Effective Web Site Promotion…

Archive for the ‘Increase Website Traffic’ Category

When you are first deciding on online marketing in order to promote your business online, the main online marketing methods that you will encounter are Organicsearch engine optimisation and Pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords.

Organic search engine optimisation and Pay pr click advertising are the two main methods of online marketing. Both these forms of online marketing are aimed at getting highly targeted visitors to your website by making your website rank on search engine results for the keywords that you are targeting.

Ideally a business needs to utilise both in order to get the maximum exposure for their business online. However cost and budget considerations often result in a business having to make a choice between the two.

Organic search engine optimisation refers to the search results that appear in the main centre section of the search results. Ranking within organic search engine results cannot be bought and ranking is a result of organic non-biased steps taken over a period of time. It is dependent on the overall popularity of your website on the internet in general among other on site factors. Organic listings are the results that appear in the main section of a search engine such as Google when we search for something. Pay per click advertising on the other hand refers to the paid listing or sponsored results that appear on the right of the search results page and not in main middle section of the page.

Pay per click result is paid for and results are almost immediate to achieve. However there are many drawbacks. The recent years have seen an exponential rise in competition and a steep rise in pay per click costs. Click fraud is another rising concern where an advertiser may be charged for clicks that are not by genuine customers.

1) Many surveys and search engine marketing studies have pointed than users are more likely to click on organic search results that appear on the main section of the page rather than the paid listings that appear as ads on the right.

2) Organic listings are non-biased and cannot be bought. As such users trust the results more than the paid listings which are a result of paid advertising. The conversion rate for organic listings is much higher than for paid listings.

3) Rising cost of pay per click. Pay per click campaigns are becoming more and expensive day by day as competition is increasing. It is common now a days to be pay as much as £1 or £2 per click for a op 5 position in pay per click campaigns like Google ad words.

4) The results of organic search engine optimisation campaign are more permanent that pay per click. In pay per click the results stop almost immediately at the end of the campaign whereas in organic listings the rank remains.

Pay per click advertising also has its advantages and is a much quicker way to get results. This is useful to advertise events and other marketing campaigns that cannot be planned months in advance. Organic search engine optimisation is a time consuming task and listings often take months to achieve.

In the long run investing an organic search engine optimisationis beneficial and vital in website marketing. It has lower costs and offers a high return on investment. Once a favourable ranking has been achieved it is more permanent. In pay per click the results will stop immediately when the payment has stopped and the campaign comes to an end. Organic search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign also has a wider coverage and generates maximum exposure for your business.

Any organic campaign in order to achieve first page rank in Google will focus on a variety of techniques not only submission to search engines, e.g. directory submissions, press releases, article marketing and social media marketing. All this is important in order to generate quality back links to your website and will most certainly be covered in any organic search engine campaign that is run on behalf of your website.

Organic search engine optimisation is hence a better rounded approach to online marketing and has a much wider coverage. Although you may not see the result within the first few months it will be an extremely useful marketing investment for any business. The benefits of an organic search engine optimisation far outweigh any risks involved with investing in a one year organic search engine optimisation campaign.

More practical website marketing tips and discussion can be found on Web design company blog.

K.Singh
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/online-marketing-for-small-business-organic-search-engine-optimisation-versus-pay-per-click-695228.html

Search engine marketing is the base for the success of any online venture. And keyword research is the basis of doing successful search engine marketing. Basically, search engine marketing is nothing but all the different marketing strategies that are adopted by online sites to market their goods and services in major search engines on the web. Compared to the other traditional methods of marketing, search engine marketing has been found to be the most successful and effective marketing strategies for any online products.

So if you are into online buying and selling of goods, search engine marketing is what you should be doing and Search Engine Marketing Tips are the guide that you can use for this. Search engine tips can guide you in the proper direction for the marketing of your product in major search engines on the web. So all you need to do is identify what search engine marketing strategies will best suit your market.

More than 95% of online visitors seek the help of search engines to find out anything on the web. Well I am not saying this, but a research by a major institution says it and you need to take special notice of this, if you want to succeed in your online business. All your business and marketing strategies must be aimed at bombarding your target audience with lots of information about your product. So search engines become your automatic choice for advertising your product on the web.

To advertise about your product on the web, it is very important for you to find out the appropriate keywords using which you want customers to buy goods from your online site. To search for anything on search engines, you need to type in a phrase and based on this the results will be displayed to you. To succeed on the web, you need to find out what words visitors make use of to find your products and services.

Keyword research is an integral part of search engine marketing strategy. You can have the best strategies, the most innovative ideas, but this will come to a naught if you do not find out the right keywords to advertise your products. It may happen that you advertise your site using a particular word and the visitor actually uses different words to search for your products. So, it is crucial to find out visitor activity to know exactly what visitors look on the web.

If you feel that you will not be able to handle the search engine marketing of your business despite knowing all the search engine marketing tips, your best bet is to hire the services of a professional to do the work for you. There are several search engines marketing firm that will do the work for you flawlessly. You can sit back and enjoy the benefits of such search engine marketing firms.

Steve Waganer
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-marketing-tips-can-help-your-online-business-reach-new-heights-63835.html

Search engines have a special value in the world of online business. The present scenario reflects that internet searches have been catching pace. Every other day, thousands of people keep on searching the internet for information of any kind. And if your site is not appearing on the web in that search, then you are not going to progress in your online business. Search engine marketing tips have the ability to market your online business and drive maximum amount of traffic to the site, so that you can get to popularize your business.

Search Engine Marketing Tips tells about certain things to be kept in mind before marketing your online site on the web portal. First and the foremost thing to be kept in mind are the targeted keywords that could bring your site at the top of search results. Well, now it’s up to you to select those keywords which you think can be relevant for your website. Suppose, your website is based on health products and you have to market it on popular search engines. You are required to search for such types of keywords that can best describe your product and services. In this way, you will be able to introduce yourself to the visitor in a much better way.

After generating and looking out for the relevant keywords, now you have to create informative and valuable content for it. Words have the capability of describing everything in the world. Search engine marketing tips informs that while writing content, you should take care that it should not at all be vague. The basic idea of writing content is to inform the visitor and teach him or her about the products or services provided by you. Content management forms an important part of the list of search engine marketing tips. You just have to take a note that the content should be creative, informative and highly precise, as the content reflects your virtual business.

It is with the help of search engine marketing tips that you get to lay a proper platform on how to market the site and adopt the relevant methods to popularize it. Be it a beginner or an experienced search engine optimizer, these search engine marketing tips are quite helpful in giving the desired results and that too within the expected time limit. Whenever you market a product or a website, the hard work pays it all when the results start coming at the expected time. In fact, search engine marketing tips helps every professional in the field of search engine optimization to establish a firm base for their business.

There are a lot of things that have to be taken care of while marketing the website on search engines. Pay per click management, website designing, link building and many more aspects have to be dealt with. Search engine marketing tips tells the professionals that they should be proficient in doing this form of work, taking a note of certain main points. The main aim of search engine optimization is to bring the client’s site on the top of search engine ranking pages. Search engine marketing tips is like basics that will help to build a strong base.

Steve Waganer
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-marketing-tips-helps-seo-professionals-95575.html

Google I/O 2010 – SEO site advice from the experts Tech Talks Matt Cutts, Greg Grothaus, Evan Roseman A perfect opportunity to get your website reviewed by the experts in the Google Search Quality team. Attendees can get concrete search engine optimization (SEO) feedback on their own sites. We’ll also answer real-life questions that affect developers when it comes to optimizing their websites for search. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/sessions.html

Duration : 1:0:38

While Being a Bit Lengthy…. This Is Solid Gold!!! Stay focused and stay the course and your website promotion and search engine marketing will rise to the top. Good Luck and Happy Holidays!!! 

Website Promotion Outsourcing Through Easy Local SEM Is Proving To Be Ultimately Effective Time & Time Again; Because It’s “White Hat” Man Power Driven Website Promotion of YOUR Business!

Business Owner’s Know That Having A Website Presence IS Mandatory! When Something Does NOT Work Regarding Marketing Efforts They Tell You.

This IS NOT One Of Those Stories! Take a moment and listen to this clients Easy Local SEM Experience. She, like many others, now have an Internet Presence that results in an increase in Overall Business which correlates to increased revenue.

There have been many debates as to whether internet marketing services that use social networking and media sharing web sites to improve search engine optimization really work. Do they actually help your website gain improved search engine rankings? These all have been referred to by terms like social media, social media marketing, word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing and web 2.0. Social websites have become the latest craze on the internet and these terms have become the buzz words.

Social media websites and networking web sites offer the website owner a straightforward approach to bond with another community of people who have related points of views or interests like you. Some social networking websites group people with common interests, but some websites are “traditional networking sites” and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. So now how do these websites really operate. In websites like MySpace users share music which was what helped rocket MYspace into the well renown place it is today and in Facebook, users create their personal information that they want shared and use pictures, software programs and audio, videos to display or depict their business environment. In websites like Fastpitch, Joe Popular and Adlandpro the users create product and sale pitches and work with each other. Promotiing your website using these new tools is termed social media marketing.

How can you benefit and improve your search engine optimization ranking by using social media websites? When you use social media marketing and social networking , you have the opportunity to expose your website to a much larger group of people. When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. This is a form of viral marketing that is word of mouth. The additional links means that as you grow these natural links from a large number of relevant websites, your rankings improve in the search engine due to increased organic search traffic.

Another advantage is that search engines programs that roam the web are keen on social media and networking websites and typically go after links on these websites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking websites, your search engine optimization ranking is better and your website site will be indexed quickly. Getting bookmarked from different users and different social media websites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines.

Like it or not, social media websites have become an integral part of the internet because social marketing is easy to do, search engines love social links and hence your business by default will benefit. So if you are engaged in operating a website, and search engine optimization is important then you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media websites for increased traffic. To take advantage of this new method of building business you need to know what steps to perform? Well explore search engine optimization services. Also explore social media marketing and the difference to social networking websites.

Gregory Burrus
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/social-media-marketing-as-a-web-site-marketing-strategy-will-improve-your-search-engine-optimization-389270.html

Internet marketing is big business these days and it continues to evolve. Some Internet marketing systems have been used for a number of years while others are new and popular due to their freshness and promises of fast and easy money. On of the systems that have been around for a while now is viral marketing. Its definition is “marketing techniques using social networks which are already in existence to increase awareness of another businesses product, leading to sales of that product.”

Viral marketing has proven to be a successful strategy for some businesses, depending on the product or service they are trying to sell. Although the definition of it sound very cut and dry, it is often more complex in its application. The success of this type of marketing depends largely on the word-of-mouth of customers who are happy with the product they bought so as to lead to others buying the product as well. It can also refer to a virus which spreads via the Internet as information and not to destroy websites.

The definition of viral marketing will tell you that it is up to people to voluntarily spread the word about your product, which is an unusual technique in itself. Instead of having to pay for advertisement, you are relying on a person’s satisfaction with your product to do the advertising for you. It is obvious, however, that this is solely dependent on the first person being happy with your product. Supposedly, any customer who is happy with a product or service will tell an average of three people whereas an unhappy customer will relay the information to eleven. Since viral marketing is based on this principal, it is imperative that a customer be happy with the product or service before the strategy can work.

Using this marketing strategy, based on the principal of the satisfied customer, tells you that for every satisfied customer you get for your product, you should get three more potential customers. If this strategy proves to be accurate, you can expect exponential sales growth of your product. This is one of those places where “if” proves to be a very big word. You have no guarantee that a product is going to be popular with the first customer, much less with each continuing perspective customer down the line. Your product or service will have to be something that is useful to a majority of people and that is unique in design or quality before it has any hope of being the beginning of any great marketing strategy.

In some cases, viral marketing has been used with an awards program where the first customer is rewarded with products or cash when they get another customer to purchase a product or service. When you sign up for satellite service for your T.V., you may get the offer of $50 when you get a friend to subscribe as well. Although this is not by definition what it started as, it is a more effective approach in some instances.

Wayne Cooper
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/definition-of-viral-marketing-make-it-work-for-you-674249.html

In the competitive world of today companies spends a lot of money on making web site for the expansion of their business around the globe but poor online marketing plans wipe out their dreams to establish a great business venture. They spend money on bad internet marketing as they are not aware of the real tactics of online marketing that is how to benefit from the search engine marketing. In rare cases, a site will benefit from hundreds or thousands of word-of-mouth recommendations.

Promoting a website is just like promoting a business online so that target visitors / every potential customer come to know about their products and services. That’s why effective online marketing is a crucial part for your marketing strategy. If you want to make progress in the internet marketing than you must set some time aside each day. Ask any marketing expert where he or she would spend their search engine optimization efforts and they will undoubtedly say “Google”. You must make some marketing plan to promote your site online by one or more of the following ideas.

1. Unpaid assistant for Online Interviews: The Online Volunteering service connects development organizations and volunteers over the Internet and provides guidance to all the needy people those who want help regarding internet marketing. Pod casts, Web casts, blogs, RSS feeds and newsletters (ezines) are all venues for online interviews or discussions. You should approach the publishers who regularly conduct interviews with guests of your caliber by searching general search engines (such as google.com) or directories as podcast.net, ezinehub.com etc.

2. Categorize 10 bloggers in your group: First of all categorize the bloggers in your groups and after that send them the information about your products and define the specialties about your products and offer them to use it as a free sample. Later they give response to you in the blog about the products. Through that blog you can get the feedback of your products and services.

3. Draft a Press Release: While giving an idea to somebody, there is way you must leave your link with your idea or article. With this you advertise your site and also tell your potential customer about your product and services. This is one of the simple and effective techniques for online advertisement through the article submission.

4. Start Surveying Your Website Visitors: With the help of survey you come to know about your customer needs that are what they want or what type of change they like. Visitors would come to know about the merits and demerits of your product. So according to the interest of the customer you can able to modify your web site or your product quality. If you survey your visitors then they must give you wonderful and amazing idea how can you change your site or product qualities. Thus this type of surveys’ helps you in online marketing and best way to improve your online marketing.

5. Put Your Product’s or Company’s Creation Story Online: You should display your product creation story in the front of the visitors through online marketing. What is the proper manufacturing process of your product and which type of raw material you used for the manufacturing of the product? What is the success story of your company- also describe about the founder of the company and, about management so that visitors can come to know about the company, its strength and popularity.

6. Join an online network: In the internet there are so many sites regarding the online network means if you join online network then your friends provide the information which you utilize to improve your business. Same business categories person come to you and share their business views with you and then you tell them about your business and site and which type of product and services you provide. You can also ask for their suggestions.

7. Analysis your few Closest Competitors’ Websites and Online Marketing Activities: Its better to go through other successful business sites and observe their internet marketing plan. You might get some idea on how you shall improve your own internet marketing for your site. For more accurate idea go through your competitors’ site then you come to know that which type of ideas of internet marketing they adopt to become successful in the world of internet marketing. Better to observe their online marketing tactic then try to adopt the positive concepts in your business. If they get more advertisement through any particular tips then it must good for you to adopt same.

8. Making blogs and forums facilities on your website: If you like to improve your site or like to become famous in world wide then you must provide some blog and forum facilities in your site. It increases your web site traffic and popularity of your business. Every visitor visits your site and they must comment your blog and like to fill the forum in their favorite categories. And take information from your site or give some suggestion for the required person on a particular issue.

9. Modify your site according to your business analysis: Your site must be according to your business standards. You should display your success story in the front of the visitor with a new look that what you achieve in a particular period and what is the vision and mission of your business. A regular visitor can note down the positive points of your success and also like to discuss with their other social group about your site and your services. So every one who is in online business wants to improve their online marketing must modify or update his site according to new changes so that your visitor can enjoy your work and get new information about your product and services.

10. Provide accurate information to the visitors: You must try to give the accurate and fair information about your company to the visitors as transparency and trust are the important factors which attracts visitors and your company’s success certainly depends upon it.

These are the internet marketing tips and techniques which any online business venture must adopt to survive and to have existence among target audience in cyberspace.

About the Author

Alex Roderick

The author is Business Head for The Web Design Company . It deals in web site design, web page design , website redesign, flash, 3D animation, logos, Banner Adds etc.

Alex Roderick
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-hosting-articles/few-things-to-improve-your-online-marketing-existence-137835.html

The Internet has profoundly transformed the way people learn about and shop for products. Years ago, companies reached their consumers through trade shows, print advertising, and other traditional marketing methods. Today, consumers start their shopping experience by looking on the Internet, in the search engines, the blogosphere, and social media sites. To remain competitive, businesses need to be found online by the consumers already searching for the products and services that you sell. Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on being found by customers. This concept is related to Seth Godin’s idea of permission marketing. Marketers “publish their way in” (via blogs, social media, etc.) in contrast to Outbound Marketing, where they used to have to “buy their way in” (via paid advertisements).

Traditional marketing (Outbound Marketing) is where companies focus on finding customers by advertising, cold calling, eMail blasts, and direct mail. This concept is related to intrusion marketing and Godin’s term interruption marketing.

Outbound Marketing
 (Interruption)

Inbound Marketing
(Permission)

Telemarketing Search Engine Optimization Direct Mail Blogs, eBooks, White Papers Trade Shows Webinars Print Ads YouTube Videos eMail Blasts RSS Feeds TV/Radio Ads Social Media  

Outbound Marketing intrudes on the attention of consumers by interrupting them in their other activities to advertise some product or service. Outbound Marketing has become less effective in recent years because of the more sophisticated ways that there are to block these kinds of advertising, eg, do-not-call lists, spam blockers, and TiVo.

With Inbound Marketing, in contrast, instead of interrupting people with television ads, the businesses create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, the businesses create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, the businesses create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Successful Inbound Marketing has three essential components:

(1) Content — The most important part of a successful Inbound Marketing strategy is creating great content that will bring people to you. One of the most popular ways to accomplish this goal is to keep an updated blog.

A blog can provide many benefits to your organization and almost all of them relate to Inbound Marketing. By creating great content, you’ll rise in organic search results, create linkable content, and educate your audience. All of these outcomes will help you bring in warm leads that have been prequalified through a Google search for relevant terms or by reading similar content that links to you.

In addition to blogging, there are many other forms of great content to create that will bring interested visitors. Hosting webinars, offering e-books for download, and developing microsites will all attract leads who are interested in your offerings and are eager to engage in a conversation with you about your organization.

(2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) —  SEO allows potential customers and others to find your content easily. It is the practice of designing your website and links to your site to maximize your ranking in search engines, where most of your visitors begin their search process. Another important element is ensuring that you have a site that is optimized to close leads into deals and engages visitors once they “land” on your website.

(3) Social Media — Social media amplifies the impact of your content. When your content is distributed across and discussed on social networks, it becomes more credible and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site.

By sticking with these Inbound Marketing strategies, you’ll continually bring in new leads and grow; however, it won’t happen overnight. While Inbound Marketing will save you money, it does take an ample commitment and patience. You may not be in the top Google results for desired terms immediately, but by making a long-term commitment to Inbound Marketing, you will see results. This commitment requires that you create quality content through a Content Management System, interact with people through social media, and try new ideas to bring traffic to your site.

Inbound and Outbound Marketing complement each other. When you first get started, you’ll find that you do a lot more Outbound Marketing than Inbound Marketing. This is the time to experiment with all of the methods of Outbound Marketing. Try out direct eMail, advertisements, trade shows, and all of the outbound methods and find the ones that work best for you. Once you begin to gain momentum, more of your business will come from inbound methods.

A healthy combination of outbound and Inbound Marketing strategies makes a lot of sense.

We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Michael Cohn

Internet Marketing ? Give way to the new buzzword that could get good popularity to your website. Here is Social Marketing ? A function that will do enough to get your business popular in no time!

And then, we hear that Social Marketing could be done only over the Internet. This is a myth because you discussing about your business with your colleague over a cup of tea or a game of squash could also be considered a Social Marketing Technique. But yes, social networking over the Internet through the channels of forums and blogs are acquiring a lot of popularity nowadays. In fact, Social Marketing has been chosen as one sure shot channel to increase the traffic to a website in no time.

So, here are some reasons why you should try social marketing

1. Obviously, the first reason for you to get you close to social marketing is the popularity of your Internet Business. Social Marketing techniques have proven themselves over a period of time to be a popular method of promoting your Internet Business. Any person who has spent some amount of time on the Internet will tell you that Social Marketing is one of the more effective methods of promoting your website.

2. It helps you get more incoming links ? As a new website, you are looking to tie up with the established players in the domain. Why would you do that? The simple reason for that is ? The more you link with the established players in the market, the more popular your website gets.

3. It helps you get closer to understanding customer needs ? Realizing that you have already launched your website and services, you would surely be looking for your first set of visitors to make sales on your website. Some days gone by since your website has gone live and if you are yet not seeing any sales coming through, possibly you have projected the customer?s needs wrong.

With Social Marketing, you tend to be close to what is happening in the market. Importantly, you would also know what the customer needs. Tailoring your products or services to the customer?s needs in this case can only prove beneficial to you. Surely, you would not complain when the sales see a sudden spurt because a lot of people end up buying products from your site.

4. Allows you to establish your foot in the long run ? For a lot of time, people have aimed for a sure shot strategy that will help them be on the World Wide Web for a long time. And successfully at that! Social Marketing may not in essence take care of this aspect entirely, but it definitely does give you a platform to work on.

If all these are reasons not good enough for you to choose Social Marketing, then what are! In essence, these 4 reasons summarize the crux of Social Marketing.

Gen Wright
http://www.articlesbase.com/international-marketing-articles/reasons-why-you-should-try-social-marketing-694617.html

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Marketing is made up of many different aspects. The important thing to remember is that anyone wanting to earn money online should be prepared to invest the time and effort required to build a genuine business. Using social media should be just one part of your overall traffic-building strategy, not the entire nor the only strategy you incorporate.

I share 4 key components of social marketing below. Learning the basic principles of social marketing and how it works will go a long way in helping you with not only your marketing efforts, but your notoriety and reader retention.

Blogging is Crucial in Social Marketing

Your blog is naturally a social marketing tool. By using good posting strategies, linkbait, clip marks, utility posts, commenting, growing your audience, setting up social widgets, content exchanges or blog carnivals, and social media optimization you will have set a powerful base for your website. The building blocks of social marketing success are one of the critical components to making your online business not only visited more, but critical to your monetary success.

Using Social Sites Properly

Learning the common social site features will enable you to grasp how to use these communities to their highest potential. Creating a powerful profile is very important. Making friends on social sites is just one power networking strategy, along with having others submit respond to, and vote on your content. You also want to understand the rules for each social site so that you don’t get your account banned. Tagging is another critical aspect to your social marketing, and being able to measure your marketing results.

It’s a Conversation, Not a Sales Pitch

Starting conversations is a power strategy. Knowing the Golden Rules of Social Networking will enable you to get maximum views for your social networking, forum activity, and on how to find social networks in your niche. Learning Social Power Linking Strategies will enable you to drive organic traffic to your site, and will provide you with continuous streams of repeat visitors. People who are searching for information in your niche will find you because of the social marketing strategies. Social marketing does many things, it not only puts you in front of those who are in those specific social sites, but because you are creating links, regular followers will come simply because the search engines will notice all your efforts and all the organic traffic that you are creating. This in turn will help you with your search engine rankings.

A System Is Critical To Being Efficient

In order to incorporate these strategies you need a system, a guide, on how to do this effectively and a place where you can share your findings and questions with others. There are several communities where bloggers band together and where social marketing tactics of all kinds are shared and discussed in great detail.

Great free communities to get involved are MyBlogLog.com, BlogCatalog.com, and SocialAuthority.Ning.com. People interested in social marketing and better blogging tactics are working out new social marketing tactics and helping each other progress in busy communities such as these.

Jack Humphrey
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/social-marketing-basics-385766.html

Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins

As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get – regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!

Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?

But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.

As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives “6 Top Tactics For Tough Times.” It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google’s advice can be applied to your own general online marketing.

These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

2. Use Value-related keywords.

3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.

4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.

5. Make it easy for customers to buy.

6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)

Sound advice and I especially like the idea of focusing your marketing on low prices and savings mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it easy for your customers to buy… something as simple as putting your “order/buy link” above the fold can increase your conversions.

Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to “discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices…” will help increase your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift ideas, wedding gifts… shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.

Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs – then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites – focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.

Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years – even in these hard times.

o Make Keywords Your #1 Goal

This is the single most important factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you’re marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don’t truly understand how important getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.

Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more popular keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be almost impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in bad times.

o Autoresponders, List Building & Online Relationships

Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.

So building a large contact list is essential. That’s why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and list builders!

o Your Unique Selling Position

You must give potential customers some very good reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consists of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100’s OFF by buying thru your links, they will.

Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you’re into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it easier to make sales. So too is only promoting popular online merchants like Amazon, can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.

o Go With The Flow

If you’re marketing online, you have to follow what’s working for you. Most times you will try countless ideas or tactics – once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the hardest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that “something” a thousand times.

Tracking what works is very important so keep a close eye on your site’s traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for “fine-tuning” your site and your online marketing. It will tell you what’s working and what’s not.

o Target Recurring or Residual Income

One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paid for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs… once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.

Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.

o Automate Everything

The real beauty of marketing online and using computers… you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do… use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting… just set-up your whole online marketing system that runs itself with little or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacation and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacation and then some – all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.

o Find The Top Online Marketers

If you’re just starting with online marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and “model” what they’re doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing… and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.

o Make Google Your Friend

Whether you love or hate Google doesn’t matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketing. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still important, but Google is the deal-breaker when you’re selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.

I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools… all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my “web-based” lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it’s all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.

Titus Hoskins
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/internet-marketing-tactics-for-these-tough-times-from-google-and-me-716203.html

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.

Jim Pretin
http://www.articlesbase.com/link-popularity-articles/the-google-algorithm-for-link-popularity-124521.html

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.

Jim Pretin
http://www.articlesbase.com/sem-articles/how-google-ranks-websites-138863.html

Site owners are on the hunt for the green numbers on the Google page rank toolbar. That’s no secret, but do they all really know what Google page rank is about? How much should you really worry about your online business before you check page rank results? Information is the key to obtaining traffic and becoming the best in a line of business. But not many people pay attention to the numerous articles and websites that offer valuable data on how a site should be made and promoted.

Google page rank represents the basis of Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s search engine’s system of calculation. It is only a little part of how it really works and proves that Google’s fame and attention is not random, but obtained due to the quality of its searches. Google is the best search engine currently available and its efficiency is not equaled by any other existing search engine. Webmasters looking to evolve know that the Google page rank is the one who gave it its surplus of query validity and accuracy.

The value of a website on a certain keyword or key phrase (usually typed in by a user) is determined by the way that site is linked to other more or less valuable sites. In turn, those sites are evaluated by Google using the same criteria. In a few words, the whole process resembles a complex web, a combination of variables which are constantly and continuously changing.

When you check page rank, the number you read reflects a current status which might already be changing. Because the Internet consists in so many websites that are updated daily and because so many new pages and links constantly appear, Google needs to make updates as well. These updates can be seen once 2 or 3 months when the “Google dance” takes place and when all new variables have to be taken into consideration. Of course, the process takes place all the time, but only then are we able to see its results through the change of the Google page rank.

If you are interested in how well your site performs when it comes to such an evaluation, you should seriously consider these aspects before you check page rank again: links pointing to your site, the Google page rank of the sites that contain these links, the anchor text of the links and the on-site optimization (meta tags, tags, titles, description, keyword density for site content). As you can probably see, this means there are a lot of aspects involved in page ranking. Many things are controllable and web development companies take care of them in a professional manner. Webmasters are very careful with how they optimize their sites, for example. They carefully observe their Google page rank and constantly seek to raise the number shown by the Google toolbar. Some things are however, uncontrollable. If someone chooses to post a link to your site on his own site which is poorly optimized, his action might have negative effects on yours.

The Google page rank is a very sensitive issue which concerns a lot of webmasters who want their website displayed among the first results Google offers web surfers on certain keywords. Some don’t find it satisfying just to check page rank evolution in time. If for some reasons unknown to them, their Google page rank is modified, even for a short while, PR paranoia can set in. Some optimization methods can even be considered damaging because the PR the webmasters were observing has suddenly changed. The Google page rank is important, but must not be taken that seriously. Google constantly makes changes because the Internet itself is daily enriched with new information. Its spiders crawl up and down the web and their findings can have an effect on your site as well.

Errors can occur, like the very famous “spoofing” effect when a new page can borrow the Google page rank of another better ranked page to which it is connected. But errors can be corrected and so can the result you find when you check page rank. Good PR can turn bad because of a mistake, but it can also turn better just as fast. Your main worry should be to offer valuable information to your targeted public and do so by using the available optimization techniques provided by specialized companies. To regularly check page rank is not a bad practice. It is necessary to keep in touch with how Google sees your site. This is why we recommend using quickpagerank.com, a site that supplies valuable information about ranking in major search engines as well as number of backlinks pointing to your site.

Amelie Mag
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/known-facts-about-the-google-page-rank-122945.html