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Fed up with wasting money on ads that don’t work? Here are some killer ways to turn things around and get writing ads that pull in the clicks, visitors and sales in droves.

1. Reverse Psychology

This is where you encourage people to do the opposite of what you really do want them to. For instance, if you want them to sign up for your marketing newsletter say something like “If you’ve got all the sales, visitors and profits you need, don’t sign up for our SuccessNewsletter”. Just remember that people don’t want to be told what to do, or what not to do, so out of sheer cussedness, and a helping of curiosity they will click.

2. Use exciting and appealing words

People respond best to words that appeal to their emotions and to their desire for money, so use words that aim at these two aspects of the human psyche. Use words such as You, Ultimate, Free, Master, Power, Discovery, Easy, Guaranteed, Love, Money, New, Scientific, Profits, Proven, Results, Incredible, Discover, Breakthrough, Secret, Private, Cash, Shocked, Shocking, Revealed, Uncovered, Hidden, Exciting, Sizzling, Hot and so on. Be careful not to overdo it as less is more when it comes to emotive words.

3. Offer a discount

The Internet started out as the place to get things free. Usually this meant information in the early days, so capitalise on this basic human instinct of wanting ’something for nothing’ and offer your visitors a discount if they buy NOW! Alternatively off a free bonus. Make it compatible with the product you’re selling so that they both form a useful combo.

4. Include testimonials

If you have people write or email you thanking you for your product, get back to them and ask if you can quote them in your advertising. Mostly they will be happy for you to do so. This lets prospective buyers know that a real person has got a real benefit from your product or eBook etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for a testimonial. Send buyers a follow-up email to see if they have benefited from your product and ask them to tell you why (if they have). Testimonials are one of the most persuasive tactics there are.

5. Use a guarantee

Always use a strong guarantee in your ad. One guarantee you often see on downloadable products is ‘Try this eBook for 8 Weeks’ because this is now the length of time ClickBank will offer an automatic money back facility. Other payment providers may differ. Include the guarantee in your headline: ‘Our eBook Will Save You Money - Guaranteed!’

6. Tell your customers what to do

People will often act on an instruction such as ‘Click Here Now’. It may be stating the obvious but this is again the psychology of the prospect. They often need just that little nudge to make them take action.

7. State the major benefit of your product or website

Make sure you tell people what the major benefit of your product is. Even in a classified ad you must answer the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ With some products this is not difficult. For instance if you product is a cure for acne, make you can say something like ‘Our product can cure your acne in 21 days’. If you are selling something less obvious you could say ‘Our Nirvana CDs will soothe and relax you after a hard day’. Make it clear what benefit your product or website has to offer.

Now take a good look at your current ads and apply one or more of the tactics given above and you will begin to see some real results. When you do, why not email me and let me know? I like to get testimonials too!

Mervyn Love writes articles on various aspects of Internet Marketing, and his website - http://www.fortresspublishing.com - has a wealth of resources and information on all aspects of starting and running an online business. Sign up for his newsletter here: http://www.fortresspublishing.com/MPNsplash.html

Tags: adwords, Marketing

It’s a common question that companies who are considering hiring a search engine optimization company often face - is this something that we can do in-house? More importantly, can we do this in-house and get the same results that an expert search engine optimization company would provide?

As this article will demonstrate, clearly the answer is “yes” to both questions. However, as this article will also demonstrate, getting the types of results that an expert at search engine optimization can provide will cost you - often more than outsourcing.

For the purpose of this article, I’m ignoring the multitudes of companies that decide to dump the job on somebody already in their organization (usually an IT person who already has too much to do) rather than hiring a search engine optimization company. It has been my experience that while some of these people eventually provide decent results, they are the exception. More often than not, the project never leaves the ground, or the effort is halfhearted at best. In a worst case scenario, your internal person may embrace tactics that no expert search engine optimization company would ever use because they can put your site at risk of penalization or outright removal from the engine indexes.

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Tags: search engine optimization, seo

One of the most common questions discussed in many online
circles is: how do I monetize my website? Just how do I make
money online from my site or sites?

The solution to that problem is not just a matter of slapping
a few lines of Google Adsense code on your pages and hoping
for the best. Actually, the solution to earning income from
your online site or blog can be as complex or as simple as
you want to make it.

There are thousands of ways to earn money from your site
or blog… among the most common are selling advertising,
selling your own products, using affiliate programs,
drop-shipping, donations, Google Adsense, Azoogle…
and the list goes on.

But this is a rather superficial approach to this issue.
A more interesting way to tackle this rather lucrative
question is to define or make some distinctions between
what exactly you are monetizing - your website or your
traffic?

This may seem pragmatic to many, but any professional
webmaster or marketer who has dissected this issue will
have discovered how you approach this problem will greatly
affect how much income you will derive from your sites.

To the savvy professional marketer it is more an issue
of refinement than anything else. They make the distinction
between a general monetization of a website and a highly
targeted monetization of their site’s traffic. There is
a difference.

Any webmaster can place ads on their sites to get an income.
If you have a normal amount of traffic, you can monetize
your site with ads such as Adsense, Azoogle, Chitika…
and you will receive your monthly checks. But is this the
best way?

Any professional marketer knows you can easily get 100 times
what you can get from Google Adsense by using other means
of monetizing their sites. It comes down to a marketing
strategy that involves monetizing the traffic coming to
their sites, rather than just monetizing the sites themselves.

Not all the traffic to your site or blog is looking for
the same thing. You can have general traffic, searching
for information on a broad subject area, or you can have
someone looking for a specific product or service. Therefore,
you must closely monitor your traffic to find out exactly
what your visitors are looking for and then providing these
visitors with a solution.

Individually Monetizing Your Pageviews, Traffic…

Individually monetizing your pageviews, traffic and landing
pages is the key to deriving larger amounts of income from
your online sites. Just as “long tail keyword” marketing
can greatly increase your income, so too can constructing
income sources directly related to your long tail keyword
traffic.

Using affiliate products and services from third party
affiliate networks like Commission Junction LinkShare,
ClickBank… will earn you 10 times more income than you
would earn from using Adsense; most times it is much more.

The prudent professional marketer will closely examine
their site’s traffic logs to find out exactly the source
of the traffic and the keywords their visitors are using
to find their site. These marketers will closely examine
their traffic and then take steps to monetize it. It may
involve producing their own products or services to offer
to these visitors. It may be using an affiliate program to
offer a product.

They also know that “keywords,” the exact words someone
types into a search engine to find what they’re looking
for on the web, are the real main sources of targeted traffic
on the web. Quality traffic that’s worth its weight in gold.
Domination of the main keywords in your market or niche will
spell monetary success even for webmasters whose main goal
may not be making money from their sites… these strange
creatures do exist I am told!

Aggressive marketers will take a different route, especially
if they have gained domination in a niche area; many approach
other businesses in their niche with offers of partnerships
and independent deals… they supply the leads or customers
to these businesses in return for a percentage of the sale.

I personally go for “residual income deals” where I get a
percentage of the revenues generated for the life of the
clients I refer. Large multinational companies in your
targeted niches probably won’t give you the time of day,
but smaller, lesser known companies will give you lucrative
deals if it is a “win-win situation” for both parties.
This is my number ONE way to monetize my traffic.

Any professional marketer will also aggressively market
their traffic by collecting opt-in lists of interested
customers. These marketers will offer free product buying
guides, valuable information, deals/coupons, customer ratings…
all to capture leads because then instead of just having one
chance to market to their site’s traffic, they get many more
chances in follow-up emails. Studies have shown it make take
6 or 7 follow-ups before a sale is made.

ROT - Return On Traffic

These marketers “add value” or “pre-sell” to their site’s
traffic in order to increase their odds of producing more
income from this traffic. They never forget this traffic
is the real source of their site’s income; instead they
exploit it to their full advantage. No reason why you can’t
do the same.

Always keep in mind, you should develop different sources
of traffic: search engine traffic, article traffic, social
bookmark traffic, link traffic from related sites, viral
traffic with free PDF files, PPC advertising… if one traffic
source dries up, it won’t be a major problem for you.

Likewise, like most things to do with business, it is never
wise to just use one tactic or source of income. I have always
used a “multiple income streams” strategy. On any given site
I may use Google Adsense for general traffic, affiliate products
for my more targeted ‘long tail keyword’ traffic and, of course,
I give priority to special independent deals with long-term
residual income. Even higher PPC (Pay Per Click) bids are possible
with residual deals, as you will recoup your investment down
the road.

Similarly, it is a good business practice to find or promote
companies that will give you a “cookie for life,” which means
once you refer a customer - they are yours for life. Marlon
Sanders does this, so too does Ken Evoy’s Site Build It,
where your customers are yours for life. Also promoting
products like web hosting, marketing tools, and utility
services that have recurring income are very lucrative sales
to make. Believe me, getting a monthly payment for a sale you
made five years ago will put a slight smile on your face every time!

So the next time you’re trying to monetize your site or blog
- first take a real close look at the your site’s traffic,
monitor your site’s raw traffic logs to find out what your
visitors are looking for on each page of your site and supply
a solution for them. Be it your own products, affiliate offerings
or even Google Adsense ads… along the way make sure you offer
them valuable content to help them on their quest and help you
to collect their contact information for further follow-up.

Of course, savvy marketers will create or make the above scenario
happen from the get-go; they find a product, they target and
dominate the keywords for that product in all the search engines
and then harvest this traffic with killer landing pages, opt-in
forms and special bonuses if you buy from their links. They use
this traffic and this marketing strategy to sometimes obtain
obscene amounts of income from the web.

Your success or failure in obtaining the same results will
largely depend upon your own skill level, but mostly it will
depend on the amount of work you put in to earn this income.
This process is so simple, yet so complex to perfect, but with
a little work and some practice anyone can monetize their site’s
traffic to get the best returns.

…..

Affiliate Marketing Tips for Monetizing Your Traffic

Since I am a full-time affiliate marketer, most of the above
post is biased or geared towards affiliate marketing. It is
a simple way to derive income from your sites without having
to worry about handling sales, supply problems, customer complaints…
all you have to do is supply the lead or potential customer
to your promoted affiliate programs and let them do the rest.
All tracking, sales, product delivery… are handled by the
affiliate company, which lets you concentrate on marketing,
producing content, search engine optimization and promotion.

It’s a system that suits me to a T!

However, it is not the most profitable way to monetize your traffic.
Perhaps the most profitable way to monetize any traffic is to
produce your own products and/or services. But this usually takes
some time and skill level beyond the ordinary webmaster; and it
does create additional headaches like product delivery, support
issues, sales records, taxes… everything associated with running
a business or company.

If you’re like me and go the much easier affiliate route,
here are some tips for you:

1. Use well established affiliate networks like Commission Junction,
LinkShare, Shareasale, ClickBank… all these are professionally run,
which makes finding affiliate links/products extremely easy for you.
Besides, they will deliver your checks on time.

2. Aim for or promote affiliate products that have residual or recurring
income because these will be your most lucrative over the long haul.
Pick ones like web hosting, marketing products, utilities… or other
services, which once people sign up for, rarely change.

3. Concentrate your marketing on small, little known niches. Dominate
the main keywords in that niche with your sites and then create special
“residual” income with the main companies in that niche.

4. Pick affiliate products that have lifetime cookies and/or have high
payout rates. You can promote anything; why not promote high-ticket
items that pay the big commissions.

5. However, picking the highest paying products may not be your only
choice. For example, I have found promoting Amazon products usually
pays less than my other affiliate products, BUT the conversion rate
for Amazon products is much higher so you sell many more products and
earn many more (albeit smaller) commissions, which quickly add up to
a nice sum.

6. I have had success by concentrating on well-known products that
you can only purchase online. Smart tactic that pays off, especially
when those companies offer coupons/deals that are only available online.

7. Marketing in foreign markets has proven very lucrative for me.
Usually getting top ranking in these countries is much easier than
in the very competitive U.S. marketplace. For instance, marketing in
the UK is less competitive, and you get higher commissions when you
consider the pound is equal to two bucks in USD. I use Affiliate Window
for marketing in the UK.

8. PPC advertising is the fastest way to deliver targeted traffic
to your pages, but you have to know exactly what you’re doing or
you will lose money. Here, I concentrate on promoting products with
proven residual income so that I can make higher bids since my initial
investment will be returned to me, many times over in the coming years.

9. If you’re a one-marketer, one-person company, you will have to
choose your affiliate products very carefully. Pick only top quality
products to promote, preferably ones you use yourself. Your conviction
will come through in your content or writing.

10. Being a former teacher, I know knowledge is money. The more knowledge
you obtain about affiliate marketing the more income you will make.
But choose your learning sources very carefully, like that saying on
old maps: “here there be monsters”. Be careful. Choose your educators
wisely. Here are two sources I would recommend for further study on
Affiliate Marketing: try Ken Evoy’s free Affiliate Masters Course or
try one of top self-help guys Steve Pavlina - he has a very good page
here on how to make money from your blog.

Tags: affliate marketing, make money from blog, monetizing traffic, monetizing your site, online income, online marketing tips

Earlier this month, Google completed their formal acquisition of major advertising firm DoubleClick Inc., for $3.1 billion in cash from equity firm Hellman & Friedman. The purchase, originally announced nearly a year ago, has had it’s fair share of detractors and legal hurdles to clear before going ahead, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) grinding negotiations to a halt shortly after the original announcement. However, the FTC finally gave the green light on the deal in December.

But Google’s DoubleClick woes may not be over just yet. According to Startup Earth, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has revealed that DoubleClick employees have been asked to submit their resumes to a senior Google committee in advance of possible staff cuts. Here’s a snippet from the post:

“The move is said to affect employees in every department, who will have to prove not only that they are capable of fulfilling their previous roles, but also that they are ‘Google material’, which could leave many veteran employees with virtually no job security pending a personal review.

DoubleClick employees at all levels are said to be furious and deeply concerned by the effect this acquisition will have on personnel, and many are looking at their options.”

One of the more obvious areas where Google may downsize is within the DoubleClick owned search marketing company Performics. It’s been noted that when Google acquired DoubleClick, they also acquired Performics, making them the owners of a search engine optimization and link building company. The irony of this is probably not lost on them, not to mention the conflict of interest issues it raises. I would expect to see an announcement from Google in the next few months that they will be dissolving that portion of the business.

Apart from that little hiccup, I’m expecting the DoubleClick deal will result in the release of superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online advertisements. We’ll have to wait and see.

Each year I spend the first three months looking for the best and most innovative SEO tips of the previous year’s end. This year I have what I believe to be the best 3 SEO tips in a decade!

SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world’s biggest search engine be your personal online spy. This takes search engine optimization insider info to whole new level. Here’s an excerpt straight from Google….

“Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams”

As you probably guessed, it’s the second one we care about most, “keeping current on a competitor or industry.”

Here’s how it works… Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online spy to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It’s also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It’s the easiest way in the world to stop competitors’ dirty tricks and identify trends that you can take instant advantage of.

It’s fast, free and works every minute of every day. Let Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) do your most time consuming legwork while you reap the rewards!

SEO Tip #2: Optimize Your 404 Page and Always Be Found

“Error 404: Page Not Found” is a blessing that most Webmasters curse. Why? Getting a visitor on any page of your site is fantastic! Don’t blow the opportunity. Not only can you make your “404″ page a valuable sales tool, you can use the following search engine optimization techniques to attract customers in droves.

A.) Use your main keyword in your title, add a “pipe” (usually above the Enter key) and then use your secondary keyword. Here’s as example for an SEO site “SEO | Search Engine Optimization Tips”

B.) Add some keyword rich content using one to two keywords for the page. If you have less than 250 words on the page, just use one keyword and use it no more than three times total. Bold the first use and italicize the second or third use. Keep in mind this is an “inactive” page so simply tell the visitor what your site is about and whet their appetite with a good description. Something like this works well… “Thank you for visiting SEO (bold) Group, Inc. We’re sorry you seem to have found a missing page but rest assured, if you are looking for the world’s best search engine optimizations tips (bold or italic), you are at the right place…” This will go on for a couple paragraphs or as long as you’d like then end it with something to the effect of “Please Click Here (link) to visit our site map or click any link to the left.”

C.) Add your site’s standard navigation system (bar, column, etc.) as mentioned above.

D.) Make the look and feel of the customized 404 page match your main site as closely as possible with a template, matched palette, cascading style sheets, etc.

E.) Create a link to the site map page if available, and make the link easy to find. You want your visitor off the 404 page and into your main content as quickly as possible.

Setting up a custom 404 page link usually takes less than five minutes on most major Web hosting companies like Godaddy.com. But whatever it takes, it’s worth the effort.

SEO Tip #3: Get (Even More) Serious About Linking

I saved the most important for last. If you want to do well on any search engine, especially Google, linking is THE single MOST important thing you can do. It’s that simple.

Here are the five things you MUST do to make your site #1 on Google:

A.) Find the highest page rank sites linking to your site AND your competitors’ sites.

B.) Run monthly link campaigns and snatch up the best of the above identified Web sites.

C.) Run regular checks on what pages are still linking back to your site. Alsomake sure they did not move you from a high page rank page to a lower one (don’t get cheated!)

D.) Eliminate any penalized sites you link to; ASAP!

E.) Check your search engine ranking AND your competitor’s for each of your keywords every week. Do this for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista at the minimum.

Inside Tip: Keeping up can be a lot of work, and is extremely important, so a lot of SEO Consultants (myself included) use SEO Elite (http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com) to do all the most difficult and time consuming work.

One last thing to know is that Google was originally a college student’s project created for the sole purpose of defining a Web site’s value by the sites that link to it. Twelve years later this is still it’s main job. Linking is EVERYTHING to Google.

These three SEO tips are the best of the best so use them wisely. Best of luck

Scott Jason is a 10 year veteran search engine optimization and copywriting specialist. He has been a guest “expert advice” author for three SEO books including The SEO Answer Book and is the co-founder of http://BestSEOCopywriting.com

Tags: seo optimization, seo tips

You may want to check out Google AdSense affiliate programs (www.google.com/adsense).

With AdSense, you earn money by displaying small Google text ads on your website. Whenever one of visitors clicks on one, you earn a small fee.

You won’t necessarily make scads of money with Google AdSense; however, once you’re up and running, you can enjoy a steady extra stream of profits — without doing any extra work!

Google AdSense is NOT for everyone, however.

Can YOU make money with Google AdSense?

AdSense may be right for you if…

You have a content-rich web site with lots of pages containing information on specific topics. Ads relating to your web page content will be displayed, so visitors searching for information that you offer should be interested in the products or services these ads offer.

That greatly increases the chances that people will click the ads — and make you some extra cash!

Your website contains content related to “big-ticket” items like holidays or electronic goods. These items attract higher bids from advertisers for the relevant keywords that generate the ads.

And, as the AdSense publisher, you receive a percentage of the bid amount — so the higher the better from your point of view!

You run a content-rich non-commercial blog. The search engines LOVE the fresh, relevant content that blogs produce. And the more people who can find your site, the greater number of click-throughs you’ll receive.

Many blogs successfully make money with Google AdSense to cover their hosting fees and other overhead costs.

You don’t want to spend time looking for advertisers. Finding paying advertisers can be difficult, time-consuming, and ultimately not very lucrative, unless you have a site with VERY high volumes of suitable traffic.

But if you want to test third-party advertising on your web site, AdSense takes away the need to try to find suitable advertisers — freeing you to work on other areas of your web business, like developing new products.

You may want to give Google AdSense affiliate programs a skip if…

You sell a product with a lot of competitors. Although AdSense allows you to block up to 200 of your competitors’ URLs, you still run the risk of their ads showing up on your site.

Obviously, advertising competing sites on your own site is not the best business strategy, and it’s crucial that you assess how much of a risk this would be for your business.

You sell products and services through your website, and you don’t want potential customers to be distracted from your sales messages. AdSense ads could affect your sales, depending on their placement (on sales pages, order forms, etc).

You already have loyal advertisers. Displaying AdSense ads on your site can upset your current advertisers — especially if their revenue is affected as a result.

So you need to consider the risk of upsetting them and possibly losing a steady stream of income.

That said, Google AdSense affiliate programs are relatively simple ways to create extra streams of income for little work.

One of the best places to look when it comes to choosing an affiliate program is an affiliate program directory.

An affiliate program directory is simply a website that features a list of affiliate programs for you to explore and potentially sign up for. And depending on the directory you use, you can find literally tens of thousands of programs to choose from.

In fact, AffiliatesDirectory.com, a very popular affiliate program directory, currently lists 7,429 affiliate programs!

Some other top affiliate directories include:

www.associateprograms.com
www.refer-it.com
www.affiliatetip.com
www.affiliatefirst.com

If you’re wondering how to use an affiliate program directory, it’s relatively straight forward…

Pinpoint your category.

Most directories will feature a list of categories,such as “computers” or “travel” for example, to help you narrow your search. Simply click on the link and follow it to review a list of affiliate programs that offer these types of products or services.

Use the search field (if there is one.

Alternatively, look for a search box that allows you to enter the name of a particular product or service, and search the directory this way.

Do your research.

Once you narrow your search down to several affiliate programs, take your time to look into each one to make sure it’s a fit for you before you sign up. (Hint: Read all of the small print!)

Whichever way you search, the good news is there are affiliate programs for almost everything you can think of, so you should have no problem finding one for a product or service that will appeal to your target market. Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Download his FREE eBook “The Affiliate Marketing Roadmap” right here http://www.moneyacces.com/freelesson/The%20Affiliate%20Marketing%20Roadmap.exe (no opt-in)

“Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!” I think Homer Simpson really hit the nail on the head with this one. We are told that analytics are the way to go, time and time again. But what exactly does that mean? What exactly do you measure? What is a good measurement? What would are you really measuring to begin with?

Right now it would seem that the most popular form of analytics would be Urchin, now owned by Google. “Urchin 5 analyzes traffic for one or more websites and provides accurate and easy-to-understand reports on your visitors - where they come from, how they use your site, what converts them into customers, and much more.” But while giving you a multitude of numbers what does this really tell us?

So we are still at the very beginning. Before even thinking about running any kind of analytics you first need to define your objective. While this can be a lot easier if you are selling a tangible product, it is not always a clear cut decision. While a quick sale is almost always a good thing, many would agree that the effort made to make that sale far outweighs the profit you may have made. More often than not when dealing with sales you are looking for returning customers. So in this case it’s not a sale you are after but a returning customer.

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Tags: Website Traffic

Duplicate content is a hotly debated issue when it comes to how it affects your web-site ranking. And it’s become an even bigger issue over time as spammers and other malicious Internet users have taken to the practice of content scraping, or scraping the content from a web site to use on their own with only minor changes to the appearance, not to the content itself.

Content scraping has become such a problem that search engines now look for duplicate copy, even when it’s hidden behind a link like the Similar Pages that Google uses for related content. If they find it, your site may be lowered in the rankings or even delisted completely.

Still, the duplicate-copy issue isn’t as simple as it may seem. Some people think there’s too much worry about it, whereas others insist the problem needs to be addressed. And both are right to some degree. Let me explain.

First, you need to understand that not all duplicate content is the same kind. You need to appreciate some differences.

• Reprints:This is duplicate content published on multiple sites with the permission of the copyright holder. These are the articles that you or others create and then distribute to create links back to your site or to sites that are relevant to the content of yours. Reprints are not bad duplicate content, but they can get your site thrown into the realm of Similar Pages, which means they’ll be buried behind other results.

• Site Mirroring: This is the kind of duplication that can cause one or more of your sites to be delisted from a search engine. Site mirroring is literally keeping exact copies of your web site in two different places on the Internet. Web sites used to practice site mirroring all the time as a way to avoid downtime when one site crashed. These days, server capabilities are such that site mirroring isn’t as necessary as it once was, and search engines now “dis-include” mirrored content because of the spamming implications it can have. Spammers have been known to mirror sites to create a false Internet for the purpose of stealing user names, passwords, account numbers, and other personal information.

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  Tags: duplicate content

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 list 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”.

Here is a great free keywords tool. (The numbers you see are searches/day.)

Another important part is making sure your page is optimized for the keyword you are targeting. If you are focussed 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 links to you’s 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!

Jason Storm is an SEO Expert who consults for small-business owners who want to increase their search engine rankings by using content optimization and one way link building strategies. Visit his website Affordable SEO Services for more info and articles.

Tags: link building

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to start making money online, consider joining one of the Web’s free affiliate programs.

There are endless free to join affiliate programs available on the ‘Net — in any category you might be interested in.

And joining an affiliate program is without a doubt the easiest way to start earning an online income.

Here’s how it works.

You become an affiliate for another company’s product by joining their free affiliate program. Then you promote their products or services on your website. Anytime someone you refer buys something from them, YOU get paid a commission.

And the best part is that it doesn’t cost you anything to get started!

Most good affiliate programs will offer you free resources to help you promote their products effectively. Things like banner ads, salescopy, or product photos that in many cases have already been tested and proven to work.

You simply download them and use them on your website.

Why are they willing to do this?

Well, the better YOU are at promoting their products, the more visitors and sales THEY’LL receive. So everybody wins!

You’re helping them get customers that they might not have been able to get otherwise. And you earn money for doing so!

The amount of money you can earn from affiliate sales will depend on a number of factors:

Commission amount. Companies will offer anywhere from 5% up to 50% of a product’s sale price — a BIG difference.

Price point of product or service. A higher price point means a higher dollar amount for you, depending on the commission. This should be balanced with the commission amount.

Potential volume of sales you can make. Some highly specialized products can sell far more infrequently than others, limiting the number of sales you can make in a given time period.

How effective you are at promoting their products. The amount of time and effort you’re willing to put into promotion is a HUGE factor. Techniques like building an opt-in list and using email marketing to build relationships with your site visitors can catapult your earning potential.

There are a number of ways to find free affiliate programs. But if you’re just getting started, you might want to check out affiliate directories like AssociatePrograms.com and AffiliatesDirectory.com. They provide lists of credible free to join affiliate programs that have been pre-screened.

You can also sift through websites that sell products you’re interested in. They’ll tell you if they have a program they can join.

As an affiliate, you earn a commission for any sales made by people who click through from your website and purchase an affiliate product. So making money with website affiliate programs is dependent on maximizing the number of sales your site visitors make.

And in order to maximize sales, your website needs traffic — and lots of it!

Here are some techniques that will help you send visitors to your website:

Achieve a high ranking in the search engines.

Make sure your website includes keywords that target your particular market. When the search engine “spiders” come to index your site, they’ll boost your site higher in the rankings for those keywords. Ideally, you want your site to show up on the first or second page of search results.

Write short articles that will be distributed all over the Web.

All that’s required is about 400 words on a subject related to the product you are promoting. Include your byline and a link to your website at the bottom of each article, then submit them to free article directories, like EzineArticles.com.

When other site owners who are looking for content for their own sites republish your article, your name — and site link — will be propagated all over the ‘Net.

Buy pay-per-click traffic.

One of the fastest ways to drive additional traffic to your site is by advertising with pay-per-click search engines, like Google AdWords. All that means is that your link shows up in the section for paid advertisers. Then every time someone clicks on your link from a search engine results page, you pay a pre-determined amount.

Build a list of visitors’ email addresses.

This allows you to contact your visitors again with valuable information that will lure them back to your website. Or, you can even promote affiliate products directly by email.

It’s a great way to build relationships and trust, which translates into more sales over time.

Once you’ve got these tricks working for you, it is much easier to start making money online with affiliate programs.

Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Download his FREE eBook “The Affiliate Marketing Roadmap” right here http://www.moneyacces.com/freelesson/The%20Affiliate%20Marketing%20Roadmap.exe (no opt-in)