7 Powerful Keyword Marketing Tools

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If you are among those who are trying to earn a full-time online income (or one of the lucky ones who are already doing it) you will probably have noticed that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, primarily Google.

That statement has to be refined even further: it is all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of search engine results pagaes (SERPs) since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing.

If you are targeting extremely competitive and profitable keywords you will have your work cut out for you; unless you have tons of money to buy your way (i.e.: links) into the top spots, expect to spend months, if not years, getting to those coveted top listings. Google does not like link buying and has taken steps to fight it, but this practice is still widespread throughout the web.

Most beginning and honest webmasters want to take the proper route and earn those top rankings by providing good quality content that web users will actually find helpful and useful. They build those links the natural way by offering viral link bait in the form of videos, ebooks, articles, reports...all branded with backlinks to their sites.

Over time, these links will build up and your keyword rankings will go up in the search engines. People will find your content and bookmark it in social bookmark sites like Digg, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon... and your rankings will climb even faster.

However, since keyword marketing has become extremely competitive, you do need a little help with achieving those top rankings. Over the last couple of years I have tested and used many keyword tools and I have listed some of the best ones below. (Just Google to find links to these tools and programs.)

Internet Success Spider

One of the first keyword tools I ever used was The Internet Success Spider by Neil Shearing which is now available for free. The Internet Success Spider is a very simple, yet powerful keyword tool that shows you the major players in your keyword niche. It slowly works in the background to give you valuable information on your keywords. I realized very quickly, with marketing (like most things in life) that information is what separates the losers from the winners. Note: You have to sign up if you want to use this tool.

Keyword Elite

A little later, I tried and am still using Keyword Elite by Brad Callen. It is easy to use and remains one of the best keyword research tools on the market.

Brad Callen simply creates some of the best marketing tools for online webmasters and marketers. Keyword Elite is no exception. It will do some very comprehensive keyword research for you and let you easily arrange that information. Keyword Elite has earned a well deserved reputation as a very useful marketing tool.

Brainstorm It - Site Build It

Another, perhaps even more powerful keyword tool is Brainstorm It! which is offered through the Site Build It marketing/hosting system run by Ken Evoy. This is a powerful keyword analyzer and finder, which is currently in its third version.

Site Build It creates many tools for webmasters, and Brainstorm It Version 3 is simply one of the best. This keyword tool will do both Vertical and Lateral keyword research to give the most comprehensive array of information for your marketing online. Only drawback, you only get so many Wordtracker credits and you have to pay extra when those run out. Actually, Wordtracker should be at the top of any keyword tool list, but most people use it in conjunction with other programs like Brainstorm It.

Google Keyword Tool

Then again, there is Google's very own keyword system run through its AdWords program. Like everything Google does, this keyword tool can be very helpful especially for the novice online marketer.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

MSN Commercial Intention Of Keywords

Not to be outdone, another helpful tool is Microsoft's Online Commercial Intention tool, which tells the probability your chosen keyword has a commercial value to it:

http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx

SEOBook Online Keyword Tool

For very quick keyword references, I like using the keyword tool on Aaron Wall's SEOBook site. It is quick and prvides very good stats for your chosen keywords.

SEOQuake

Yet another SEO (sort of related to keywords) is the SeoQuake Toolbar which you can run on Firefox. It will slow down your browser but it will cough up valuable information about your site and more importantly, it will give you valuable information on your competitors' sites. One feature that I find very helpful is the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Rank and SEM Price, which tells you how much your Search Engine keyword traffic is worth.

Plus, you must not ignore your website stats and traffic logs for they can supply you with the most valuable keyword information regarding your site. Closely examine which keyword phrases are bringing in the traffic and/or sales. Develop these keywords with your marketing, especially any “long tail” keyword phrases visitors are using to find your site or products. These longer keyword phrases have proven to be the most profitable because many times consumers using these phrases already have their minds made up on what they are going to buy.

Why Should You Be Using All These Keyword Tools?

Simply because obtaining and keeping top rankings for your chosen keywords makes your livelihood. Unless you can keep that focused traffic coming from these keywords via the search engines, it is game over. Therefore, you should use all the tools and information you can gather in order to keep those keywords at the top.

Google is changing all the time, you really have to stay on your game if you want to keep your keywords at the top. It all boils down to producing quality content web surfers need and want. The SEO pretty much takes care of itself as long as you keep promoting your keywords with good viral branded content like videos, articles, ebooks, PDF reports... and you must mix up your online link building to include links from such places as Facebook, Digg, Google Bookmarks, MySpace... I have always used the free “AddThis” button to all my important content and this has resulted in 100's of free links that your visitors will build for you!

I also believe you have to be careful when using viral articles to vary your anchor text (clickable part of a link) so that you do not have the same keyword phrase repeated 100's of times across the web. Just use different versions of your keyword phrase and if you can, get those keyword links in the body of the article, as near to the top of the page as you can. This will make your link building look much more natural in the eyes of the search engines, especially Google.

Overall, you need to have hundreds, if not thousands of keywords that you aretargeting with your marketing. You must constantly keep building links for those keywords from related sites on the web. Sometimes it is helpful to truly view your keywords as organic, something that keeps growing naturally on its own. But you must first build a solid foundation with good quality content and then keep nurturing those keywords with good quality link bait so that others will bookmark, recommend and link to your keyword content.

Over the years, if there is anything I have learned about keywords which always holds true, it is this: you must be persistent. You must keep at it: building links, building content... it will usually take months, if not years, to get those top rankings for very competitive keywords and it will take some further work to consistently keep those keywords in the top positions. But you will quickly learn keywords are well worth it since they can easily make or break your marketing.

Good luck!

 

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How to Control search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings

5 Free Google Tools for Researching Your Market

Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,pagerank,keywords,webmaster tools

First Steps in SEO: Sitemaps

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Creating an HTML sitemap and a XML sitemap for your website could be the easiest thing you do to improve your exposure on the web. For those among you who pay close attention to the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site, this could be the one thing that gets you onto the first page of Google´s search results. For those who do not devote a lot of time on the SEO of their site - this is probably the best place to start. By submittíng a sitemap to various search engines, you are telling them that you exist and what pages your site has to offer the World Wide Web.

There are two types of sitemaps: HTML and XML. An HTML sitemap provides a useful directory of all the pages that are in your site. XML sitemaps on the other hand play an important role in helping the search engines “crawl” the various pages of your site. This introductory article discusses the benefit of creating both an HTML sitemap and XML sitemap, and how you can go about creating them using a sitemap generator.

HTML Sitemaps

An HTML sitemap is a single HTML page that contains links to all the pages of your website. Normally, this is accessible via a link in your site footer, where it will be displayed on every page. With large sites, it is easy to get lost and struggle to find the page you are looking for. With a well organized HTML sitemap, visitors to your site will be able to use it to easily find the page they are looking for.

From an SEO perspective, as the search engine's robot (or spider) crawls your site indexing pages, it may find some pages on your site with greater ease using this sitemap, rather than through the general navigation. Therefore, sitemaps can benefit your site visitors and even play a role in enhancing your exposure on the web.

Take a look at WebAssist's sitemap to get an idea of what an HTML sitemap looks like. Notice that each page on the WebAssist website contains a link to this page in the footer.

XML Sitemaps

While HTML sitemaps are designed to benefit your human site visitors, XML sitemaps are created specifically for the search engines. All of the most popular search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com utilize XML sitemaps as part of their process for indexing the pages of a website. A good XML sitemap will tell the search engine what pages are in your site, how often those pages are updated, and when they were last modified. This way, the search engines know which pages to revisit more regularly, and are likely to do a better job of indexing them. Here is an example of the XML you might include in your XML sitemap:

<url>

<loc>yoursitedomain/index.htm</loc>

<lastmod>2009-03-05</lastmod>

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

<priority>1.0</priority>

</url>

Notice that for the index.htm page of this website, I have provided details regarding the last modified date (<lastmod>), the frequency of updartes to this page (<changefreq>), and the priority of this page in relation to the other pages of the site (<priority>). By providing this information to the search engine as accurately as possible, they will be better equipped to index your site, and give the most important pages the appropriate attention.

TIP: Be honest about the information you provide in your sitemap(s). If a search engine finds that you are not updating your site as often as your sitemap suggests, they may come back less often.

Creating HTML and XML Sitemaps

Creating HTML sitemaps is as easy as creating a basic HTML page that contains links to all the pages in your site. However, you need to keep in mind that whenever you create new pages in your site, you will want to add those links to the sitemap as well.

Creating XML sitemaps manually can be quite a time consuming process. However, there are many great sitemap generators out there to help you automate this. If you google "sitemap generator" you will find that there are a quite a few free as well as paid sitemap tools that you can use.

How Often Should I Submit My Sitemap?

You should be in the habit of submittíng a sitemap to search engines a number of times a year. This allows you to update the search engine on any new pages in your site. If you create new pages on a regular basis, you may want to submit your sitemap more frequently.

Conclusion

Both HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps are a good step in the right direction to improve the exposure of your website. You will most likely find a rise inyour search engine rankings after submitting a sitemap for the first time. However, keep in mind that this is only one part of search engine optimization, and there is a lot more you can do to improve how search engines rank the pages on your site and your website's discoverability.

Good luck!

 

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Criteria for Successful Web Design

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,sitemaps,html sitemap,xml sitemap,search engine optimization

5 Free Google Tools for Researching Your Market

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Internet marketers, webmasters and online businesses have always had a love / hate relationship with Google. Whatever you may think of them, they do provide website owners with some great market research tools.

No matter what market you are in or plan to be in, you will find the following free tools provided by Google very useful when researching your market. One word of advice: You should be researching your market constantly, NOT just when setting up your site. The internet is ever changing, and if you are not keeping up with those changes you will be left behind.

Market Research Tool 1 - Related Searches and Wonder Wheel

When you start typing in the main Google search box you should see a drop down box appear showing you some alternative search terms related to the word you just typed. Note these phrases down in a Notepad file or write them on a piece of paper. They will be useful as part of your keyword list used in the next tool. You will also see more related search phrases after you click search. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and you will see “searches related to”. Write down any new phrases shown there.

Recently, Google has released Wonder Wheel which is also a related keywords tool but is shown in a mind map format. You can also click on the related phrases to find more useful search terms. To access wonder wheel: enter your keyword in the standard search screen, then at the top of the results on the left you should see a show options link. Select that and it will reveal a menu. Near the bottom of the menu you should see wonder wheel.

Market Research Tool 2 - AdWords Keyword Tool

We all know how important keywords and search phrases are. Let's face it, it is what drives the Internet. Google has provided us with a tool that tells you what keywords and phrases people are using to find what they are looking for. You are able to search an individual country, more than one if you hold down the ctrl key on your keyboard as you select, or all countries.

The AdWords tool is now more valuable due to the fact it shows actual search numbers. Previously you only had a green bar to indicate how much traffic the search term receíved. You can also see how competitive each keyword is amongst AdWords advertisers, showing you which keywords are commercially most viable.

Market Research Tool 3 - Google Trends

Now that you have an idea what keywords and long tailed search phrases your market is using you can use the Trends tool to check the history of that keyword / phrase. Google Trends supplies data for the last 5 years, thereby giving you an idea if the search term is consistent. You can also see if the search term is especially popular at certain times of the year, also known as a seasonal keyword.

Another important function of Trends is the section that tells you the popularity of a keyword by country, city and language - very useful if you are targeting particular countries or even cities.

Market Research Tool 4 - Google Alerts

Alerts is incredibly underused by webmasters. If you want to stay in touch with what is hot in your market, you easily can by using Google Alerts. All you have to do is enter the most popular phrases in your market. Google will then send you links via email depending on what type you select.

The types are news, web, blogs, video and groups. If you would like a mix of all, you can select comprehensive. You can decide how often you want to be updated by selecting either: as it happens, once a day, or once a week. I hope you can see how powerful this is if you want to be seen as an authority in your market.

Market Research Tool 5 - Google Web Search

Finally, we have Google´s standard web search which is not standard in my eyes. It provides a lot of information if you know what to look for. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of running a website. By performing a search of your market keywords, Google will tell you what type of content it sees as important.

If you see videos, blogs or images, this gives you another way to reach the top 10 of Google´s search results. If you see Web 2.0 style sites such as Digg, that could be another avenue. If there are AdWords ads on the right side of the screen, that tells you the market is commercially viable and more importantly that the keyword you entered is good enough to pay for, especially if there are 10 ads or more.

As you can see, even if you do not have money to buy the latest tools, there is a way to get some very important information using free tools courtesy of Google. Are you starting to feel alittle love for them now?

Good luck!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: market research,google tools,webmaster tools,internet marketing

Criteria for Successful Website Design

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I do not think you should start the design of a new or revised website by sitting down with the designer and coder of the website. Rather, I recommend you review the approaches, ideas, processes and other methods listed in this article to determine if they apply to your situation.

Think about your audience. Are they looking for immediate answers and solutions? I bet they are. Most likely the visitors to your website are very much like you. Chances are you use the Internet more than other types of media to search for information. If a web page does not “grab your interest” within 5 - 10 seconds after landing on it - you move on!

As a “first step” I suggest that you start by reviewing the questions listed below. I am certain that once you get to the last question you will have accumulated a list of action items that will greatly improve the overall quality of your current website. The success or failure of your site and/or business may very well depend upon the decisions you make after reading these questions and giving them a little thought.

What Do You Know About Your Clients´ and Prospects´ State of Mind?

When visitors land on your website they have very little time to read what you want to tell them. They have a need for information or a product and do not want to listen to or read wordy descriptions and comments. You have between 5 - 10 seconds to engage them and get them to take action. What is it that most visitors landing on your website want? Is it:

1. information,
2. a “quick fix”,
3. a bargain,
4. a large selection,
5. a telephone call,
6. or something else?

It is imperative to know the answers to these and many other questions BEFORE you design the pages within your website (or have them designed).

Do You Make Website Visitors Feel Like You Can Satisfy Their Wants and Needs?

Landing on any page within your website (but especially the Homepage) must make your visitors know that you understand their needs, desires, wants, and business. The more you put yourself into the mindse of the prospective visitors to your website, the better your chances of converting their visit into something you want to happen i.e. buy, complete a contact form (opt-in form), bookmark the page, pick up the phone and call you or any other method of measurable conversion.

What Approach Do You Take When Developing Pages Within Your Website?

What do you think you would want from your website if you were the prospective visitor or client? Assume you do not know as much as you want and need to in order to make an informed decision. Talk to your visitors in a language they will understand. If visitors want more insight or information, tell them to click on the more info link or give you a call. But keep in mind that they will follow your direction ONLY if you have built some level of trust or understanding.

What are You "Selling" to the Visitors of Your Website?

Are you focused on telling them about your product or service, or are you making them understand that choosing your firm will deliver that special feeling they are seeking by making the purchase? Are you sure that you communicated to the visitors that you understand their needs, wants, problems, etc.? What techniques did you implement to get your points across?

How are You Going to Get Your Visitors to Stay and Think About Your Service or Product?

Remember - they are ready to pass by your website in a blink of an eye. What are you going to do to engage them? The answer you come up with will be critical to the success you have in gaining their confidence enough to buy your product(s) or call you, etc. Make sure what you say is NOT the same old thing they are used to seeing or reading on every other website. Be boring and you lose! Address the issues that appeal to your visitors and they WILL STAY ON YOUR SITE! This is hard work – but well worth the effort.

What Kind of “Call to Action” Statements are You Placing on Your Website?

Turning a visitor into a prospect or client is one of the most critical actions of your website. How will you engage them? Once they know that you understand their needs and wants, they are more inclined to follow your CTA direction. Call to Action statements are critical to the success of any website's conversion. Guide them in a manner that is more telling, rather than just selling. Do not be afraid to be assertive.

How Does Your Website Address the “Who Are We” Issue?

Again, it is about making the website visitors feel confident that they are choosing a reputable firm or organization with which to do business. They need to read about your success. This can be done by exhibiting your affiliation with associations, awards won, satisfied client statements, client success stories, examples of your work, etc. Show them you are a “player” in your industry/expert in your field.

Are You Prepared to Answer: "What Makes You Different"?

What have clients and prospects said about you and your company? Have they applauded you for your approach to doing business? Did they say you made them feel like you understood their needs and wants? Think back to the reasons clients buy from you. How did you meet their needs and wants? Give your prospective clients reasons to do business with your firm.

A final thought...

Make it your primary goal to understand your potential clients. Look at your website from the client´s perspective. Who are they? What makes them different? What do they individually want and need? Provide information - do more telling than selling. They will “get it” and appreciate that you have made them educated buyers/ well informed visitors. Finally, tell them what you want them to do next. Get them to take the first step and be ready to deliver on the expectations you have set throughout your website!

Finally, do not be afraid to hire Internet marketing professionals to do the job if you feel that you cannot handle it by yourself. Too much is at stake to leave this part of your business to chance!

 

Related article:

How to Make Your Website Successful

 

 

Technorati-Tags: web design,successful website,more traffic,layout

How to Make Your Website Successful

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When trying to make it on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can further your bloog´s or website´s success. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites do not automatically become successful, nor do they make sales. There is much more to creating a quality blog or website. To make a blog or website successful, you must create content that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase, or just visiting again.

1. Selecting a Niche

The first step towards making a website successful lies in targeting it for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about cars, everything within your website should relate to cars.

2. Selecting a Keyword Phrase

You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase consists of two or more words that best describe the specific webpage. For example, if your webpage is about ‘repairing transmissions’, your best keyword phrase would be ‘transmission repair’. You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage (approximately once every 80 – 100 words), as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is maybe the most important step on your way to making your blog or website successful.

3. Using HTML Heading Tags

When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use the HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text displayed with heading tags.

As the default text for the H1 heading tag is very large, you may want to use CSS style sheets to display the heading tags in the font style and size you prefer.

4. Using META Tags Within a Webpage

Another step to help make a website successful is to include META tags between the HEAD (<head> and </head> respectively) tags of your webpage. META tags help the search engines to find out what keywords are relevant to the webpage. They are also used to tell the search engines what the webpage is about (description tags). Most search engines will display this description within their search results.

5. Backgrounds and Text

It is always best to display a webpage with a white background and black text, as this will make the text easy to read. Distracting backgrounds will make the text hard to read. A good rule of thumb is to just use common sense and keep your website simple. This alone is a great way to help make a website successful.

6. Animated Graphics

If you are using animated graphics, it is important that you use them sparingly. Graphics that continually flash are VERY annoying and may prevent your visitors from returning to your site in the future.

7. Navigational Links

It is very important to include good navigational links on every page. They should be displayed at the top, bottom, left or right side of your webpage. In addition, your visitors should be able to get to any webpage within your website within four clicks.

8. Webpage Layout

Always be consistent with the design of your website. This is a very important if you want to make your website successful. The layout for each and every page of your website should be the same. If you make it different, your visitors will become confused. In addition, it will make your website appear to be unprofessional. Your website design should include the same layout, logo, and navigation setup on each page.

9. Spelling and Grammar

Always make sure you proof read and spell check your webpages and blog posts for errors before publishing them. It is also very important that your webpage does not have any broken images or links.

10. Important Webpages

When you launch your website, it is very important that you include the following webpages:

About - The ‘About’ page is used to tell your visitors about you and/or your companyand/or the site´s goals.

Privacy - The ‘Privacy’ page is used to let your visitors know what you do with their personal information, such as their email address.

Terms and Conditions - The ‘Terms and Conditions’ page should be displayed on your website for your own protection.

Site Map - A ‘Site Map’ is used to help the search engines index your website more easily as well as more correctly.

You can learn more about all of these pages by doing a little research on the web. They are very important and will help make a website successful.

11. Website Interactivity

Another way to make a website successful is providing interactivity. This can be done by including a targeted forum that complements your website, a form in which your visitors can subscribe to an ezine, a feedback form to enable them to give their opinion, or an informative blog in which visitors can comment.

12. Web Browsers and Screen Resolutions

When you begin designing your webpage, it is HIGHLY recommended that you install the most popular web browsers on your computer. This will enable you to see how your website will display in different browsers. You will find that your website may look great in one browser and horrible in another. It would be wise to design your website to display properly in Internet Explorer, and then it should display properly in Firefox, Opera, etc.

It is also important that you view your website through different screen resolutions. You can either open your webpage in your browser and then change your computer's screen resolution, or there are website's online that you can visit, such as Any Browser, to test your website.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you can make a website successful in no time.

 

 

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Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: successful website,seo,more traffic,search engine optimization,search engine friendly,website design,layout,meta tags

How to Control Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings

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In order to get your blog or website listed at the top of the search engines keyword search rankings you need to gain a deeper understanding of the search engine spiders that crawl over your website. After all, these spiders determine the relevance of your website and decide where your site or web pages will land in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Therefore, by learning how to control the direction of the spiders, you can be certain your website will rise in rankings.

Gaining Control with the Help of Robots.txt

You may think that gaining control of search engine spiders is an impossible task, but it is actually quite easy: all you need to do is take advantage of a handy little tool called the robots.txt file. With the robots.txt file, you can give the spiders the direction they need to locate the most important pages on your website while preventing them from wasting time on the more obscure pages such as your About Us and Privacy Policy pages. After all, these pages will not do much to increase your search engine ranking and will not help your target market find your website, so why should the spiders waste their time exploring these pages when in the process of ranking your site?

Another positive aspect of using a robot.txt file is the fact that it prevents the spiders from indexing duplicate pages. This is beneficial because having duplicate content may actually reduce your search engine ranking. So, while you are making changes to your website or working on an area that is not fully developed yet, you can instruct the spiders to leave those pages alone until you are ready to have them crawled. The same is true if you have a blog (or a blog on your website), as a blog post created in WordPress (or on Blogger, Typepad, etc.) will show up in the main post page, in an archive page, in a category page and as a tag page. With the help of the robots.txt tool you can instruct the spiders to look only at the main post page.

In using the robot.txt files, you can tell the search engine spiders which pages they should and should not search through and index. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the robots.txt tool is meant to be used to prevent search engine spiders from searching certain pages. Therefore, you will only need to use it on those pages you do not want the spiders to crawl.

Implementing the Robots.txt Tool

To successfully use the robots.txt tool, you first need to determine which pages you do not want the spiders to search. Then slowly begin making the changes to your site. By using the tool on only a couple of pages at a time, it will be easier for you to identify mistakes that you may have made during the process.

To make your changes, you will need to add the robots.txt file to the root directory of your domain or to your subdomains. Adding it to your subdirectories will not work. For example, you may add the robots.txt file to a url such as

http://domain.com/robots.txt

or to

http://privacypolicy.domain.com/robots.txt

But, adding it to a subdirectory such as

http://www.domain.com/privacypolicy/robots.text

will not work. With just one robots.txt file within your root directory, you can manage your entire site. If you have subdomains, however, you will need a robots.txt file for each one that you need to manage. You will also need separate robots.txt files for your secure (https) and nonsecure (http) pages.

Creating a Robots.txt File

Creating a robots.txt file is relatively easy, as you only need to name your text file robots.txt within any text editor, such as Textpad, NotePad or Apple TextEdit. Your robots.txt file only needs to contain two lines in order to be effective. If you wanted to stop the spiders from searching the archives of the blog on your site, for example, you would add the following to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: * Disallow: /archives/

The “User-agent” line is used to define which search engine spiders you want to have blocked. By placing the asterisk (*) here, you are instructing all search engine spiders to avoid the specified pages. You can, however, target specific search engine spiders by replacing the asterisk with the following codes:

Google – Googlebot

Yahoo – Slurp

Microsoft – msnbot

Ask – Teoma

The “Disallow” line specifies which part of the site you want the spiders to ignore. For instance, if you want the spiders to ignore the categories portion of your blog, you would replace “archives” with “category” and so on. If you wanted to instruct the spiders to ignore multiple sections, you would simply add a new “Disallow” line for each area you want to be ignored. Just as you can name specific areas that you want the spiders to avoid, you can also list specific areas that you want specific spiders to view. For example, while you may want most spiders to avoid a specific area, you may want the MSN mediabot, Google image bot or Google AdWords bot to visit those areas. In this case, you can use the asterisk to instruct all search engines to avoid the area while instructing a specific spider to allow the same area. If you want Google’s AdSense bot to access a folder, for instance, you would create the following command:

User-agent: * Disallow: /folder/

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google Allow: /folder/

You can also use your robots.txt files to prevent dynamic URLs from being indexed by the search engine spiders. You can accomplish this with the following template:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*&

With this command, you are instructing the spiders to index only one of the URLs that matches the parameters you have set. For example, if you had the following dynamic URLs:

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS&SRCH=tr

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS&vr=1

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS

your robots.txt instructions will tell the spiders to list only the third example because it will disallow any URLs that start with a forward slash (/) and contain the & symbol. You can use the same strategy to block any URLs containing a question mark by using the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*?

You can block all directories that contain a specific word in the URL as well. For example, you might create a robots.txt file such as the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /gibson*/

With this command, any page with a URL containing the word “Gibson” will not be crawled by the spiders. It is important to be extra cautious when using these directives, however, as they will cause the spiders to avoid all pages containing the word you specify. As a result, you may accidentally block pages that you do want to be indexed. If you do want to block all but one or two pages with URLs containing a specific word, you need to create a robots.txt file that specifically allows the page you still want to be indexed. In this case, your robots.txt file would look something like this:

User-agent: * Disallow: /gibson*/ Allow: /vintageguitars/gibson andlespaul/details.html

It is also possible for you to instruct the spiders to avoid an entire folder on your website while still allowing it to access specific pages within that folder. To achieve this, you would write something like:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/ Allow: /category/just-this-page.html

It is important to note that the search engine spiders will ignore general directives if you have one that addresses a specific spider. For example, if you create the following robots.txt:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/

User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /archives/

the Google spider will still crawl and index the category page because you listed a directive that was specific to the Googlebot, and that overrides the directive that addresses all search engine spiders. So, if you list a specific spider in your robots.txt, you need to individually list all of the things you want that spider to avoid. In our example, you would have to create the following robots.txt file to get the Googlebot to avoid the category and archives sections while telling all other spiders to avoid the category section:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/

User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /archives/ Disallow: /category/

If you want the spiders to avoid indexing certain types of files, you will need to use the dollar sign symbol ($). To instruct the spiders to avoid GIF files, for instance, you would use the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*.gif$

You would use the same pattern for other types of files that you may want to be avoided by the spiders, such as .pdf$, .jpg$ or .jpeg$.

Addressing Other Search Engine Concerns

In addition to blocking certain pages from being indexed by the search engines, there are a number of other concerns you may address with the robots.txt tool. For instance, if the search engine spiders are downloading your pages too quickly and causing difficulties with your server, you can add a crawl-delay directive to your file that will tell the spider how long it should wait between downloads. In general, it is best to set this directive low, such as somewhere between 0.5 and 1, and then to increase it later if necessary. This robots.txt file would look something like:

User-agent: * Crawl-delay: 0.7

Google does not follow the crawl delay directive, however, and it generally is not necessary to add this directive to your robots.txt file.

Another handy aspect of the robots.txt file is that it can help you create a path to your XML sitemap. By adding a line such as:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursitename.com/sitemap.xml

By using your robots.txt file in this way, you can submit your XML sitemap to search engines without registering with a variety of different Webmaster Tools programs. You can also store your XML sitemap anywhere you like with this tool, which can be helpful if you manage several sites and want to keep all of your XML sitemaps in one place.

Finally, it is important to realize that it is still possible for a search engine to index pages that you have included in your robots.txt file. There are a number of reasons why this may happen. For example, if someone created a link to the page, it will still get crawled through that link. To close this opening, you will need to unblock the page from your robots.txt file and then place a meta noindex tag on the page before you put the page back on your robots.txt file.

In this post I have told you how you can use robot.txt files to improve the ranking of your site in the results pages of the major search engines.

Good luck!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,pagrank,search engine rankings,sitemap,search engine optimization,indexing

Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

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Anyone can build a website. Countless companies are offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But building a decent looking website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally millions of web pages that will never be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are even quite good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have put the cart before the horse...

In the online world no one just happens by your website, credít card in hand! If you have yet to build your website, or are about to create a new site, stop! You need to consider exactly what you wish to achieve with your site before you get started. “Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result - or run the risk of ending up just another pretty picture in cyberspace!”

Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it - maybe you already know it...

Content --> Traffic --> Pre-sell --> Monetize

A time tested 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver - commercially! Ok, let us take a brief look at each step and find out why they work in this particular order.

1. Numoro Uno, as always, Content

Very, very, very, very important. Building an information-rich site is crucial. You abolutely must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, a) because you want to attract visitors in the first place and b) to generate long term, search engine based free traffic.

Online, people are looking for solutions and/or information that leads to solutions (not to forget entertainment). They use the search engines to hunt for the most relevant facts to reach their end goal - a practicable solution. Your job is therefore easy: Give it to them! But do not make the mistake of just plonking down any old garbage and hoping for the best - take your time, put in the effort, provide good quality information that will over-deliver and keep your visitors interested, satisfy their needs - and you will be rewarded. Over time, gradually add new fresh, useful content and you will be one your way to creating web pages valued by humans and search engines alike. In the online world, high value content is king!

2. Traffic - The Holy Grail...

Much, too much has been written on the subject, and many are making a good living providing (?) this elusive element.

Truth is, (excluding social media) there are but two ways to get it - you either pay for it, or you optimize for it. If you take the time to understand the basics you can easily do both.

Paid search, (PPC – Pay Per Click) such as Google Adwords has its place, and can provide an immediate stream of targeted visitors to your website; it is, however, a study of its own and can, if not fully understood, become very costly very quickly! If you want to go that route learn with small amounts (of money) and do not be tempted to throw good money after bad...

Safer - and arguably better – is going the route of search engine optimization (SEO) for the organic results, as reached via Google or other search engines. This means nothing more and nothing less than intelligent website construction, a process anyone can learn. It is important to note that the optimization should be built in during the creative process, at the time of your site´s construction; you are literally building your website to principles that make it search engine friendly, thus leading to high natural positions in organic search results, hopefully leading to a significant and constant free traffic flow to your site...

3. DO NOT SELL – PRE-SELL

You have created a website with value rich content and fully optimized its pages for indexing by Google (and other search engines). Folks are arriving at your site as directed by their search results. You are keen to have them buy your goods or services, ready with your pitch - but wait! There is another vital step in the process of converting your visitors into customers, and you have done half of the work already...

Pre-selling is a warming up process that allows you to develop trust and confidence in your offering. It is well known that people are more willing to buy from those they like, trust or respect. By over-delivering relevant high value information without appearing to be forcing a sale you will, almost by default, create an atmosphere that inevitably leads to sales. It is that simple!

As far as your visitors are concerned, their needs are being met, their every wish is being fulfilled, you are providing the very information that is the solution to their problem. Pre-selling creates an open-to-buy mindset that smoothly introduces your visitors to your monetization offer.

4. Monetize

Thank you for sticking with me this long, here is the home run: This is where you make your offer enticing by introducing and highlighting the many benefits of your product or service, and detailing exactly how it provides the solution to their predicament. You have paved the way with informative, relevant content and can now look to close with persuasive sales copy.

Your call to action should be strong and concise. Tell your prospective customers exactly what they need to do to order. If you have a good product, and you should, let them know exactly how they will benefit by ordering from you - today!

This is it: A formula simple, yet highly effective. Generate targeted free traffic via your highly optimized website, provide information packed content that offers solutions, warm up or pre-sell your visitors by over-delivering on the quality of that content, then, and only then, monetize by introducing persuasive, benefit focused sales copy to convert pre-sold visitors into enthusiastic customers.

I hope you found this post helpful. Please visit again for more information about promoting your business online.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

10 Essential Tips for Launching Your Business Blog

 

Technorati-Tags: Seo,search engine optimization,more traffic,free traffic,online business

10 Essential Tips for Launching Your Business Blog

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Are you thinking about launching a blog promoting your business? You are not alone. A recent study by GuideWireGroup revealed that close to 89 percent of businesses polled use blogs as a way to communicate with their customers. In another survey, Burson-Marsteller found that 15% of the companies on the Fortune 500 list have blogs. A successful business blog can generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue each year, with figures for large corporations typically much higher.

This is proof that business blogging is becoming a mainstream marketing tool. That does not mean, however, that blogging comes easily or naturally for many companies, their owners and employees. Blogging, like any form of content, takes up quite a lot of time and resources - namely, you have to know how to write (or have access to good writers) and you have to update your blogs with fresh, original and insightful new material on a regular basis.

This is should in no way scare you away. It should, however, inspire you to learn the basics of business blogging before you turn your baby loose on the world. Planning your blogging strategy first is a wise move, because it gives your blog a greater chance of success. However, if you do not feel up to the challenge at all, you need not worry – outsourcing is always an option. Anyway, here are 10 tips for launching your business blog:

1. Identify your readers

Before you start writing anything, make sure you understand who your target audience is. This is also known as your “buyer persona”, which marketing guru David Meerman Scott defines as “...a distinct group of potential customers, an archetypal person whom you want your marketing to reach.” Basically, you want to tailor your topics to the group(s) of people who are most interested in your Products and/or services. Otherwise, you are missing the mark and losing out on potential leads and sales. To identify these buyer personas, there are 3 important questions you should ask yourself:

· Where do your customers come from?

· What type of content will be useful to them?

· Where do your customers hang out online?

2. Create social media accounts

If you have not already done so, register accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Start with these four and expand later. This is important because you need places to post links to each new blog post, so that your groups, fans, and followers can read them. Posting on social media also encourages people to subscribe to your RSS feed, another great way to promote your blog.

3. Establish your social media presence

Lay the groundwork for later blog promotion by establishing relationships with your target audience. One of the best ways to do this is through social media. Now that you have accounts set up, you can join forums, listen to conversations and hear what people are saying about your industry. Add thoughtful and insightful comments whenever possible.(No spamming!) Outsource or hire employees to do this if you do not have enough time, but try to contribute every once in a while if possible.

4. Decide on a place for your blog

You can either put your blog on a page within your website or give it its own domain. Your choice depends largely on your goals. Do you want the blog to be part of your site, and linked to it directly? Or do you have plans to use your blog for other purposes, such as to earn revenue through ads or creating a secondary business from it?

A blog can help your website to rank higher, and it can also rank highly on its own. Therefore, think about your long-term objectives when deciding where to place it.

5. Choose a blogging platform

You have quite a few options here. WordPress is currently the premier choice for professional blogs, but you can also check out Joomla, Blogger, TypePad and others.

6. Use the right keywords

If you are placing your business blog on a page within your site, most likely you will be using the same keywords for your blog that you are already using for your site. If you have done good keyword research, then these are the keywords that best reflect your business. Ideally, they are also the search terms that people are using to find you. If you are placing your blog somewher else, consider if any keyword changes need to be made. You may want to take your blog site in a different direction from your site. Again, this depends on your goals for your blog.

Incidentally, if your blog does have its own domain, you will want the domain name to be brandable, easy for consumers to recognize and search engine friendly.

7. Plan your posts

Think about the direction you want your blog posts to go in. A good way to stay on track is to start with one main topic and draft a few entries in advance. Publish them on a regular schedule (can be automated!) and you will have a supply of targeted blog posts that add fresh content to your site and point back to your business each week. Coming up with topics can be a challenge, but there are a lot of helpful resources on the Web if you should get stuck.

8. Network with opinion-leaders

Once you have got your blog up and running, it is a good idea to check out other bloggers in your industry/field of expertise. See what they are doing, what they have to say, and leave insightful and helpful comments on their blogs. This kind of web networking will help you establish relationships with these people, which in turn will prompt them to help spread the word about your blog and your business. This kind of free advertising is invaluable. It connects you to credible and respected individuals within the blogosphere and markets your business for you.

9. Promote your blog

As mentioned earlier, offering a blog subscription through an RSS feed is an effective way to promote your blog. There are other ways to get the word out, as well. Write an optimized press release (PRWeb.com), submít articles to directories that link to your blog page, submit your blog to social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon and Digg (or set up an account with Ping.fm and have it done automatically). Make sure that you link to your blog posts in your social media posts.

10. Analyse results

If you are going to take the time to blog for marketing purposes, you will want to know how well you are doing, right? Since it relies primarily on the building of human relationships over time, blog ROI (Return Of Investment) can be tricky to measure. But there are many tools at your disposal to help you determine how much or how little your blog is contributing to the bottom line.

Free online tools like Google Analytics and Google Alerts provide you with information about how your customers are finding you online, and can tell you a lot about your blog page, in particular. Facebook Insights is a great way to track activity on your Facebook account. Many more tools are available, so look into them.

Like any project, launching your business blog is all about preparation. If you do your homework and lay a solid foundation, your blog will produce results (although it may take awhile). Keep in mind that blogging is a form of content marketing and, as such, is primarily about building relationships with customers. So, be patient, follow these tips, and watch your business grow!

Good luck!

 

P.S.: You might want to watch this highly informative video:

How to Get Better Visibility on Google

 

Related article:

Online Business Myths that are Way Off

 

 

Technorati-Tags: online business,make money,more traffic,business blog,marketing

How to Really Make Money with HubPages

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In this post I am going to show you what you can do to really make money with HubPages. You may have to invest quite a bit of time and work but in the end you will be among those who earn a substantial income by publishing successful articles (or hubs) on HubPages.

The obvious answer as to how to make money on HubPages is to actually have something to say. Some value to add. Some information to provide. While it is important to understand how to use keywords, you should not take it too far.

Do not become obsessed with SEO linking schemes and do not stuff your article with keywords. In short, do not overdo it. Provide good, useful information and do it consistently. Yes, I said consistently. The people who publish hubs on HubPages on a regular basis are the people who make the most money.

If you consistently write about a certain subject (which you do not need to do) it will help you establish yourself as an expert in a niche. But more importantly, it will enable more effective link building between your hubs. Write between 10 and 20 hubs on the same topic and interlink them all. It is always helpful to provide links to more pertinent and useful information.

If you write about honey-bees (wow, that is what I call random), write another hub specifically about the nutritional value of honey and another about the American or European honey industry and another about the actual honey making process and another about how bee-keepers go about collecting the honey.

I do not know if there are any honey-hounds among the people who read this article, but hey, it is just an example. I hope you get the point. This kind of coverage will help bounce traffic around between your hubs, will establish some authority, and will build trust from readers and will even help you earn backlinks from thematically related websites.

Notice that I wrote “earn” backlinks.  It is important to understand that a natural organic link from someone who genuinely finds your work interesting and helpful and thus wants to share it with their readers is priceless.  That is what the game is all about.  It is how you succeed with content online.  And, yes, it is how you make money as well. One natural link is worth a hundred forced links.

Making money on HubPages also requires doing a little bit of promotion.  To be honest, you are not required to do anything, but it will really help you gain exposure for your hubs if you build a few links to them. 

One of the best ways to get more traffic to your hubs other than understanding how to write for a specific audience and doing a bit of keyword research, is to create links from article directories.  Ezine Articles is probably the most widely known and consistently tops the Google search results pages for thousands of different niches. 

You are allowed to include two footer links at the bottom of your articles, which you can use to point to your other work at HubPages. Use keyword-rich anchor text to promote your hubs. Using the honey example, you could write a basic article about the health benefits and the downsides of honey. (Actually, honey, being a 100% natural product, has hardly any downsides.)  Make it around 400 - 500 words long and make it worthwhile – the Ezine Articles staff has to approve it. That means you have to meet their quality standards - which can be a little tricky in the beginning. Build at least one link to each of your HubPage hubs.

Write another hub titled something like “My Honey Hubs” or “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Honey” and include links to all of your honey-related hubs. This link post will give people a gereal view of all the content you have written; it is also a great way to build links. 

Another way to promote your hubs is by building a blog on one of the free platforms (Blogger or Wordpress.com, for instance) and linking to each of your published hubs with a short description of what it is about. This may help widen your search footprint and drive more traffic to your hubs.

See how each link-building exercise is also providing value at the same time?  This is what will work in your favor over time. If you consistently think about your audience and provide valuable information or entertainment, you will succeed in making money online – not just with HubPages, with any blog or website. 

So go get started making money on HubPages. 

To your success!

 

Related articles:

How to Make Money with HubPages

How to Make Money with HubPages 2: Backlinks

 

 

Technorati-Tags: HubPages,income streams,make money,affiliate programs,article writing,link building

Search Engine Optimization for Your Blog – 5 Tips to Get You Started

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Easy SEO Tips to Make Your Blog More Search Engine Friendly

Making your blog search engine friendly as well as easy to navigate for your visitors is at the core of SEO. Here are a few starter tips that will help you get more traffic and achieve what you want to online.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making a blog or website more easily accessible to search engines and telling everybody - machines as well as people - what your site is about. This is the basic task of SEO. It is about making your website easily understandable and following certain standards and practices.

It is also about getting your blog or website ranked higher in the search engine results pages (SERPS) so that your site gets more traffic and you can more easily achieve your objectives.

Five Basic Tips for Better On-Site SEO

1. Write a Clear and Catchy Title that Includes Your Keyword(s)

This is a smart thing to do for two reasons. One, it clearly tells potential readers what your post or article is about and lets them know what they will get out of it. Two, it makes it clear to search engines that the term you use in the title is a very important one on that particular page. This will help said page rank higher in the search engine result pages for your chosen keyword(s).

2. Link to Your Homepage and Other Related Pages from New Blog Posts or Articles

When you write a new blog post you should link to related pages on the same site. Make sure to use keyword-rich anchor text that explains in a couple of words what the linked-to post is all about. This will help further strengthen the SEO of the page and will give your readers a clear path to information may also be interested in. You can also link to your homepage with the keywords you are focusing on for the site as a whole. Again, this helps your readers navigate the site with greater ease, keeps them on your site longer(hopefully), and will strengthen the SEO qualities of your homepage.

3. Use Your Chosen Keyword or Keyword Phrase in the Body of Your Content

Just like you want to use the keyword phrase in the title of your article, you want to make sure to use it in the body of your blog posts or website content. This will reinforce to search engines and website visitors alike what your content is about. If your blog is about “designer shoes for men”, you want to target that exact phrase and include it in the body of the writing. Studies have shown that you get the best results by using your chosen keyword or keyword phrase once every 80 -100 words, if possible.

4. Write Posts or Articles of Decent Length

Each piece of content you publish should be at least 250 to 500 words long. The more you write, the more material search engine bots have to work with when trying to figure out what your site is about. Longer, informative posts should increase traffic to your site over time, and the better written your work is, the more people will link to it, which will help your content in search rankings. You may also find that terms you have not thought about are bringing people to your site as well because you will have more combinations of words on every single page of your website.

5. Write Great Content that is Useful, Informative and Original

The most essential and most difficult of all SEO methods. People sometimes forget that the best way to enhance the success of a site is to write extraordinary articles that people will naturally want to link to, bookmark, and show their friends and family. Making sure your content is really good will help you more than any other search engine optimization methods every will. Focus on creating value for your readers - and you will have a successful site.

If you choose to apply only one of the methods mentioned here, this should be it: Write amazing stuff that people fall in love with.

It is very hard – if not impossible - to create a hugely successful blog overnight. The bloggers who are making a lot of money work harder than most and put in the hours to create great content. That being said, if you write something so useful, so helpful, so entertaining, or –hopefully - all of the above, you could be among the few who become successful almost overnight.

It takes work, dedication, and some promotion, but you can create a successful blog and even make money from your efforts. You can start a blog for free at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, but you should also consider starting a blog on a private hosting service and with a domain name of your choice right away. The latter kind of blog will be more valuable in the long run since you will own it outright. Of course, you can always transfer a free blog to private hosting later on.

If you are looking for professional hosting, Just Host and Host Gator (and no, I am in no way affiliated with either one of them) are currently two of the best blog/web hosts and their rates are low (starting at around $ 4.95/month). You even get a free domain name for life with some of the plans. Kill two birds with one stone.

But whatever you do, always remember that the more work you put in, the better your blog will be in the long run. It can be very lonely at times when you feel like no one is interested in your work, but one day the flood gates will open and you will have a popular site.

Essential Information:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

Better SEO leads to more readers, more subscribers, and making more money online.

SEO is the process of making your website more accessible to search engines. Basically, the clearer you are about the content of your site or its function, the easier people will find it and the higher it will rank in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Toyour success!

 

Related articles:

Great Content is Still the Best SEO Strategy

7 Tips for a Successful Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,search engine optimization,more traffic

7 Tips for a Successful Website

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In this post I am going to give you 7 tips that will help you make your Blog or website better and more successful. Whether you have a personal blog, a niche site, or a blog attached to your online business, these tips will surly help you make it great.

1. Write Longer Posts

A lot of “gurus” recommend writing short posts/ articles because people nowadays have short attention spans (especially online). While this may be true, there still are people who like to read detailed, informative, well-written posts. Furthermore, longer posts tend to have more of your keyword phrases in them which will help with your search engine ranking. Google is especially fond of long articles, whereas other search engines, Bing for instance, prefer articles in teh 250 – 400 word range. 

2. Make Your Blog Accessible

Use a two or three column theme which is not too cluttered. And do not make it an obstacle course for people to find out who you are. If readers get to know you better, it is easier for them to get “involved” in your site. They may even become regular visitors or subscribers. 

3. Write Strong, Catchy Titles

Try to use strong keywords related to your post in the title. And always deliver what the title promises. Also, create tags (and a tag cloud/list, if possible) that can help your visitors find what they are looking for more easily.

4. Add Images to Your Posts

Pictures are a great means for drawing your readers into the articles you write.  If nothing else, they keep the visitor´s eyes fixed on the page for an extra second or two. Do not forget to write a caption and alternate text for the images you add (which may help them get indexed by search engines). Print advertisements tend to have images for the express reason that they attract attention.

5. Promote, Promote, Promote,Promote,…

There is nothing wrong with letting people know what you are doing. There is a key though:  You should try to get in touch with people who run similarly themed blogs and websites. In general, people who write about or deal in some other way with similar stuff are more likely to be interested in what you are publishing. Of course, this is not always the case because interesting content gets noticed no matter what, but it is a good way to get started. Engage other site owners by posting comments that add to the discussion brought up by their work.

6. DO NOT QUIT

Quitting has to be the biggest reason why a blog or website fails. It may take six months or even a year before your blog or website takes off. Keep writing good, long, informative pieces and do everything in your power to connect with others. Learn a little about keywords, learn a little about link building, learn a little about internet marketing, and make sure that you enjoy what you are doing. If you are not having fun, then - and only then! - quitting probably is a good option. You can always start a new blog or website.

7. There is no #7

Oops, I just broke the promise of my title. Perhaps you feel somewhat betrayed (see #3 on this list), but I hope you see the point I am making. Always, ALWAYS deliver what you promise so that people will find what they are looking for and will want to come back.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: improve blog,internet marketing,make your website better,online business,more traffic,successful blogging

Great Content is Still the Best SEO Strategy

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SEO (search engine optimization) plays a very important part in developing a successful blog, website, or any other kind of online presence. You want the structure of your home to be solid, strong, and well-designed. 

The same is true for your website. 

When people say that SEO is not important or even a waste of time, they are terribly wrong. Making your site search engine friendly and easily navigable and findable is very important. 

But…(yes, there is a “but”)

It is NOT the most important thing. 

The CONTENT of your site is the most important thing.

It is easy to find yourself rushing through a blog post or an article so you can get to the promotion and link building part much faster. Successful bloggers know that their job isn’t done after they finish a post. It’s only the beginning–especially with a new blog.

An informative, well-written post can be pretty lonely without anyone to read it. And the truth is, people have a lot of options. There is plenty to read out there, so you have to find readers and traffic for your site. You have to promote your work.

The best thing you can do with regard to the SEO of your site, other than making sure its structure is sound and the site itself highly searchable, is to find high quality, relevant links.

And the best way to find these kinds of links is by writing original as well as useful or entertaining content that people – yes, wait for it – want to link to!

It is a much better use of your time to focus on creating amazing content than surfing the web trying to find people to trade links with. If the content you publish on your site is great, then links will be no problem. And they will all be highly desirable “one-way” links, not reciprocal!

So, when it comes to the actual content of your site, it will pay off to make it as useful, as informative, as amazing, as scandalous, as eye-catching, and as entertaining as possible.

Great content is – and will always be - the best SEO.

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,more traffic,content,one way links,free links

How to Add 125x125 Ad Spots To Your Blogger Blog

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Currently, 125x125 ad-spots are the most widely used ad dimensions in the blogosphere. For both publishers and advertisers these dimensions are perfect for displaying text and pictures in an attractive way. And these ads do not interfere too much with the blog's content.

So if you are too planning to sell some ad space on your Blogger blog with these 125x125 spots, just follow these simple instructions:

A lot of bloggers place and control this kind of ad-spots through CSS but the ones you can add by following this guide work with standard HTML, so as to keep the process as simple as possible. Furthermore, it allows for easy customization later on.

1. Log in to Blogger, navigate to Layout --> Add a Gadget --> select HTML/JavaScript from the menu.

2. Paste the following code into the HTML/JavaScript box:

<center><table border="0"><tr>
<th width="126" height="126" align="center"><img src=" http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/saxplayer2112/ad-125x125.gif "/></th>
<th width="126" height="126" align="center"><img src=" http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/saxplayer2112/ad-125x125.gif "/></th>
</tr><tr>
<td width="126" height="126" align="center"><img src=" http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/saxplayer2112/ad-125x125.gif "/></td>
<td width="126" height="126" align="center"><img src=" http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/saxplayer2112/ad-125x125.gif "/></td>
</tr></table></center>

Note: The code in green represents "no. of columns" (2 green lines=2 columns) and code in purple represents "no. of rows" (2 purple lines=2 rows).

3. Save the widget.

4. When an advertiser approaches you, replace the links in red in the code above with the code for the new ad.

TIP: Instead of displaying all 4 banners as „Advertise Here”, it is better to use a couple of them to show any affiliate ads you may already have and keep just one or two as „Advertise Here” spots.

You may use any of the following „Advertise Here“ banners (right click on picture and choose “save as”):

 

 

In this post I have shown you a simple method for adding 125x125 ad Spots to your Blogger blog. If you are interested in making money you should definitely add a couple of them to the sidebar of your blog.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

How to Add an Affiliate Banner to the Sidebar of Your Blogger Blog 

How to Add an Affiliate Banner to the Header of Your Blogger Blog

How to Add AdSense Ad Units or Affiliate Banners Above the Header of Your Blogger Blog

 

 

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