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BLOGS… they seem to be the talk of the Internet marketing world these days, and for good reason.

Not only do the Search Engines love them for there Content Rich pages, you also have the ability to plug your Blogs “Site Feed” into an RSS feed and then have it syndicated to thousands of websites and directories giving your content more exposure to your target audience.

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is a very Powerful technology that has been around for quite some time and when used correctly, can build an audience overnight.

If you want a crash course on what RSS is, in more depth, since the nature of this article is to show you how to get your Blogs “Site Feed” listed in Yahoo! and MSN, I’ve provided a link to a page full of articles on RSS related issues. .rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm

Now, depending on where your Blog is hosted, whether its through a free service like Blogger.com — .blogger.com or hosted on your websites server you should have a “Site Feed URL” that has the .XML extension.

This is your “Site Feed URL”.

You’ll usually locate it within your Settings area of Blog control center.

Here’s what mine looks like as an example:

theiwe.blogspot.com/atom.xml

This URL is intended for a RSS News Reader, so disregard its appearance.

Once you find your “Site Feed URL”, copy and paste it into Notepad because you’ll need it for the next steps coming ahead.

Now, what you need to do is go and set-up an My Yahoo! and My MSN account.

I’ve provided the links for you below.

- My Yahoo! ==> my.yahoo.com

- My MSN ==> msn.com

It should only take you about 15-20 minutes at the most.

If you already have accounts with My Yahoo! and My MSN, read on.

This is assuming you already have your accounts set-up, so your next step is to Login to your My Yahoo! account.

When you login, you’ll be taken to your Yahoo! page immediately.

What you want to do next is go look under the Yahoo! search box to the left and click on the “Add Content” link.

This will bring you to a new page.

From there, over to the right by the “Find” button you’ll see an “Add RSS by URL” link, click on it.

A new window will open with a “Web Form”. Simply copy and paste your “Site Feed URL” from Notepad into the web form and click on the “Add” button.

Now, you should see your Blogs name infront of you. Simply click on the yellow “Add To My Yahoo!” button and your feed will be added.

The next thing you should see is your “Site Feed” with your “Headlines”.

Click on one of them, it should take you to your Blog, to the desired Headline you chose.

Your My Yahoo! page should Now have your Blogs “Site Feed” Headlines listed at the bottom.

Scroll down to check. If you don’t see them, it sometimes takes up to 24-48 hours for them to appear, so just check back later.

Now that thats done, everytime you update your Blog with NEW content, it’ll “Automatically” update on your My Yahoo! page and everybody else’s pages who have subscribe to your feed, plus, within 24-48 hours your feed will get Spidered and Indexed by Yahoo!.

Talk about getting the word out in a HURRY with very little effort on your part.

This is “Viral Marketing” at its Best in my mind.

And… it’s so simple to implement.

Okay.

Now it’s time to do the same to your My MSN account as what you did above to your My Yahoo! page.

Here’s the link to go login(click on Sign In from main page): .msn.com

Once your login to your My MSN account you should see an “Add Content” link under the MSN logo to your left. Click on it.

A pop-up should now be displaying. Simply copy and paste your “Site Feed URL” from your Notepad into the web form provided and click the Search button(the green button with the arrow).

You should now be looking at Check Box with your Blogs name beside it. Check off your “Site Feed URL” and then press the OK button at the bottom.

PRESTO! Like magic… your Blogs site feed has now been added to your My MSN page which will then be spidered in the next 24-48 hours and Indexed by MSN.

That’s the Power of BLOGS(Web-Logs) and RSS(Real Simple Syndication)combined with two Internet giants.

The only thing you have to bring to the table IS, fresh, quality content that your audience WANTS, and do it on a regular basis.

I post my articles that I write on a weekly basis, making my Blog called… The Internet Wonders Blog - theiwe.blogspot.com - a search engine Magnet!

You can do the same because I just showed you HOW.

In conclusion, creating BLOGS and using RSS as a vehicle to syndicate your Blogs content is a Sure-Fire way to get your content spidered more frequently by search engines and the exposure it deserves, which in turn, will build you a large audience of buying customers that TRUST you.

It was easier when I was running EMJ, since I had built EMJ slowly over 25 years so people got to know me better as the company grew. At SYNNEX, I have a whole new group of people who wondered about who I was. Blogging was one way to bridge this gap.

I am a life long learner. Doing SYNNEX threw me into a huge and fast learning curve. Part of me wants to share and inspire people. Blogging was a natural way for me to do this.

From this experience I came up with Jim Estill’s Ten Rules of Blogging:

1. Have a theme. This helps attract readers. It provides a framework around which to blog. I chose Time Leadership as my theme. I have had a long interest in the use of time and published an audio book on time management. I am constantly looking for new time reducing ideas to add to my present material.

2. Blogging obligates you to do more blogging. It is just like writing a newspaper column. If you have a lot of people reading your blog, they expect to see new material. I blog about 5 or 6 days per week and occasionally skip a day, but not often. I now know the pressure writers on deadlines must feel.

3. Blogging is a two-way street. You must respond to the comments you will get. The larger the blog following, the more comments you will get.

4. Blogging takes time. One of my time rules is &ndash if I add something to my schedule that takes time; I need to delete something that takes the same amount of time. For me, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes per day and I write quickly and keep it brief.

5. Be legal. Of course this is obvious but I mean more than just being legal — be careful of giving away information that could be considered to be business confidential. There have been cases where people have lost their job because the company does not like what has been said in the blog.

6. Keep a file of blog ideas. I keep an electronic file and a paper one. This material gives me something to say when sometimes I am not as inspired to blog. It can also be something that prompts me on writing in my blog. I know I often find myself thinking in terms of what might make good blog material.

7. Provide links from your blog. People who read blogs are used to being able to click on interesting topics and going right to the web page with the information. After all, this is the internet.

8. Only start blogging if you like to write. Even though I like to write, I do often find it to be a bit of a challenge.

9. Be authentic. I think the readers appreciate it. I think it would be hard to have a ghost writer do a blog. It would be difficult to appear real.

10. Be patient. Don’t expect 10,000 readers in the first month. Readership grows over time. I follow my stats, and I notice my weekend readership is about half my readership during the week.

And now that I have written this article &ndash am I less mysterious?

Reading through a text-link advertising forum recently, I noticed a number of negative posts. One post in particular stuck in my mind and I want to answer it here.

The poster had been frustrated with his results from a text-link ad campaign. He mentioned that he was new to text-link advertising and he wasn’t getting any results.

My short answer to him would be, “Your text-link ads can get results, but you have to use the right text links and the right ads.”

My long answer follows, in the form of five key tips for any text-link advertising campaign:

1-First, make sure you have a product that’s good. In this case, your product is your website. Make sure it’s designed well, easy to navigate, with content people are interested in. Nothing is worse for a bad website than a good text-link ad campaign–you drive people to it once and then they never come back.

While you’re at it, be sure your website is designed to encourage visitors to do what you want them to do (i.e. click on CPC ads, buy your or your affiliate program’s products, etc.), ETHICALLY, of course.

2-Second, what’s your ad campaign objective? Before you spend a penny on text-link advertising, you need to decide what you want your ads to do for you. Do you just want more traffic to your site? Or do you want people to take some action once they get to your site (i.e., buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, etc.). Make sure you’re clear on what you want for your text-link ad dollars first.

3-Related to step 2, take advantage of any special features offered by the website you’ve placed your text-link ads on–especially if they offer conversion tracking. Conversion, for the uninitiated, means CONVERTING a visitor into either a customer (they buy a product), a subscriber (they sign up for your newsletter) or whatever other action you want to “CONVERT” your visitors into taking. Conversion tracking will help you figure out which of your text-link ads are getting you the kind of visitors you want.

4-Test, test, test. The beauty of most text-link advertising is that it’s not prohibitively expensive to advertise or test your ads (as long as you watch your spending limits). If you can, run a few different text-link ad variations.

Something to consider when creating your text-link ad: put yourself in your visitors’ shoes as much as possible. When you’re just surfing the web casually or looking for information in a broad sense, your searches tend to be broad, don’t they? But when you’re ready to buy, or take some other action, your searches are more narrow and your search terms are more specific to what you want.

For example, if you’re casually interested in bicycles, you might search just using that as your keyword, “bicycle.” But once you’ve decided to buy a bike, you’ll probably have something more specific in mind: “red ten-speed bikes” or “Mike’s Bike Shop.”

If you want your visitors to do something specific at your website, then your text-link ad should be as specific as possible.

Once you set up your text-link ad campaign, give it some time to see what ads work, at least a week or preferably a couple of weeks. Be aware of the season, or if a holiday weekend falls during your testing, as those factors will affect your text-link ads’ results.

5-And last but not least, don’t be afraid to make changes to your text-link ad campaign. Just make sure they’re incremental, and give each change some time to see if it works.

For example, pick the text-link ad that gives you the best conversion rate and tweak it, while you drop the others. Change the times and days of the week it appears (if you can) to find out when to schedule them. Or try another text-link ad variation.

Just make sure you make these changes to your text-link ads one at a time and keep track of them (enter your text-link ad changes into a diary or journal, for example) so you can easily measure their effect. A tweak as minor as changing a word or two in your text-link ad could increase your conversion rate significantly. Or it might not. So keep track of what works (and what doesn’t so you don’t repeat it).

Don’t make the mistake that poster made, throwing money at his text-link advertising and then cutting it off in frustration when it didn’t work. Make sure to set up your text-link ads properly and then tinker with them until you get the results you want.

Online commerce and content distribution has changed the face of the publishing industry and most well known magazines have an online version available. However, if you are still a firm believer of reading a magazine when reclining on a lazy-boy then you can go ahead and subscribe to the print version of the magazine. However, the process of subscribing for the magazine can be completed online within a few minutes and you can start expecting you magazines within a few days rather than the long wait which is normal when subscriptions are sent in by post.

One of the key things you will need to complete the process of magazine online subscriptions is a valid credit card. You should also ensure that the subscription page is officially from the website of the magazine and is secured. You will see a small lock at the bottom of the browser to confirm the security status of the page. Apart from the credit card, the online form will require complete shipping address where the magazine is to be delivered. It is always useful to add a landmark.

Since many magazine publishers are looking at online users, you are likely to get a good bargain (sometimes better than the subscription leaflet in the print version). Publishers having multiple magazines often club subscriptions or promise a few issues free of charge in order to capture the subscriber’s interest. One of the most prominent offers which have been doing the rounds online is the Time magazine offer for three free issues and then subscription if you like. So if you are keen on a particular magazine, do check the online site to see I there is any subscription facility available online.

Submitting your website to the various online directories is an important part of any Link Popularity campaign. Whilst your traffic from many directories may be minor or irrelevant, relevant incoming links to your website will help in your overall search engine link popularity.

Other than Yahoo!, which is quite frankly beyond the reach of many smaller websites, paying for your directory submission can be a waste of money. You can get just as good a resultfrom submitting to free directories, or those that are free with a reciprocal link. If the directory is exceptionally good, the cost is low, and your directory ranking will be improved by paying a fee, do so if you wish. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend you pay for what you can get free elsewhere.

To start with on your submission campaign, in my opinion it is better to submit to those directories that will allow you to easily modify your listing. That way, you can correct mistakes and get your campaign down pat before submitting to directories that don’t allow you to logon and modify your submission, thus saving yourself from wasting or reducing in value your efforts in those directories.

What Directories to Submit To

The best are Search Engine Friendly directories (those that actually have your site URL listed at some point, rather than outlinks that are simply code). Some will ask for a reciprocal link, some will not. One list of non-reciprocal directories is at info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly.php. Opinion at the moment is suggesting that non-reciprocal or one-way links are better, although any relevant link is useful. Directories that encode their links are mostly useful for traffic if their Alexa Ranking is high enough. Directories that do not encode outgoing links will help your website’s Search Engine Ranking.

Deep Linking

It can be worth linking to other pages on your site other than your main page. Before doing this, make sure that the directory you are submitting to permits you to both submit URLs other than your home page (some only allow top level submission), and for the same site to be submitted to different categories (not all directories permit what are essentially multiple submissions of the same website). This will work especially if you have online tools or directories (such as your links page) on your site that are useful and relevant to add to other directory categories.

Choose the Relevant Directory Category

Most directories will have many categories you can submit your site to. Decide on the one that is most relevant, preferably a keyword that you are aiming for high search engine ranking in, and try to submit to the same or similar category in every directory, at least for your main page (also see Deep Linking above). This will increase the ranking of your site relating to the keyword chosen.

Submit to Different Categories

If the directory allows multiple submissions, and your website is relevant in several categories, submit to all the relevant categories you can. This will increase the number of incoming links to your website. Again, carefully check the terms of any directory before trying this to make sure it is permitted.

Write Title

Write the title for your website. Try to include a keyword you are aiming for ranking in in the title, but make the use of it appropriate, don’t just bang a keyword in for the sake of it; you could get your site submission rejected.

Write Description

Describe your website in a way that will attract visitors. The length of your description will vary from directory to directory, but most will be under 250 characters. Some will allow up to 1,000 characters, and in those cases write the most comprehensive description of your site and its features that you can. It is a good idea to write several descriptions of different lengths, say from under 50 characters for a brief overview, to around 150 characters for a fuller description, up to 250 characters for a yet more comprehensive listing, and finally a full description as previously mentioned for over 250 characters. Keep your listing pertinent to your website, insert keywords where relevant and appropriate, but do not just submit a keyword listing, as most directories will reject your submission. Save all your descriptions in a text file, and just copy & paste into the descriptions boxes when needed rather than typing the same descriptions out again and again.

Choose Keywords

Again, as with the description mentioned above, the amount of keywords you can use will vary from directory to directory. Some will not give the option, some will allow you numbers of keywords, whilst others go by numbers of characters. Make a list of all relevant keywords for your site, from most important to least, and basically keep adding keywords until either you get to the bottom of your list (unlikely unless your list is really short) or you run out allowed characters/keywords. Check what keywords your competitors are going for if you need inspiration. This can often be done by viewing the source of a web page and checking the META tags. Again, save your keywords to a text file.

Keep Track of Your Progress

Keep a careful record of what directories you have submitted to, and your progress. It is far too easy to totally lose track of what you are doing, which does not help your linking campaign at all. The best way is by using a spreadsheet, such as Excel, to keep track of your campaign. At a minimum, you need to keep track of the following: Directory URL, Directory Name, Date Submitted, User Login & Password for those directories that allow you to alter your details and Response (accepted/declined). Other categories can include: Directory Alexa Ranking, Directory Page Rank (this will be for the home page only), Referral URL (if the directory will improve your ranking for referring visitors) and any Notes. If you are using the deep linking and multiple submissions strategies above, also keep track of what other pages you have submitted to each directory. Make a seperate entry for each URL submitted. For example, your spreadsheet columns could go as follows: Directory Name, Directory URL, URL Submitted, Referral URL, Login, Password, Alexa Ranking, Page Rank, Date Submitted, Response. I would advise keeping the list in alphabetical order, rather than order submitted, as that way you can check more easily whether or not you have submitted to a particular directory.

By Anne Marie Baugh

For the very same reason that the personal approach works so well on the Internet with consumers is the same reason it works well with editors and producers. Press releases are without a doubt the easier route. Simply write and click send then sit back and hope someone with a valuable title will notice. The hard truth is that getting a press release noticed is becoming more and more of a challenge. Unless you happen to like standing in a very long line and hoping an editor will dig through a very deep slush pile to notice your news, may I suggest a more direct, successful approach to garnering press space? The pitch.

The pitch requires a little more work, research, and preparation but also nets better results. The pitch is really only a verbal press release. If you can get the phone date, you have a better chance of being heard, of personalizing the story, and therefore getting the much-coveted time in the media spotlight.

Publicists have long understood the value of the pitch and in fact, the pitch is the number one reason publicists are paid the big bucks. Do they have something you do not have? No. It’s a tool anyone can learn to hone. Will you mess up a few pitches? Yes, without a doubt just the same way you messed up a few press releases. The difference is that you didn’t hear about it with your press release, which in reality did not help you. It is a tool that will require constant improvement but the rewards and both personal and professional.

So what does a pitch consist of? A pitch contains all the same information that a press release requires but you present it in a less formal way, over the telephone, directly to the editor or producers. It’s important that you take the time to prepare your pitch and be able to discuss it without reading it. Research the publications, radio shows, or television spots to be sure that your particular story will fit in with their theme and then either write, email, or call for an appointment to present your story.

Not only does the pitch personalize your story and make you real for the editor or producer but you will also begin to build contacts within the media. These contacts will eventually become professional friends that will smooth the road to greater and greater media opportunities.

Once you have delivered your pitch, asked for a time or space slot, don’t forget to thank the editor or producer both in the conversation and in writing. Be courteous and respectful at all times. Never try to talk and editor or producer into your story, as they know their market better than you do. If you get a rejection ask for a referral to a more appropriate market and keep trying.

Yes, press releases definitely have their place. A consistently distributed press release will keep you in the eye of the media, which can pave the way to a more productive pitch. So in affect, using both tools is the best approach. One is definitely weaker without the other, but together they make an impact that can’t be beat.

Overall, it’s persistence that wins in the long run and this is a quality every publicist has. However, you can learn the ability of persistence simply by practicing it. Keep at it and before long you will be a media hit!

Back in the good old days it wasn’t nearly so tough to get decent rankings fast. Wasn’t nearly so complicated either. You put up some pages, got some links and built from there. Enjoying improving rankings on your way to the top.

But that was then and this is now. Now there might be times where you WOULD be better off with two sites, (same niche) than just one.

And if I might chance to read you mind you’re thinking, “What? Is this guy crazy? I can’t keep one site going and growing much less two.”

I’m with you. But read on to discover when you might want to break out the second site.

===> Aggressive Article Marketing

Say you’re engaged in an aggressive article marketing campaign. Or you’re chasing as many reciprocal links as you can. Both legit ways to drive potential visitors or customers or subscribers to your site.

Yet how’s that going to mesh with the go slow approach to links Google now favors? Think your zeal might throw be like throwing sugar in the gas tank? And ace you out of the running for top rankings in Google? Maybe.

So if you want to use an article submission service that blasts your article far and wide you might want to rethink that. Or at least develop a second site for the links in your resource box to point to. Since if you’ve got a site you’re grooming for Google, too many links of any kind too fast raises a red flag.

===> Link Triangulation

It’s helpful to have two sites to do link triangulation. Which is a great way to get one way links.

Let’s assume you feel one way links are better. To get those two sites are a must. Simply offer to link to your link partner’s site from Site A while they link to your Site B.

Next time offer to link to the other web site from Site B while they link to your Site A.

This approach lets you build one way links to two sites at once, albeit at half speed. Which is a good thing since you’re building links slowly. Or the currently approved approach for Google.

===> Adsense or Affiliate Site?

Some seemingly have strong feelings about whether or not Adsense cannibalizes affiliate sales.

Of course the ONLY way to know for sure is to test it. Simply take an established site and run Adsense ads alone for one month. Then drop those ads and feature affiliate products only for the next 30 days. Which produces the most cash flow?

If you find Adsense does cannibalize this may be another situation ripe for the two site solution. Obviously you’ll want to edit the content so it’s close to unique for each site. Or you might emphasize product reviews on the affiliate site. While offering informative yet more topical articles on the site featuring Adsense.

===> Yahoo/MSN vs Google Focus?

More and more there is precious little overlap in the respective top rankings of Yahoo, MSN and Google. What works great for grabbing top MSN rankings might well get you in hot water over at Google. While Yahoo at times yearns to be more the anti Google than anything else.

That said, both Yahoo and MSN are more forgiving of, uh, enthusiastic optimization techniques. For instance you can get away with a higher keyword density with them than you would ever dare try with Google anymore.

But as in real life it’s hard to please two bosses. So the smart thing might be to set up two sites. To make it easy exclude the googlebot from the site designed with Yahoo/MSN in mind using your robots.txt file. And then reverse roles by excluding Yahoo/MSN from the site you’re using to catch Google’s eye.

So there you have it. Four instances when two sites may be better than one for your home based internet marketing business.

My first motorcycle was a 1957 Harley Davidson. When I found the bike for sale I had no money, but I knew I needed to have this motorcycle. So I came up with a way to raise the money and throw a great party at the same time. I threw a Poker Run. The concept of the game is easy. Each person tries to make the best 5 card poker hand.

The way it is played is, each bike has to ride along a planed rout, every few miles there are checkpoints at each checkpoint along the way each bike must stop and receive a card. Along the rout there are 7 checkpoints, and at the end the rider with the best 5 card poker hand wins the prize

Over the years the poker run has been adopted to lovers of many different hobbies.

The poker run was originally an event bikers played on their Harley’s, but over the years it has been borrowed by boaters and even runners.

Throwing a poker run is fairly simple but takes time and some not to hard work. The first thing you need to do is get approval from the towns that your poker run will go thru. There may be some paperwork and fees.

You will also need to make sure that at the end of the run is at a park or event hall. Depending on where you live you may also need a permit for the park.

Next you will need riders. By figuring out how much you want to have for the prize money and how much the part after the poker ride will cost you can figure out how many riders you will need and how much the entrance fee will be, but it should be no more then $100 per bike.

The next thing you will need to do is register riders. The best way to do this is to make a website, go to biker bars and biker events in your area. If you live in New York don’t go to Daytona Bike week to sign up riders, most people will not travel that far for a poker run. Try to get locals.

After you have registered the riders you now have to plan for the party. Along with registering riders for your poker run you should also sell tickets so friends and family can join in the party after the ride is over and the poker winner is declared.

The best way to advertise the party is on a local radio station and with posters around town. The more people you can get the more money you will have for a prize and for whatever cause you are trying to raise money for.

You can either, buy your own food and get some friends to help cook or you can look in the phonebook for a caterer and you should be able to find a caterer who will throw you a great BBQ.

Then all you need to do is wait for the big day and enjoy all the bikes, poker, beef and beer.

So you’ve just built your brand new web site and now you need to get it notice, no point having a web site if nobody comes and looks at what you have done. So you decide that the best way to get listed in the search engines is to have other web sites link to you but how to do you go about.

Well unless you know how to write HTML and are able to write your own web pages the best way to create link pages is to get your hands on some sort of link software. I personally use Arelis from Axandra but there others out there. This software allows me to create link pages, search for link partners, send emails to prospective partners, and keep track of each web site you have linked. But really and truly this is just the start of the process don’t be fooled in believing that it is easy because despite the promises you might get when getting your software it will still take time and hard work on your part to build a successful link directory.

So before you begin take some time to decide how you want your link directory to look and want sort of partners you want to approach. Make sure you have a good description written for your site and your site itself has something to offer others. A site built purely for advertising really doesn’t offer anything to anybody. Concentrate your link partners on your sites subject matter, I.E. if your site is about computers don’t look for partners with sites about travel and sport, a small collection of links directly related to your site is better then hundreds of links with absolutely nothing to with your site.

Now you are ready to begin, I would recommend placing a few links on your pages first that link to articles and resources covering your subject matter that way when inviting people to link to you they see a page which already has links on it and not just a page with their link on it indicating a freshly created page, showing others you have already begun work on a really useful directory which would make sense for them to be part of it. At this point it might be useful to use a link exchange directory, there are several around like Linkmarket.com and Link Metro.Com. Using these sites you should be able to pick up a few early links to get you moving and also see how others are going about doing the same thing but be careful as well, I have fallen foul of some dirty tricks as well. I have placed links to sites where the webmaster had agreed to link but then they fail to place your link or put it on page which will never then be found by anybody let alone the search engines.

In the early stages of your linking programme don’t worry too much about PR but you do need to try and get links on pages which are visible in the search engines this will then allow your pages to start to get picked up as well. Don’t be put off by other webmasters blatantly ignoring your requests for links, it happens to me all the time you jut have to keep plugging away. I think some people forget they had to start from scratch as well and because it happened to them they feel it is alright to do it to others. When trying to get links make sure you look around the site you are requesting a link from, you need to make sure there is a link from their home page to their link pages after all if you can’t find the links how will their visitors to their site find them. Make sure their link pages is well organised you don’t your link on page where the majority already on there has nothing to do with your sites subject. Its common sense really you don’t look for software in amongst weight loss sites.

You’ve now finally got some sites to link to you and your site is starting to take off, it is now where it becomes more important to keep plugging away. Start to send emails to prospective partners, include your URL, link anchor text and description and most importantly include the URL of the page where you have already added their link. Try to offer them something and point out the benefits of a link from you. Also search out other methods of getting links to your site, fill out exchange forms that some sites offer and try to get your self listed in internet directories. You can find a great list of free directories to submit to at directorycritic.com. Don’t become disillusioned too early as I said early this won’t happen overnight it will take time and hard work on your part and will need you to keep plugging away at it.

I hope you find what I have had to say useful but please bear in mind these are only my opinions, based on my experiences. My site has been on line since September 2005 and as I write I am still trying to build my link directory. I have had some success and my pages now have page rank but it has taken quite a bit of hard work on my part. If you wish to view my directory you can do so here .doubleclickandgo.com/links/links.htm

Shaun Sawyer webmaster .doubleclickandgo.com

Do you have an online business that is not performing as well as you would like it to? If so, you could be making one or more of the following online business mistakes. Let’s look at each one and ways they can be avoided or rectified.

+ Being too caught up in the hype and excitement of getting rich quickly.

This can be a very discouraging mistake. The lure of easy money and instant riches leads to hasty actions and poorly thought out strategies for success. When success is not instant, discouragement sets in and the business person quits or moves onto another venture without learning from their experience.

To avoid this mistake, you need to stand back from the hype and excitement and realise that the only way to get rich on the internet is to work hard. Study successful web sites and internet business models to see what they are doing that works. Then consider how you can use this knowledge in your own business.

+ Impatience for success (or not knowing how success is achieved)

A key factor causing online business failure is being impatient for success. This usually means that the business owner does not know how success is achieved within the business they are in. Due to impatience, research is not conducted and time and money is spent on fruitless activities.

In each business, there is a process involved in making money. In simplest terms, you need a continuing supply of prospects, a product or service they are prepared to buy at a price they are willing to pay, a way of providing this product or service in a timely and satisfying manner to the client, and to be able to run your business process at a profit.

Make sure you know your business and how money is made. Then concentrate on the activities that will give you the greatest success.

+ Failing to determine who your target market is

This takes one of two forms: “everyone will want to buy what I am offering” or “I know they are out there somewhere &ndash I hope they will find me”. In either case, the end result is ineffective promotion and advertising of the business. Significant time and money is wasted on promotion that does not reach the potential customers.

In every business, a profile can be developed of the likely people who will buy the product or service. When you understand the best targets of your offer, you are then in a strong position to concentrate your marketing efforts on reaching them. This will be more profitable than trying to market to the whole world!

+ Going for the “big bang” instead of testing

This can be described best as rolling out a full advertising campaign without having tested the see whether the ad works. The ad variables have not been identified and tested. The result again is usually significant disappointment with the results and wasted time and money.

Always test and fine-tune your efforts. To jump into a major marketing campaign with a significant budget without testing is a sure-fire way to financial disaster. Test and be sure. Change ad headlines, wordings, offers, etc., until you know you have your best chance of success. Test everything &ndash including the target market your ad or campaign is aimed at.

+ SPAM!

Don’t get caught up in the lure of easy money through sending millions of emails to people who did not request them. The normal thinking in this process is that if 1% of people respond to my offer then I’ll be very rich. However, your ISP will close you down, denying you access to the internet, your web site and email is bombed, and you are published as a spammer and people are discouraged from doing business with you.

This is not the way that a professional conducts business. A professional is in business for the long run and is keen to develop relationships with prospects and clients. SPAM will NOT enable you to achieve long term business success.

+ Conclusion

Always remember that long term business success requires hard work, an ethical and professional approach, knowledge of your market, a success system that works, and flexibility to test and change and grow. To be successful online is no different. Master the basics of online marketing and you will see your business grow for long term business success!