


Archive for April, 2009
Blogs; what good are they anyway? Well, actually blogs are both fantastic whether you are running a business website or you are simply using blogs for fun. In terms of business, blogs can prove to be a supplemental form of advertisement and you will find them to be a unique device that you can use to keep in contact with your clients. Further, in terms of personal use, blogs are definitely an excellent way to stay in touch with your family and friends, even if they are across the globe. Best of all, blogs can often be established for free and can easily stand on their own, without an existing website to support them.
Blogs have become quite popular and more and more blogs are appearing all over the Internet. In fact, the more people realize the great benefits that they can get from using blogs, the more people will be using them. Blogs, not only serve as personal journals, they also serve as business supplements and people love communicating with others by using blogs and allowing others to comment on their postings.
Blogs are regularly updated which means that they have fresh content on them all the time. This makes them appealing to visitors and search engines alike. Every new posting means new content on your blog and if you update your blogs daily or weekly you will see them grow rather quickly. With fresh content, you can improve your search engine ranking. Whether you use the blog alone, or you used it to accompany an already existing website, your fresh content can be used to draw more and more traffic to either your blog or your website, or both.
Additionally, you can add links to your blogs and start a link exchange campaign. In doing so, you will see your page ranking increase in search engines because SE algorithms frequently focus on the number of links that are pointing to your website. The more external links that recommend your site or blogs, the easier your site or blogs are to find in the big search engines like Google.
Blogs can be used to freely advertise your products or services. That’s right, blogs can serve as free web space for you to use to advertisement of your business. Also, blogs are great from providing existing clients with updated information about new products and services you may be offering. Want your clients to share there feelings about your products and services? You can use blogs to receive and share client testimonials. There really is no end to the benefits one can derive from using blogs.
What is equally fantastic about blogs is that there are ways that you can create blogs for free. Sites like Blogger, recently purchased by Google, allow you to establish a blog free of charge. Moreover, there are a variety of layouts, fonts, and templates to choose from and Blogger even allows you to post images. Finally, sites like Blogger give you the opportunity to archive your postings so that visits can return to them again and again.
Finally, creating blogs can be simple fun for everyone. No matter what one’s age is, Blogging is the new wave in Internet entertainment. Friends can create clubs and use blogs to establish them, friends and family can share photographs and sentiments, and finally, personal expression can be satisfied when creating blogs. In fact, if you have a particular passion, why not share that passion with the world by starting one or more blogs? Communicate with people from all over the world that share the same passions that you do!
You’ve built your website. I don’t think I need to explain to you that you won’t get anywhere with your online business if no one ever sees it. So traffic is what you’re looking for. Ideally, targeted traffic. What’s that, you ask.
Targeted traffic is people who know what they’re looking for and have been led to believe that they’ll find it on your website. How did they hear about you? Word of mouth? An ad on another website? Search engines? An ezine ad, safelist email, traffic exchange splash page?
Let’s take one of those, search engines, and talk about it for a bit. Let’s face it, that’s the starting point for a lot of people looking for information online. But how far do they search? Here’s what I usually do when I’m looking for something. Like yesterday…sigh…I spent hours looking for the driver, then the image editing software, for my scanner.
Adventures with Search Engines
I typed something into the search box. I looked at the first page of answers to my query. Not much was useful, but I did pick up on a few more targeted terms to type into the search box. Back and forth I went for a couple hours until I finally found what I was looking for.
Not my idea of a good time.
But ultimately I achieved my goal, once I had found the highly refined search terms I needed. For example, I didn’t know to use “image editing software” when I started my search, but figured it out as I went along. And trust me, I didn’t go much past the first page of any query during my hours of searching.
Your website needs those highly targeted keywords, so that when someone types them into a search engine, they find a listing for your website and it’s one of those “Eureka! I’ve found it!” moments for them.
But even if you’ve got the keywords, how do you get your website into that first search page on Google or Yahoo! or AOL?
One way is called back linking, one of many online versions of word-of-mouth advertising. Some website already esteemed by the search engines for the same keywords as yours recommends your website as a good place to go for more info. Google or whoever sees that link, visits your site, and decides that yes, your site IS an excellent place for more info on image editing software, or whatever. Your site then “rises” in esteem in the search engine world.
So if your site is about image editing software, your url appears on other sites about that same topic, or related to it strongly, such as sites about scanners or cameras. These related sites tell their visitors that your site is a good place to go for their image editing software needs.
I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine
How do they do this? They don’t have to actually say anything, although testimonials carry a lot of weight. You can exchange links with them; “I’ll put a link to your site on mine if you do the same.” Hence the name, reciprocal linking.
It’s a time-consuming process, finding the most appropriate sites, communicating, posting the link to your site, checking to make sure they post your link, but it’s worth it because it works if you’ve picked good sites. It doesn’t work if you link to a site about used cars or baby showers if your site is about image software.
The best way to find targeted sites to link with is to type this into a search engine: “your site’s keywords” “link to us”. Or variations on that, “your site’s keywords” “add your link”. Or use related keywords. Use your imagination here. In the image editing example, the keywords you use can relate to uses for your software, such as “scanner software” or “photograph editing software”. But be sure to include the ” “, that’s what will make your search the most targeted by using those exact phrases within the parentheses.
There are programs and software that make linking easier. There’s a website where you can sign up, enter your keywords and site description, and then receive emails notifying you when there is another site or site with the same keywords as yours. You log in and there’s a simple way to visit these sites and send automatic emails asking them if they would like to link with you. Here’s the link, the service is free, the site is called Value Exchange.
Once a link to your site is on another website, it’s there for good (barring unforeseen circumstances, such as you not upholding your end of the deal, or vice versa). People will continue to see that link for years to come. So will the search engines. They will continue to return to your site as long as the content is still relevant, and as long as you continue to add new content. The search engines love new and unique. Which is why, for example, you will continue to find new articles such as this one on my website. :^)
Besides reciprocal linking, there’s one-way linking, such as when a website uses this article and it includes the resource box at the end with my link or links in it. Sweet, this is the best kind of link, a trade of free website content for a link back. My name gets a bit of branding, I get a link back, and the website owner gets fresh content for his or her site. And even more so than a static link on a website, this one is truly viral, as this article gets passed around forever, reaching more and more people every day.
So that’s linking in a nutshell. There are other methods of word of mouth online promotion, but that’s for another article another day. Here’s a hint of things to come, though. There’s a new fun way to get around Google and the others that’s just starting to spread, it’s a way to create your own search engine and it’s called tagging. Yes it’s fun, you run around the ‘net saying “you’ve been tagged”. More on that another time.
Till then, have fun linking and watching your search engine ranking soar!
Over the years I have had many accounts with Adwords, spending a small fortune with the Adwords service. So naturally I have picked up many cost saving tricks. I am aware that most people feel Adwords costs too much and delivers little results, this is completely untrue. Adwords is a service that is here to help us, so I have written this article to help web developers make the most out of the service.
1) Set your currency,
First and foremost, select the currency of which you locally trade in. You may think its wise to start your Adwords account in USD, but if you do not live in the USA you may get a shock when you find how much you have been charged.
2) Use negative keywords,
You are using the Adwords service to generate website traffic, so obviously you want the right traffic to generate revenue. Start by using negative keywords for people whom you do not want to click on your advert, the best place to start is the keyword “free”. As I doubt you want to waste money on traffic that will not generate revenue.
3) Make a strict daily budget
Make sure you have set out a daily budget, Adwords generally advise a way out of proportion budget. After all most new Adwords customers have no idea how effective the advertising will be. Do not start off with a bang, your pocket will feel it.
Just as important as the budget, be careful with the CPC rate. I advise you to start with a low number, each click soon adds up very quickly. I actually found that by lowering my CPC rate by 50% I doubled my visitor count…
4) Check those clicks!
One of the most talked about problem with Adwords is, click fraud. There are two main types of click fraud: the first is when any one starts clicking away at your advertisements trying to waste your money. It is very hard to stop this kind of fraud, if you are a victim stop your ads and file a report to Google ASAP.
The second main issue is now that google allows Web Developers to earn money off their websites by placing ads (Adsense) .some Web Developers try to cheat the system by clicking on their ads as much as possible. The best way to stop this kind of fraud is check your page log, Adwords allow you to block out websites that you do
not want your advert to be placed on.
Adwords does not have many protections against Click fraud, although they do disable Adsense accounts who cheat. Google are very hesitant to refund the victims, if at all. Reports tell many organisations are actually suing Google to get their money back, so be careful.
In this article I have illustrated some of the most beneficial ways to save money when advertising with Adwords. My main advice to you is, do not go crazy with your spending. You may not see the results you are after, it does take a wile to get to know Adwords. I have had many successful ad campaigns using the Adwords network. However I do advise to look around, with the ever growing popularity of MSN search you may actually find it much more affordable.
Have you looked at your website traffic lately? How much visitors actually visit your site everyday. One of the best ways to attract the visitor to your site is by writing informative blogs. A blogging directory with a high page rank can do wonders to lift the traffic of your site. Thousands of people are already successfully blogging to create better relationship with their prospects, increase client loyalty and enhance their visibility and brand recognition.
If someone takes the time to get word our there about themselves and their services or products then they are serious about business. If you are one of these people then you need to get max exposure for your blogs and just writing a blog is not enough anymore. The competition is fierce so find blog directories as some of them offer a free listing. A Blogging directory is a perfect solution to people who are in search of new information online.
Submitting your blog in an effective blogging directory can
• Boost your website traffic
• Increase the size of your email list
• Build trust with prospects and clients
• Can you earn you huge money online
If you are looking for a great business idea then submitting your blog to a directory like Surreal blog can generate lots of traffic to your website. Surreal has created a blogging directory for anyone who are interested in posting their blogs. We have additional features to help your blog get more exposure. The benefit to this is great as you get your blog listed and you can post articles.
Surreal blogging directory in a short period of time has been able to achieve a page rank of 5. Submitting your blogs to a higher Pr site can do wonders to increase your website page rank. Moreover we offer a chance to list on our directory for no fees. The purpose of this blog directory is to help our many blog writers get more exposure for their original content. As Surreal Blog works daily to make the site a high traffic area these services will only bring more exposure each month.
Should you host your blog yourself or pay someone to host it? It doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie or a veteran this question always comes up when creating a new blog. Usually someone new to blogging would gravitate to hosting a blog themselves or get a free blog and as time goes by with experience they begin to ponder maybe paid blog hosting isn’t so bad after all. So what is better?
To answer this question, let’s first look at how a blog is created. Just like creating web pages, first, you need a software or script that will take your entries, format it and publish it to the web. The second component of a blog, is the web space, where the software should publish to, a home for the blog pages.
Knowing this information, let’s review the different ways to host a blog:
Full blog host.
This is where the blogging system or software is provided for you and your blog is also published to a web space provided by the host. Blogger, SquareSpace and Typepad fall into this category. It’s very much like creating a website with a site builder.
Hosted blog software but published elsewhere
This is where the blog software is provided for you but the blog pages are published to another website or web host altogether. By doing this, the software acts as a publishing system like FrontPage except it creates nicely formatted blogs. Blogger is probably the most well known for this. Yes Blogger can do both. Publish to their host or to yours. As a comparison, this is like using FrontPage to publish your website.
Blog software and blog are hosted on your web server
This is where you would install the blog script (software) on your web server &ndash it can be any web hosting account. And when you publish, the blog itself resides on your web server also. To draw a parallel, this technique is like buying web hosting and then installing a content management system on it to help you build web pages.
If you’re new to building web pages or have built sites using site builders then you might want to go with a fully hosted blog. These hosts do all the nitty gritty for you and there’s very little technical stuff you need to know. If you can point and click, you can build a blog with a full blog host.
Having said that, just because you’re seasoned at building web pages doesn’t mean full blog hosts won’t work for you. In fact, if you have many blogs this becomes very appealing since you won’t have to worry about upgrading the blog script, people exploiting the script, making plug-ins work or what happens when your web host decides to disable part of your blog functions because there is a security hole. All you do is concentrate on blogging. After a while, blogging becomes more important than maintaining your blog and that’s the way it should be.
Next up, hosted software but blog is published to your website. This seems to be the best of both worlds. At time of writing, Blogger is one of the best ways to do this but because of its popularity often, you find the system too slow to publish or completely down just when you have a hot idea to share. The idea is good but you’ll also be depending on someone else’s availability to publish your blog. It’s much like using a friend’s computer to build your web pages and you know how that can go.
Finally, you have the option to use scripts. This is also a very popular method. The flexibility it allows is very liberating because you can mould the blog anyway you want. You can even get a programmer to create custom plug-ins or customize the whole blogging system the way you want it. In short, you can do pretty much anything you want.
The down side, you need at the very basic, some knowledge of HTML or publishing web pages. Also the burden of upgrading, troubleshooting and maintaining the script is on you. If you have one or two blogs it’s not so bad but once you start having more, it can be quite tedious. You also have to consider all the other responsibilities of maintaining the script as mentioned earlier.
Armed with this information, you should be able to figure out which one is for you. If you’re still undecided, think of how you would do it if you’re creating a regular website. Chances are your choice method for publishing a website is also the best method for you to create a blog.
A lot of businesses are now conducted online. With an internet business, your service or products can reach different parts of the world especially if your website can attract much traffic. In order to establish one of the best online businesses, the usage of blogging for business is of utmost importance.
You can make use of blogs in order to promote your business today and in the years to come. This is not an easy task and so you will need all the help and some tips to keep you on the right track.
Here are some useful tips that you can incorporate in your internet business:
• Back links are valuable &ndash to promote your business through the use of blogs, you have to give importance to back links. The blog post contents should be able to incorporate appropriate back links. By doing so, you can attract much traffic to your website in a more effective manner.
• You must learn to use the right keywords &ndash all the contents of your blogs should have the right or appropriate keywords. Effective blogging can also place your internet business among the top searches in the results of search engines.
• If you plan to use blogs for your internet business, you must be able to make posts regularly. If you forget to make posts, your blogs will not be very effective for your internet business. Sporadic bloggers have no place on the net and so if you want your efforts to be rewarded, make sure that you post blogs frequently.
• Your blogging efforts will be rewarded if you post frequently and if the contents are interesting. Through effective blogging, you can establish the reputation of your online business and not only that, you can shout to the world your business expertise. If you want to gain a positive reputation, make sure that you post interesting blogs that are related to your business.
Those are some simple tips that you can use for blogging. Indeed, blogging can be very useful for online business but only if you can post effective blogs.
At present, many owners of online businesses are now making use of blogs to promote their products and services. If you want to become a blogger and at the same time a successful owner of a business, try to learn how to make effective blogs.
Some say that blogs are not that hard to compose. To some individuals, it may be their way to share their personal experiences and everyday life. But according to some expert bloggers, you also need to consider the interests of the readers and online researchers. Remember that once you start posting blogs in your business’ website, you have to post frequently (at least once or twice a week) so that your customers and readers will not forget you or your business.
So what are you waiting for? Learn to make blogs now and become an effective blogger. Your business will surely benefit from the blogs that you post. If you want to learn more about effective blogging for business, you can easily conduct researches online because you can find a wealth of information there.
Blogging for business is one of the most effective means of making your business a success. Start making blogs now and you can earn more profits in the future.
If you subscribe to the micro persuasion model of public relations, then you would agree that the Internet is the new frontier in marketing. Blogs are increasingly becoming the medium of choice for companies and entrepreneurs in bringing their brands and products closer to consumers. E-commerce sites are fast becoming widely-accessible, and a variety of products can now be purchased online, from clothes, to computers, to cars. The World Wide Web is one big conversation, and companies are vying to join in, get to talk back, and get feedback in return.
The essential thing for a company to do is to initially create an online presence. As long as you’re there, online and accessible over the Internet, people are bound to seek you out, in their quest for information. Imagine how much more business you can generate if you actively pursue marketing activities online. Imagine if your company website or weblog comes out as number one in Google for a generic search on your product or service. You can literally bring your brand closer to hundreds of millions of people who go online.
This is what the Internet Marketing Blog is all about. Here, we intend to share whatever knowledge and expertise we have to help businessmen and entrepreneurs harness the power of the Internet in effectively marketing products and services. We will explore the various avenues by which you can spread the word about your company or brand. We will help with the best practices and most sustainable methods-this is a fickle industry, after all. What’s in today may be pass
Message to ICANN: Let those who want to create a TLD, simply register it with ICANN.
If the TLD is not already taken, if they have the technical capability to mange the TLD, and they have the desire to market domain names on that TLD, then let them do so.
It should be similar to the registering of a domain name, except on a higher level, with the added technical requirements. ICANN should be sort of an upper-registry for TLDs.
It would be ludicrous for a domain name registrar like GoDaddy or eNom to ask you for a business plan, or a non-refundable application fee, before allowing you to register a domain name. It would be ridiculous for a registrar to have “rounds” of domain name releases of names “they chose” in advance.
Okay, this month, GoDaddy will be allocating cheaperwebhosting.com, doggrommingmadeeasy.net, and virtualinternetwebnetwork.net. We will be taking applications and public comment during the month of February. We will then spend another month reviewing the applicants business plans to decide who we will allocate the domain name to. If you are not approved to manage the domain name you apply for, your application fee will be held by GoDaddy until further notice.
Some people will say that is not a good analogy, but it is a perfect analogy. Here is why: If info.com was still available and I registered it. I could then start selling subdomains like car.info.com, computer.info.com, icann.info.com or any other subdomain someone wished to purchase from me. The subdomain is one dot removed from the domain name the same as the domain name is one dot removed from the TLD.
There is no longer any reason to believe ICANN is doing anything other than restricting free enterprise and free trade by not opening up the market for TLDs. It is no longer acceptable that ICANN should be the one to decide which TLDs will or will not be created nor is it acceptable that ICANN gets to choose who can or cannot run a TLD.
Do you present a businesss plan to the city you live in before they allow you a business license? No.
Does the city ask you to prove you are financially stable before issuing you a business license? No, as long as you pay the registration fee.
If you apply for a business license to open a clothing store, does the city ask how you will run your clothing store or if you have the necessary expertise to run a clothing store? No.
Does the city think you will hurt them economically if your clothing store goes out of business? No, it’s none of their business.
Is the city concerned that there may not enough demand for yet another clothing store? No, again none of their business.
ICANN not allowing me, or anyone else in the world, to create a TLD of our choice in any language we choose, is a blatant violation of our rights. In many countries, America among them, the right to free enterprise still exists. ICANN is denying me that right as an American citizen and doing so when even their own organization exists under American law.
There are no needs for auctions or rounds or anything else. If you want to run a TLD, then you register it and start selling domain names. If you fail, you fail, just as in any other business venture you take on.
Artificially restricting namespace to make a few business intellectual property interests happy has to stop.
Track all sources of traffic generation.
John Reese stresses the need to track where all traffic comes from and at what cost. It is crucial to know exactly how many sales, newsletter sign-ups, or other leads your particular marketing campaigns generating. This enables you to work smarter and not harder. By tracking all traffic to your site you can make twice as much while working fifty percent less.
Content is King
On the internet, people are searching for one thing……. Content! Load your website with as much content as possible. Then, continuously add content. Search engines love information and they will love your site if you’ve got lots of it. There’s plenty of free content for the taking on the internet. You can load up your site with articles from article directories like ezinearticles.com. Or, you could be like John and use content from the public domain. Or, you can use content that is in the creative commons. This type is now easier than ever to find now that Yahoo and others have come out with a search engine designed specifically for content that is in the creative commons.
An affiliate program is critical to maximum traffic and sales. Lots of internet marketers don’t take advantage of this powerful traffic-generating technique. An affiliate program allows you to have your own personal salesman spread all over the web. The best part about it is that there is absolutely no risk involved but tons of traffic and sales to gain. Your website simply cannot grow to its full potential without an effective affiliate program.
Banner Ads
John Reese advocates the use of banner ads during a time when they are largely an untapped marketing source. Banner ads are one of the most overlooked sources of targeted traffic online.
Also, banner ads are now one of the cheapest sources of targeted traffic. In the late 1990’s during the dot-com boom, people were selling banner ads for $40 and $50 CPM. Then the dot-com bubble hit and these rates hit the floor. You can now buy banner ads dirt cheap, at $1 to $1.50 CPM. This is $1 for 1,000 banner impressions. The key here is to find the perfect place to advertise that will send targeted, willing to buy customers to your site.
Create viral reports that can quickly spread around the internet. This method works best when you have an affiliate program. Allow others to brand your report in order to encourage its distribution.
A quality free report can be a powerful promoter when passed around the internet. This same phenomenon can occur when you submit your articles to article directories and popular newsletters.
Take advantage of your virtual real estate.
Take advantage of the different parts of your website. Don’t let any of your web pages go to waste. You can do this by adding a link to another one of your web sites or pages on your thank-you or sales confirmation pages. If you have articles on your site, place links to related articles on the bottom of the page. The longer you keep a visitor at your web site, the more valuable they become.
It is very important to funnel traffic from within the multiple sites you may have.
Continually seek out other web sites to link to you. Now, we’re not just talking about any kind of link here, but powerful, traffic-generating links from respected sites. Here are some quick suggestions:
Send a related web site an article that you have written and allow them to display it on their website with a resource box at the end. Offer to exchange articles and tell them about the benefits of doing so.
Allow multiple, related web sites to distribute your free e-book or report. All web masters are looking to add value to their web site, why not make it easy for them.
There are unlimited possibilities, be creative!
Online group participation can produce a no-cost stream of traffic and sales.
Get involved in email discussion lists, online groups and forums that are related to your target market. Becoming involved in discussions makes you very credible. Traffic from forums can produce a much higher sales conversion rate.
This method can produce quite a bit of sales for you just by helping others out. Not to mention, you’ll learn a lot along the way.
