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The Complete Guide To Internet Marketing


Copyright 2007

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Introduction......................................................51-Your Website.................................................6

E-Commerce..........................................................8

Autoresponder......................................................15

External Linking....................................................17

2- Search Engines..........................................20How a Search Engine Works...............................20

Most Popular Search Engines..............................23

Types of Search Engines.....................................25

3- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)...........37Inside Search Engine Optimization......................44

HTML Code Versus Text......................................57

Your Landing Pages.............................................58

4- Pay Per Click Advertising..........................61Types of Pay Per Click Advertising......................62

How to Construct a Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign.............................................................64

Keywords..............................................................67

PPC Monitoring and Management Services........70

Click Fraud Facts.................................................71

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PPC Advertising Cons..........................................72

PPC Advertising Pros...........................................73

5- Affiliate Advertising...................................756- Press Releases...........................................81

Your Press Release and SEO..............................82

What is RSS Feed?..............................................84

Create a Press Section on Your Website.............84

Social Bookmarks................................................87

Affiliate Marketing and Your Press Release.........88

How to Write a Press Release.............................90

7- Blogging......................................................94Starting Your Blog................................................95

Social Bookmarking.............................................98

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IntroductionInternet marketing know-how has become a must for most businesses whether they are Internet based or not. This guide will inform the beginner in easy terms and provide tactics and measures any business can use.

From marketing ideas to website add-ons and new services, you should be able to successfully market your website and communicate intelligently with vendors, outsourced contractors, and customers.

Most importantly, the information in this book should help you serve your customers more efficiently and increase business.

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1-Your Website

Whether your website is a simple one page declaration of your offer or a catalog, there is a voluminous of Internet marketing options and virtual website enhancements available.

Build Your Website For Speed

People have come to expect speed on the Internet and they do not waste time with confusing websites or poorly maintained websites with broken links. You have seconds to capture a visitor’s attention. People must be able to understand your website and find what they are looking for instantly.

Minimize your load time - keep graphics to a minimum and small and compress them where possible. Use flash technology, such as Javascript, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, and animation, sparingly.

2. Know Your Market

Your website must understand and cater to your potential customers. Eliminate any unneeded information and

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keep your site clean and professional. Build your site with your customer’s preferences and expectations in mind.

3. Maintain Focus

Be sure your website is focused on your goal and your customer’s expectations. Do not offer unrelated products or services with the hopes of netting extra money.

4. Your Reputation Must be trustworthy

You must overcome the automatic distrust that the Internet has come to radiate.

Build Credibility

Make sure your content uses good grammar and spelling.

Display your privacy statement. Provide contact information including an address and phone number.

Offer a Guarantee

Eliminate risk and build trust by offering a money back guarantee.

5. Align Yourself With well Known Names

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If you accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or PayPal for example, use their icons on your site. If you are representing well know products, display their brands and logos on your site.

6. Simple Navigation

Make your website easy to navigate and keep the look consistent throughout your pages.

7. Design Your Website to be Easily Indexed by Search Engines

Focus on keyword density without compromising your message. Use your keywords in page names.

8. Maintain Good and Fresh Content

Create compelling ad copy that sells. Make sure the content flows and leads your visitor to the desired action.

E-CommerceCollecting Payments on the Internet

Even though transactions carried out over the Internet are more secure than ever before, fear of providing credit card numbers remains the number one reason cited for not doing business via the Internet. This fear has been shown to be baseless as credit card problems are usually the result of a company getting hacked after transactions

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are completed, not the result of credit card information being intercepted. Regardless, in order to conduct business over the Internet you have to be able to collect payments for the products and services you are offering.

There are three major ways to enable you as an online merchant to accept credit card payments online: merchant accounts, live payment gateways, and third-party payment services. Merchant accounts are those offered by major credit card companies, such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

Setting up a merchant account involves filling out paperwork and agreeing to the company’s fee schedule. Make sure that you understand the total amount of fees that you will be responsible for, including setup fees, percentage of transactions or fixed price per transaction, and monthly fees. The amount of these fees is determined by your type of business, the amount of an average transaction, and your credit rating.

Live payment gateways are systems that allow customers to be charged in real time for the order they are placing online. These systems result in a reduction of the work required for your personnel to process an order. Payment gateways are a necessity for products that a consumer wishes to download immediately. Most merchant account providers provide you with some type of live

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payment gateway with your account, but it may not be what your company needs

Gateways can be compared using three criteria: features, cost, and reliability. The first feature a gateway should offer is a virtual terminal, a web form accessible to the merchant that allow him or her to enter credit card information manually. This feature is invaluable when dealing with technologically-challenged customers, returns, or voids. Another feature to be considered is fraud prevention, including address verification and use of credit card security codes. Recurring billing is a great feature for subscription or membership-based companies. Some gateways now offer eCheck processing in which customers can enter their bank information in lieu of having to physically mail in a check for payment. The last feature that should be considered for comparison is ease of integration. Does the gateway install easily or does it require more advanced skills to get it up and running?

The cost of utilizing a live gateway varies greatly. The setup fees for live payment gateways can range from hundreds of dollars to nothing. Monthly fees are usually independent of sales volume and most gateways charge for every transaction, whether the credit card being utilized is approved or denied. Any additional features you subscribe to will result in additional charges. Owners of new businesses typically do not have large budgets to

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draw from and should be particularly conscious of the fees for which they will be responsible. The following is a list of six of the most popular gateways and the fees associated with each.

Setup Fee Monthly Fee

Transaction Fee

Authorize.net

$0 - $300 $10 - $30 $.05 - $0.15

Payflow Pro $249 $59.95 $.10

Payflow Link $179 $19.95 $.10

Linkpoint API $75 - $300 $15 - $25 $0

LinkPoint Connect

$75 - $300 $15 - $25 $0

Plug ‘n Play $295 $20 $.10

Live payment gateways send an email receipt to both the merchant web server and to the customer when a purchase is made. Money is subtracted from the purchaser’s credit card and that amount is placed in a 30-day holding account owned by the merchant.

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The third basis for comparison when shopping for a gateway is reliability. Your gateway must be up and running 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Your business cannot risk the possibility of a transaction going awry and the subsequent loss of a potential customer.

The industry standards for live payment gateways are Authorize.net, which is the largest provider, and Payflow Pro, which is considered by many to be the best provider available. Authorize.net’s popularity is based on its compatibility with almost any shopping cart system and its low average monthly fee of $15. Payflow Pro has the advantage of being able to handle heavy volumes of traffic without malfunctioning, even though it is more costly.

If you are confident that your organization will meet or exceed $20,000 in monthly online sales, then you should feel comfortable applying for a merchant account and an online gateway service. However, small businesses can save money entering the world of e-commerce by using a third-party payment service. These services have multiple benefits. They give your business access to its own merchant account. They charge little or no setup fees. Their application form is simple and usually more readily approved than a bank’s. Finally, theses services often come with tools that make it easier to accept payments via your website.

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Although PayPal is probably best known as the payment system utilized for eBay auctions, it has payment options that businesses can use even if they are not selling items on eBay. PayPal offers Website Payments Standard to businesses as a third-party payment option. This service charges no setup, gateway, or monthly fees. Businesses are required only to pay $.30 per transaction and a commission of 2.9% or less, depending on their monthly sales volume. The PayPal system accepts payments using major credit cards, bank transfers, and other PayPal accounts.

Website Payments Standard is relatively simple to set up on your website – only requiring the merchant to add one or more payment buttons using a small amount of HTML provided by PayPal. These buttons direct your customers to PayPal’s secure site which will process their payment. PayPal also has the capability to set up subscriptions and recurring payments.

As your online sales grow, you will likely qualify for lower commission rates via a merchant account than those charged by third-party payment services, such as PayPal. Having your own merchant account also gives you more control in resolving any payment disputes, since PayPal usually rules in favor of the consumer in these situations. Some experts also claim that using PayPal on your website gives consumer’s a less sophisticated impression of your

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organization – in fact, it can make your site look like an online yard sale. This statement can be proven by comparing the conversion rates of organizations which use PayPal and those which use merchant accounts and live payment gateways.

If you are selling more than one product or service on your website, you may want to add a shopping cart feature that will allow a customer to accumulate several items until they are ready for checkout. Website Payments Standard includes its own shopping cart. There are a multitude of shopping cart software packages available for installation on your own Web server, or you can use a third-party shopping cart service, such as the one available through Netsuite.

The following is a list of the top ten shopping cart software packages available to businesses as ranked by www.toptenreviews.com . Ratings were determined based on the features of each program, ease of use, ease of installation, and access to assistance.

1. ShopSite Pro2. MerchandiZer Pro3. Monster Commerce Pro4. Store Front 6 AE5. Mercantec Softcart6. Free Merchant Gold

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http://www.toptenreviews.com/


7. GoEmerchant I-Store8. Miva Merchant9. 1ShoppingCart Pro10. X-Cart Pro

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is computer software that automatically answers email. These programs can also be written to collect and organize data.

Autoresponders were originally used to send messages such as “your mail could not be delivered because… “ back to email originators. Now autoresponders are valuable marketing tools that can immediately provide information to their prospective customers, track customers and inquiries, and even follow-up with people at preset time intervals.

Such follow-up autoresponders can be divided into two categories:

Outsourced ASP models— These autoresponders operate on the provider's server and are usually configured via a web-based control panel for a monthly usage fee.

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Server-side model — Usage of this model enables users to install the autoresponder software on their own server and requires technical skills.

Autoresponders can also be used with mailing list programs to track subscriptions, posts, and other activities.

Other features now available include:

Unlimited autoresponders.

Unlimited follow up messages.

Unlimited campaigns & lists.

Unlimited newsletter/broadcast messages.

Automatic RSS feed creation.

Personalized features.

Lead import and export features.

Easy point and click HTML and plain text message creation with attachments.

Open rate and click thru tracking.

Web form pop-up generator with split testing.

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Broadcasts including; split testing, multiple lists and exclusion of lists.

An autoresponder will help you make more sales. An autoresponder allows you to follow-up indefinitely and automatically with your customers through email. You’ll build more rapport, customer loyalty and confidence.

Here are 4 reasons why you absolutely must get an autoresponder…

1. More revenue. Repetitive contact has proven to produce more sales. The more offers you send out to your list, the more orders you’ll receive.

2. Less work. Contact thousands, even millions of people immediately, on-time, and without any extra effort!

3. Build a reputation. The best way to brand your product or service is to keep yourself in front of your customers and over time develop a relationship with them. Sending out emails in an auto-responder series is the perfect way to let people know what you or your company stands for, who you are, and what you are all about.

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4. Get customers for life! People stay on your autoresponder forever unless they unsubscribe.

External Linking As you enter into the world of internet marketing, don’t forget to utilize traditional advertising to promote your website as well. Advertising an organization’s website in traditional media, whether independently or as part of an advertising campaign, can be very effective. Don’t discontinue print advertising that you have used in the past and found to be effective. Just make sure that you include your URL in those magazine ads, newsletters, posters, billboards, newspaper ads, or other classified ads that you may purchase in trade journals, the yellow pages, etc.

Make sure you make your website’s domain name visible in any interaction you have with your clients or customers. This means including it on letterheads, invoices, receipts, envelopes, product literature, emails, business cards, product packaging, and even uniforms.

Direct mail, radio, and television can be used to promote websites, especially in local markets. When you include your website in an advertising campaign, you may want to use a two-step approach:

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1) Capture your reader’s attention with the advertisement itself.

2) Refer the reader to your website for more information or to place an order.

Some other less obvious website advertising ideas include incorporating your URL into your organization’s signage on your office buildings, warehouses, windows, or company vehicles. You can also mention your website in the recorded messages on cell phones and answering machines.

One final idea is to announce a contest. If you publicize a contest or drawing taking place on your website, you will generate increased traffic. Be sure that the contest you choose to publicize is legal in all states and countries in which you target audience may be found. Offer prizes that will attract customers fitting the demographic profile of your best customer.

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2- Search Engines

How a Search Engine WorksA search engine is an information retrieval system which is designed to find information stored on any kind of a computer system, whether it be an office network or the World Wide Web. A search engine allows the user to ask for desired information by specifying a word or phrase and retrieves a list of all items in its database that contain the specific word or phrase. Usually, the results list is arranged with respect to relevancy to the original search. Search engines regularly update their databases and retrieve desired information quickly and efficiently.

Without any further qualification, the term search engine usually refers to an Internet search engine. These search engines store information about large numbers of web pages which they retrieve from the Internet themselves. An automated Web crawler or spider is used to follow every link it sees and then analyze the contents of each webpage. The spider then determines how the page should be listed in its database for future retrieval.

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When a user is researching a topic on the Web, he or she enters key words into the search engine, the search engine looks them up in its database and then provides the user with a list of best-matching web pages, according to the criteria it uses to determine relevancy. Google and most other web engines take into account over 150 factors to determine relevancy. One of these factors is PageRank, an algorithm based on citation analysis developed in the 1950’s by Eugene Garfield at the University of Pennsylvania. PageRank “remembers” where it has been and uses the number of cross-links between pages to create virtual communities of web pages.

Search engine results pages (SERPs) usually contain a short summary of each page found, including its title and parts of the text. Most search engines today allow Boolean Searches, in which the terms AND, OR, and NOT are used to further narrow down a topic. Another advanced feature available on most search engines is proximity search, which allows the user to specify the distance between the keywords that the user has listed.

Search engines face many challenges in today’s ever-changing society. The Web is growing too fast for search engines based on today’s technology to be able to keep up with it. Web pages are frequently changing or updating their content which forces search engines to

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revisit them. Searching via keywords can result in false positives, as these words can show up in documents totally unrelated to the desired topic. Sometimes a search engine just cannot find what the user is looking for based on relevancy. Some search engines rank based not on relevancy, but on the amount of money they are paid by the website owner. Website owners can take advantage of the search engines and manipulate them into displaying their pages in higher results. Secure pages pose another problem. Search engines cannot browse them for technical reasons or will not list them for privacy reasons.

Most Web search engines make their money from advertising revenue, and, some, in order to increase revenue, will allow advertisers to pay to have their site ranked higher in search results. These search engines often do not make it clear to the user that this has happened. The more ethical search engines display advertisements or sponsored results in an area that is obviously separate from that of the algorithmically determined results. Every time a user clicks on one of these ads or sponsored results the search engine makes money. The majority of search engines are run by private companies that use their own specific algorithms to return results from closed databases.

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Most Popular Search EnginesAccording to www.seoconsultants.com, the most widely used search engines are as follows:

1) Google2) Yahoo! Search3) MSN Search4) AltaVista5) AOL NetFind6) Ask7) Fast8) Gigablast9) Netscape Search10) Snap.com11) Wisenut12) Industrial Search Engines

The first three are considered to be the First-Tier Search Engines. The remaining is an alphabetical listing of what are considered to be Second-Tier Search Engines. This information is current as of November 23, 2006 and is, of course, subject to change.

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http://www.seoconsultants.com/


UK Search Engines

According to www.directsubmit.co.uk , the following search engines and/or directories are some of the most popular search engines whose focus is UK business or websites that are of interest to the UK’s population:

1) All The Web 13) Yahoo UK & Ireland2) AltaVista UK3) AOL Search4) Ask Jeeves UK5) Excite6) Google UK7) Hotbot UK8) Look Smart UK9) Lycos UK10) MSN UK11) Overture UK12) UK Plus

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http://www.directsubmit.co.uk/


Types of Search Engines

There are at any time thousands of internet search engines available for use. Of these, ten to fifteen are general search engines, hundreds are language- and country-specific search engines, and tens of thousands are web-site specific search engines. Here is a sampling of what is currently available:

General Search Engines Alexa Internet AltaVista Ask.com AskMeNow Baidu Dogpile elgoog Gigablast Google MozDex Windows Live Search (formerly MSN Search) WiseNut Yahoo! Search

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Open Source Search Engines

These are search engines that access information or collective decisions that are shared during product development and made generally available in the public domain.

DataparkSearch Egothor Gonzui Ht://dig Lucene Lemur Toolkit and Indri Search Engine mnoGoSearch Namazu Nutch Open FTS SWISH-E Wikiasari Xapian Ya Cy Zettair

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Metasearch Engines

These search engines send user requests to other search engines and/or databases and return the results from all of them.

Bioinformatic_Harvester Brainboost Clusty Dogpile Excite HotBot Info.com Ixquick Kartoo Mamma Metacrawler Meta Lib Myriad Search SideStep WebCrawler

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Regional Search Engines

Accoona – China/US Alleba – Phillipines Ansearch – Australia/US/UK/NZ Araby – Middle East Baidu – China Daum – Korea In.gr – Greece Najdi.si – Slovenia Naver – Korea Rambler – Russia Rediff – India SAPO – Portugal Yandex – Russia

People Search Engines

Zoominfo

Email-based Search Engines

TEK

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Visual Search Engines

Grokker Kartoo Quintura

Answer-based Search Engines

Answers AskMeNow Brain Boost Lexxe Lycos iQ Windows Live QnA Yahoo! Answers

Google-based Search Engines

Google AOL Search MySpace Search Netscape

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Yahoo!-based Search Engines

AltaVista AlltheWeb GoodSearch Yahoo

Windows-Live-based Search Engines

A9.com Lycos

Job Search Engines

Naukri.com – India Bixee.com – India Craigslist – by city Eluta.ca – Canada CareerBuilder.com – USA Hotjobs.com – USA Indeed.com – USA Monster.com – USA Recruit.net – international SimplyHired.com – USA

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Blog Search Engines

Bloglines IceRocket PubSub Sphere Technorati

News Search Engines

Google News Mag Portal Newslookup Nexis (Lexis Nexis) Topix.net Yahoo! News

Multimedia Search Engines

Picsearch Podscope Blinkx

Code Search Engines

These search engines enable computer programmers and software developers to search for open source

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code on the internet and to quickly share code with other programmers on the internet.

JExamples Krugle Koders Google Code Search

BitTorrent Search Engines

BitTorrent is a computer program used for uploading and downloading files using the BitTorrent protocol, which is available online as free software.

Isohunt Mininova The Pirate Bay TorrentSpy FlixFlux

Accountancy Search Engines

IFACnet

Medical Search Engines

Entrez (includes Pubmed) GoPub Med (Gene Ontology) KMLE Medical Dictionary MeshPubMed (Medical Subject Headings)

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Web MD

Property Search Engines

Home.co.uk Rightmove Zillow.com

Business Search Engines

Thomasnet – US Business.com Nexis (Lexis Nexis)

Comparison Shopping Search Engines

Froogle Kelkoo MSN Shopping MySimon NexTag PriceRunner Shopzilla

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http://Home.co.uk/


Charity Search Engines

These search engines donate money to charities for every search that they perform.

GoodSearch

Geographic Search Engines

Geoportail Google Maps MapQuest Virtual Earth Yahoo! Maps

Social Search Engines

This type of search engine determines relevancy by considering the contributions of the user. For example, a user can promote or demote results.

Google Coop Rollyo Wink

Search Engines for Kids

Yahoo! Kids

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Ask for Kids Quintura for Kids

Legal Search Engines

WestLaw Lexis (Lexis Nexis) Quicklaw

Desktop Search Engines

Desktop search engines are used to search the contents of a user’s own computer.

Ask.com Autonomy Beagle Blinkx Copernic Desktop Search Docco exalead one: desktop Filehawk Gaviri Pocket Search Google Desktop HotBot img Seek ISVS Search Software Likasoft Archivarius 3000

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Windows Desktop Search – MSN Search Toolbar

Spotlight Tropes Zoom X1 Desktop Search, renamed X1 Enterprise

Client

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3- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)Search Engine Optimization is a marketing technique involving improving the number of visits to a particular web site as a result of “natural” search engine results. It also involves improving the percentage of these visits that produce a desired result called a conversion. A conversion is a desired action performed by a visitor to a particular website such as making a purchase, viewing or downloading a specific page, requesting more information, or signing up for a newsletter.

Webmasters began to look at optimizing their sites for search engines in the mid-1990s. Site owners began to realize the importance of having their sites appear at the top of search engine results in order to insure traffic to their sites. Most web users will not scroll down through pages of results, but will visit those sites that appear at the top of the first page of results.

At first, search engines relied only on factors that were within the webmaster’s control and, as a result, they became the victims of abuse and manipulation. Webmasters were guilty of including irrelevant keywords on their sites to increase the number of visits to their websites and thereby increase their ad revenue.

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Webmasters also manipulated the HTML source of a page to try to improve their rankings in search engine results. In addition, inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data, whether purposefully included or not, led to pages ranking for irrelevant searches and failing to rank for relevant searches.

Search engines, not wanting to be held hostage to a webmaster’s ulterior motives, developed more complex ranking algorithms. They based these algorithms that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate. Today’s search engines use hundreds of factor to rank websites on their search results pages. The factors themselves and the weight each factor carries can change continually. The top four search engines, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask.com, carefully guard the algorithms they use and these algorithms can vary widely.

SEO is marketing by understanding how these algorithms work and what web users are likely to search for when looking for information on a specific topic on the web. The goal is to match those users with sites that offer what they are interested in finding. Search engine optimization may involve making changes that are noticeable to visitors or just working with the HTML code behind the scenes to optimize presentation and structure. Noticeable changes could include the use of unique content on pages or attention-grabbing titles that are

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easily picked out by search engines and attractive to human visitors as well. Less noticeable changes to the everyday visitor are incorporating a definite hierarchical structure to a site or choosing a domain and URL that are more likely to improve a site’s ranking.

Search engine optimization techniques are classified into two categories: those that search engines recommend as part of good design and those that search engines do not find acceptable and attempt to neutralize the effects of. The latter is referred to as “spamming” or “spamdexing”. Most reputable SEO consultants do not offer spamdexing techniques, as they can result in the banning of a site from a search engine.

There is an obvious potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. All of the major search engines do provide information and guidelines to aid webmasters in site optimization. Also, in 2005, and annual conference entitled AIrWeb was created to open up a dialogue between search engines and search engine optimizers. The goal of the conference was to build a better relationship between the two sides of the market and, in turn, to minimize the damaging effects of unscrupulous search engine optimization.

As of 2007, the top search engines do not require webmaster to submit their sites for inclusion in search

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results. They use technology which discovers new sites and pages automatically. The search engine looks at a number of different factors when it investigates new sites and pages may not be indexed until they gain more traffic or include more links. However, some search engines do operate a paid submission service that will guarantee inclusion but not ranking.

A successful Internet marketing campaign cannot rely solely on search engine optimization. The focus of the campaign should be not necessarily to rank the highest for certain terms in search engines, but to achieve an organization’s business objectives for their website. In order to meet these goals, an organization may use a combination of SEO and paid advertising on search engines. In addition, they will have to build high quality web pages that meet their target audience’s needs, address any technical issues that may keep search engines from indexing their sites, and set up programs to help site owners measure the success of their marketing campaign.

Algorithms used my search engines can and will change and even if you are lucky enough to achieve a high ranking today that is not a guarantee of success. Your site must be prepared to handle the increased traffic. If it is not, visitors will be generally dissatisfied with the information available to them and the desired conversions will not

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occur. In addition, these visitors will not return to the site and may keep others from doing so via word of mouth.

As mentioned previously, most of the major search engines provide information regarding search engine optimization on their web sites. The following are tips from Google (www.google.com) that will help you determine the difference between search engine optimizers that will be an asset to your organization and those that will only increase your chances of being banned from search engine results.

Be wary of SEO firms that send email out of the blue.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. (There is no such thing as a company with a “special relationship” with Google or one that claims it will use “priority submission”.)

Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.

You should never have to link to an SEO. Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability the type

keywords directly into the browser address bar. (This requires extra software.)

Choose wisely. (Find out how long an SEO has been in business, how many employees they have, and if they religiously report spam abuse.)

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http://www.google.com/


Be sure to understand where the money goes. (Are you paying for permanent inclusion or temporary advertising?)

Talk to many SEOs and ask other SEOs if they’d recommend the firm you’re considering.

Make sure you’re protected legally. (Insist on a full and unconditional money-back guarantee and don’t be afraid to request a refund if you’re unsatisfied for any reason or if your SEO’s actions cause your domain to be removed from a search engine’s index. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing and requires the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.)

According to Website Magazine’s February 12, 2007 issue the following are the top 25 search engine optimization and marketing firms (ranked by www.Ranking.com ):

1) marketleap.com2) highrankings.co

m3) bruceclay.com4) morevisibility.co

m5) seoimage.com

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http://www.Ranking.com/


6) iprospect.com7) zunch.com8) 1stsearchranking

.com9) primevisibility.co

m10) oneupweb.com11) beyondroi.com12) impaqt.com13) bigmouthmedia.c

om14) customermagne

tism.com15) page-zero.com16) infosearchmedia.

com17) proceedinteracti

ve.com18) rangeonlinemedi

a.com19) fathomseo.com20) netramind.com21) e-

channel.com.au22) trafficleader.com23) greenlight.co.uk

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24) allwebpromotion.com

25) searchrank.com

According to Advertising Age magazine, search engine marketing was a $7 billion business in 2006 and 80% of all Internet traffic begins at a search engine.

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Inside Search Engine Optimization

One of the strategies used in search engine marketing is search engine optimization which attempts to improve rankings in search results by choosing relevant keywords and by improving a web site’s structure, content, and links. What follows is a discussion of the most important things that you can do to optimize your web site and improve its rankings on search engine results pages, according to Microsoft’s Small Business Center. These tips are discussed in order of importance.

1) Address potential site design problems

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Search engines do a poor job of indexing frames and your site is better off without them.

Most search engines cannot or will not list dynamic URLs. These are URLS that contain any of the following : ?, &, %, +, =, cgi-bin, or .cgi.

Search engines cannot index splash pages that are made mostly or entirely from Flash. Hyperlinks made with Flash cannot be spidered by the search engines, so, unless you add standard

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HTML hyperlinks, none of your pages will by spidered.

Sites that use Image Maps for navigation run the risk of not being accessible to search engines because the web crawler often gets trapped in the code that makes up the Image Map.

Search engines also cannot follow links that are within Javascript.

Any of the previous three indexing problems can be addressed by creating a site

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map page using standard HTML links to link to every page and adding a standard HTML link on each page that links back to the site map.

2) Keyword Optimization

To get listed correctly on the search engines, each page of your site needs to be optimized. Since keywords are essential to this process, choosing the right ones is crucial.

Try to think about specific phrases instead

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of just words. Competition on the internet for general terms makes it extremely unlikely that a site that relies on words or phrases that are too general will rank well with the search engines.

Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes. Think about what they would search for if they were looking to purchase your product or services. Ask friends and family members what they would search for if they

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were looking for a site like yours.

Check out the competition. Do a search using keywords that you already know you want to utilize and click through to the top sites that come up. View the source HTML code and see what keywords they have used in their meta tags.

3) Choosing Your Title Tag

Search engines and directories place a lot of importance on the keywords that are found in your title tag.

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Your title tag is what most search engines will use for your title on their search results page. Make it interesting!

Title tags should be between 50 and 80 characters long – including spaces.

You should include one or two of your most important keyword phrases in your title tag, but it should remain as close as possible to a readable sentence.

Place keywords at the beginning of your title tag

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in case it is too long for some engines. If it must be shortened, you won’t lose the most important parts.

Every page of your site should have its own title tag with its own keywords that are related to the content on that specific page.

4) Utilizing Your Page Copy (the actual text a visitor

to the site will read)

Each page should contain at least 200 words if at all possible.

The text on each page should

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contain keyword phrases but remain logical and readable.

Use the keyword phrases that you have used in your title tags and meta tags.

Add additional text pages to your site in the form of how-to-articles, tips, or tutorials. This will help you obtain better rankings through the use of keywords and the addition of links, as other sites will want to link to useful information.

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5) Using Meta Tags to Your Advantage

Meta tags were originally created to enhance search engines ability to investigate web sites by giving them information that they otherwise might have had trouble determining.

Most people still believe that meta tags are the be all and end all of search engine optimization. However, increasing completion for high search engine rankings

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led to many people stuffing their meta tags with keywords in order to spam the search engines. As a result, meta tags are no longer awarded as much importance.

There are two types of meta tags that can help you in your endeavor to improve your ranking: meta keywords and meta description.

Your meta keywords should not exceed 1024 characters and should only include keyword

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phrases that you used in the copy of your page, title tags, meta description, or other tags. Be careful not to use any one word more than 5 times. Be sure to include specific geographic locations, if appropriate to your site.

Your description meta should not exceed 250 characters. Its job is to accurately describe content while trying to attract visitors to your site. The description meta should include 3

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to 4 of your most important keyword phrases with the most important at the beginning.

6) Your images “alt” attribute

Any images on your page can help your page’s ranking if they include an “alt” attribute.

An “alt” attribute can be added to any image on your page and will show up to help those who may have images turned off during viewing.

This attribute should be used to describe the

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image not just to use the opportunity to make a list of keywords. Limit yourself to 2-3 keywords per image.

An “alt” attribute is a good place to use common misspellings for your keywords or plurals that you may not have used elsewhere. This will enable you to capture those users who search for these terms as well.

You should never do anything in your process of optimization that could lead the search engines to

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believe that you are trying to trick them into giving your site a higher ranking. This is considered spamming and you will be penalized, perhaps by the removal of your site from the engine’s database, if you attempt it. These tricks include, but are not limited to:

1) Listing keyword in places other than your meta tag. There are very few legitimate reasons for a list of keywords to appear in the text of a page of within the HTML code of your site.

2) Using the same color text as your page’s background color.

3) Using the same tag more than once, such as the inclusion of multiple title tags.

4) Submitting identical pages. Never duplicate a

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page and submit it without giving the copies different file names.

5) Submitting the same page to any one engine more than once within 24 hours.

6) Using keywords in your keywords meta tag that do not directly relate to your page content.

7) Submitting your URL more than once a month.

Automatic versus Manual Submission

Search engines hate automatic submissions. They get millions of attempted automatic submissions each day and, as a result, go to great lengths to try to stop them – such as requiring passwords and/or fill-in details before the submission is accepted.

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Automatic submission software has been banned by many directories, because it cannot always place links in relevant categories. In addition, whether you hire a directory submitter or use submission software yourself, you are essentially setting your site up for failure. Getting too many incoming links too quickly or submitting the same site to the major engines repeatedly can be seen by search engines as spamming and get your site banned entirely.

The benefits of using a paid submission service are hard to find, although promotion experts will tell you that these services will know of places to submit that you are not aware of. In addition, the best submission services actually take the time to educate their clients on

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submission with the expectation that they will be able to do the job themselves next time.

Submitting your site manually gives you control over where it will be listed. Automatic submitters may list your site with an engine you have never heard of in a country you have never even visited, or, even worse, they could be associating your site with sites that you find objectionable, such as those that contain pornography. When you submit your own site, you decide what category it will be listed under. You don’t want your site to end up in the general directory or the miscellaneous category where it may never again be seen by human eyes.

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Every site should be marketed differently and submitted to different engines and directories depending on its intended audience. Automatic submission does not give you the option to do this. Finally, manual submission is the only way to choose the descriptions and keywords that you think will be most effective in the promotion of your site, as most engines and directories allow you to choose your own.

Common Myths of Search Engine Submission

1) Search engine submission will requires a lot of research.

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Almost every search engine and directory has a

link labeled “Add a site” or “Submit URL” which will take you directly to their submission form. All you have to do is follow their rules and enter your information carefully.

2) Websites should be listed in all search engines.

If you list your website with the top tier search

engines, it will find its own way into the second

tier and beyond. In fact, you don’t even have to

submit your website at all for it to be listed,

search engine spider’s are constantly combing the

web and will eventually find your sit on their

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own if your site contains links to other sites.

3) Websites should be listed on a weekly or monthly

basis.

Actually, continually submitting your site can be

classified as spamming and result in your site’s

banishment from a search engine’s database. As

a general rule, do not resubmit a new version

of a page unless you have an unfavorable ranking.

4) Good submission is costly.

The truth is you don’t have to pay a submission

service to submit your site to the search engines.

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In fact, submission to most major search engines is free.

Submission Service Claims

Be particularly careful of websites who guarantee search engine positioning. These claims usually take one of three forms:

1) A guarantee of top rankings coupled with a

promise to keep working on achieving top rankings until that goal is accomplished

These companies are only interested in your

initial payment and have no intention of

continuing to do anything.

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2) Promises of first page listings on Google and/or

Yahoo

These companies do not make it clear that they

are referring to “sponsored results” not

“natural listings”. They will charge you a set monthly fee and only spend a tiny portion of it generating traffic to your site from sponsored listings.

3) “Money Back Guarantee” that a certain

percentage of your keywords will receive top

rankings on the “major” search engines

Their list of “major” search engines includes

several small and/or outdated engines that are

very easy to achieve top rankings on. Only search

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engines themselves can guarantee top listings and

ethically they can only do this through sponsored

listings.

How Long Does it Take to Get Listed?

Here are estimated waiting periods for some of the more popular search engines:

MSNup to two months

Googleup to four weeks

AltaVistaup to one week

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Fastup to two weeks

Exciteup to six weeks

Northern Lightup to four weeks

AOLup to two months

HotBotup to two months

iWonup to two months

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HTML Code Versus Text

Search Engines are constantly ‘spidering’ the web and indexing pages for search data.

You need to consider your HTML Code to Text ratio. How much of your web page is html markup and how much is actual text that the Search Engines will read? This is very important because Search Engines will only read and index the actual text of a page and they will only go so far into a page to read either HTML or Text. So if your web page is written in mostly HTML code, the search engines might not read all of your text.

So what is the desired ratio? The higher your text content the better. Thirty percent or more is not bad. Adhering to W3C Standards will

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help your sites maintain code that is clean and can be easily found by the search engines. Often when a search engine spider encounters bad code, it simply leaves the page.

W3C Standards - The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding. Information related to this organization can be found at www.w3.org/.

You can check the ratio of your site at:

www.holovaty.com/tools/getcontentsize/

The impact of how much your ratio affects your overall rankings in search engines may never be

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http://www.holovaty.com/tools/getcontentsize/

http://www.holovaty.com/tools/getcontentsize/


known. But it is another important factor to consider when optimizing your website.

Your Landing Pages

Someone types a keyword into a search engine, your website address is one displayed in answer to their query, and they click to see your website. Your ‘landing page’ is where visitors arrive after clicking on your site in a search engine.

Your landing page should be consistent with the visitor’s purpose for coming, and if you are an affiliate it should blend or match the theme of the affiliate site you are promoting.

Your landing page should follow the laws of advertising (AIDA) and lead visitors down the path to the action that you want them

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to take.

Be aware of the virtual fold of your landing page. This is the area of the page first visible to visitors before they scroll. What the visitor sees will vary slightly depending on resolution, screen sizes, and individual settings.

PHP

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PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor, was originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. PHP is free of charge. The PHP Group also provides the complete source code for users to build, customize and extend for their own use.

PHP can be used to match your page with your PPC (Pay Per Click) search terms. For example if your search term is “perfume” then use PHP to display “perfume” throughout your landing page. This will keep your page topic specific. You can also use this for email campaigns by inserting the addressee’s name into the landing page.

Example:

Your page could have a field and button like this:

Enter your name here.

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Then the visitor’s name would appear where you have programmed it to appear throughout your page.

Your website becomes a personal experience for your visitor.

You should also inform your visitors about what’s going to happen ‘after’ they leave your page. Will they be going to a check-out page or another affiliate site? Let them know if they are going to receive an email. Tell visitors what to expect.

Example: ‘After completing this form you will be taken to the check out page.’

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4- Pay Per Click AdvertisingPay per click is an advertising technique used mainly on websites and search engines. Potential advertisers bid on “keywords” that they think potential customers would type in the search bar when they are looking for that type of product or service. If advertisers win the auction for their specific keyword, they then construct an advertisement that will appear with the natural results of a search conducted for that keyword. These ads are called “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads” depending on which search engine you are using. They will appear next to or above the results of the original search. The advertiser pays only when somebody clicks on their advertisement.

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There are currently more than 500 pay per click search engines. However, ten of these produce over 85% of pay per click searches. Bidding for ad space on these search engines is extremely competitive resulting in higher advertising costs. The top ten search engines and the minimum deposits they require are as follows:

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Pay Per Click Search Engines Minimum Deposit Required

1. Google AdWords $52. Yahoo!Search Marketing $53. ABC Search $254. SearchFeed $255. 7 Search $256. MIVA (formerly FindWhat) $507. Enhance Interactive $508. Findology $259. MicrosoftAd Center $510. Ask.com $15

Types of Pay Per Click AdvertisingThere are several types of pay per click advertising. The most popular is, as mentioned above, keyword advertising. The keywords that are bid on can be words, phrases, or even model numbers. The advertisements will appear in the order of the amount bid, from highest to

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lowest. There is software and other services available to help advertisers develop keyword strategies.

Product pay per click advertising lets advertisers provide “feeds” of their product databases to search engines. When users search for a product, the links to the advertisers who bid for placement appear with the highest bidder appearing most prominently. The user is able to sort by price and then click on a feed to make a purchase. BizRate.com, Shopzilla.com, Nextag, Pricegrabber.com, and Shopping .com are popular product comparison engines, also known as price comparison engines

Service pay per click advertising is very similar to product PPC. “Service engines”, such as Nextag, SideStep, and TripAdvisor, offer advertisers the

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opportunity to provide feeds of their service databases which will appear when users search for that particular service. As usual, advertisers who pay more are given better ad placement. However, users can sort their results by price or other methods.

Pay per call advertising is similar to pay per click advertising. Ads are listed in search engines and directories and publishers charge local advertisers for each call they receive as a result of their listing. This form of advertising is not just limited to local advertisers as many of the pay per call search engines allow nationwide companies to create advertisements with local telephone numbers. The pay per call market is expected to reach $3.7 billion by the year 2010.

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How to Construct a Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign1) Decide what your advertising budget is and what

level of risk you are willing to take.

Larger search engines are less risky as they already have excellent market coverage and typically offer excellent customer service.

On the other hand, the largest search engines are more expensive on which to achieve a top ranking.

2) Decide which search engines you wish to use.

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Ask for recommendations from friends and business associates.

Do your homework – research each option carefully.

3) Decide which keywords you want to bid on.

There are plenty of free tools available on the internet to help you research keywords and tell you what the current bid price for certain words and phrases is currently running on different search engines.

Pick your keywords wisely,

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as they can range in bid prices from $.10 to over $10.

Don’t limit yourself to one keyword or phrase. Large corporations often have thousands of keywords.

4) Pay special attention to the design of your landing

page.

Make sure this page makes it clear what products you are selling, the benefits of buying these products, how to make a purchase, and why your product is better than your

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competitor’s product.

Your business’ homepage is usually not a good choice for a landing page. If visitors want to learn more about your company, they will do so on their own initiative.

The fewer clicks that a visitor to your site has to make to get to the point where they can actually purchase a product will result in more visitors becoming customers.

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5) Begin the bidding process.

Most search engines have automated the bidding process so that you do not have to actively participate in the process. They will stop when they reach your maximum bid.

Personal involvement is always a good idea, at least at first.

Be sure to check read the search engine’s terms of use carefully. Look for minimum bids

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required, deposits required, and what happens if you have to cancel your campaign.

Usually, PPC search engines will only allow less than 10 ads to show up on a search results page. Research has shown that unless your ad is among the first 3 or 4, you are much less likely to have visitors to your landing page.

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KeywordsA great tool for keyword suggestions and information is

‘Good Keywords.’ This software allows you to type in a word and get multiple related keyword phrases back along with their estimated amount of searches per month. The program is free.

Besides reporting current traffic search numbers and suggesting other relevant terms, this tool will generate misspellings, build

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keyword phrases, and has a keyword organizer. Good Keywords lets you choose search engine statistics for Overture, Yahoo, or Teoma.

Another more sophisticated program is ‘WordTracker.’ However, ‘Good Keywords’ is a great program for general popular words and phrases.

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Another keyword assistance program is Adword Accelerator. This tool is for discovering new keywords for Google Adwords on

based on specific criteria. You can find out what words have less competition and lower pay per click costs among other factors.

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Here are some of the Adword Accelerator benefits…

You can automatically discover actual broad phrases and exact match keyword variations from Google’s system and position, click, and cost-per-day estimates.

You can discover out how many ads are displayed for each word on Google and how many ads actually incorporate the keyword in their ad. When you find ads that are ignoring the keyword in their own ads, you might have a found a good word to bid on for a higher CTR (click through rate) by adding the keyword to your ad. (Ads with the keyword phrase

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in them get higher CTR usually.) Uses the word ad a lot

You can research actual misspelled keywords that AdWords advertisers are bidding on in Google.

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PPC Monitoring and Management ServicesThere are many companies offering PPC monitoring and management services. These companies can be an integral part of any PPC campaign by automating many of the processes you need to perform in order to protect your investment. They have the added advantage of being totally independent of the PPC search engines themselves and offering unbiased answers and advice. Here are some of the more popular services available and the companies that provide them.

Can we take out the 2nd black horizontal line?

PPC Management Services Atlas OnePointDynamic Bid Maximizer Advance / Overture

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Google AdWords ReportPPC Bid Tracker

PPC Research Tools Word TrackerCompare Your ClicksPPC Bid Reporter ProfessionalKeyword Monster

Click Fraud Monitoring Who’s Clicking WhoClicklabAd WatcherClickDetective

Click Fraud FactsAccording to In The News, up to 20% of all pay per click traffic delivered to advertisers originates from false sources, not from actual potential customers. The majority of click fraud originates from two sources – competitors and web site owners. Competitors want to drain your advertising budget by producing false clicks that you have to pay for, even though they were not viable leads. Web site owners sometimes work in

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tandem with search engines by agreeing to feature their ads and provide their customers with more exposure in return for receiving part of the revenue generated by each click. Thus, some of these web site owners will try to generate as many clicks as possible to increase the profitability of their agreement.

Click fraud has become enough of an issue to attract the attention of major publications, such as The Washington Post and BusinessWeekonline. According to www.endofclickfraud.com, if an organization spends $15,000 on PPC advertising distributed among the top tier search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, and is paying between .50 and $1 per click, they could be losing $2220.00 to fraud.

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http://www.endofclickfraud.com/


PPC Advertising Cons1) It is very easy to get

caught up in a bidding war over keywords and spend way more than you could ever recoup.

2) The return on your investment can be very hard to measure. Some PPC search engines provide customers with measurement tools, but these aren’t always accurate. Most of the smaller PPC companies don’t even provide tracking methods.

3) You can spend advertising dollars just to generate junk traffic. PPC services distribute some of their results to other search engines allowing your listing to show up in the nether regions of the Internet.

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4) PPC advertising requires you to pay more money when more traffic is generated. Natural search engine optimization allows you to invest a set amount of time and money to achieve a better rank, and your cost will go down as you attract more traffic.

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PPC Advertising Pros1) Pay per click can

generate traffic immediately

2) Pay per click ads can be adjusted in hours or days in response to market behavior.

3) Pay per click advertising can be a bargain if you choose your keywords wisely.

4) Pay per click can guarantee ad placement for a relatively small portion of your marketing budget.

What Role Should PPC Advertising Play in Your Organization’s Marketing Strategy?

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Most businesses cannot afford to rely on pay per click advertising alone. It is too expensive to keep up with the ever rising bid amounts for advantageous keywords. However, there are certain instances in which PPC advertising can be invaluable.

1) If you are starting a new campaign to draw attention to a new product or service, PPC is a great way to create a buzz.

2) If you sell a product or offer a service that consumers can purchase immediately upon arriving at your website, PPC is very effective.

3) If you are able to find keyword(s) that create a market niche for your organization, PPC can provide cost-effective

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advertising. For instance, if you can generate traffic with a highly specific keyword, such as “PerfectPoint Pencils” instead of just “Pencils”, PPC may be a good option.

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5- Affiliate Advertising

Affiliate marketing is a method of advertisement for web businesses that rewards affiliates for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale accomplished by his or her efforts. Compensation may be provided as a percentage of the value of a sale, for every click (pay per click), a percentage of a specific amount per lead generated (pay per lead), or as compensation for each sale or client provided through the affiliates’ marketing efforts (pay per sale).

There are two ways to use affiliate marketing to make money through your website. One, you can offer an affiliate program to others, or, two, you

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can sign up to be another business’s affiliate.

If you decide to offer an affiliate program of your own, your main goal should be to find affiliates who can reach previously unreachable markets. Be sure that you are not competing with your own affiliates. In other words, make sure that they do not use the same search engines, content sites, or e-mail lists that you are currently using. Since it can be time-consuming to oversee a large number of affiliates, select only a few companies and interview them. Make sure you choose carefully as these companies will be representing your organization on the web. After working with affiliates for a while, you will be able to see who produces results (usually a small percentage) and who does not. Stick with the best and let the rest go.

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By starting an affiliate program, you can create an army of people who will recommend your product on their web site. You can greatly increase your income without increasing the size of your business. You do not have to spend money on salespeople and advertising. Your affiliates are doing your advertising for you and you only have to pay them when they are successful. As more and more affiliates sign up and you invest time in teaching both new and old how to increase their commission checks, your income will increase exponentially.

If you are thinking about signing up to become another business’s affiliate to generate income in addition to that generated by the sale of your own services and/or products, think about your customer. What other products or services are needed or would be of interest to your site

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visitors? For instance, if you own a web site that sells hair care products, it would make sense to recruit stylists as affiliates. Recommending products on you website really allows you to earn money without taking a risk. Your only investment is the time it takes to create some form of advertisement and the space that advertisement takes up on your site. You might create some kind of a banner ad or publish an article about a company and its products.

Currently, according to Internet Statistics Compendium 2007, the most active sectors in affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail sectors. According to the same source, the three sectors expected to see the most growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.

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According to Shawn Collins of AffiliateTip.com, common lore holds that “affiliate marketing all started at a cocktail party. Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, was chatting with a party guest who wanted to sell books on her web site. This got Bezos thinking. Why not have the woman link her site to Amazon’s and receive a commission on the books that she sold? Soon after Amazon introduced the Amazon Associates Program. It was a simple idea. Amazon associates would place banner or text links on their site for individual books or link directly to Amazon’s home page. When visitors clicked from the associate’s site through to Amazon.com and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. With that thought, Bezos created Amazon.com’s affiliate program in July 1996.”

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However, Collins also reports that this was not the first affiliate advertising program in use. “In November 1994, almost a full year before Amazon.com even launched its web site, the venerable CDNow (www.cdnow.com) began its buyweb program. With its buyweb program, CDNow was the first to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing through independent, online storefronts. It worked like this. CDNow had the idea that music-oriented web sites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors might be interested in purchasing and offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNow to purchase them. The idea for this remote purchasing originally arose as a result of conversations with a music publisher called Geffen Records

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http://www.cdnow.com/


(www.geffen.com ) in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen Records wanted to sell its artists’ CD directly from its site by didn’t want to do it itself. Geffen Records asked CDNow if it could design a program where CDNow could link directly from the artist on its Web site to Geffen’s web site, bypassing the CDNow home page and going directly to an artist’s music page. By linking Geffen Records to CDNow, the affiliate marketing format was born.”

There are pros and cons to affiliate marketing. Positive things include that it is a “pay for performance model” in which a merchant does not have to pay unless he gets results, excluding the initial design and development of the program. Also, there is the possibility of making large amounts of money through the use of this type of online advertising. More and

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http://www.geffen.com/


more of any business’s target market is spending more of their time online these days increasing the chances that affiliate advertising will reach the appropriate audience.

One of the major problems with the affiliate advertising industry is that it lacks regulation. There is no governing body, despite numerous attempts to establish one, that initiates regulations, standards, and guidelines. “Trial and error” is probably the best way to describe how affiliate marketers operate. Another problem with affiliate marketing is that it is often confused with network marketing or multi-level marketing. Some industry insiders have recommended changing the terminology “affiliate marketing” to “performance marketing”.

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Without question, affiliate marketing can increase your sales, if you establish and maintain your program. Here are some tips to get you started:

Set your prices and financial and marketing, goals prior to starting the program.

Establish strategic relationships that you can see having long-term potential.

Choose affiliates carefully, keeping in mind your customers and target market and making sure they have similar markets that encourage the image you want to project.

Identify your most productive affiliates and

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devote your time and resources to them.

Test ads on affiliate sites.

Help your affiliates promote your products.

Keep a plan in place to continually recruit new affiliates. You will have turnover.

Create new advertising for your affiliates frequently.

Find out what your best affiliates are doing. Are they advertising? If so, where? Do they have an opt-in e-mail list? If so, how often do they email them? Are they doing pay per click? What keywords are they using?

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6- Press Releases

You can get big, targeted results from press releases instantly. Some of the press release news sites generate over 100 million page visits per month. This means the potential for your press release to generate traffic for your website is tremendous.

When you submit a press release, your announcement goes out as a live feed. You can also schedule when you want your press release to be distributed. You can embed links into your press release to drive traffic directly to

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your website, and you can create your press release to drive search engine traffic to your site.

Press releases can be submitted in multiple search categories. You can even edit scheduled and released press releases. Your press release can target your desired audience and the cost is less than almost any comparable form of advertising.

Press releases now have a longer life as they are archived and accessible for viewing.

Your Press Release and SEOCreating your press release will require careful planning to get attention for your business or product. Keyword Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help your press release bring more targeted viewers to you, as

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people search for the keywords you include in your press release.

Keyword optimized press releases give website owners fresh content that brings visitors. Reporters and website owners are looking for new and relevant subject matter.

RSS feed subscribers get automatic updates and displays of new press releases. If your press release is interesting or of relevant value, web content builders, article writers, and/or journalists might add them to their own website news columns. This gives your press release even more visibility and you more results.

SEO for press releases includes embedding anchor text within the press release and links with the chosen keywords in them. What is anchor text? Anchor text is link text that takes the

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visitor to your website. This is a great way to drive traffic to your website!

SEO press releases can cause significant amounts of website activity. The ROI can often be more than many other types of advertising.

Can a press release effectively be optimized to simultaneously appeal to journalists and search engines?

Yes – a good writer should be able to incorporate and utilize keywords effectively for search engine optimization, and attract consumers.

When your press release is found by main search engines, it can be picked up by news and industry journalists, and drive consumer traffic to your site in multiple ways.

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RSS syndication to blogs and news websites bypasses the media filters and algorithms that search engines use and puts your press release in front of your audience.

A professional press release writer should have experience with SEO, RSS, and journalistic appeal. These writers should be able to craft your information within the SEO framework to be an appealing read for your audience.

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What is RSS Feed?

RSS (Really Simple

Syndication) is the publishing and distribution of your press release (and news) in real time. With RSS feed anyone can create content and syndicate their press release to sites with RSS installed.

Internet users can subscribe to RSS feeds available on more websites every day. A user can sign up for news and stories of specific interest and receive them ‘live.’

The RSS web feed is the newest and simplest way for the world to get the word on the latest news, when, where and how it wants.

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http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/%20http:/images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=rss%20feed&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&fr2=tab-web&w=450&h=450&imgurl=elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/new-rss-xml-feed-icon.png&rurl=http://elliottback.com/wp?letter=S&size=119.0kB&name=new-rss-xml-feed-icon.png&p=rss+feed&type=png&no=2&tt=164,313&oid=ebf3a2858170a50a&ei=UTF-8


Create a Press Section on Your Website

A press release section on your website will provide credibility to your company, keep your visitors informed of your activities and can increase traffic.

You should include information used by journalists and editors quickly finding story ideas:

Your complete contact information that includes a name, phone number, e-mail address, postal

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address, and any other information such as a fax number; journalists have deadlines and might need to reach you.

RSS feeds All of your

past Press Releases- current and archived.

Additional media relations materials, such as brochures, history,

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annual reports, etc.

Photos, company logo, and other relevant images.

Other contact names, titles, and contact information that may be helpful in writing a story.

Links to related information, such as company blogs,

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industry news, etc.

Audio and video content, such as a speech by the CEO or a commercial.

Bios of top company officials.

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Outline the services you offer.

Including all of this information in one press section on your website will be a tremendous benefit for reporters and editors trying

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to search your site to find the information needed. You will appear organized and trustworthy because you have provided all information about your company to them.

Social Bookmarks

Social bookmarks are websites where users are able to save articles for themselves and share them with other users by clicking on icon links.

Social bookmarking sites store lists of Internet resources users have found interesting or useful. These sites are arranged by categories, tags, or randomly, as the user requests. These bookmarked sites and pages can be shared with other people who have similar interests.

These links can also be organized by user defined keywords or tags

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(called folksonomy). Websites can be rated by users, include email links, have comments added, be sorted by popularity and algorithms that draw inferences from other keyword references, and participate in automated notification systems.

Social bookmarking links should be included in your press section and press releases.

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Affiliate Marketing and Your Press Release

Affiliate marketing allows for you to earn a commission from your website. A company will pay you for displaying ads or per click, or sales made, for browsers who click on their ad from your press release website.

Two options exist for beginning an affiliate marketing technique. You may go through an affiliate advertising agency or through an individual company. Agencies usually offer a variety of marketing strategies to choose from. This may be a difficult decision, as it is impossible to know which ads will be most likely to be followed from your site. An individual company on the other hand, may contact you, but most likely you will have to choose and contact them. A

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company is not likely to say yes immediately to an affiliate marketing proposal as it will cost them money and there are numerous other aspects.

You will need to ruminate your ‘target audience’ before you start an affiliate marketing program. Your goal is to earn a commission from your browsers clicking on the link, so you want the advertisement to relate to the interests of your audience. You want to be thought of as an industry expert, so you will want to weigh the reputation of your partnering company. If this company will send a message to your audience that negatively affects your credibility, or competes with you, do not begin an affiliate marketing program.

The partnering affiliate marketing company will probably excogitate their target audience before agreeing to work with you. It is

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your job to gather information and convince the company that you have similar target audiences. You must also demonstrate how your company values, goals, and messages are related, so a partnership could be mutually beneficial.

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How to Write a Press Release

While a professional writer is optimal, you need to know the basic format and important characteristics of a press release. In order to be considered for inclusion in the news, these three characteristics must be present. Your press release must have:

News value- Evaluate the news medium where the release will be sent. Make sure that the subject will match the typical content of this particular news outlet.

Journalistic writing style- Your press release needs to be

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written in the style of a journalist so that it is ready to be published.

Meet the deadline- If a news outlet has a deadline for receiving content, meet it. Late press releases are not considered.

Concise: Writing for a press release must be concise and able to be scanned. Use short sentences. Paragraphs should contain only three to four sentences. Use subheads, bulleted lists, make keywords bold, etc. to create an easy-to-read document.

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A good press release will use keywords in the title and then repeat them in the opener, the body, and the bio. The body of the text is often written in an inverted pyramid style, so the most important information is at the top. The goal is to answer the who, what, when, where, why, and how.

The format of a press release includes:

Contact Information- Usually found on the top left-hand corner of the page. Include your complete contact information (name, address, phone, e-mail, and fax) to allow for a reporter to contact you at any time. The reporter might have questions. This allows for easy

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access to the information that he or she may need to reach you.

Date- Typically on the right-hand side of the page, one line lower than the end of the contact information.

Release Date- Directly underneath the date, explain when the information should be released. (Example- “For Immediate Release”)

Headline- Just like a newspaper article, include a headline. This is typically in all capital letters and underlined.

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Dateline- Include the location of the story. Some choose to include the date here rather than at the top of the page.

Body- The main paragraphs of the text.

Call to Action- Include briefly at the end of the text an action that you want the audience to take. It can be as simple as directions to go to a website for further information.

Bio- A short paragraph describing your company.

Slug- This is at the bottom of the page and alerts the journalist of the end

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of the story. If at the bottom of a page, the story continues to a new page, use “-more-" to convey this message. When the story reaches an end, denote it with “-###-" or "-30-".

Every press release must end with a bio. Prepare a short paragraph that generically explains who you are. This paragraph tells your audience what value you give to them. A bio is not about boasting.

You could also direct the reader to resources with a link, to your company’s website in this section. Write a custom bio each press release, tailored to that particular subject.

Always, double check for spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and factual errors. Finally, make sure

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you send the press release to the appropriate contact.

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7- Blogging

Bloggers are becoming an important factor to Internet marketing. Bloggers are taking advantage of this communication technique, and some will be rivals and others will be allies. For this reason, it is important to identify the blogs that are capable of spreading a positive image about your business.

Explore blogs to find those that have some appeal and apply to your topic. There are search engines specifically tailored to searching blogs, like technorati.com. The Technorati site enables you to locate bloggers proven to have more authority in your industry by how many other blogs are linked to them.

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Keep a list of contacts you find beneficial. You can keep track of your contacts online, with management tools, such as the free jibberjobber.com tool.

Become knowledgeable about the blogger’s content by knowing the current topics on the blog. Know whether the blogger is a big media blogger or a small time blogger and utilize both. Keeping up with bloggers will develop trust and acceptance of your role in the site.

You can get noticed by the blogger by leaving positive comments on the blog or sending an e-mail. Frequent visitors to the site might begin to recognize you as a source of information if you place comments often.

Bloggers usually do not want someone to push a product or service on their site.

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Bloggers can be important to your industry; therefore creating a positive relationship could lead to a better outlook on your company or organization. By treating the blogger with respect, it is likely to form a mutually beneficial relationship.

Starting Your Blog Keep your blog organized and attractive.

Who is your audience? Who are your readers? How often will you be posting to your blog? How often will your average reader be visiting your site? Think about the type of content you will be writing and what the best way to organize it will be. Ask yourself if your blog should be more date oriented or category oriented. And make sure you ask these questions from your reader’s point of view.

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Keep your blog postings relevant. Your blog should have some kind of theme or topic. Every time you post something on your blog, ask yourself if it’s relevant.

Don’t just fill your blog up with content. Consider who you are trying to attract then stay with your topic and don’t lose focus. Write for the reader, not the writer.

Customize your template and keep your bog organized. Everything you need to know to customize your blog can be found online. To organize by date or to organize by content. If your blog is just a diary, you write about anything and everything, it’s an update, news, or latest goings on of your business or personal life then a date organized blog is usually best. If you are developing your blog into a site of resources or providing content that will be valuable

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weeks from now, then organize by category. Again, think about how your visitors will use your site and what will be easiest for them. If you think they may find value in your previous posts, make it easy for them to find those posts.

Blogs have easy to plug in categories and calendars, so use them! Set up a handful of categories on your blog and remember you can easily change them as you begin to develop your blog. Also, organize your calendar.

Use a search form. A search form enables your visitors to easily find exactly what they are looking for. You do not want your visitors coming to your site in search of a post they saw and then force them to wade through post after post to find it. Using a search form is easy to use and is default on most blog templates.

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Don’t make your visitors blindly click links on your blog to find what they are looking for. Make the categories and titles of your posts as descriptive as you possibly can. Following this single tip will make a huge difference, especially once your site has numerous postings.

Make a clear navigational path for all parts of your blog. Just like a website, you need to make a directory of your blog. You want to make it easy for your visitors to find all the categories, as well as additional pages of your blog.

Left or right side navigation? Placement on either side will work. You can even do both.

Keep your blog simple and to the point. Keep your blog layout focused on what your readers and visitors want it will reflect a layout and organization that fits them.

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Social BookmarkingIf you do any blogging then you should be utilizing the power of social bookmarking. Social bookmarks are icon links or links to sites where users are able to save articles for themselves and share them with other users.

Social bookmarking sites store lists of Internet resources users have found useful by category, tags, or randomly. These bookmarked sites and pages can be shared with other people who have similar interests.

These links can also be organized by user defined keywords or tags (called folksonomy). Resources can be rated by users, include email links, have comments added, be sorted by popularity and algorithms that draw inferences from other keyword

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references, and participate in automated notification systems.

Social bookmarking links can be included in your press section and press releases.

Social bookmarking is a way for people to bookmark and share a web page with others. There are many social bookmarking services which allow users to add web pages to their bookmark list.

As a blog owner you benefit from having someone add a page from your site to their social bookmark list. Your web page then becomes search-able in the entire bookmark directory, which is available to all members of the service. People will also be inclined to share it with others!

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This is a great way to build your blog’s audience and increase exposure.

By providing a special link, visitors can add a page from your website to their social bookmark list. There are now over fifty different services available to manage social bookmarks.

If you’ve been in the blogosphere you have no doubt seen these images at the end of articles and posts.

These are links to social bookmarking services. Add these icon images to the bottom of your blog posts with links.

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Now you know what a blog is you can start your own. your own. A great tool to run your blog is WordPress. According to Wordpress.org “WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability”.

Basically Wordpress is a free script that you install on your website, that allows you to write articles and publish them to your site while automatically sorting them by date or category. That’s the essence of Wordpress, but it does much, much more.

Wordpress will practically build your site for you. You can choose from various ‘themes’ or ‘templates’ to define the layout, images, colors, and the appearance of your site. your site.

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Wordpress has an administration module that allows you to manage all the aspects of your site. You can create new categories, pages, change templates, add links, and more, all from the administrative interface. You don’t need to know HTML, although some basic knowledge helps, and you don’t need any other web page editing software. With Wordpress and a website you have all you need to create a blog or content organized website.

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WordPress is extremely flexible. You can build your own template or modify existing templates. You can choose how many categories you want and where you want them displayed. You can permit others to write content for you and give them their own unique passwords and limit what they can do on your site.

WordPress automatically integrates RSS into your site, so people who have RSS readers can automatically subscribe to your RSS feed and be notified every time new posts are added to your site!

WordPress has terrific plugins! Plugins are additional features that you can basically ‘plug’ into your website. Anyone can create a plugin and they are free. Plug ins can build site maps, do hundreds of other things. If you

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have some PHP knowledge you can even create your own.

You might want to check out Teli Adlam’s OptiNiche . It’s a complete guide to setting up and optimizing Wordpress.

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Index

A

Affiliate, 75, 88

affiliate

marketing,

75, 77, 78,

79, 88, 89

affiliates, 75,

76, 79, 80

AIDA, 58

autoresponder,

15, 16, 17

Autoresponder

s, 15

B

BitTorrent, 32

Bloggers, 94,

95

blogosphere,

99

blogs, 83, 85,

94

C

CDNow, 78

Click fraud, 71

E

E-Commerce, 8

F

folksonomy,

87, 98

G

Gateways, 9

Good

Keywords,

67, 68

GREAT

BENEFITS OF

PRESS

RELEASES,

81

147


H

HTML, 13, 16,

37, 38, 45,

46, 50, 57,

100

Hypertext

Preprocesso

r, 59

I

Internet

Statistics

Compendiu

m, 77

J

Javascript, 6,

45

K

keyword, 8, 47,

48, 49, 50,

58, 61, 62,

65, 67, 68,

69, 74, 87,

98

L

landing page,

58, 59, 60,

65, 66

laws of

advertising,

58

M

meta tag, 50,

51

N

news release,

95

P

PageRank, 21

pay per click,

61, 62, 63,

68, 71, 73,

75, 80

Pay per click,

61, 73

PayPal, 7, 12,

13

148


PHP, 59, 60,

101

PPC, 60, 63, 66,

70, 71, 72,

73, 74

press release,

81, 82, 83,

84, 88, 90,

91, 92, 93

PRWeb, 81

R

RSS, 16, 81, 82,

83, 84, 85,

101

RSS feeds, 81,

85

S

search engine,

20, 21, 22,

34, 37, 39,

40, 41, 42,

43, 44, 48,

53, 54, 57,

58, 61, 66,

67, 72, 81,

83

Search Engine

Optimizatio

n, 37, 44, 82

Search engine

submission,

53

SEO, 37, 38, 39,

40, 41, 42,

82, 83

SERPs, 21

Social

bookmarkin

g, 87, 98

Social

Bookmarks,

87

spamdexing, 39

T

Technorati, 94

Teli Adlam’s

OptiNiche,

101

149


W

W3C

Standards,

57

WordPress,

100, 101

www.directsub

mit.co.uk,

24

www.geffen.co

m, 78

www.Ranking.c

om, 42

www.toptenre

views.com,

14

150

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