Monday 26 September 2011

A day in the life of a link building expert

A link building expert – what is she or who is he?

Most people are a bit taken aback when they hear that you do nothing but link building. So, this is for all those people who ask me what I did all day. I have to explain to them what a professional link building expert’s daily routine was. The below breakdown is for those people to get the bigger picture

5:00 am - pardon the language…….that was the alarm… I lie in bed contemplating the day ahead, meetings, the pending tasks and the deadlines that need to be met.

5.15 am - I take my coffee, mobile, scribbler pad and note book to the loo. Plan my day ahead and check for any messages that need replying to. Asia – why do they have to live in a different time zone? In a way, it’s good. My odd jobs have been attended to. My keyword is still in page #2 of Google – something needs to be done. Feel good, nonetheless, no more fags - those lungs feel clean.

5.30 am - Brush my teeth, shave and go for my quick run, phew! Wished they find something easier to reduce the waistline. Quickly calculate, thirty minutes wasted, that means 1r5 hours a month (multiplied by two) (half an hour in the evening as well) or 360 hours per year or $18,000. Ouch, that hurts. Come on guys find a new akai berry!

6.15 am - Shower – that feels good, news paper and television and some cereal and leave for office by 6.45 am

7.00 am – Office – trying to find a way out of the impending deadline – too many of them and so little help. We link building experts are an undernourished lot. Fantasize the lady in the lift as my secretary – she smiles knowingly – what was that keyword again.

7.30 am - Hit the computers running and check for tweeter messages…. When do these guys get the time? Drop a note to show that I am alive and well and move on to Facebook and Linkedin . Received 10 friend requests and a few “gifts”… Despite our undernourishment, we seem t o be a popular lot. Scribble something and move on.

7.45 am – check mail - must get a new spam blocker. 500 new messages in 4 addresses is way too much. Check all to delete. Identify those messages which hopefully are not spam and delete the rest. Balance total 150. Need further siphoning but time to move on. Where is the java?

8.00 am - First meeting, didn’t have the faintest idea of what he wanted – Wants his keyword out there on the first page and that’s that – they should send someone with something on top – who cares, company gets $1000 in its kitty

8.30 am - Next meeting - A likely professional – needs the services of a link building expert. Has the entire strategy lined up – afraid can’t talk my way out of this. But am going to enjoy the interaction. At least someone in your wavelength. Needs a new link building strategy implemented along with SEO services. A breeze. Collect files, keywords and set a date for the next meeting. One week? What does she think I am - a machine? Anyway, she smiles. That’s enough!

9.35 am - I need a bite – go down to get a hotdog and coffee and rushback – did I miss anything? Two missed calls.

10.00 am – 1.00 pm - Okay, time to get down to some real hard core link building business. Geez, wish it was automated. No wonder they say, link building is one of the most difficult of jobs…..duh! Articles, article directories, search engines, analyze title tags, image tags, link structure, directory structure, keyword density, prominence, and proximity, total words, total words in specific areas, alt tags, input tags, word repetitions, comment lines, domain name, directory name, filename, etc. The list is endless. Is this why they call me a link building expert No, it’s because they don’t want to do it.

1.30 pm – Need some java and find out what’s happening in the market or I’ll be out in the cold. Reciprocal links are out and that settles one issue. Gee, why can’t Google be a bit kinder?

2.00 pm – Time for some lunch with a friend. A Mexican sandwich and link talk. This linking is making my palates go berserk.

2.30 pm – back to desk – make analysis and reports for the meeting tomorrow. Their keywords seem to have hit page 2. That’s not bad, and in less than 90 days.

3.00pm – 4.00 pm – Another meeting. Trying to advise a new client why his site is unable to generate traffic. The biggest mistake is that he is not focusing on generating traffic, but instead, trying every new method out there that can supposedly increase traffic, to his site. If he spends some time on a few of the options, his site should do well.

4:00 pm – Shut down and drive back home. Nope, not staying for the “employee of the year” award. Missed calls – 3 (attended to)

4:30 pm – Need to do some laundry

5.00 pm – 6.00 pm – Some bit of extra time… time to catch some shut eye.

6.00 pm – Need to pick up a few groceries

6. 30 pm – Evening run

7.00 pm - 8:00 pm – Order supper and finish supper while watching Telly – or else the links would drive me crazy. Nice serial – no time for a movie.

8.00 pm – 9.30 pm - Need to do a bit of research for tomorrow’s meeting, make a few notes and work on client projects and do research on their verticals etc. Also go over the pending 150 messages in detail, which gets further reduced to 100. Fire off replies to each and put my two bits on tweeter – 3 messages and 15 followers…. Not bad, although not in the league of Ashton Kutcher. Should reach a million followers within the next 10 years hopefully!

9:45 pm – A cup of milk and a go over Eric Wards and Aaron Hall’s blog postings. On second thoughts, let me finish that book by Thomas Friedman – he puts me to sleep faster

10.00 pm – Time to hit hay – Click!

If the above schedule for a link building expert sounds too good to be true, then it probably is....

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Paying For Links

The reciprocal link principle is simple – find websites with good rankings and plenty of traffic, and trade links with them. But when you’re just starting out, why should a big important site give a little upstart like you any kind of link at all?

There’s only one way to find out – ASK THEM. It helps if you have some kind of relationship with the site owner. But even if you don’t, you can sometimes use the time-honored principle of bribery to get a link from a well-ranked site.

Ask for a link. If you get turned down, say “Would you consider linking to me for $100?” You’d be surprised at how many webmasters will take you up on your offer!

This technique works best with privately owned sites that rank in the top 10 for targeted keywords in niche markets. There’s no point in trying to get a link from Kiplinger’s or Newsweek’s or Vogue’s web site. But if you’re selling weight loss products, and $50 will buy you a link from a small web site that’s ranked #1 for “low-carb dessert recipes,” you’re probably better off buying that link than buying $50 of PPC advertising. This also can’t hurt your own search engine ranking.

Make sure you have a simple written agreement about exactly what the link will say (you want your keywords in it) and the duration of the link – 6 months, a year, forever, etc.

Yes, you’ll have to wrap your brain around your site topic and the products you’re trying to sell. That’s what “targeting” requires – being selective. You have to know not only the kind of visitors you want, but the kind of visitors you DON’T want.

A similar technique involves finding all the sites that link to your competitors, and offering them a cash incentive to add your link to their site. You can find these sites by going to Google and typing in link:www.yourcompetitorslink.com.

Saturday 10 September 2011

Effective SEO Comes Cheap

Search engine optimization or SEO is the hottest way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Maximizing the benefits of a well optimized website will yield lots of earnings for the marketer. However, optimizing your site might cost you thousands of dollars if you are not skilled in this area.

But to tell you the truth, you can essentially get information on low cost SEO anywhere in the Internet. But only several really show you how to work out an affordable search engine optimization endeavor. And those few that really inform include this article.

1. Link exchanges

One cheap SEO method that can get you best results is through link exchanges or linking to and from other web sites. Depending on the websites that you would like to exchange links with, this tool could even cost you nothing at all. Contact the author or owner of the web site you want to have a link exchange with. You will be surprised with the eventual spiking up of your page ranking using this means of getting your website optimized.

2. Write or acquire key word rich articles

Writing truly informative and keyword-rich articles is one surefire way to make your Internet business more visible than ever. It's either you write your own articles or you get them from article directories that allow you to post these articles on your website as long as you keep the resource box or the author's byline in tact. Just don't stuff your articles with keywords that even idiots would get bore of reading them. The readability and freshness of your articles will still be the basis of whether your writers will keep on coming back to your website or not.

3. Catchy Domain Name

What better will make your target visitors remember your website but with a very easy-to-recall domain name. Something sweet and short will prove to be very invaluable. Registering your domain name is not for free. But creativity is.

4. Organize your site navigation

Providing easy steps in navigating your site is one way to make your visitors become at ease with your site. This, in turn, will improve the flow of traffic to your website.

Low cost SEO is always evolving like any other approach in information technology. There are many methods that can very well land you on the top ten rankings of Google or on any other search engines. Some may cost a lot but there are methods that can give you the same results at a low price or you can even do on your own such as those mentioned above.

Thursday 1 September 2011

Is The Internet A Capitalistic Medium ?

One thing I love about the Internet is it is nothing but capitalism — a completely free market, dynamic in every way. In fact, socialism is dead as a threat because of the Internet.

That said, one of craigslists' great weakness is its socialistic tendencies.

Craig has got a great background and is truly on of the Internet Pioneers… he was there before most of us even knew what the web was..

Taking into consideration all internet indices and other factors.. the internet has no age limits.. kids have the facility to watch porn.. besides, if you need any answer it is available. In other words, you can check the internet for any info that you want and if needed you can even copy and plagiarise. Now these are some factors that don’t come under capitalism but under socialism…

Not that it makes any difference, but there has to be some curbing of these issues. Not that porn or plagiarism matters, as it happens elsewhere as well, but with having free access and a free market means we have to cope with these things as well.

The fact it is free, doesn’t mean much

The fact it is dynamic is indicated by the contextual ads which keep changing..

BAsically, there is no control and that in one way is the best factor of the internet..

But even that has its limitations… (there are sufficient lawsuits to prove that, so I may be quite wrong as to the capitalism part, although it is definitely a bit more freer than other sources

Long live the internet

Saturday 16 July 2011

Why You Need Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites.

E-commerce, on the other hand is a cut throat business.

You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.

So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.

You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.

Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.

If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization and all of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.

Friday 1 July 2011

Paying For SEO

Search engine optimization ?

First of all before discussing whether to pay for SEO let us discuss what is SEO ? Thankfully, most of us here know what it is... Nevertheless, for those who came in late… SEO stands for search-engine-ptimization.

So in simpler words SEO means that... if you optimize your website for the search engines, you are basically optimizing your page for certain keywords you want a high page ranking.

Search engines analyze title tags, image tags, link structure, directory structure, keyword density, prominence, and proximity, total words, word repetitions, total words in specific areas, alt tags, input tags, JavaScript lines, comment lines, domain name, directory name, filename, etc. The list is endless…..To complicate things, each engine has it's own unique way of ranking pages, so you need to create different pages to exactly match the criteria of each one.

So you basically need to get it done right. In other words, you need an expert...

Now once again do we need to pay for SEO, if we can do it ourselves? The answer would be different for different people. If you ask an established webmaster he will surely say YES…. Because the answer is obvious... However, if you ask a beginner, he might not know what SEO is and even if he knows a bit, he might not invest because of budgetary constraints...

This is where he needs to be advised

The below book is a free download and is worth eading... Give it a try.. CLICK HERE

So, bottomline is that if you need to increase your sales with high volumes of visitors, get it done right. In other words, get an expert who knows about SEO or Search engine optimization

Thursday 16 June 2011

SEO – Why You Need It

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is popularly known as, is not something new nowadays.

Basically, if you want your online business to be successful, it's a good idea to optimize your site on a regular basis to make sure it's got a good position in the Web's top search engines.

Now, what in the world is this SEO?

Thankfully, most of us here, know what it is, but for those who came in late… SEO stands for search-engine-optimization. Now in technical terminology, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. (Thanks wiki !)

So in other words SEO means if you trying to optimize your site for the search engines, you are basically optimizing your page for those keywords for which you want a high page ranking. Basically, in order to maintain your page-rank, you have to keep on top of what's happening in the rapidly changing search engine industry. The rules that affected your page rank yesterday may be meaningless tomorrow!

Search engines analyze title tags, image tags, link structure, directory structure, keyword density, prominence, and proximity, total words, total words in specific areas, alt tags, input tags, word repetitions, comment lines, domain name, directory name, filename, etc. The list is endless…..Moreover, to complicate things further, each engine has it's own unique way of ranking pages, so you need to create different pages to exactly match the criteria of each one.

So, do you have to use SEO?

The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need Search Engine Optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

For the past few years, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to, or the product or information they need. Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. So you basically need to get it done right. In other words, you need an expert...

Now once again why do we need to pay for SEO, when we can do it ourselves?
When you get online, you would want people to visit your blog and for this you will need traffic and for that you need Search Engine Optimization. Now, although SEO is the hottest way to drive targeted traffic to your site, it costs aplenty, unless you are skilled in it. Likewise, maximizing the benefits of an optimized website will also yield lots of earnings for the marketer.

It is not that people cannot make money from the net; it is because people can’t get traffic to their site. This is mainly because one of the common mistakes in generating traffic which we all tend to make is the method of how we generate traffic. The biggest mistake here is that you are not focusing on generating traffic, but instead, you’ve tried almost every method out there that can supposedly increase the traffic to your site.

If we adopt a pattern, that is to say, the first day, you try and find more links for better SEO, then the next day, you try and generate traffic with article marketing and the following day you try obtaining with CPC advertising – then the chances of getting traffic are much better.

Basically, if you want your online business to be successful, it's a good idea to optimize your site on a regular basis to make sure it's got a good position in the web's top search engines. However, in order to maintain your page rank, you have to keep on top of what's happening in the rapidly changing search engine industry. The rules that affected your page rank yesterday may be useless tomorrow!

With the rapid growth of the Internet, it is no doubt why Search Engine Optimization has become one of the hottest topics within Internet marketing. The amount of daily search engine traffic is staggering, and for an individual who is thinking of marketing their products or services online, the Internet can be a virtually limitless gold mine of potential customers.

However, to reach these customers you will need to position yourself on those same search engines that so many people are using daily looking for your services or products. When queried, a search engine will reveal all of the sites that it has in its database about a particular subject or product. If your site happens to fall into the requested search category, this is called your site or page ranking [PR].

However, and as mentioned earlier, usually only the first few (top 10) ranked websites get to reap the sweet fruit of victory over their competition.

To make matters worse, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not something new nowadays. In other words, the search engine industry is continually evolving. You need to know which of the major "players" is powering the smaller search engines if you want to know where you should focus your optimization efforts.

In order to achieve this, you need to create multiple streams of traffic for your site. Settling for one source of traffic is simply not enough for most small to mid-size sites, or home-based business sites. Considering the competition most people experience with search engines, not to mention the ever-increasing trend towards ‘pay for inclusion’ with the major search engines, it can be a real challenge to get decent traffic from search engines.

Google is still extremely powerful with Yahoo! a close runner-up and MSN still a distant but threatening third. It must be also noted that many of the smaller search engines plus some paid listings are still powered by Yahoo and Google

Before you can actually begin to start optimizing a site, you must understand how search engines and their robots work. This information will give you a head start on the process of building an optimized web site.

Almost daily, we meet web designers who do not truly understand the function of search engines. This usually results in poorly developed sites in regards to search engine placement that usually disappear. Sure, anyone can build a site with a little practice. However, knowing how search engines work and building a site that meets its ever changing ranking criteria and also achieves top ranking results for key search terms, is quite different.

There presently exist two types of major search engines, robot-indexed and human-indexed. It is important to understand the differences between the two because the way they index pages will dramatically affect your sites position within them. The main idea of web site optimization is about getting ranked on search engines. So, it has nothing to do with how fancy your web site looks or getting ranked in the last few pages. This is where the page rank plays an important part for which SEO is an important criterion.

Obviously it is important to have a practical and easy navigation system and favorable looks, so that you can maintain the visitors you receive form the search engines, but those all come to play after the page rank.

About 95% of the search engines on the Internet are self-indexing or spider / robot indexed. The other 5% are human indexed and are usually referred to as directories. At this point, the important point to learn is that human indexed search engines cannot be manipulated and optimized for, as freely as a spider index search engine can. The good news is that with the advancements in the robot indexed search engines and their algorithms, they are getting closer and closer to human indexed search engines.

Search engines will simply keep on producing traffic forever once your site has been indexed. The problem is getting a good placement (first page) on good keywords and gets lots of searches. This is not always easy, especially if you are in a competitive field. Even if you have a poor search engine placement, you will still get some traffic. Search engines frequently change the algorithms they use for page ranks and for ranking sites. They don't want unscrupulous site owners manipulating their indexing methods in order to get high rankings. By doing so, they damage the integrity of free search!

Regardless of how poorly the site has been optimized, the domain name (URL) will be indexed in most search engines and in almost every case; search engines will be able to return a web site address when asked. This means that if you were to go to a major search engine and type in your site name, you will probably see it right on top of that search engines results. Don’t be deceived by this type of search engine response as search engines categorize sites based on keywords, and visitors search for sites using keywords not the site URL.

Bottom line, most search engines will be able to return the correct URL address for any site if asked to, provided the site was indexed by them. This does not mean that the site is ranking well.

Once again, if someone searches for your domain name, it should pop right up on most search engines.

In fact, if this does not happen, that means your Internet presence has some fundamental deficiencies. To be successfully ranked on a search engine means your web site must achieve a favorable position over others based on a scale such as the keyword used for the search.

As mentioned earlier, the search engine industry is continually evolving and it is difficult to put the entire process into one article. It would take a couple of pages to go about each phase and for those interested in hard-core SEO, it is better to get hold of a book or a much more detailed article source.

Basically, just use the above to get a brief idea on how and where you should focus your efforts on Search Engine Optimization.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Blogging as an income generating source

Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs.

If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.

If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first.

If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine. If you think it’s evil, fine. But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path.

If you want to succeed, you must be congruent.

Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed.

If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it.

If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it. If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads. Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere. If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations.

Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best. If you’re going to sell products, then really sell them. Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy. If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it. Don’t take a half-assed approach.

Either be full-assed or no-assed.

Now it is practically up to people on what they choose...

Viva - la - blog !!




Some easy references.........

http://marketing-affiliater.blogspot.com/2007/07/article-submission-directories.html

http://www.marketingaffiliater.com/article-directories/

http://affiliatescrawl.blogspot.com/2006/06/pings-and-blogs.html

http://affiliatescrawl.blogspot.com/2006/06/article-directroy-pro-and-adsense.html

http://www.freelancemom.com/submitarticles.htm

http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directory-lists.html

http://blog.sponsoredreviews.com/?p=47

Monday 30 May 2011

Press Release Copywriting Can Help Your Business

A press release copywriting is nothing but a well written statement to the media. Press release can also mean many things, be it an announcement of a news item, scheduled event, announcement of a new product or service.

Writing effective press releases will serve your business well as it attracts the attention of the online audience. It would also get picked up by the various news sites and as a result boost the site's search engine rankings.

The headline of an effective press release should be brief, clear and to the point. In other words, a compact version of the press releases’ key point. Such a news release not only builds your business reputation and credibility, but can also create a virtual story. It can also announce events and narrate an inspiring story thereby helping your organization by indicating why you are the best in your field.

It can also drive selected traffic to your website. Any event that happens in your company (be it an opening or even appointments) can be turned into a compelling press release by good press release copywriting. This, in turn can elicit maximum response from your clientele thereby earning the trust of your target audience.

An effective press release can be written to be informative to the reading public with a defined "tactic" that gets reporters, editors and producers interested in what's going on with your business or agency and your clients.

The primary important information of a good news release is contained in its lead sentence, which generally is about 25 to 30 words. It is here where you grab the reader's attention by giving a brief of the press release that you intend to announce. Another common mistake that copywriters make is that they confuse the title / heading or the summary paragraph with the lead. It should be important that the lead has its own identity. The rest of the news release just illustrates the details provided in the lead paragraph.

Like any news story, an effective press release should try and keep the paragraphs and sentences short. In other words, about three lines per paragraph. Good press release copywriting ensures that the first few paragraphs provides details on whos', whats', whens', wheres', whys' and any such similar queries.

Another important factor to remember is that a press release is not a reprint. In other words, a press release should not blindly copy its information from another similar source. However, it can re-craft it as a feature or news article.

A normal press release is about 350 to 750 words and is generally written using a word processor (MSWord in most cases)

Finally, make certain that your press release does not look like an article. If you plan in writing effective press release, then it is better you get your copywriting right.

Saturday 14 May 2011

How To Increase Website Traffic

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website and that is by having a steady flow of website traffic.

If no one goes to your site, it hardly has a chance of generating any income.

Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the end of those sites. It takes money to maintain an income generating site. In short, it takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site?

Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources.

There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Mentioned here are some of the better methods to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject.

As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people and as a result – a steady increase in website traffic as well.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Are Indias Cyber Laws adequate?

Till over ten years back, India did not have any specific cyber laws. It was in October 2000, the (ITA) Information Technology Act came into force in India. Over the last ten years, despite the technological measures adopted, the Indian cyber laws are still grossly inadequate in relation to the contemporary situation.

Spam

There are currently some relatively good methods to block spam, but they aren't very effective and hence a new cyber law is badly required to sort out this problem.

Cyber Pornography

Though the ITA states in detail about obscene information as being cyber crime, they don’t specifically define the difference between obscene and pornography. As per India's cyber laws it is only publishing of obscene material that is an offense, but not viewing of pornography.

Cyber Phishing

As the ITA doesn't carry anything specific against cyber phishing, it is imperative that such a law is introduced at the earliest.

Privacy/ Intellectual Protection

The absence of a specific privacy law in India has resulted in a substantial loss of foreign business and it is important that a legislation addressing various privacy related issues is issued at the earliest.

Data Protection via Internet Banking

Bank transactions and information on their customers change hands several times and this information becomes all the more dangerous when it is available on the internet. Electronic Banking is a high risk area and strong cyber laws are needed to protect any leakages or data tampering

In short, an Indian cyber law has many shortcomings and is far from satisfactory and should strive to address these issues at the earliest.

Sunday 16 January 2011

The 3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need

All affiliate marketers are constantly searching for that particular and successful market that would give them fat returns and a big paycheck.

Obviously there is no magic formula to achieve this and it is much more complicated to find a successful market

Oh boy! Wish there was a magic word – hocus pocus ! Buy my product !!!

Infact there are affiliate marketers who really think that there is a code or a magic formula that is readily available.

It is much more complicated than that.

It is only good marketing practices that have been proven to be successful and of course hard work and dedication.

Ofcourse, there are those basic tactics that have worked before with online marketing and would still work with the current online affiliate marketing world.

Mentioned below are three tips, with which you will be able to able to increase, your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

1. Use unique web pages to promote each of the products that you market

Try not to load all the products together in one site so as to save some money on web hosting. It is much wiser to have a site focusing on each product.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Try and include any testimonials from people who have already purchased and tried the product. This makes a lot of difference. However, try and confirm with the users that whether it is okay to use their name for marketing purposes. In most cases they would only be willing to allow you to use their details and photographs on the site of the specific product that you are marketing.

You can also write articles about the product, while highlighting its uses and try and include them on the website as an additional page. Design the pages so that they are attractive and compel and attract readers. In fact, each headline should attract the readers as to try and read more and if possible even try and contact you. Make sure that all the special points are highlighted. All this would only help your readers to learn what the page is about and what it has to offer and more than that, it makes them curious and want to find out more.

2. Always try and make available free reports / downloads to your readers


Position them in such a way in your page so that they simply cannot be missed.

If possible position them at the very top side of your page so that their presence is evident. Try and create autoresponder messages that will send mails to all those who input their personal information into your sign up box. It is said as per research that, generally a sale is closed on the seventh contact with a prospect. Ofcourse this is only market reports analyzing visitor inflow, traffic and purchases. This doesn’t take into account the number of first time visitors who just drop by and never come back.

There are only two things can possibly happen with the web page – either a closed sale or the chances are that the prospect would leave, never to return. You can try and stop this by placing useful information into their inboxes at certain times so that they are reminded about the product that they intended to purchase later. However, make sure that the content is geared and directed toward a specific reason or reasons to buy the product.

Kindly try not make it sound like a sales pitch. I have done this mistake more than once and messed up quite a number of sales and hence this advise.

Try to be subtle and casually try and focus on those important points like how the product can make things easier and enjoyable for the buyer. Again try and include subtle, but compelling subject lines in your email.

Oops another point

Try not to overuse the word “free” too much as most spam filters dump such kind of mail. Infact there are those older spam filters that dumps these kind of mail without even giving it a second look and before anyone can even read them. So try and convince the people who signed up for your free reports / downloads to make a note about your address in their spam folders and that they could be missing out on something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is only targeted to your product

In other words, just imagine someone who visited your site, and it appears that they seem to have no interest in what the site has to offer. So it is highly likely that he or she would only move on and ever return.

Also try and write articles and get it published in article directories, ezines and other free e-reports. This would enable you to pin-point publications that are focusing on your target customers. The rest is easy, all you got to do is put up what they want and just get their interest.

My policy is to try and write a minimum of 2 articles and 2 posts per week, with at least 400 words in length. Ofcourse it can be anywhere between 250 to 600 words. It all applies to how much time you have in your hands

By continuously writing and maintaining these articles on a weekly basis, you can certainly generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.

But remember that only 1 in a 100 people would likely to buy your product or may be interested in your services. So, if you are able to generate and deliver as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your site in a day. This indirectly means that you can make atleast 10 sales based on the average statistics.

As these three tactics that are given above does not appear to be very difficult, try and implement them weekly. All it requires is a bit of time and effort from your part.

Now try and use these tips for various affiliate marketing programs. You end up making a good source of income from this business that not all affiliate marketers are able to achieve