Times have changed. Just a couple short years ago, about 60% to 70% of your website ranking success depended on links. Now up to 85% of your page’s search engine rank on Google relates to how it is linked. More specifically, the quality and number of inbound links.

Google looks at everything from the “authority level” of the linked sites to their “PageRank” and even the IP class they use (Internet Protocol designation.) While we don’t have hours to get into every little detail, I have provided three simple surefire ways to get hundreds of top rate inbound links to any page on your site you wish. And this is the absolute fastest way to get on top of Google and stay there for the long haul. So, here we go…

Google SEO Linking Strategy One: Hire a Blog Reviewer.

Hiring a professional blogger can be a quick way to getting the links you want. Here’s how it works… You are basically hiring a blog reviewer to chat up your Website. You set the tone of what is said and even give them acceptable working parameters to meet, such as the blog’s traffic rating, type of blog and overall popularity.

You can hire independent people from services like eLance.com, Guru.com or RentaCoder.com or you can use a service that specializes in blog reviewers for hire, like PayPerPost.com. Personally, I like PayPerPost because it’s their specialty and this is their “posties” livlihood, so they tend to do a great job. It’s extremely reliable and great for social networking but considerably slower and ultimately more expensive than the following methods if your goal is simply link building.

Google SEO Linking Strategy Two: Write Articles on Your Website’s Topic.

Providing useful article content to readers of newsletters and article directories is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to get high quality inbound links. But even more important to some is that if you share your expertise the right way, you will likely become a recognized expert in your field in no time.

People have filled entire books on the subject of article marketing so let me just hit the highlights here. This will be enough to get you started and help your name become trusted by both publishers and readers alike. Just remember these six simple guidelines…

1.) The article has to accomplish two things. First, it has to be 100% legitimate and not contain any inflated facts or sales pitches. And second it absolutely must present real value to the reader and the publisher. Don’t ever write an article just for your sake. A solely self serving article will be immediately transparent to the publisher and to most readers. Most people understand you want something in return for sharing your knowledge and are very happy to oblige a mutually beneficial arrangement, such as a great article for a link back in your bio.

2.) Obey the rules of where you are submitting your work. This is extremely important! Don’t waste an editor or publisher’s time. Be sure to select the best, and most descriptive category possible for your submission.

3.) You can (and in my opinion, should) write in a casual, conversational style but be careful to spell check the article and review it for clarity before submitting it. Once you have written something, especially something with your name attached to it, it will be a representation of you.

4.) Make the article the appropriate length for what you have to say. Don’t drone on or cut it too short. Most article directories have guidelines about how long they like to see submissions. The same goes for newsletters. If you can’t find this info for the directory you like, sticking between 500 and 1,000 words is usually a safe bet and usually up to 1,250 is OK. If you have more to say, consider splitting it into multiple articles that deal with one specific topic each.

5.) Be brief in your bio section. If your article is well written and contains similar words to the keywords you want to be found for, 350 characters (or about 40 words) should be more than enough to tell a little about yourself, your services with one or two relevant keywords properly placed. Just be sure to use those keywords as anchor text when linking to the page that covers that keyword’s topic on your site. Many directories will let you have two links in the bio section and all allow at least one.

6.) And I saved the big one for last. Provide unique content to each article directory. Nobody wants to post duplicate content so carefully reword at least one third of the article so it is unique. This will help both the publisher and the quality of your resulting inbound links.

Big Tip: Writing dozens or even hundreds of article variations to eliminate duplicate content can take a great deal of time. Then manually submittíng them to hundreds of directories takes even longer. A nice solution is using an article distribution service that allows you to enter slight variations to specific sections of your article and then combines them in unique ways to provide unique content for the search engines and readers. I am NOT talking about a system that creates robotic substitutions based on replacing similar words from a thesaurus. That produces junk. I’m talking about a system that allows you to submit your text with alternate sentences or even whole paragraphs. This works amazingly well and can easily create over one thousand article variations based on about twenty extra minutes of your time when you submit your article. And of course, write as many variations of your bio as you can too.

Google SEO Linking Strategy Three: Use a Three Way Linking System.

Google has discounted the use of straight reciprocal links to the point that many people feel they are not worth the time and effort to obtain. I still use them sparingly, but I avoid reciprocal linking systems like the plague. Google hates them and they are so easy to detect that you might as well put a banner on your site saying “Hey Google, I use a link farm!”

Three way linking, however, is another story. Reciprocal linking is very easy to detect, but 3 way links are altogether different. It works like this… Site 1 links to Site 2 and then Site 2 links to Site 3. And finally Site 3 links to Site 1, or even to another site in the chain. In short; every link is a true and verifiable one way inbound link.

If you are part of a group of similar sites, this is well worth doing. But if you need to build links quickly or don’t have the time to set this up yourself, you can use a service like 3 Way Linker . It’s the ideal “set it and forget it” option and gives you full control over important aspects of linking.

If you are interested in joining our link building program or need someone to blog your site please complete this form and we will contact you to discuss it.

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Technorati Tags: Blogging, Marketing, SEO

In the field of online marketíng, a landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search engine result link. It is sometimes known as a lead capture page and usually displays content that reinforces the message contained in the ad or search snippet.

Types of Landing Pages

There are two main types of landing page:

1) Reference Landing Page

Reference landing pages deliver information relevant to the visitor. This could include text, images, links or other elements not requiring interaction.

2) Transactional Landing Page

Transactional landing pages ask visitors to complete a transaction such as clicking on an advertisement, filling out a form or downloading a file with the aim being immediate or eventual conversion of that prospect to a sale. To aid the capturing of new leads, transactional pages generally seek visitor contact details such as a name, email address and/or a telephone number.

A visitor taking the desired action on a transactional landing page is known as a conversion. Landing page quality can be measured by the percentage of visitors who complete the desired action (the conversion rate). Since the Return on Investment (ROI) of pay per clíck (PPC) campaigns is often determined by the conversion rate, advertisers should be constantly testing, tweaking and improving their landing pages. We will discuss testing methods available, such as A/B testing and multivariate testing, in a later lesson.

Why Are Landing Pages Important?

In PPC and search marketing campaigns, the landing page is usually customized very closely to the advertisement which triggered it. In PPC campaigns, landing pages are vital in order to “close the sale” and encourage visitors to take the action you want them to take. By adding a parameter to the landing page URL (and therefore forming a tracking URL), advertisers can measure the ROI on their PPC ads based on relative clíck-through rates.

While enticing ad copy is very important in order to attract clicks, effective landing pages are vital in order to “close the sale” and encourage your visitors to take the action you want them to take.

Landing pages often determine whether you make a conversion or not. Using landing pages on your site also means that some visitors won’t ever see your home page. First impressions haven’t ever been so important, so you need your landing pages to represent your business, product or service in the best possible light.

What are the Goals of a Landing Page?

Many marketers make the mistake of assuming that a conversion is the main goal of an effective landing page. But attracting and capturing qualified leads is an easier and more important goal. Why? Because you can always “sell” to visitors later. Grabbing their contact details ensures you have captured them at the height of their interest.

So the main goals of a landing page are:

1) To Attract Prospects (primary goal) - grab email address and/or phone number

2) To Produce Conversions (secondary goal)

Features of an Effective Landing Page:

The ingredients for an effective landing page include:

• Reinforced Ad Message
• Punchy Headings
• Short Paragraphs
• Enticing Copy
• Few Distractions
• Value Proposition
• Compelling Images
• Little or No Navigation
• Calls to Action
• Few choices
• Simple Language and Concepts
• Important Content “Above the Fold”
• Testimonials
• Establish Visitor Trust
• Foolproof Conversion Process
• Test, Tweak and Test Again

Landing Page Case Study

E-Consultancy recently published a case study from Marketing Sherpa about the effects of a landing page redesign on a marketing campaign.

The study followed the experiences of a company called Multimedia Tutorial Services who hired a landing page consulting firm to improve the conversion rates of their paid search marketing campaign selling video tutorials for mathematics.

The company had originally been directing persons who clicked on their ads to a lead generation form offering a free sample math video tutorial. They had some success with this, but sensed that more tailored landing pages would result in more leads being generated. So the company hired landing page design experts to custom-build pages designed to encourage more consumers to request a free sample and boost the number of leads for the company’s call center to approach.

The result? The revised landing pages converted 139% more consumers into sales leads than the original landing page. You can see why if you view the pages below:

Original Landing Page

New Landing Page

New Landing Page Targeting Algebra

New Landing Page Targeting Geometry

You can see that the new pages include many of the features of an effective landing page that we described above.

More About Calls to Action

When it comes to encouraging your visitors to take the action you want them to take, focus on one primary action per screen. Don’t stuff too many products onto one screen. Make your call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll, don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.

Taking Prospects by the Hand

When visitors are on your landing page, you need to make it easy and painless for them to take the next steps. In a virtual sense, you need to take them by the hand and lead them through the process. How do you do that? Tell visitors why they should purchase from you. According to the Marketing Experiments Journal the “Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not.”

To evaluate your value proposition, ask yourself the question: Why should I purchase from this site?

Tracking and Tweaking is key

With PPC campaigns, you have so much more control than you do with SEO campaigns. Why? Because you have nearly full control over how your listing appears, what keywords trigger it, where on the page it appears, how much you pay per lead and what page your ad links to.

Don’t waste this knowledge! You need to consistently track results from your campaign, track clíck-throughs, ad quality, conversions and ROI. If you want your campaign to succeed, you can’t have a “set and forget” mentality that (unfortunately) many advertisers have. PPC campaigns require constant tracking and tweaking. Later in this course we discuss ways of testing your landing pages and ads to consistently improve your conversions.

Technorati Tags: Landing Page, Marketing, Online Marketing

What triggers popularity with a search engine has always been elusive. You have to change how you market your website and even build it to make search engines rank it on their top page. For someone new on the scene, it can appear to be a daunting task. Here in this article we will look at the latest in SEO and SEM by starting with the site itself.

First thing is what not to do. Remember back when websites would have massive keyword lists at the bottom or top of the pages? These words were paragraphs long and didn’t make any sense at all! The human eye knew that it didn’t mean anything, but this text was designed for SEO and to trick the search engines. Sure, it worked for awhile, but now search engines are wise to our tricks. They know these paragraphs are designed only for SEO, which now will get you penalized.

Create Search Engine-Friendly Content

Simply said, make sure you put a good amount of text on your website talking to your audience, not the search engine. Search Engines can now detect if a sentence doesn’t make sense. For SEO make sure you write text for your site the same way you would speak. The trick is to make sure your keywords show up in your text about 2% of the time. If you do it too much, the search engine will know what you are up to and begin to penalize you again.

Do not use Flash or text embedded images either. Search engines ignore these things. They are very bad for SEO. For images that you do have on your sites, attaching alt image tags with a brief sentence that describes the image, using some keywords, will go far to get you points. Also use heading tags and do not try to hide keywords by making them the same color as your page. While this used to work for SEO, now it is the fastest way to get sunk to the bottom of the page. Sure, it might work for a week or two, but after that your ranking will begin to decline.

As you write your content you may notice that the longer your text gets, the harder it is to keep your keywords at the optimal amount. Some will be higher and others will be lower. Writing more only seems to lower the keywords that are having trouble!

You will want to make sure that your home page text is informative, but concise. Pick the keywords you want to target on your homepage wisely. If you have other keywords you want to focus on for SEO you may want to consider creating a landing page.

A landing page is in essence like another homepage that funnels traffic into your site. It will provide a fair bit of information with links to your main site. This way if people search for keywords not targeted on your homepage, they can still find you on the major search engines. Creating multiple landing pages for different sets of keywords is very hot right now with SEO, and it works. A good landing page doesn’t take long to generate as it should be just one page long and directly link to your site right away.

You will also want to generate a site map.

A site map, in case you’re new to this internet thing, is a page from your site that is strictly text links of your site. It is like a table of contents in a book that shows all the links that are presented on your site. Search Engines eat this up, especially the big ones. Each time you make a site map change, you can ping these search engines to re-index. That will keep your rankings fresh.

Speaking of keeping it fresh, that is another thing that is great for SEO. Make sure to update your website once a week. The changes don’t have to be big. They could be very small like changing the homepage text or posting comments on your services page. Any change will be considered as keeping your site fresh which search engines love. One of the worst things you can do for SEO is to have a stale website. No one likes outdated information and neither do search engines.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, SEO

Two of the three big search engines (Google and Yahoo) place a large importance on one way links to determine rankings. Each link to your site is like a vote and the more votes you have, the higher you will rank.
In this article I will be sharing with you some important info on link building and some strategies to help your one way link building.

Before we get started, it’s important to understand the fundamentals…

Beginning with the very basics, a link is a way of navigating from one webpage to another. An ‘internal link’ is a link within the same website. An ‘external link’ takes you from a webpage in one website to a webpage in another website. The term ‘backlink’ means when another website links to yours.

There are 4 different types of links:

• URL Link - This is simply a website url that is a link.
• Text Links (aka static links) - This is the most common type of link (when you click on a word or phrase and it is a link)
• Image Links - An image link is simply an image that you click on to navigate to another webpage.
• Dynamic Links - These types of links are in another programming language called Javascript and while they also take you from one webpage to another, they have ‘extra codes’ to perform special functions.

(these types of links can appear in many different forms)
It is important to be able to recognize these types of links, even if you are not familiar with web design and programming. You don’t have to memorize the codes, just learn to identify each type of link.

Links provide navigation for human visitors and for ’spiders’ (aka: crawlers, robots, bots). Simply put, a spider is a computer program that goes to websites and gathers information. Search engines use spiders to visit and ‘index’ your website. This means that they gather information about your site in order to líst it in their search results.

When the search engine spiders index your website, they follow the links to get from one webpage to another. It’s important to know that search engines cannot follow ‘dynamic links’ and do not follow html links that have a special code in them that says ‘no follow’.

The place where ‘no follow’ is commonly found is in the “meta tags” section of the website. Simply put, meta tags are information that is for the spiders only and is not seen by human visitors. You can see the code for any website in your browser by choosing ‘view source’. (From Internet Explorer, choose Page > View Source. From Firefox choose View > Page Source)

If a search engine spider cannot follow a link from another website to yours, you can still receive visitors but the link will not have any value from a search engine optimization perspective.

What types of links should you get?

There are 2 types of links that you can get:

• One-way links - A one-way link is when another website links to you and you don’t link back to them.
• Reciprocal links - A reciprocal link is when a website links to you and you link back to them.
  One-way links are more valuable in the eyes of the search engines. However, each link has its own individual value based on: how relevant it is to your site, the text in and around the link, how much authority the website that links to you has, etc.

Also, it’s important to know that you can get links that have ‘no value’ in the eyes of the search engines, but they bring you hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors…

Generally speaking, the more websites that link to you the better. However, building links takes time and energy and if you focus on getting ‘high-quality links’, you will get a bigger return on your investment. 50 high quality links can be much more valuable from a search engine optimization perspective than 1000 ‘low quality links’.

What’s a high quality link? - Links that brings you Page Reputation (which shows the search engines that other related websites consider you to be important), and links that give you PageRank. Sometimes both at once, sometimes not…

To get high rankings on your website, you want to obtain links for targeted keywords. For this reason it’s necessary to start with Keyword Research.

If your website is about “bird watching”, the first step is to ‘do keyword research’ and find out which keyword you should aim for. While you could just start getting text links for the keyword phrase “bird watching”, if no one is searching for that - you won’t get any visitors. There’s no sense in ranking on the first page for a keyword that no one is looking for.

Or, if there is a lot of competition for that keyword, you might want to pick a “lower hanging fruit”.

Another important part is making sure your page is optimized for the keyword you are targeting. If you are focused on building one way links to your site but the links have anchor text which doesn’t even appear on your page, you will likely be wasting your time. (I say likely assuming that you have some competition for your targeted keywords, if there is no competition then it doesn’t matter).

In this case a site that has fewer one way links but much better on-page optimization is likely to rank higher. Or maybe you are building one way links to your site but they are just url links and not anchor-text links. Another site that has less links than you but better quality (anchor-text) will be likely to rank higher.

Ideally, you want to build a lot of one way links that have anchor text which includes the primary and secondary keywords that your page is optimized for. Google also uses Latent Semantic Indexing which (in a nutshell) means that they study the synonyms of the keywords on your page. This is to prevent spammers from just loading every second word with their keywords. Their algorithm looks at all the words on your page and how they relate to each other.

So, there’s no sense in building one way links if your content is not worthwhile. You want to optimize your pages for your visitors first. Then, you can go through and “sprinkle” your keywords. Then, go out and get one way links with the anchor-text of your targeted keywords, ideally getting most of these links from websites that are related to yours.

Yes, Google also looks at the relationship between your website’s content and the websites that link to your content. Fewer links to your business site from other business sites will be more valuable link-wise than more links coming to you from a site about video games..

Don’t make these link building mistakes:

• Don’t spend all your time getting one way links from sites with no Page Rank. One or two links from related Page Rank 5+ sites can be worth more than 100 links from sites with no PR.
• Be careful about buying links or you can get banned. Especially be careful about Site Wide links. If your website only has a few backlinks one day and the next day you have hundreds, Google will see this and penalize you.
• Don’t spend all your time building one way links that are url-links, you want to get anchor-text links.
• Make sure the links you get are actually worth something, don’t get “No-Follow” links.

Happy Link Building!

Technorati Tags: Link Building, Marketing, SEO

Marketing is a three-syllable word that seems so simple, yet encompasses so much. Marketing is a multi-faceted approach to promoting a product or service. Both traditional and unconventional marketing methods have a place in the small business world. Marketing helps small businesses focus on building their brand and identity.

There are few limitations to marketing options, and the opportunities listed here are just a few that will generally result in a decent ROI (Return On Investment) for most small businesses. That said, do not be afraid to be creative — no one knows or understands a small business like its owner, so think outside of the box and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Identity Continuity

Create continuity between an online website, logos, letterheads, business cards, and packaging. Create an identity that will make your business stand out from the competition, and leave a good initial impression on potential customers. A professional image associated with your company or product will remind customers of their past brand experiences, and will reinforce your product line.

Trade Publications

Niche publications are journals or magazines that focus on a specific market. If your product or service is appropriate for a specific market, then advertising in their trade publications will allow you to immediately drill down and target that very specific audience.

Promotional Items

Branded giveaways have long been used by marketers to attract potential customers. Products that have a long shelf life will help keep your business in the forefront of a customer’s mind. Weeks, months, and even years after a product is purchased or service is performed, promotional items will remind the customer of your brand.

Reviews

Solicit product reviews from reputable industry sources, magazine reviewers, bloggers, or industry journalists. Product reviews lend credibility to a product or company.

Keyword Advertising

In order to help your website’s search engine ranking, use keyword advertising. Focused and targeted keyword advertising will drive web traffic that has a genuine interest in your product or service.

Niche Directories

Use online niche directories to promote products or services. Visitors who frequent topical directories have a strong interest and are more likely to purchase.

Viral Marking

Once known as “word of mouth” marketing, viral marketing has taken on a life of its own. Encourage product buzz, as well as customers referring customers.

Opt-In Email Marketing

Use email as a marketing tool to notify your existing customers about specials, new products or services, or product releases and updates. While some say email marketing is dead, others say that measured results of email marketing tell a very different story. Opt-in, targeted email marketing works, and produces results when done correctly.

Partnerships / Strategic Relationships

We see large companies leveraging their assets every day, and small online businesses should too! Whether it be as a partner, an affiliate, or a strategic relationship, all of these relationships can benefit small businesses. Businesses can use strategic relationships to penetrate niche markets. Affiliates can expand their reach and tap into the customer bases of similar products. Partners can provide additional value to existing products or services. Determine what types of relationships could be beneficial to your small business.

Online Classifieds

Craigslist is likely the best known online classified system. Classified systems increase visibility and are often overlooked by small businesses. Consider posting classifieds that relate to product or services, and monitor the results.

Sponsorship / Contests

Contests not only encourage customers to have fun, but also generate publicity and draw attention to your company and brand. Sponsor industry events, run contests, or donate prizes to industry contests in order to increase visibility and generate goodwill.

Newsletters

Communication is critical to all businesses, and small businesses are no exception. Be sure to establish a communication channel with customers and potential customers. Newsletters are a very popular communication channel for software developers.

RSS

RSS is growing in popularity. It is an alternative communication channel that has the benefit of reaching a larger audience through syndication. Supplement and enhance email and newsletter campaigns by providing an RSS channel for their content.

Forums / Newsgroups

Participation in newsgroups and forums will result in building credibility. Business relationships will often result from online dialogue in industry forums and newsgroups. Actively participate and always behave in a professional manner.

Forum / Email Signatures

All forum posts and emails you send should contain a “signature” that advertises your business name, tag line, and URL.

Blogs

Blogging and posting comments on blogs can result in an increase in web links and traffic. Socialization and engaging others with well thought out comments can establish a business reputation and generate product interest.

Videos

YouTube is a boon to business. If you are creative, consider compiling an educational or humorous video. YouTube is a huge distribution channel and can generate product or industry interest.

Press Releases

The avenue to inexpensive press! Write a press release to promote new products or services and reap the benefits with media attention.

Article Syndication

Writing articles can help lend credibility to your product line and improve your business reputation.

Local Newspapers

Contact local newspapers and pitch a unique story to them. Publicity is free and can generate discussions and interest.

Consider exploring alternative channels for advertising and marketing. Keep in mind that advertising need not be costly; creative marketers can often find inexpensive avenues that will result in a great return.

Technorati Tags: Marketing

The Internet is such an unknown commodity anything is possible. One of the most intriguing questions concerns the idea of a perpetual traffic machine. Create a website and design a system of automatic programs (both interior and exterior) that delivers content and backlinks to a site that updates itself automatically and keeps growing without any help from the creator. In the process you build a flow of traffic that doesn’t stop, even if the site is abandoned or not touched for a couple of years or never again.

Is such a perpetual traffic system really possible?

Before you conjure up pictures of HAL and creepy talking computers in distant space… realize that question may carry more weight than it would seem at first glance. But is it like its predecessor, the perpetual motion machine - just more an illusion than actual fact?

For curiosity’s sake if for nothing else, the idea of a perpetual traffic machine does require further investigation. Such a system would have special interest for millions of webmasters whose main task is acquiring traffic for their sites, not to mention the potential for monetary gain a PTM (rhymes with ATM) would produce. Some credence was given to the idea recently when Tinu Abayomi-Paul, a well-known online free traffic expert, produced with the help of Marlon Sanders an info-product entitled “The Evergreen Traffic Machine.”

Tinu’s story is very interesting. Tinu had built up a whole array of sites and optimized them successfully for countless keywords in all the major search engines. She had built up a steady flow of traffic, resulting in thousands of visitors “a day” to her sites. This in itself is not that extraordinary, but that’s not the full story.

Because of a personal illness she abandoned or left alone most of her sites for over a year or more - only to discover the traffic systems she had put into place didn’t just dry up, they still kept producing tons of traffic even though the sites weren’t being updated.

The traffic was still coming. The traffic was still fresh.

Tinu basically built her perpetual traffic system around three major areas: High Profile Article Marketing, Exact Keyword Focus and Blogging/RSS Feeds. Tinu’s system proves you can create a traffic system for a year or two, but the real question is will it still produce traffic five years from now? Fifty years from now? How about a hundred years?

The real question: how long will such a system work without fresh input of unique content like the viral articles and blog posts now feeding it? This question is even more tantalizing when you consider it is now possible to create fresh content on your sites with RSS feeds, blog comments and user contributed content.

What’s more intriguing is the fact that all aspects of a website can be automated, including payment for all renewals: domain, hosting, autoresponders… as well as the collection of revenues such as affiliate commissions and advertising fees.

Are we at the stage where the Internet will be filled with these automated human-less web sites drawing traffic/visitors and slowly building and expanding on their own for eternity? Many cynics would argue this is already the case with the majority of sites on the web.

In case you like that idea and want to fully embrace this brave new automated perpetual Internet, here are a few tips to create your eternal traffic machine:

1.Build lists and pre-load your AR system with follow-up messages to keep visitors coming back to your site. You can rotate these messages and ask your subscribers to opt-ín to different lists on related subject areas. Always ask your readers to recommend your content to others.

2.Use social bookmark software or links so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content which brings in both new links and new traffic. Simple programs like the one offered by Addthis.com will get your visitors building your backlinks for you, bringing in fresh visitors who in turn will also bookmark your content.

3.Write viral articles, reports and ebooks that have your backlinks in the resource boxes. Likewise, viral software programs can help bring a constant flow of traffic to your site. If your content is of a high quality and your themes universal… new sites will pick up your content and build your backlinks, creating fresh traffic. The search engines will also index these new links and your rankings will rise, bringing in more traffíc.

4.Use blogging and RSS feeds to get your content out there. You can also use these RSS feeds to bring in new fresh content to your site. Creating new content will be your main obstacle to creating perpetual traffic… you can get new content from feeds but will it be unique? Comments in your blogs could bring in unique content but if you’re not monitoring them, you must have solid software in place to fight against spam.

5.Have “Tell a Friend” forms on all your content. This will bring new traffic to your site, which can be self-refreshing as new people discover your content.

6.Encourage user generated content such as articles, comments, posts… you can even have a community monitoring system where your site’s members monitor this new content.

7.Form JV alliances with webmasters in your related field. Do co-registration so that you help build each other’s lists and traffic.

8.Likewise, if you have products to sell, create an affiliate program to get your affiliates to build your traffic for you. Affiliates are an excellent source of permanent traffic.

9.Automate all aspects of the running and managing of your website. Set up automatic payments for your AR system, hosting, domain renewal, PPC payments… thru PayPal or credít card. Likewise, receive affiliate commissions thru PayPal or direct deposit. Many advertising programs like Google Adsense provide direct deposit.

10.PPC Traffic - While we have mainly looked at free traffic systems, don’t forget creating a PTM is relatively easy with Pay Per Click advertising if you know what you’re doing. Target less competitive keywords to keep your costs down, tie this traffic into a good squeeze page for feeding your AR system with leads and have a good landing page that converts. You can create a system that delivers perpetual traffic and pays for itself from your affiliate commissions and advertising fees.

In summary, the argument for the existence of the PTM mainly relies upon the quality of your content or site. Is it unique enough to draw in new visitors? Does your topic have universal appeal that people don’t tire of? Does it solve or provide advice on a common human problem? Will or does it have a viral “word of mouth” element to it?

As we move to a more and more automated world, all the automated programs and hardware are in place for the creation of such perpetual traffic machines.

Computers, autoresponders, content management software, RSS feeds, viral marketing, direct deposit, automatic payments… and the líst goes on. If we haven’t already created the perpetual traffic machine - we are getting tangibly close to doing just that.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, SEO

It’s always a good idea to stick to the basics. When businesses stray too far from the fundamentals, problems arise, but sticking to the basics doesn’t mean boring people into a state of unconsciousness. If Web-visitors’ eyes glaze-over upon entering your site, you’ve lost them before you’ve begun.

Web success is based on creative implementation of the basics, and that’s where your Web-marketing presentation should begin.

1. Web-Audience Response Demands Communication

The Web has a lot in common with television but there are fundamental differences; it is important for Web-entrepreneurs to understand these differences and similarities, and learn from them.

Television and the Web are both communication environments, but television, like magazines and newspapers, are primarily advertising platforms. Of course there are plenty of websites around that follow the advertising financial model, but for the average business website, depending on third party advertising not only dilutes their marketing message and brand, but it also makes for a confusing and cluttered visual presentation.

Just because your website presents information, doesn’t mean it’s communicating it to your intended audience in any meaningful way. The manner in which you communicate your message is as important as the message itself. The medium is increasingly becoming the message, and even in situations where it isn’t, it definitely shapes the message.

2. Web-Audience Response Demands Content

You have repeatedly heard the comment, ‘content is king,’ but we think, ‘communication is king’ because without communication your content is meaningless. But here’s the dilemma, your information is basically advertising, after all you’re in business, and business is about selling something - a product, a service, an idea, or your know-how. So the real underlying purpose of your website is to make that advertising message worth listening to, and to do that, you need to turn it into content.

To turn advertising into content you have to accept that sales take time. You have to be patient. You can’t hurry a sale, you first have to build confidence; stop rushing the close and start thinking of selling as a courtship. You would never ask someone to get married on a first date, so why would you expect to get an order from a potential Web-client on their first visit.

3. Web-Audience Response Demands Courtship

No one is going to make a substantial financial commitment without reaching some level of comfort with who you are and what you do, and that requires some repeated contact: a courtship, or negotiation if you prefer.

Therein lies the similarity and difference between websites and television: the success of a television program is based on habituation. If you get people to tune-in every week on the same night, at the same time to see their favorite program, you will be able to keep delivering your marketing message through the commercials that pay for the content. In the same regard, if you can make your website interesting enough through the compelling presentation of content, you will get visitors to return again and again, each time gaining confidence and respect for what you do and what you sell.

The difference is people accept television commercials as the price they pay for free TV programming, but the same cannot be said for the Web. People want free information on the Web without the irritation and bother of ads; so the challenge for website owners is to turn their marketing message into compelling programming that creates habituation which is just another form of negotiation, or courtship of potential clients.

4. Web-Audience Response Demands Consistency

You hear the word strategy bandied about with little relevance to its precise meaning. In marketing terms, strategy is a big idea, a sustainable concept that you can build a business around.

Successful companies rarely change their strategies, a concept that should not be confused with tactics, which are the various methods used to implement strategy in order to secure the ultimate objectives.

Business has to be resilient and open-minded enough to adapt to an ever-changing business environment by constantly updating tactics, but strategy needs to be a constant, a touchstone or benchmark for implementing action. Staying on course requires confidence in the strategy with a vigilant eye on the big picture.

Websites that are nothing more than brochures or catalogs of product that anyone can purchase at the local mall or box store is a tactic that delivers little relevance to today’s Web-savvy consumer. And the same can be said for the blatantly obvious direct marketíng sites based on old magazine subscription techniques. The new multimedia communication-based Web requires new presentation tactics in order to successfully implement marketing strategy.

5. Web-Audience Response Demands Expectation

Successful marketing is not just about persuading people that what you have is what they need, it’s about creating a series of deliverable expectations.

If you expect a product to be easy to use because that’s what the marketing communication states, then that product better be easy to use. Effective marketing presentations not only prompt action but just as importantly they create a set of realistic, deliverable expectations.

Ask yourself, why do people mistrust politicians, car salesmen, and telemarketers? We all know the answer: many will say, and promise, just about anything to get your vote or order, and the result is a disgruntled, cynical voter or customer. Read my lips, no false expectations!

6. Web-Audience Response Demands Trust

When customers’ expectations are met, you begin to create trust, and trust is one of the hardest things to achieve on a website that lacks any kind of human connection to the audience.

I can’t tell you how many websites I’ve visited that make no effort to humanize their presentations, and consequently their businesses. When you go to a contact page and all that’s there is a form to fill-in, with no contact name or phone number, it says to people, ‘I really can’t be bothered talking to you.’ Hiding behind email tells people not to trust you, and if they don’t trust you, they are not going to do business with you.

Business is about connecting to people, whether they are consumers, purchasing agents, or suppliers. If your website doesn’t have some kind of human element like a video Web-host, audio message, or even a contact name and phone number, how can you expect to connect and build confidence, and trust in your intent to satisfy their needs?

7. Web-Audience Response Demands Personality

By building trust with your Web-audience you are also building your brand and defining your corporate personality. Here again we have a bit of a dichotomy since personality is a human-based characteristic, so how then can we create a personality and instill human characteristics into an inanimate entity like a business?

Corporate personality does not derive from a logo, packaging, or your website’s aesthetic qualities. Corporate personality is the sum total of the collective experiences your audience has with your company. In the brick and mortar world, corporate personality is a result of dealing with people, sales people, receptionists, and telemarketers; in short personality is derived from interaction with real human beings.

Clever, well written website copy can help create personality as long as it is written in a distinctive human voice, but we know that 70% of all website text is never read; people skip to bulleted points and captions. But the same material delivered by a real person either through Web-audio or video, not only delivers the marketing message in the most memorable and compelling fashion, but it also defines the business personality and humanizes the website.

Two caveats: avatars are not people, and unless you can afford to hire the creators of the Simpsons to develop your animation, you best forget it; as well, using yourself or a non-professional as a spokesperson or Web-host is a dangerous practice, and speaks more to ego than it does to effective business development.

8. Web-Audience Response Demands Motivation

Lastly your website must communicate content that excites and motivates people to do business with you. The ability to motivate people isn’t about what you’re selling; it’s about how you present it.

Motivational speakers, whether in the business, entertainment, personal coaching, or sports arenas, all deliver a similar message; but the ones that truly stimulate people to act, are the ones that know how to present their ideas in the most exciting and compelling manner. If you want to motivate your Web-audience to respond, your presentation has to be delivered by a real human being: a professional with charm, charisma, and a distinctive character.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Web Design

In today’s race to the top of the Google SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages), there are a number of factors that can help you achieve those coveted spots. While certain techniques may weigh better than others based on your industry and level of competition, there is no questioning the power of links.

There are several methods, some common and some yet to be discovered, you can try out to help boost your link density and search rankings. While it would be near impossible to go into great detail on all methods (that would require a book) below I have outlined some of the more common techniques a web site owner can use to improve their site’s popularity.

1. Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links used to be a huge asset and played a significant role. Today, fewer sites are employing this technique as it is thought by many to have no role in the eyes of Google. This is simply not true. While the overall value of reciprocal links has declined over the years, they can and will still help your rankings if done correctly.

The key with reciprocal links is very simple - relevance. If you trade links only with highly relevant sites, you will get value from this. There are some things to watch out for: ensure that the links returning to you are spider friendly, that they reside on pages with as few links as possible, and are contextualized, meaning the content on the page, and preferably the site as a whole, is related to the content of your link and site.

If you contact a relevant site to request a link exchange, keep the email personal to help grab the attention of the webmaster. Most link exchange emails are spammy automated submissions and are deleted without being read. Write the subject and entire email in such a way as to entice the user to read on, but keep it short. Offer to put their link up first, or even better yet, put it up before you contact them.

2. Purchasing Links
Google has been devaluing links, and in extreme cases, even penalizing sites for selling links, but there is no denying that this technique still works as many sites have skyrocketed to the top of the SERP’s through the art of buying links.

Many high profile sites such as major and local newspaper publications sell text links, yet nobody seems to be penalized for it as the publications rank well with high PR and the site they link to ranks well as a result.

If you choose to take the gamble and purchase links back to your site, check out how they are linking back, how relevant they are, and try to get a sense of how their site is treated by Google. If you see other sites that appear to have purchased links from them, check their back links and see if the linking site appears (although it may not be displayed as Google displays very little of this information to the public these days).

It is thought that if penalties will arise from the sale of links, that only the selling site will be penalized. Even if this is the case, Google’s policy could change at any moment, so be warned that this could potentially come back to bite you.

3. Industry Contacts
Get in touch with your industry contacts and ask them if they will link to your site. You just don’t know, and the worst they can say is no. This is usually best requested in person or by phone if it is someone you have a good relationship with. It may include manufacturers or retailers of your products, or various business partners and companies you have a relationship with.

4. Good Old Fashion Content
Believe it or not it works. If your site is loaded with original, valuable content, you will get some people linking to your site on their own. While you can not base your entire linking strategy around this concept, as it could take forever to get enough links, rest assured knowing that if you build it, some will link.

5. Build a Blog
Everyone and their dog seem to have a blog these days, and for good reason - they work. Blogs help you create a neverending stream of content, and if updated regularly, written well, and interesting, you will find people will link to it. Not only that, others may pick up your blog through your RSS feed - this can result in a jump in both links and site traffic. Be sure to utilize your Digg and other social media accounts within your blog to help gain a little extra attention.

6. Social Media
Promote your site and your blog using various social media tools. When someone “Diggs” or “Stumbles” your article you can not only get a link back to your site from the media platform, but you can also see traffic generated by this. The more people that flag your article, the more traffíc you can get, and the higher the value of the link.

Creating company profile pages on platforms such as Squidoo, Facebook, MySpace, and even uploading photos and videos to Flickr and YouTube, can all count as back links to your site, so be sure to utilize these platforms to the fullest extent. Do not use these networks to spam them full of links, but rather to inform. Build unique relevant content and become a member of the community, and you will find your links will work much harder for you.

7. Article Syndication
When you write worthwhile articles, submit them to any known article aggregation websites in your industry or great general portals such as ezinearticles.com. When submitted to the right places you can drive traffic and increase your links. Again, be sure to include a link or two within your article that links back to your site when possible.

8. Press Releases
Press releases are still doing wonders. When your business hits a milestone, releases a new product, or has anything worthy of a press release, issue one through the services of PRWeb. You will get a link back to your site, and you may also get some targeted traffíc from those interested when reading your release.

If your press release is of significant news, you may also find bloggers and other writers referencing it and linking to it from their articles, providing even more value. Ensure that with any press release you include deep links back into your site. Links from within the bio are helpful, but those integrated into paragraphs of the release are worth much more.

9. Comments
I know I am going to get a hard time for this one, but if used wisely, it can help. When reading relevant blog posts, if you have something useful, constructive, and worthwhile to say, leave a comment and include your link if they provide the option. A comment like: “nice post” is inappropriate, but if you have something to add or contribute that others will find of interest then go for it. These links can add up, and they do add some value. Don’t stuff your comment or name with keywords, keep it natural, and use your real name.

10. Form Posts and Signatures
This is an area where you may be able to grab a few links, but it is also one you need to be careful about as it can backfire. I do NOT recommend going out and wildly posting in random forums and including your link.

Where this area can be useful is if you establish yourself as a solid contributor to a particular forum directly related to your industry. Once you are established, and people know and trust your name, and understand that you are not there as a spammer, then you can consider adding your link to your signature file, and including the odd link in your forum posts when it is fully in context. This will allow you to get the odd relevant, inbound link. Check with the terms of the specific forum though before you start. Some do not allow links of any kind.

11. Testimonials
You see them on many sites offering products or services, and quite often they include a link back to the submitter’s website. If you have used a product or service, don’t be afraid to write a testimonial for the company. In many cases online businesses will post your testimonial along with a link. The testimonial helps that business instill confidence in their customers, and you get the valuable link back.

12. Directory Submissions
Yes, do still submít your site to the major directories. While DMOZ can be very difficult to get into, once you are there, it is like gold and will play a part in your top rankings. Yahoo directory has a high price $299US, but can also provide you with a valuable inbound link. Consider submitting to the major directories, as well as any industry specific directories. These links add up and will contribute to your site’s well being.

13. Link Bait
We have heard this phrase thrown around for a while now, but the technique has worked long before the phrase “link bait” was coined. Why all the hype? Because it works.

Take a look at your web site, your business and your industry. See if you can think of some way to attract people to link to your site. Perhaps sponsor a contest, add an elaborate and unique tool, write a controversial article, provide something useful for free - whatever you do, do it well, and promote the heck out of it, and people will naturally link to you.

A Few General Rules:
Before you actively seek out a link from a specific site do some investigating to ensure that the site is not spamming or using any black hat techniques. If they are, run.

If the link you are seeking is merely for you to try and boost your link density, then also check out how they are linking to other third party sites.

Does the site use the rel=nofollow attribute? Are the pages your link would reside on blocked by the search engines, or do they use the robots Meta nofollow? Are they using other techniques that would not allow a spider to follow them (such as JavaScript, Flash, or frames)? If so, you may want to move on.

And a note on Google PR (Page Rank) - the PR you see on your toolbar is outdated. While it can give you some insight, just because it says 0, doesn’t mean it is. Also what has a 0 or 1 today, could be a 4 or 5 tomorrow. Don’t use PR as your sole means of deciding if you should obtain a link or not.

Summary
Using any or all of these linking methods will help you to improve your link density. There is power in diversification. Use variations on anchor text and descriptions, use inline text links within articles, and gain links in as many different venues as possible. By being diverse your site will stand the best chance of being around well into the future.

Today, blogs are huge and can be a strong asset, but what would happen if tomorrow Google decided to ban blogs? Highly unlikely, but it could happen, and if it did, would your site survive? By being diverse, your site has the best chance to survive change.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, SEO

What’s the big deal about search engine optimization? Isn’t it enough that you’ve put up a website, purchased some Google AdWords, and sent out an email to everyone you know announcing your site? In short, no. There is an art and science to search engine optimization (SEO), and it is critical for web-based businesses to know, understand and utilize if they want to drive quality traffic to their website via the Internet.

Where do you begin, though? How can you possibly know whom to trust or what to do first with so much information out there on SEO? Do you buy links or not? Pay per clíck or go organic? And what about those SEO companies who are aggressively promising Number 1 rankings? When it comes to search engine ranking, there are a lot of rumors and myths about what will improve your rankings and what won’t.

Debunking Some Popular Search Engine Ranking Myths

- Pay per clíck (PPC) ads will either help or hurt organic rankings. (Organic simply means the process by which web users find websites having unpaid search engine listings.)

Debunked: PPC is categorized differently than organic listings. There is no effect, one way or the other, on ranking.

- Websites are banned if they ignore Google guidelines.

Debunked: While it’s a good idea to read Google Webmaster Guidelines or Google 101: How Google Crawls, Indexes and Serves the Web, you are not banned if you ignore their guidelines.

- Websites are banned if they buy links.

Debunked: Sites are not banned. The links just aren’t counted.

- Copy must be a certain number of words, use a specific keyword density, and contain bold or italicized keywords.

Debunked: It used to be thought that there was a magic number of words used or certain times a keyword or keyword phrase should be repeated. Not so. Same with bolding and italicizing. They don’t do anything for ranking.

- Duplicate content will get your website penalized.

Debunked: It will just get filtered out and not counted.

- Reciprocal links won’t count.

Debunked: Every link counts, to a certain extent.

- SEO companies can improve your rankings without doing any on-page work.

Debunked: Run if an SEO company tells you this.

According to SEO expert Jill Whalen, SEO isn’t magic and isn’t a crap-shoot. “SEO is about making your website the best it can be for your site visitors and the search engines.” Want to help the right kind of people find your website? Then you need to design your site so search engines can find, crawl and index your pages.

Seven Ways to Get Your Website Crawled

• It’s better to have one main website with numerous domains pointing to the main domain, than to have mini-sites or multiple sites with similar content. Mini-sites and multiple sites with similar content do not increase search engine listings and are frequently viewed by search engines as SPAM. 
• If you do have several stand-alone websites, make sure each serves a different target audience and has unique content with different domain or sub-domain URLs. 
• Search engines need to be able to follow internal links. To make that happen, use tags, text links, image links, and CSS menus. Spiders have difficulty with JavaScript menus, pop-up windows, drop-down menus, and flash navigation. 
• Choose keyword phrases that are most relevant and specific to what your web page is about. Think from the perspective of someone searching for what you are offering on your site. Ask, as if you were they: What would I search for if I am looking for something on your page? 
• Validate your keyword phrases through either paid or free services, such as Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, or Google AdWords.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, SEO

Ivalio Jordanov is the kind of guy you want to have around the office. He’s a half-Russian computer sciences graduate with an intimate knowledge of the international property industry. He’s also the founder of Zoomf and has a strong track record developing innovative property portals. We caught up with him to ask his advice about targeting Russian property buyers online.

Ashley Rigg (Editor and owner of Global Edge): How popular is the internet in Russia?

Ivalio Jordanov: It’s popular but internet penetration still lags behind other countries like the UK. There are around 30 million Russian internet users, which is around 20% of the total population. This is set to grow quickly and Russia is tipped to be one of the fastest-growing internet advertising markets in the world over the next few years.

AR: What are your favourite Russian property portals?

IJ: I really like Gdeetotdom.ru. They’ve photographed the outside of most of the property stock in Moscow and are expanding into other Russian regions. It’s a bit like Google Street View but without the panable images. They have significant financial backing as this is not a cheap exercise!

AR: What are the biggest portals that accept overseas property listings?

IJ: There is no one real dominant player like Rightmove in the UK. It’s much more fragmented. The biggest portal is probably classified listings site IRR. It’s bit like GumTree. The name means “hand to hand” in Russian. Private sales are much more common there than in the UK or US. It’s cheap to list but you will need a Russian speaker to help you and Russian property descriptions. It can be quite a cumbersome process.

The other big player is Rambler, a large portal which has real estate as one of its verticals. It’s more expensive than IRR but it’s easier to list property. Again, you will need Russian property descriptions and language skills to list your properties.

AR: I hear you’re launching your own Russian property portal. What can you tell us at this stage?

IJ: It’s called Domavin.ru. It will be free to list with up-sell opportunities for those wanting to pay for enhanced exposure.

AR: How will it be different from the portals you’ve just mentioned?

IJ: There are lots of property sites but the quality of listings is not as good as the UK. Also, it’s a fragmented market and no one player has a dominant share of property content. Our technology and business model will allow us to get to a point of critical mass quickly. We will be taking XML feeds and we have the technology to scrape agent websites, which makes things easier.

AR: How will you get it to market?

IJ: Mainly online marketing, SEO and paid search. We also have a budget for advertising in trade publications.

AR: Can overseas agents list on the site?

IJ: Unfortunately not immediately on launch. We do have plans to launch an overseas section in three to six months though.

AR: What’s your advice to overseas agents new to the Russian market?

IJ: If you’re serious about targeting Russians, you really need a Russian-language website. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just a simple template that translates database fields between English and Russian. That gives me an idea. We could create a system that is Russian on the outside (to buyers) but English on the inside (content management). We could adapt each site to use a specific logo and colours.

AR: Sounds interesting. How much would it cost?

IJ: It’s just an idea but there is no reason why we shouldn’t charge around US$100 a month for up to a 100 properties. We could have something ready in three to six months. I’ll let you know details in a few weeks if we push ahead with it.

AR: Which are the dominant search engines in Russia?

IJ: Yandex is the market leader and is the one I use when I search in Russian, but Google is also important.

Note: Readers can find search engine statistics for Russia here.

AR: How easy is it to achieve good search engine rankings in Russia?

IJ: It’s very competitive. You need to ideally buy links from local sources but it takes time. Paid search is a better option for most agents new to the market. If you manage this properly and track the metrics right you can generate good leads. Paid advertising on Yandex is a good place to start.

AR: You’re also working on Retaggr. It’s not Russia-specific, but it has a real estate angle. Tell us a little bit about it.

Retaggr allows users to create an online business card that allows you to aggregate your online identities in one place. The business card appears on your profile pages on sites like Linkedin, Active Rain and Facebook as well as on participating property blogs. Users are able to see the comments you’ve made and articles you’ve written. It helps build your credibility. In about six weeks, potential buyers will also be able to view all your available properties from your business card. It’s very popular in the US right now.

Ivalio Jordanov was speaking to Ashley Rigg on Tuesday 1st July 2008. Domazin.ru launches in five weeks and is likely to be available to overseas agents in the early part of 2009.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Russia