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How To Generate Emergency Money Now

02 2008 Thursday

By Willie Crawford in Featured

Over the past 11 1/2 years, I’ve created dozens of information products, and sold hundreds of affiliate products. I’ve discovered what does and what doesn’t work in quickly creating and marketing information products.

I’ve also shared with dozens of clients, and thousands of subscribers, my very successful methods for earning a living online. When I say shared, I’m referring to those who were willing to listen and apply what I taught them. Those who listened, but didn’t do, aren’t counted in that number because to me “sharing” is a two-way communication.

Today, I’d like to share with you exactly what I’ve instructed dozens of people to do when they’ve came to me with cash-flow emergencies. These were people who usually came to me looking for a loan or a hand-out. Instead, I usually had them do what I’m about to share with you.

I’ve learned over the year that giving handouts too quickly only conditions the person to come back a few weeks later for another handout. I believe that it’s important to teach them a proven method for extricating themselves from such situations.

Here’s the exact plan that I’ve directed many people to follow:

Look around you, and identify two large, related problems that you could create two information product as solutions to. These need to be painful enough problems that people are acutely aware of, that they desperately want to solve, and that they’ll pay for good solutions to.
You generally want related problems because the plan calls for selling both solutions to the SAME people. You’re going to sell the first solution through affiliates, giving them the majority of the money, and then you’re going to keep at least half of the money on the second (backend) product.

You’re going to set up you sales process so that you “lead” with one product and then offer the second product as an upsell, or special offer after the first purchase is made.

The reason that you’re going to pay your affiliates so much is that you need them NOW. Without their enthusiastic promotion of your products, this plan often CAN’T work very quickly.

The most CRITICAL part of this whole plan is step 1, and the most CRITICL part of step 1 is making sure that you identify a real problem that people actually want to solve. Otherwise, you end up creating products that no one will buy.

When I look at why products fail, the number one reason (in my opinion) is that demand wasn’t verified beforehand).

Teaching you how to do the research is beyond the scope of this short article, but it only needs to take an hour or two. It is too important to skip. An excellent guide to conducting painless research is Steve Wagenheim’s “Niche Research Revolution.”

If you need help with the research, it’s at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/SteveWagenheim/
Create the solution (product), or better yet, modify and improve on an existing solution.If you are good at researching, or already an expert on a topic, then by all means write an ebook on it, or create a piece of software that solves a big problem. At the same time, in many niches you are surrounded by thousands of experts who have already done the majority of the work for you. They’ve already created the product and will often sell (or even GIVE) you the rights to it. Then all you need to do is refine and improve on these product that you have “Private Label Rights” to.
Just go to any search engine, and do a search on your keywords plus the term “private label right” or “PLR,” and you’ll locate dozens of sources. Alternatively, just visit my blog, and you’ll often discover dozens of people giving away private label rights for various reasons. That blog is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/blog/

Simply sit down and refine those PLR products (where someone has already done 90% of the work) into something truly valuable.
Get a few people to critique your product, offering you feedback that both allows you to improve your solution and that perhaps you can use as testimonials. After your product is created, simply post on a discussion forum (after confirming that it’s permissible) that you are looking for product reviewers. You’ll get dozens of volunteers.
If you don’t get dozens of volunteers, I would take that as an indication that you haven’t really found a painful enough problem… at least not one that that particular community cares about.

Do one product all the way through until it’s ready to launch and then do the other one. For many people, doing them simultaneously is too confusing.
Set these products up for sale with their own affiliate program. Use a system such as Rapid Action Profits that allows you to pay instant commissions. The instant commissions are “key” because instant cashflow is as important to many of your potential affiliates as it is to you. You’ll recruit lot of affiliates who are promoting your products almost on impulse.That’s great!
You want people who will promote your product today rather than a week or two from now.

I recommend Rapid Action Profits as the affiliate program platform because it’s inexpensive, easy to set up, and you can use it on as many different websites (with as many different products as you want) after purchasing the software just once. I use it on over a dozen websites. You can get RAP here: http://TheRealSecrets.com/RapidActionProfits/

Rapid Action Profits is designed to work with Paypal, meaning that you don’t need a merchant account, and that anyone with a Paypal account can become one of your affiliates.
Recruit affiliates by posting to forums that have a “joint ventures” section. Post to communities set up to facilitate your recruiting affiliates such as JV Alert and The International Association of Joint Venture Brokers.Announce to your email list that you are looking for affiliates.
Private Message (PM) or email ideal affiliates that you’ve noticed promoting similar products, and ask them directly to promote yours. Be very clear in these communications or you’re likely to get declined or to not get firm commitments to promote your products.
Turn customers into affiliates. Email customers who have purchased your previous products thanking them, and pointing out your new product(s). Explain why it’s a match for them and rather than focusing on making a sale, make your focus recruiting them as an affiliate (if appropriate).Set up your autoresponder system so that any time anyone purchases your product they are automatically invited to become an affiliate. Consider adding a blurb right on your download page that invites them to join your affiliate program.
Your best potential affiliate ARE those who know and like your product, so it makes perfect sense to recruit customers as affiliates.
Use article marketing to generate interest and find customers. Write a 500 - 1000 word article that:
1. Describes the problem that your product solves.
2. Explains why this really IS a problem that they DO want to resolve.
3. Proves why your product is the perfect solution.
Submit these articles to every appropriate article directory that you can locate as well as post them on your blogs, your sites, and on discussion forums that have article sections. If you can afford it, use an article submission service such as ISnare.com or ThePhantomWriters.com. This will save you considerable time and quickly get your articles in 100 times as many places.
Leave “the land of excuses” and just do it! Make the decision that you’re going to implement this plan, and then instead of looking for reasons why you can’t implement it, look at the very real reasons why you MUST implement this plan.Acknowledge that the key to the success of your plan is taking massive, immediate action, and refusing to EVER give up.
Update, test and track your sales process. As your articles, affiliates, and emails drive traffic through your site, evaluate how well your sales letters are converting. The ability to split-test, and determine the exact conversion rates for your sales letters is built right into Rapid Action Profits. Test four or five different versions of the sales letter changing only minor things on each one, such as the main headline or the number of testimonials.When you discover one sales letter that works better than others, keep the one that is working, but then create a slightly different version of the winner to test against your new “control.”
Rinse and repeat. Once the sales start coming in, and you see that this formula does indeed work, use the same system to roll out other products. You are now building an army of active, happy affiliates. Offer them other, equally-lucrative products to promote.Don’t allow the momentum to stop once you get it going - that’s incredibly wasteful.
IMPORTANT: Slow down enough to act rationally rather than in desperation. I put this step at the bottom because I want it at the top of your mind as you get started.As you implement this simple, proven plan, make sure that you take a deep breath and don’t act out of desperation. People who feel like that “HAVE” to get results today, often make very bad decisions. Slow down enough to make sure that you’re actually doing each of the preceding 10 steps, and in particular make sure that you really confirmed that what you’re offering the market is something that they want.
I’ve watched dozens of people use this exact method when they suddenly found themselves needing to make a house payment, pay a medical bill, or catch up with mortgage payments… and their bank balance was “less than zero.”

This system does work. If you really examine it, there’s nothing magical or mysterious about it. It’s just common sense, and taking massive action. Now it’s time for you to apply both.

Author: Willie Crawford is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, author, seminar and radio show host, and leading Internet marketing expert. When not out fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, Willie can be found sharing his 11 1/2 years of online marketing experience with members of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle. Join them at: http://TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com

Analytics - The Missing Piece

02 2008 Wednesday

By Jennifer Horowitz in Featured

The ultimate goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to drive traffic to your site. Many people don’t know why, but they aren’t achieving this goal.

The key is staying current and evolving with the times.

Way back in the good old days, SEO was a lot easier and we saw results quickly. What do I mean “we saw results”? We ran a ranking report and we were able to see what words held what positions in the various engines. And admit it now, when you received your ranking reports, you promptly pulled up Google or Yahoo and did a search, waiting with baited breath to see your results right there in the top 20. Ahhh, the good old days.

Now, you get a ranking report and you don’t see all those wonderful rankings you have seen in the past. Competition is fierce and even though your site deserves to be on top, it may take a while to work its way up there. So, what do you do? You call your SEO Firm, you complain, you work on a strategy to get the results you want.

The missing piece here is called Analytics. A well optimized site will bring traffic from many engines, for various keywords that are related to your site. Those keywords may not be on your “approved keyword list” - however they are words people are looking for and they are driving traffic to your site. Many people don’t give credit to their SEO company for these words - however they are mistaken. The fact that your site was properly optimized and content was added is what made the site get noticed by the engines, so the optimization is directly responsible for these “bonus” keywords that are driving traffic to your site.

Because most people don’t understand this, and they don’t give credit to their SEO Firm, many SEO Firms don’t bother looking at or sharing Analytics information with their clients. They simply care about rankings for the keyword list.

At EcomBuffet we understand the value of Analytics information and as a result have added these “bonus” keywords to our ranking reports to show our clients how they are being found.

“Yeah, you point out how great you are and the “bonus” keywords - but how does that really help us - the client” is something we heard when we started sharing this information.

It’s true, it is a feather in our cap - it makes us feel good that we have created more exposure for our clients - but it’s more than that. The information we share tells them what words people are using to find them - it gives them insight into how their prospective clients think and search. That information can then be used to improve and really target your marketing efforts.

In addition to the value of the “bonus” keywords - the other thing we do is look at the other information in your web stats. We can figure out what pages people are spending time on, what pages people are leaving quickly, we can see what interest’s people and what drives people away.

Having someone prepare that information for you and deliver it to you in any easy to comprehend manner is invaluable.

That information becomes your blueprint for web site improvement which means increased conversions, which means more sales, which means more money, which means you are one happy camper!

Imagine, rather than guessing at what to tweak on your site to improve results you can take our analysis and suggested changes and use that as a guide to improving your traffic and conversions. Then you monitor the response to your tweaks to ensure your traffic and conversions are growing because the competition isn’t sitting idle and what worked yesterday doesn’t necessarily work tomorrow.

Web stats or Analytics isn’t new - it’s been around forever. However most people don’t know how to interpret their stats, they often don’t have time to gather the data and SEO Firms typically do not tie this information into a SEO campaign.

Our focus is on results. We can deliver the traffic and use Analytics; to get that traffic to take the action you want - whether it is more sales, more people opting in to your site, or calling you. Whatever “results” means to you - we can deliver them.

Case Study: One of our sites has:

Top rankings for the phrases “phoenix homes” (generic phrase) and “historical homes in phoenix” (specific phrase) Analytics tells us:
“phoenix homes” brings traffic but has only a 0.82% conversion rate.
“historical homes in phoenix” brings less traffic but has a 6.67% conversion rate.

The Lesson Learned:

Add up the traffic from all your “minor” specific phrases — all with high conversions and compare it to the major traffic and low conversions from your generic phrases - you can learn where to focus your attention — on the phrases that convert! (Note: We wouldn’t even know about the specific phrase without Analytics)
We can add content for the phrase that converts higher, and drive more traffic from that phrase. We can also use that information to guide us in creating marketing material.

Author: Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of http://www.EcomBuffet.com . Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@ecombuffet.com

Web Design Questions and Answers

02 2008 Wednesday

By Sharon Housley in Featured

How much do you know about web design? Take this web design quiz to find out how much you know about web design…

What Is A Web Template?

A website template is a ready-made HTML layout for webmasters. Typically, webmasters need to only edit the text and links in the HTML page, and they can then have a website up and running in a very short amount of time. Web templates make the creation of a website easier and faster. Web templates are easy to edit and customize using an HTML editor.

Examples of a web templates can be found at Webmaster Templates - http://www.webmaster-templates.net

What Is A CSS File?

CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheets”, and are used to control and manage font styles, font sizes, and web site color combinations that are used in a web page. In order to retain continuity of “look and feel” throughout a website, all pages within a website will often refer to a single CSS file. The CSS file is typically contained in a separate file from the website, and the various web pages retrieve the CSS file each time a web page is displayed. CSS files make global appearance changes easy — a single change in a CSS file will mean that any pages using that CSS file will automatically display the changes.

What Is A Dreamweaver Template?

Dreamweaver Templates allow webmasters to define “editable” and “non-editable” regions of a webpage. The “non-editable” regions can only be edited in the Dreamweaver Template. Any changes made to the Dreamweaver Template update any HTML pages that use the template.

What Is More Important — Web Design Or SEO?

Web Design and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are not mutually exclusive. The best webmasters are familiar with Search Engine Optimization techniques, as well as Website and Graphical Design. It is difficult to have a successful website if you neglect either SEO or Design. The two are intricately woven, and really must coexist to achieve website success.

How Much Does A Website Cost?

It depends on many variables. Custom website design can range from $500-$2000 for a single web template. The price varies, depending on the complexity of the design. Webmasters can also use a stock web template, which can cost as little as $10.00, or as much as several hundreds of dollars. Some stock templates are available for exclusive use, and exclusive designs tend to be more expensive. Website content development and Search Engine Optimization can be even more expensive, and are ongoing expenses.

If A Website Is Designed In Dreamweaver, Can I Edit It With Another HTML Editor?

Yes, most websites and designs can be edited in any HTML editor.

What Is A WYSIWYG Editor?

WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get”, so if you are using a WYSIWYG editor to design and create your web page, you have a pretty good idea of how the page will look in a web browser. Think of Microsoft Word — when you change a font, you see the font change immediately in the MS Word document. The same is true in a WYSIWYG Editor, in that you see changes immediately within the editor itself, as opposed to having to save the page and then separately load and view it in a web browser.

Do You Have To Know HTML To Design A Website?

Knowing HTML is certainly helpful in website design, especially when very minor tweaks and adjustments are necessary, but it is not absolutely required for website design. There are a number of WYSIWYG editors and web templates available, which can assist new webmasters with the design process. Using a web template and a WYSIWYG editor, new webmasters are able to create a web page by simply cutting and pasting content into a web template.

What Does HTML Stand For?

HTML stands for “HyperText Markup Language”. HTML is the markup language that typically resides behind the web page. Information related to the website design is indicated by “tags”. HTML is what is considered a simple markup language.

What Is The Difference Between Dynamic And Static Web Pages?

A “Dynamic” web page is one that is automatically created “on the fly” as it is presented, while a “Static” web page is pre-configured and not interactive. Dynamic web pages will often pull information from somewhere else before displaying the page, so the page content is ever-changing. The information on a Dynamic webpage often results from a database query, such as “search” results. Another kind of Dynamic page simply pulls information from another source, such as a web page that displays an RSS feed — it’s “Dynamic” because the page content changes each time the RSS feed is updated. The information contained in a Static page is considered “flat”, and never changes until the webmaster re-codes it.

Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

Creating Trust Online (Method 3)

02 2008 Wednesday

By Bjorn Brands in Featured

There are 4 ways to establish trust with good customer service. If customers know they can trust your sales process, you’ll get more sales.

This is what you need to do:

Offer free services such as trial periods, free downloads or free lessons.
Have a fair return policy. Make buying your product as risk-free as possible.
Allow customers easy ways to get their questions answered.
Keep customers in the loop. Confirm orders, emails and everything else.

Some of these steps will be covered in extensive detail in other tactics. Here we’ll just cover the basics.

Offer Free Services

One of the easiest ways to have customers trust you and your product is to offer free trials, downloads or a free service

If you sell anything digital such as software, music, ebooks or online applications this part is easy.

A Fair Return Policy

A fair return policy does wonders for building trust and creating customers who rave about your product. We cover the process of creating a return policy in the tactic on Designing the Guarantee.

Allow Customers Easy Ways to get their Questions Answered

From the moment the customer has the slightest positive feeling about buying your product you must nurture this feeling and help them avoid any fears. The way to do this is to make your customer support system easy to use, fast and effecient.

This involves two things.

Having a well structured FAQ section on your site.
Having a phone or email address where potential buyers can contact you.

In the tactic on Customer Service we teach you a fast and efficient way to create a stellar customer support system that generates more sales.

Keep Customers in the Loop

As soon as a customer buys your product or signs up on your site, send an email that confirms their action and let them know the next steps. Using an autoresponder system like Autoresponse Plus lets customers receive instant notifications when they sign up or make a purchase.

Use these guidelines to keep customers in the loop for a signup or registration and a sale:

The Signup or Registration

Upon signing up, the customer should get a welcome message confirming that the signup was successful, reminding them what they signed up for and letting them know the download or activation instructions.

At the end of the trial period, or the end of the autoresponder free lesson period, the customer should get notified by email on what will happen next. Will they get a promo to make a purchase? Will their trial period end and their login get turned off? Let the customer know what’s going on.

The Sale

In the brick-and-mortar world, it’s said that the best time to do a promotion is within the first 4 weeks after the sale of a product.

In these first 4 weeks, customers are still looking for confirmation that they have made the right choice by purchasing the product. This confirmation is even more important in the online environment.

Make sure to answer customer questions within 24 hours. Stay in touch and be friendly and professional. Upon completing the sale the customer should immediately get a confirmation email.

When the product ships it’s ideal to send the customer a second email notifying them of shipment and providing tracking information. A very good practice is to further email the customer after a few weeks to see if they have been using the product and to ask for feedback.

You can also use this opportunity to upsell them on further related offerings. Why bother to remind the customer to use the product? Well many people order things and then procrastinate on using them. Have you ever ordered an exercise machine from TV and then put it aside?

Many people have. Well, these customers will often not buy from you again unless they consume or use your current product. So, encourage them to use it.

Author: Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Check out his site and see for yourself how he can help you do the same at http://www.moneyacces.com

Network Marketing Opportunity, List Building or Both?

02 2008 Tuesday

By Mark Draugelis in Featured

I heard, before I joined an on line Internet Marketing system, to build a list first. I was foolish. I brushed it off. One I didn’t have anything to offer a list to start one. And two, I didn’t realize the importance of having a list. I spent $2,000 to join a program which I believed in. I figured I could make 2 or 3 sales a month and my business would grow. Boy was I wrong! I then spent another $800-1,000 in advertising without making one sale. Pretty discouraging. I bounced checks and paid bills late for months waiting for a break through that never came.

I absorbed myself in Internet Marketing though. I probably spent 60-80 hours a week,for about 10 months, studying on line and listening to audios about Internet Marketing to and from work. I’ve probably been on 300-500 different Internet marketers list. I probably have over 500 ebooks on Internet marketing. All given to me for free to be a subscriber to an Internet marketers list. If I wasn’t receiving 30-60 sales letters a day from being on those list, I might have had time to read one or two of those books by now. Actually, they have come in handy. When something does stump me, I do have all of those resources and I have learned from them.

It was through being on on those list that equipped me to be able to build my own list. When you’ve been on that many list you know which ones could grow quickly and which ones won’t. 90% offer the same products, whether for free or for sale. So, even as a newbie, you can start your own list. You don’t need unique products, you just need to set yourself apart from the 90% group! In fact, even the 10% group sells a lot of the same products.

So, what’s the difference? Patience, and the willingness to want to train new Internet marketers the ropes. The smart list builder will develop a relationship with you and give you free Internet Marketing training before they try to make a sale to you. The majority of them give you a free ebook, which they got for free anyway, along with a sales page ($49 price goes up $20 at midnight!) and then they fill your email box day after day with more sales letters until you unsubscribe. I do have patience though. I’ll usually give them the benefit of doubt and give them a couple of weeks before I unsubscribe.

I’m a faithful subscriber to about 5 or 6 Internet marketers. Because they have patience, they teach me a lot, they even offer free audio and video training. Now, when they are all out there promoting the same things, are you going to buy that $49 product from some one that gave you an ebook that they got for free, or are you going to buy that product from one of the guys that has invested in you? Because when one these guys offers me an affiliate program or Network Marketing opportunity, I’ll look it over because these guys have invested time and training into me, and I owe them at least that. Even if the time isn’t right for me, if the opportunity interest me, I’ll save it and look it over again in the future.

The point is is you can join one of the Internet Marketing opportunities out there and spend thousands of dollars with out making a sale. There is a lot of competitors selling the same products or a different one. But, odds are, by the time a person clicks on your ad they’ve already seen it 5 times in the last hour. You still have to pay $1 or so for each click. It gets very expensive and discouraging when they click and leave. I’m suggesting that instead of wasting thousands of dollars, be patient first off, and second build a list of people interested in Internet Marketing by training them list building first. You can earn a very good income doing this without sending out a sales page every day. Then when you are lucrative, find an opportunity that you believe in, and offer that to the list you built that you already have a relationship with and sales should follow!

Author: Mark Draugelis has spent thousands of hours studying and testing ways to earn money on the Internet. Due to either over priced systems, or over saturated systems, he created his own system to build Multiple Streams of Income through free training! To get your Free training go to- http://www.Easy-Viral-Listbuilding.com

Creating Trust Online (Method 2)

02 2008 Tuesday

By Bjorn Brands in Featured

People trust other people more than websites. One of the biggest things that turn off people from buying online is the lack of human interaction and personality.

As said before, pictures of the author behind an ebook, the manager of the online store or the friendly faces of customer service staffers all help promote trust and increase sales.

Other ways to create trust using human presence online is to add testimonials to your site or include a discussion board. Testimonials show that your site and product have active customers that endorse it. A discussion community, if active, shows that you have customers and fans actively discussing your product.

Both these elements not only promote trust but help you bring in the “social acceptance” factor of sales. This simply means that people prefer to buy products that they know others are interested in - it’s also called “following the crowd.”

Lets take a look at how to use these human elements to build trust.

Using Images of Real People

Revealing the face behind the website is a great way to build trust. You can reveal:

• your own face if you manage the website and have a solid interest in the website’s topic
• faces of the people handling customer support
• the face of the creator of the product you’re selling

Think strategically when you are placing these images. According to eye studies, a human face on the web is a major attention drawer.

You should be very careful with where you place a picture of a human face. Faces added randomly can be detrimental as they draw attention away from important copy points like headlines.

Use faces to draw attention to important site elements like sign up boxes, order forms or testimonials - anything you WANT the visitor to look at.

Marketing Guru Alex Mandossian loves using the human face around sign-up forms. He believes that the combination of a virtual entity like a sign-up form combined with a real human face creates a powerful draw.

He calls this the “Sesame Street Effect” after the popular children’s TV show.

On Sesame Street, the producers found that young children were most drawn to the TV screen when they saw shots with real live actors and virtual puppets together. Shots with just puppets or just live actors created less of an attention draw.

Mandossian uses this same principle when designing sign-up forms. You’ll notice that his sign-up forms always include a picture of himself interacting with the sign up form. For a further boost of trust, include anecdotes about employees or bios of the site founders. If you can see the personalities - names or some biographical data - you can develop a greater sense of reliance and trust in the site.

Use photos of smiling people. If a person looks confident and happy it will be easier for the shoppers to relate to them and will lesson any natural distrust.

And if for any reason you don’t want to use photos of your own staff you can buy webready pictures of smiling people from iStockPhoto.com for only $1 each.

Use Endorsements and Testimonials

Busy online communities help build trust through the principle of “social acceptance.” In a nutshell, humans have a tendency to follow the crowd.

If you observe a lot of people talking about a product or using it, you conclude the product must be good. If you have an active newsletter with over 10,000 subscribers (or any other impressive number) state this on your site.

On the sign up form for your newsletter add text like “10,000 subscribers and growing.” A simple statement like that builds trust.

If you have an online community, share recent community posts on your site. An active community tells a visitor that your site has a following and a product worth talking about. If you don’t currently have a community, you can create one for free on Yahoo! Groups.

Yahoo! Groups provides an excellent email based discussion list. Make sure to make the list Public (this means people can view messages without having to sign up).

Sometimes All you Need are a Few SEO Tweaks!

02 2008 Tuesday

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

Sometimes, all it takes are a few timeless fundamentals and a few minor tweaks to unleash your pages to their full SEO potential. I was reading a post recently from Matt Ridout from SEOUnique Blog where he states How I moved up 353 positions for the word SEO Blog. When in doubt, go back to basics I always say, and you just might be surprised how effective they really are.

For example, if you have a blog and have been steadily building links and adding custom keyword-rich content on a regular basis, then just by paying attention to a few simple indicators and making adjustments to your tags and content is enough to topple a competitive top 10 position.

The WordPress blog platform already has strong internal links and produces organic anchor text throughout the pages using breadcrumbs for titles in links in the navigation, deep links (from themed pages to ideal posts) and external links (links from other pages) as a result of your RSS feed.

When combined, these components increase the on and off-page optimization factors that push the sites global keyword density higher (the higher allinanchor relevance a site has the higher the ranking). Even if the blog is a subdirectory, your entire site gets stronger as a result.

Essentially, this phenomenon is setting the table for spiders to feast (at an alarming rate), but without releasing the pressure/keyword credits in the right direction (through tweaks to the code, content or site architecture) it’s just raw potential without momentum. Just from the standpoint of a content penetration strategy each time you publish a page, there is yet another adjustment to the sites respective keyword density.

In a nutshell, this is one of the primary reasons why pages sink or float to the top of search engines. As a basic SEO premise suggests, using a broad range of anchor text (internal links) creates a high allinanchor: keyword density.

Essentially so many opportunities can be found for mining keyword gold as a result of this high keyword density through simple analysis, i.e. which keywords have the highest percentage in your site. If your internal links have your main keyword linked strategically throughout your site, you may in fact require just a few authority links as your site can rank on it’s own merit. Re-tooling a title, a description or sometimes just rewriting a page can be enough to align those factors and create a ranking juggernaut through this strategy.

We use this tactic deliberately to broaden the range of the net or the funnel traffic from a wide variety of related keywords to particular pages. Several months ago we built links for the term Organic SEO, but thought nothing of it and moved on. Now, upon a keyword research tool while conducting research we discovered that it was a worthy target to pursue with little competition. Since the links were already in place from before, we were halfway there.

Since Wordze let me in on the fact that Organic SEO is well within reach, I figured why not, lets just unleash a post using that in the title. At the time of the post in Google, we were not in the top 100, that was last week. Most terms with a 5-8% site-wide keyword density will return a top 20 result when combined with other highly touted terms. Site-wide density for keywords differs from keywords percentages based on a page, so even though 5-8% sounds high, that would represent one of your highest ranking terms.

For this test, the only links built were just our RSS feed and one link from Sphinn just to see what would happen. In less than a week the page has already moved up the 30’s in Google for the phrase “Organic SEO”.

Not the most competitive term, but traffic-bearing none the less. I can sympathize with Matt’s experience from just making a few tweaks to the title and that’s all his SEO blog needed to skyrocket past 352 other sites and respective positions that failed to fine tune their tags as a result of some on page adjustments and website authority in his niche. Whereas in our case, we just write a post for a similar effect.

It just goes to show, developing authority for your blog should be the ultimate goal (instead of just building links), as website authority can translate into bursts or traffic that if they are profitable, they can be solidified through 25-30 external links, a touch of social media and a few stable links from related topical sources to seal the deal (preferably one already ranking for that term at a higher position in search engines).

Just imagine a ranking tactic that uses every page to it’s full potential (as a medium to boost other pages or to rank as a flagship to your brand). Using this strategy, each page is a piece of the puzzle and a source for channeling link juice (as a result of age, relevance and support from other internal and external links tactfully applied).

You should never overlook your own deep links or internal links, things such as navigation, the breadcrumbs from blog titles in anchor text and some tactful tags are sometimes all a site needs to unleash itself in the SERPs.

Author: Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Site Builder Issues - Why Shoeless Joe Was Wrong

02 2008 Monday

By Jennifer Horowitz in Featured

Unfortunately, many people are living a perfect example of if you build it, they won’t come.

If you build your site with a standard site builder that doesn’t allow for:

HTML - to create unique Meta tags on each page, use tags, ALT tags, etc.
FTP access
Root directory access to add static HTML files and XML files
Easy addition of new pages, to grow your site content.

Then you are setting yourself up for failure. If you build a website that can’t be optimized for the search engines, you will be unable to rank highly and tap into the large amounts of traffic that run through the search engines daily. You are missing out on people that are searching for products and services just like yours.

Whether you felt it was cheaper to build a site with a site builder, or you just didn’t know it was a problem - you need to take action and get your site onto a server that has no restrictions that will prevent your site from being properly optimized.

Many of the site builders out there even claim to be “search engine friendly” and then when we go to optimize a site for a client we can’t even do the most basic things like create unique Meta tags on each page.

Many site builder companies lock clients in for a year or more, leaving the client trapped with a site that can’t be optimized. Not all site builders are the enemy. However, you want to be very through and ask very specific questions when evaluating a site builder company. You don’t want to be locked into a contract that will ultimately hurt your website and your business.

Even if you think you are saving money by not hiring an expensive web designer, you are ultimately losing business and money, if you can’t be found in the search engines and your competitors can.

Already stuck with a site builder?

Contact a reputable SEO firm, preferably one that does design as well and have them look into whether your site can be optimized with your site builder. If it can’t, even if you lose some money - leave the site builder and get a quote on having your site moved to a new server (if you own the design of the site), or if the design of the site is a template belonging to the site builder, you’ll need to get a quote on a new design.

It may seem like a lot of trouble, and it may mean finding some extra money in your budget. However, without traffic from the search engines coming to your site, how can you expect to grow your site? Sure, you can do a PPC campaign and various other marketing campaigns - but you’ll always be missing out on the volume of traffic that runs through the search engines.

How will I make changes to my site if I move from a site builder?

That’s a common question. People don’t want to be chained to an expensive webmaster that will charge them for every change they want made. With the site builder, you could make the changes yourself.

There are a couple possible scenarios here. Maybe it’s worth paying a webmaster and freeing up your time to focus on other areas of your business. Another option is that the webmaster show you how to make simple text changes. The final option is to inquire about the control panel that comes with your website hosting package. They often have control panels that have a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor - meaning you still don’t need to know HTML and you can still alter your site - and have it be search engine friendly and optimized.

If you are unsure if your site builder is holding you back or if you know your site builder is and you want to break free, EcomBuffet is offering free consultations and a discount on web design right now.

In an effort to educate people about site builders and how they can harm you, this limited time offer is being made to my article readers.

If you don’t have a site yet and are looking at creating one, beware of going with a site builder, especially if you have to lock into a long contract. The questions you should ask are:

Can an XML file be added to the root directory?
Can unique Meta tags be added to each page?
Can you add an unlimited number of pages to your site?
Is FTP access available?
Does the builder generate any “special code” that could cause problems for the engines?
Can CSS and java script be placed in external files?

If the answer to those questions are no, I would strongly advise that you look at other options and not get yourself locked into something that is going to hurt you in the long run.

My site builder comes with a shopping cart. What do I do if I don’t go with the site builder?

Another valid concern. There are many great plugin shopping carts that are easy to configure and use. There are ones that run off your own server and you will need a secure server and certificate, and then there are ones that run off a third party server.

Many shopping carts these days even have extra marketing features, and allow for the user to load product images, pricing, shipping, descriptions etc in a very user friendly interface that doesn’t require any programming or complex code.

How much traffic am I really missing out on, by not being listed high in the search engines?

More than 8 out of 10 Internet users look on search engines to find information and the products or services they want to buy.
Pay-per-click (PPC) costs are rising (over 37% higher from last year to this year Q1).
Up to 85% of searchers ignore paid listings
63% of the top natural (organic) listings get click throughs.
Natural (organic) search results convert 30% higher than PPC.

Before you lose any more time and more importantly money, check out your site builder situation today and see if there is a solution that will work for you.

Author: Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of http://www.EcomBuffet.com Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@ecombuffet.com

How to Make Your Article Marketing Campaign More Efficient

02 2008 Monday

By Tyler Monesy in Featured

In this article I am going to discuss how you can employ some useful tools in a clever way to increase the efficiency of submitting articles and publishing content for syndication. But first we need to understand some of the popular strategies that are being used today, why article marketing works in the first place, and an important term called a “duplicate content filter.”

One of the popular methods that bloggers or webmasters will use in order to get more traffic to their website is to create a detailed post about their topic or niche and then submit that same post for syndication in article directories. While syndicating content can be a good way to increase exposure and gain more incoming links, by doing this it is also possible to get slapped with a duplicate content penalty.

The duplicate content filter is something that major search engines recently introduced after the widespread use of link spamming to artificially boost search engine rankings. Link spam is where a webmaster will create numerous copies of a single web page and post them on different domain names in order to increase the number of incoming links to his website. But since this is an artificial way to get more links (as opposed to having various websites link to you on their on accord), it is considered to be a manipulation of the search engine algorithms and is frowned upon.

As soon as the major search engines like this realized that web pages that were irrelevant and filled with advertisements were gaining top rankings due to link spam, they went to work devising a filter that would block all identical pages from being listed, along with any of the pages that they link to (thereby eliminating the artificial rankings that these web pages would get).

In order for a large search engine like Google to return relevant results, they must employ a web robot to “crawl” around the internet and save a copy of every single web page that it finds. This collection of saved pages is called the ‘cache,’ and every time you go to a search engine and type in a keyword, it will search through the cache of stored web pages and deliver the one that is the most relevant to your search and has the most incoming links (an incoming link is considered to be a “vote” that a certain web page is good, and therefore worth linking to).

Well if the Google bot happens to come across a web page that is an identical copy of some other page, the duplicate content filter comes into play and it will make sure that only one copy of this web page is displayed on the search engine results page. But which one to choose?

The search engine is going to brand one of the web pages as the original, and then all other copies of it are going to be subsequently blocked. A few of the factors that determine which page is branded as the original are when it was created, the link strength or Pagerank of the website, and the relevancy of the domain name.

So how does this apply to your article marketing and content syndication? Well if you were to submit the same piece of content to multiple different directories and syndicated feeds, many of those pages are going to end up getting slapped by the duplicate content filter since they are basically carbon copies of each other. The ideal way to avoid this would be to create a unique piece of content to submit to every source, but that would be extremely time consuming.

The way that you can save time and also avoid the duplicate content filter is to use a tool called a “duplicate content checker.” By using this kind of tool, instead of creating a new article from scratch, you can re-write small parts of your existing article and check it to make sure that it is unique enough that it will not be branded as duplicate content. This way, instead of spending 30-50 minutes coming up with a brand new article, you can spend only around 3-5 minutes by creating a slightly altered version that will not appear to be an identical copy.

By doing this you can increase the effectiveness of your article marketing and content syndication, because you can rework each article you submit in just a few minutes so that it will overcome the duplicate content filter, and more pages displaying links back to your website will rank high in the search engines.

Author: You can find a free and great duplicate content tool at http://Coach-Tyler.com/dupchecker which will allow you to compare two articles side by side and make sure that you can overcome the search engine filter.

The 4 Key Areas of Trust (Method 1)

02 2008 Monday

By Bjorn Brands in Featured

The last time we’ve identified 4 key areas where you can build trust on your site. We’ll show you how to implement trust-building techniques in these 4 areas.

The areas to focus on are:

Transparency
The Human Touch
Customer Care
Privacy and Security

So let’s get started on these 4 methods through which you can build trust.

Method 1: Be Transparent

Unless you own physical stores or happen to be a trusted brand name reseller, one of your very first hurdles in building trust is showing your online visitors that you’re “real.” All you need to do is be transparent.

On your site, clearly state your address, phone number and better yet, reveal your picture, credentials and signature. Follow these guidelines to make your website more transparent:

Show Photos of Yourself or Your Staff

All else being equal, if you give people the option of dealing with a real-live person or a faceless corporation, they will choose real people every time.

If you’re a small business, you are effectively your own brand. Use this advantage by prominently displaying your photo and signature on your website. If your site relies on your expert advice or name you might want to put the picture on the first page. Otherwise the picture could be on the About Us or Contact page.

A digital image of your signature (make one up if you’re afraid of someone copying your original signature) can also be used to create trust. This signature can be placed below your Guarantee or Sales Letter.

Create a Logo

No matter how small your business, by all means - place a logo on your site. A decent logo can be purchased online for under $100.

A logo immediately establishes trust and credibility as long as it looks well designed. Don’t worry about establishing your “timeless” corporate logo over days of brainstorming and soul searching. You can do that over time.

If you have a site up right now - consider getting a temporary logo from a logo mill and placing it prominently on the top left hand corner of your site.

Eye-tracking studies show the upper-left corner to be the most viewed section of your site and this is an ideal place to put your logo, company name and anything else you wish to sink into the customer’s mind such as your brand statement.

A logo is so important for building trust that you should fork out that $39 and get a generic logo while you build your company’s identity and image and decide on your permanent logo.

Contact Information

Display your contact info prominently on your Contact Us or Customer Support page. The contact info should include your physical address, phone number and email address.

We’ve heard of a website that saw its orders jump by 30% after it added a phone number to every page on the site.

If your site targets customers within the US but you happen to be outside the US, consider using Skype to buy a US phone number which forwards on to your local phone number. For only a few dollars a year you can have a US number being forwarded to your landline or mobile phone anywhere in the world.

Where should you place your contact information? Your complete address should be on your Contact Us Page. Also include a phone number and email. We also recommend including a phone number on the upper right hand side of EVERY page on your site.

If you do not have the capacity to handle too many calls, an email address will do. Keep in mind that phone numbers create a higher level of trust.

Your Bio or Company Profile

What should the bio or company profile contain?

Any piece of information that makes the visitor LIKE you. One of the first principles of sales is that people buy from people they LIKE. What’s likeable about you? It could be a unique hobby, the fact that you have grandkids, or that you love your pets. Share yourself online and don’t be shy.
Information that makes the visitor RELATE to you. People buy from people who are SIMILAR to them. Your gardening site likely attracts a lot of gardeners, so create a bond with them by sharing information on yourself so they can see just how similar you are.
Information that shows your EXPERTISE. If you’re an expert on the topic your site is devoted to - share this. People respect experts. If you do not wish to create a single face for your company, write about your business story instead. Talk about how the business was started, your vision, goals, the early hardship you encountered, the joy of running the business and the way it was growing. These all make for excellent stories. And these honest, personal stories build trust.

Language

The internet is a conversational medium so talk like a real person and avoid annoying corporate-speak. In fact, one of the surest ways we’ve found to identify incompetent businesses and experts is by observing the language they use on the web.

When a website opens with “our goal is to optimize the client-business relationship by strategically aligning core elements of your web infrastructure to create a highly convergent…..” we know this company knows little about the web business. On the Web - speak like a Human Being!

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