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10 Steps To Getting The Click

By Sharon Housley in Featured

There are a number of steps a webmaster can take to encourage visitors to “click” on a link or graphic located on their website. The following steps will help “get the click”…

1. Colors

Use contrasting colors for links. This makes the links easier to discern from other text on a web page. Also, avoid placing links against a patterned background, as it will make it much more difficult to read the link text. Bottom line, the link color should stand out from the rest of the web page, and be easy to locate.

2. Link Traits

Underlining is still the universal indication of a link. Using the “underline” for links will send a clear message to website visitors about which text on the webpage is just text, and which text is actually a hyper-link. And along this line of thought, you should avoid using underlining for text that is not a link, just to avoid confusion.

3. Visible

Make all the links visible. Do not hide the links or navigation on a web page. Avoid using scripting to display links, as these links will not be visible to website visitors who have turned scripting off in their browser for security reasons.

4. Textual

Text links have a higher rate of clicks than linked images. The one exception is typically a “Buy Now” button, which tends to be more effective than text-only “Buy Now” links. Keep this in mind when creating a linking scheme for your website.

5. Consistent

The location of links should be consistent as the visitor moves from page to page through your website. Do not move links around as the content of the web page changes.

6. Position

Place important links in a location that is easy for the website visitor to see without having to scroll. Position important links “above the fold” on the website.

7. Font Style & Size

In order to make links easy for the visitor to see, be sure to use a font style and size that can be easily read.

8. Graphic Links

If you use image links, the clickable graphics should be vibrant and should stand out from the other content on the page. Use bright or bold contrasting colors for the graphic. Be sure to include appropriate ALT text for each linked image, so the visitor will have an indication of the material being linked to as they move their mouse over the graphic.

9. Split-Test

Conduct split-testing by changing colors and moving links around, and then monitor and track which options and locations result in the highest number of clicks. What may seem intuitive is not always as obvious as you might think.

10. Fresh Eyes

Ask a friend or family member to navigate your website. It may surprise you to learn what they see and where they click. A fresh set of eyes will give a good indication of how others will perceive your website and the clickable content.

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Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll audio recording and editing software.

Google’s Facebook Killer

By Pace Lattin in Featured

While it hasn’t been officially announced, there are rumors that Google has started development of a Facebook alternative, which has been dubbed “GoogleMe.” While there are no official releases, I called up some of my friends in the know at Google, who confirmed with me that there have been talks and plans for a while how to compete with Facebook and now they have an official project that will destroy Facebook… or at least take a few users away from Facebook. I did a little thinking over the last day or so about this, and decided that when Google launches this, that this actually has a definite ability to be a Facebook “killer” for a variety of reasons. Read on.

Google/Apple War: What does it all mean

By Pace Lattin in Featured

For those who have been living in a cave, Google recently bought AdMob, the small but highly innovative mobile advertising company for the extremely inflated price of $750 Million. That is the gross national product of the country of Kiribati, a small country made up of a bunch of atolls. While AdMob hadn’t quite made anywhere around that amount of revenue, Google wanted to gobble it up before someone else did and to have a quick way to access the growing revenue stream available on Mobile Applicatications. Part of this strategy was to be able to access the significant population of IPHONE users. However, recently Apple came out with new developer rules that will prevent ADMob and Google Adsense from being displayed on iPhone applications… and thus a significant issue with ADMob’s revenue stream. However, perhaps things aren’t as they seem…

Let’s make this really clear, Apple is looking to break into the advertising and eventually search market. Google, as the all encompassing leader of search clearly dominates the market. However, they recently also decided to get into mobile market with the Google Android system, which while itself doesn’t make that much money for the company, the offshoots such as the product development, application development, google interfacing and even their own google nexus phone has been a significant success. In fact, according to most reputable reports, the open-source android phones are taking over as the dominant force in the market, pushing out Apple. Apple, ain’t happy about their market share being taken. They saw themselves as dominating the mobile space for a long time to come. Don’t forget also that Apple had actually wanted to buy ADMob, but the $750M price tag was way too high – they bought a competitor with just as much revenue and potential, it seems for a significantly lower price tag of $250M.

While some people might say this is a stab at Google for getting into “their business”, there is much more here than meets the eye. Apple has no reason to actually allow Google Adsense onto their applications – because they don’t make a single dollar from those ads. Since Apple is making their own system, they need to ensure that the only way to run advertising on the system is through them. It’s pretty damn simple – Google already has an extensive database of advertisers, and they would easily overshadow any attempt by Apple to compete with them even on their own platform. This wouldn’t fare very well for Apple, if in a year a report came out that not only was Google Android overtaking Apple iPhone, but that the predominate type of advertising on the IPHONE was actually Google.

What is strange about this mobile advertising war is the investment versus the actual possible revenue being made. Everyone is talking about mobile advertising on applications and application development as if it is the “end-all” of advertising and will take over advertising left and right. However, people ten years ago pushed application advertising and ad-supported applications as the method that would take over interactive advertising. Now it’s almost impossible to find any program that actually does this and the predominate type of advertising is in the browser.

I honestly think that this is a very possible future for mobile also. As mobile devices get bigger, as the web integrates with mobile more and more, there will be a growing seamless interaction between the two mediums. In fact, if you think about it, a great portion of the “internet” users are really “mobile” – laptops are a “mobile” device of sorts, and they have become smaller and smaller, while phone screens have become bigger and bigger. At some point in the near future they will meet in the middle and we will have laptop/netbooks that are nothing but combinations of mobile phones, laptops that do everything. Most people that I know who have android phones and iPhones spend quite a bit of their time, browsing the web using it as a “little computer” of sorts and see all the banner and other type of ads made specifically for the websites.

So, does this war really matter? Perhaps for the short term, but within a few years, I can’t see it will really matter except to corner a very small part of the marketshare. Mobile as separate entity, with its own features (mobile billing, mobile applications) will become part of the entire interactive, internet, web-process. No one actually believes that ADMob was worth $750M, but sees it as one chess piece in a greater strategy that both these companies have to dominate the web. This has little to do with “Mobile”.

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In perhaps the fastest growing industry ever, one person has made a name for himself as a leader and innovator. Pace Lattin, the publisher of the top newsletters in new media and online advertising, is one of the inventors of many of the technologies and methods that have become standards in the industry. He has been called many things, including a rabble-rouser, a guru, an innovator and a watchdog — but one thing stays the same: he is one of the most interesting leaders and commentators in the online advertising industry. Marketing Sherpa, a leading marketing research publication called him the most influential journalist in online media for a reason. IndustryPace.com

Common Sense Social Marketing – Social Media About to Die – Part 2

By Duncan Wierman in Featured

Social media is is being abused. What once was a new and improved way to keep in touch with your closest loved ones has become just another sales pitch to convince you to sign up to another dreadful business opportunity, newsletter, product, or service. There is no opening or closing – simply raw advertisements that lack sincerity. The people advertising their products don’t care about you or general interests. They’re too set on the idea that you’re going to sign up and turn them into a success.

What’s wrong with this picture? Could it be that the advertisements lack taste and real value, or could it be that the people who want your business care less about who you are and what you are interested in? What business entrepreneurs are forgetting is that they are on the other side of the fence of social media. They are on the advertising end, which means without a real connection to the “the people”, they are getting nowhere. At some point, a real connection needs to be established or otherwise, all efforts to make a sale or spread the word are pointless.

The truth? No one cares about you unless you care about them, particularly when it comes to social media. Let’s say that you’ve got an account with Facebook. Each day when you see those tiny red notifications, you’re dead sure that they signify a message from your friends or family. Unfortunately, you open your in-box and all you see are loud advertisements. What do you do? You delete them, and you do so automatically without any interest whatsoever about what they say.

Advertising gurus are no longer “gurus”, they are simply annoying spammers who have no clue what they are doing. Business owners are missing the point. If their emails are getting read, it’s only by other advertisers just so they can compare tactics and techniques. Another sad part of it all is that no one is coming up with new techniques. Everyone is following someone who they think is successful, but in reality, no one is making any money because of their lack of effort and knowledge.

If you haven’t noticed (and you most likely have), all online entrepreneurs go about advertising their businesses in the same way. First, they request you as a friend or become a follower (Twitter). Some of them may greet you with a “thanks for the request” or some other similar phrase, while others jump straight to the point and start bombarding you with their “winning” sales pitch. Who are you more likely to communicate with? Nothing screams “delete” louder and faster than a sales pitch.

Some of the “thanks for the request” people might actually make it, as long as they don’t jump the gun too quickly. Unfortunately, the majority of them end it right there and automatically go on a link-posting frenzy, and immediately begin flooding your in-box with details about their products with no mention of how they might benefit you individually. It’s almost as if they are “demanding” that you purchase from them without any clear reason as to why.

On the other hand, some people are making sales. They are the one’s who take their time in getting to know people. They ask questions and take a true interest in their prospects. Developing customer relationships is the most important part of advertising on social media because in the real world, customer relationships are a must.

It helps to wear the shoe on the other foot. Picture walking into a store with workers that aren’t friendly and don’t seem to have your interest anywhere in their top priorities. They are anxious for you to buy something and that is it. They don’t care what you buy or why, they just want your money. When you leave, they want you to come back over and over, even if you’re not interested in what they’ve got. It’s a horrible experience for both you and them.

When you look at it from a different prospective, it helps to see why social media is dying. What people want is warmth and a display of interest in who they are, not lousy sales pitches. As soon as business professionals establish a connection, then they might have a chance, but until then, it’s best to just stick to more familiar means of advertisement and leave social media to what it was always meant for.

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Duncan Wierman is an Ex Software company CEO turned Real Estate Investor and Internet Marketer. Duncan teaches how real estate agents and investors can take their business to new levels using creating marketing methods to promote their business and get more leads. Get your free 14 day internet marketing e-course at : www.duncanwierman.com

Five Tips To Increase Your Backlinks

By Derek J in Featured

Getting a top position in the search engines is no easy task. The key to achieving this is constantly building links to your site – here are five simple strategies…

Put Pen to Paper

Whatever industry or niche you’re in, you should have an above average knowledge of that topic, so put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) and write some informative short articles (300 – 500 words) that would appeal to your target market. You can either syndicate these articles through article directories, or head to the publishers and try to get them published on high ranking sites. Doing both is always a good idea. Every time your article gets published, you score free links – so get going now!

Social-ize…

Explore the realm of social bookmarking and get your links featured on as many social networks are possible. The potential for a viral linking explosion is huge in any social network, so work on a good value offer to promote to these networks (something free and useful).

Break Into the Forum Community

By registering on, and actively participating in forums that are relevant to your niche, you can quickly build up the number of backlinks to your website using your signature file (provided that they allow this and that the links are “dofollow”). Whilst the “SEO weight” of these links is debatable, you still get the benefit of publicity and who knows, you could learn a thing or two whilst online! A word of warning though – don’t spam the forums with rubbish comments purely to score backlinks to your site – you’ll get kicked out pretty quickly.

Follow Some Blogs

Blog commenting is quite a popular link building technique in the SEO community. You simply follow some popular blogs in your niche or industry, and provide constructive comment where suitable, leaving your link in the comment. Make sure that the blogs are “dofollow” type, as the “nofollow” ones are useless.

Differentiate or Die

This classic business phrase has a slightly different meaning in terms of link building. When building links (whatever method you may use), always try to differentiate your anchor text used across the web – at least to a certain degree. Having identical links and anchor text all over the web is likely to raise a brow with the search engines.

Most importantly, commit to the journey of link building.

The best link building strategy is a long term, consistent one. Set a target for how many links you want to build monthly, and aim to achieve this amount every month. Be patient and have a little faith – your hard work will be rewarded.

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By Derek Jansen, author of the Free SEO Basics Course. Download your free course @ www.seobasicscourse.com.

Using WordPress Express To Create Blog Websites

By Ian Vremec in Featured

There is one common obstacle people face when deciding to start working from home using an internet, lack of knowledge and money. In order to start an online business you must set up your own website and this might turn out as a costly investment. This is where a WordPress Express blog comes in!

Considering the fact you are on a low budget and probably with no or some experience to use the blog as your website is a perfect starting point.

In this article, I will explain some crucial reasons for using a blog as your website. A blog enables you to start earning money online quickly. The moment you set your blog up you can start to advertise whatever you choose to promote. You get paid a commission whenever visitors to your website click the affiliate link and purchase a product through your blog.

Getting started with a blog ask for less time and financial resources than having your website built. I strongly advise to use WordPress Express to build your blog websites because it comes with hosting unlimited domains and educational program within all necessary tools, like article writer, keyword research tool, a niche research tool and more, in order to create successful marketing campaigns.

And with the help of community starting a blog is much easier and everyone can do it. You do not need some special technical skills in order to use WordPress Express. You can do everything yourself. On the other hand, when creating a website some technical knowledge is required, or you can outsource someone to set it up for you.

Another advantage of using a blog as a website is that you do not need to spend a lot of money in advertising. To blog is much easier to drive a targeted traffic in comparison to a website. Performing proper keyword research in order to utilize targeted keyword phrases and constantly adding quality content to your blog, you will get indexed quickly, and the traffic will arise.

You can have fun while running a blog. If you like what you are writing about blogging becomes fun and easy. Whenever you choose to start in the niche that it is easy for you to focus on then the work demanded to operate, blogging often, will not become a bargain to you, and the success is inevitable.

Using WordPress Express to create blog websites is a considerable option for those who are starting their online home based business, but have short financial resources and a lack of knowledge.

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When you are searching all over the net you discover that almost everywhere persuades you that THEY have everything YOU need. Ian Vremec operates in an environment where you can focus on what you really need. To find out more go to: www.worpressexpresssite.com.

Top Ten Reasons Your Business Should Utilize Facebook

By Forrest Yingling in Featured

1. There are over 400 million active Facebook users and over 50% of the users login everyday.  This means there is a huge, global audience to market your company to.

2. Facebook is a great place to distribute information about your company including events, photographs, videos, articles, blog posts as well as your business hours and contact information.

3. Social networking sites like Facebook allow you to connect with your customers on a personal level.

4. You can use the discussions feature to create surveys, ask questions and gather valuable information from your customers.

5. Having a Facebook page will give you a stronger presence with the search engines, especially with Google’s new social search function.

6. The Facebook Fan Box is a powerful tool that you can place on your blog, website, YouTube page or even your email newsletter that allows visitors to see your company’s Facebook page and even become a fan without ever leaving your site.

7. Facebook Connect allows users from a multitude of sites to access and post information to Facebook without leaving the site they are visiting, such as eBay, Etsy and all the major social bookmarking sites.  If someone sees a product they like or reads an interesting article, they can easily post it to their Facebook profiles.

8. 20 million people become fans of Facebook Pages each day and more than 1.5 million local businesses have Facebook Pages.  Your competition most likely has a Facebook page and you do not want to fall behind this important way to build your business.

9. As Facebook Mobile grows in popularity, more and more people are spending time on Facebook since they do not have to be at a computer and can access the site from anywhere in the world at anytime.

10. Facebook is growing internationally so you can easily target those in other countries and add international customers to your demographic.

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Forrest Yingling is the Marketing Director for WebNet Hosting, Premier Partner Miva Host since 2004.  WebNet Hosting provides fully PCI Compliant Miva Hosting with 100% up-time as well as e-commerce solutions and basic web hosting.

One-Third of All US on Facebook, Yet Users are Worthless?

By Pace Lattin in Featured

First of all, I don’t hate Facebook anymore than I dislike any internet fad. One of my 30,000 readers asked me why I always write negative things about Facebook. First of all this isn’t quite true, since I’ve written a few articles about how to make money on Facebook and the top ads on Facebook. I just like to question what is going on, look beyond the headlines and the spin.

So, in that light, I want to examine the numbers: According to Comscore, in June, over 130 Million people within the US used Facebook. This is about one third of the population of the US that uses Facebook – some of them day after day, many times a day, making it one of the most popular media sources ever in the history of the world. However, despite this, Facebook may only make $1 Billion this next year, even with expected growth. This may seem like a lot money, but it’s actually not – and I know why.

Using Articles To Build URL Backlinks

By Brad James in Featured

If you’ve got an internet business and interested in making more revenues, URL backlinks may be the secret to your success. Before anything else, what are URL backlinks?

Essentially, these are hyperlinks from other sites that point back to your site or blog. Because of backlinks, other people’s sites are going to be connected to your own. This short article presents the importance of inbound links for your online business and in what way article marketing can help you create backlinks.

It’s recommended that you receive in-links from first-rate web pages because these would boost your site’s ratings. A good illustration of a top-notch web page is authority websites. Authority sites contain plenty of content and people frequently visit these websites when they look for certain information. Needless to say, it is difficult, if not impossible, to challenge authority websites, so you should rely on them in order to pull in more page views and have more earnings.

You might be anxious to know exactly how you can achieve this without shelling out lots of money. Have you heard about article marketing? If you haven’t, then you are totally missing out on an excellent opportunity. Article marketing is a zero-cost as well as effective strategy to let everyone know about your web page, services and products. It involves the production and also submission of content pieces to various article directory websites to publicize your internet business. Unlike other tactics, you won’t waste your time and money with article marketing. As expected, there are some qualifications that you need to adhere to in order for this to be conceivable.

To begin with, this particular method is cost-free so long as you craft your articles yourself. If you choose to write your articles all on your own, be prepared to devote a great deal of time doing it. What you should do is to implement a schedule for content creation; this is important since you also require time to handle the other elements of your internet business. You should reserve a specific number of hours to craft your content pieces, and you should abide by that schedule without fail. You’ll need many content pieces on a single theme in order to be effective, and you can’t go around this requirement.

This might appear to be an unattainable task for many web-based business operators, including yourself. If you have no time to carry this out on a regular basis or do not have the self-assurance to craft impressive content pieces, you could give this certain activity to independent content writers or content creation services. Their rates are tremendously lower than those of regular ghostwriters, and they can create a significant amount of write-ups in a short time. It’s important that you contract skillful, experienced and also dependable copy writers to write your content pieces; the popularity as well as level of traffic that your site will have would rely on them, so make certain that you engage folks who really know what they are doing.

Each time your articles are posted on the web, your website or blog brings in more publicity. The link that you include at the conclusion of your content pieces would serve as a mini-advertisement for your online business. Article submission websites do not charge you whenever you put in incoming links for your site, so it is a win-win situation: you receive more publicity, page views and profits while article directory sites would have more users for their service.

You’re free to send as much write-ups as you wish. In fact, sending many content pieces is highly encouraged. Just make certain that you abide by each and every online directory’s author as well as sending protocols, peruse their list of frequently asked questions and stay away from trouble. Otherwise, your account is going to be suspended and your content pieces would not be posted. As with everything, you have to get used to the different policies, but the whole routine becomes simple after a few submissions along with a brief adjustment period.

If you are not employing article promotion to create URL backlinks, then you’re surely missing out. Why do you think there are countless write-ups in all those article directories? The answer’s obvious: most of the articles posted there are done by internet marketers. When you implement article promotion, you will see why many folks depend on this strategy to generate URL backlinks.

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The search engines thrive on content and backlinks. Without building automatic backlinks your site is dead! Learn how you can promote your website and build backlinks fast by getting your FREE Marketing Report at www.UniqueArticleWizard.com

Why Your Legitimate Online Businesses Websites Need to be Self-Hosted

By Michelle Jayes in Featured

To establish a presence on the web it is vitally important that your legitimate online businesses websites are maintained. Unfortunately there are many small businesses who don’t realize the necessity of having self-hosted websites and they tend to use the free alternatives instead.

So let’s take a look at why self-hosting websites are so much better for establishing your own online presence.

1. You Get Your Own Domain!

With free hosting you do not get to use your own domain and owning your own domain is vital in establishing a good web presence. Some of the reasons why this is so are; you don’t ever need to worry about the content on your website where as when using free hosting, if they stop operating for any reason at all or go out of business you will lose everything on your site.

They also have the right to dictate what you put on your website and this includes the advertisements, plus they can put their own ads on your website and they don’t need your permission to do it. When the ownership of your domain name is yours then you have total control over where people can find your website.

2. Freedom of Functionality.

When using self-hosting the choice of software is yours alone and that means that you can make the decision about what type of software will best serve your needs. This includes the kind of software you choose to use on your blog to connect to possible customers through social media. With free hosting you do not get this choice.

To have the flexibility to run your legitimate online businesses the way you want, never even consider using free hosting, in fact you need to ascertain that the paid hosting company you decide on is of good quality if you wish to have flexibility with the way you operate.

3. Your Online Businesses will look more Professional.

If you expect people to take both you and your online businesses seriously then YOU must also take your business seriously. When you use free hosting what you are saying to anyone who visits your website is that it really is not worth their time. Free website hosting companies are using your website to advertise their own products and this will automatically detract from your own business opportunities.

Once people leave your website chances are pretty good that they are not going to return to take advantage of any of your services or products that you have on offer.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, everything we have discussed up to this point comes down to one thing – Control.

Why would you want any other company to have control over your legitimate online businesses website? Self hosting not only gives your website a more professional look but it also allows you to make your own choices to create the website exactly as you want it to be.

Unless you are willing to treat your business seriously don’t expect that anyone else will do so. Free hosting will never give you the same advantages that self hosting will and in order to brand yourself and your online businesses you must have a professional and flexible website.

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For more information and advice on building successful legitimate online businesses Michelle Jayes invites you to visit her online income opportunities website www.online-income-business.com.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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