will sell quickly and fast. You know why? You looked for needs that people will give anything to be solved for them. A typical example is children's allergy. Anyone who comes out with a highly informative report on averting the allergies and possible remedies will sell it at any price he wants and still rake in tons of profits from it because up till the time of writing this article, no cure or solution has been found to this problem. This is just an example of profiting from reports that may not take you more than one week to write. Imagine making a total of $8,000 from a 36 hour investment. Awesome isn't it? And that is not the end. You could easily replicate this in as many niches as you desire and these niches are limitless. 

Creating a viral report that will spread like wild fire on the internet is a possibility if you know what to do and how to go about it. In case you are wondering what a viral report is, it is a report whose rate of spread over the internet is identical to the way a virus spreads either on the PC or among humans or animals –insanely fast! 

How do you create a report that attains a viral status? Simple. Create a report that is vastly relevant and include incentives that will make people benefit from it. If you do this effectively, you will have a tremendous spread of the report over the internet in no time. 

To make a report viral, there are three major tactics you could use: 

1. Include a giveaway rights 

2. resell rights benefit and 

3. a rebrand rights benefit. 

A resell rights benefit simply means the buyer has the right to resell the product and keep the 100 percent profits. This method is highly viable and increases sales conversion rates hence making more money for the seller of the product because of the benefit o being able to sell again and keep all the profits, 

Another advantage this has is that the author of the report will still make money in the back end. How? By including links to his websites or products he is promoting by himself. So while people with resell rights are making money from selling the product and keeping all the profits, they are also indirectly promoting your products and expanding the reach of the report. 

A report can also attain a viral level of exposure if you give people the permission to give away the product for free. This works like magic. Karen finds the report and is fascinated by it, and then she sends a link to Paul, Peter, and Jessie who in turn send it to four people each and so on and so forth. With this single method, you could have over 1 million visitors within one short month of releasing the report. Is that nice or what! Imagine the potential of duplicating these same results over and over again. To make money from this, you’ll need to include the links to your website, products that you are an affiliate of, or services you intend to sell. Imagine the potential of 1 million people seeing your products and services. If just one percent of them were to buy your product at $29 each -which is more than likely because of the relevancy and the referrals from friends- you'll be grossing over $290,000 over that period of time. Not bad for an investment of less than $50. 

The third tactic is giving away the rebrand or private label rights of the report. This means everything in the report can be amended. From the affiliate links to the name of the author. The bottom line is you lose all rights to the report. The only benefit is that you make money upfront after which the rest is out of your hands. As a result, you could end up seeing what looks like a mutilated version of your report somewhere on the internet. But in the end the end result would have been attained: Creating a viral report. 

Aurelius Tjin is The Publisher of The 'Unstoppable Profits Blog' With Over 22,000 Readers. Discover His Secret Strategies To Skyrocket Your Internet Marketing Business. To Get Free Internet Business Videos, Tips, and Strategies Go To http://www.aureliustjin.com 

Simple Ways of Marketing Online

Internet marketers already know these strategies by heart. But there may be some who just entered the online business and marketing community who may not have tried some of the simple ways of marketing online. 

Marketing online isn't as difficult as it may sound. Internet marketers wouldn't be bragging of how much great a job it is if it was all that difficult and annoying. The downside may be that you need to put in a lot of time and effort to get a positive result in the end. Patience is also needed, and, for some, expenses are incurred. But in general marketing online is just a simple and easy task! 

The main point of internet marketing is to generate traffic and lead visitors and customers to your site. Your site's visibility will be the key factor for you to attract customers and make sales. Online marketing strategies have this purpose in mind. 

Let us count the simple ways of marketing online: 

Link Building: To achieve greater visibility in the Web, you have to have a high ranking in the search engines. To have a high ranking among the search engines, building links is vital. Search engine spiders crawl across the Web to look for the number of links you have and use it as one of the important bases on ranking your website. Build links all over the Web by reciprocal linking, creating quality content, and submitting your site to the site directories! 

Keyword Search: Search for your main keyword and other terms that are related to your site. When making links, you can use your keyword and terms as an anchor text for more visibility to your site. Make use of keyword tools available online to search for the most searched for word that you can use as your keyword. 

Site Directories: By submitting your site to site directories, you are also placing another link for the search engines to crawl. This adds to your number of links and can increase your rank among the search engines. 

Article Submissions: One technique in leading visitors and generating traffic to your site is by submitting relevant and interesting article to article directories. Submitting articles to the directories can also help you build more links to your site, thus gaining you more links and increasing your rankings. Don't forget to make the article creative and relevant, of course. Readers won't be curious to see your website if your article doesn't get their attention. 

Affiliate Marketing: The downside of this strategy is that you'll have to spend for the commissions of affiliate sales. Nevertheless, this strategy is used by many internet marketers. Affiliate marketing usually works by networking with other websites that are in the same niche as you. Now since you are both in the same niche, most usually the traffic that you can generate through affiliate marketing is targeted. This is about the best thing abut affiliate marketing (aside from generating sales). You are also building links through the links (in the ads) on the website that you are affiliated with. 

Newsletters and Subscriptions: Sending newsletters to the customers and clients will not only help in building professional and friendly relationships with them, but also brings in targeted traffic to your web site. Whenever you have something new to talk about and events to promote, newsletters can be a great way to let the clients and customers in on the news. 

Email Marketing: This is another popular way to generate traffic and occasionally make repeat sales. This is kind of like sending newsletters, only your are more or less not sending news but rather promoting your latest products and services. Remember that when making your emails, you should avoid making it spammy and annoying. Make your email content original, creative and interesting. 

Forums: You can see the most eager visitors of the online community in forums. Participating and giving great content in the replies will help in establishing you as an expert in your niche. This will give you a boost in the eyes of the online community. You'll be able to form relationships among the community and get them to be interested in your site and business. Plus, you can place links to your website on your signature every time you make a post! This can increase your rankings and visibility in the search engines. 

There really is nothing to marketing online... now all you need is just a lot of time and effort to make your website known across the internet.