Social Networking for Business Guide

It seems like there's an over-abundance of social sites nowadays. For a newbie, it can be quite intimidating when first joining a network or two and building a community. A handful of questions may run through your head:

• Which networks to join?

• How to participate?

• What's enough, or too much?

• How will it help my business?

So, to answer some of these, I'd like to present my "Social Media For Dummies" overview. First, a quick recap of my favorite networks and what they're about.

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Facebook - The ultimate platform for keeping up with (stalking) friends. I joined Facebook way back in 2005, you know, when it was just for college students and before you could even share photos (gasp!). I've witnessed the evolution of this mega-network over the years, and it has become, not only the 4th largest website in the world, but the best place to find people, keep up with them, and inform them.

It is the son of Classmates.com on every possible steroid ever ingested by humans. The ability to share and communicate with friends and colleagues is seamless. Overall, Facebook is a great place to start your social networking endeavors.

LinkedIn - A must-have in every business person's arsenal of tools. If you are (or hoping to be) in business of any sort, LinkedIn is a great place to set up shop. Very similar to Facebook, minus the annoying applications, plus job postings and resumes.

This is where you network with those in your industry, join groups, research companies, and prospect clients. Build your credentials by asking colleagues for recommendations or head to the "Q&A" section to provide advice.

Twitter - Share, Learn, Meet. I wouldn't be surprised if Webster adds a new definition for "tweet" this year. Within the first half of 2009, Twitter has gone from nearly 5 million users to over 23 million. It is the social media platform of choice at Fortune 100 companies.

Easily share links, pictures, videos, articles... Oh, and personal updates... with followers. Twitter is kind of like the cocktail party of social networks. Here, you can easily reach out to strangers by tuning in to their tweets or quickly replying to them. A limited amount of customization keeps annoying advertisements and outlandish profiles at bay, unlike the outdated MySpace.

Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc. - Social Bookmarking to share and store your favorite links. You just read an article over at NYT.com that you loved. Use one or more of these bookmarking sites to share it with the world.

Looking for information or articles on a certain subject? Head to one of these sites and search your topic, you'll be able to peruse a list of articles or sites that others have found useful or interesting. Not only are these great for sharing, but storing sites for later use as well.

Say you have a home desktop, a netbook for travel, and a work computer... customize your bookmarks and easily access them on each computer without updating each machine.

FriendFeed - All of your networks in one place. FriendFeed lets you put all of your networks in one big stream. Users can see your Facebook status, latest Tweet, pictures posted on Flickr, blog post, bookmarked article and much more when they follow your feed. Much like Twitter, but a whole lot more.

These are the networks that I tend to spend most of my time on and are probably some of the key ingredients that should be in the pot. Every person and business is different and may need to change their recipe accordingly, but the key to all of these is to contribute and become a part of the conversation.

Now What?

So, now that we've covered some of the major players in the social networking field, it's time to discover how we can use them. As a person in business, especially an industry with a significant amount of its target market online (which is really all of them now), you've got to understand that these networks are an integral part of their lives.

Just like in previous decades where television commercials were considered a major part of any advertising/marketing plan because every one watched TV... now, as many are leaving cable in the dust and turning to the Internet for their information and entertainment, it's more crucial than ever to join the ranks of the digital pioneers.

However, the people using these networks are smart. They don't fall for blatant advertising traps like they used to. They want to know that there's something in it for them. If your product isn't it and that's all you're talking about on Twitter, then they'll ignore you. Social networks aren't about advertising - they're about building relationships.

Say you run a small business, maybe you own a restaurant, a clothing boutique, a PR firm or a chiropractic firm... What is in it for you?

• Take a look at your customers or clients when they're in your office or store. Are they on their iPhone or Blackberry checking email? Did they mention finding you online? Did they hear about you from a friend? If you can answer "yes" to any of those questions, then you're missing out on connecting with your customers and should probably put on a pot of coffee, cause you're going to be here for a while.

• Social media is a chance to be at your market's finger tips when they look at their phone or get online in a friendly and non-obtrusive way.

• You can quickly address customer service issues by communicating directly with the customer.

• Prospect new clients.

• Learn about trends in your industry, stay up-to-date with competition and network with power players in your industry.

• Provide existing customers incentives, coupons or interesting information to keep them tuned in to your brand.

Many people will pay thousands of dollars trying to get these things with traditional techniques. Social media is free... despite, of course, any operating costs like time and possibly design fees to add a professional touch. You need to be on here... Do a Google News search for "small business social media". BusinessWeek, LA Times, NY Times will be some of the publications insisting you buck up and make it happen.

How to Participate Effectively:

• Do not start a social media campaign if your intention is free advertising. No one will listen and you will waste your time. Period.

• Take a minute and figure out what you want to get out of being involved in social networks. Research how other businesses have been successful. Make a plan. Mashable is a great place to learn about social media.

• Twitter is a great place to find people in your area, geographically or by industry, and interact with them. Start a conversation, always give if you ever want to receive and don't constantly advertise. No one likes spam... so don't spam your followers with pleas to go to your website or go into business with you. Provide your followers a coupon or discount if you're hoping for business from them...

Keep them up-to-date on any changes to your menu or services... Share fun pictures from happy customers... Follow-up with an unhappy customer or use your competition's bad customer service as a great way to introduce you into their lives. Just remember to keep it real, be you, because every one wants to know that there's a human behind your username.

• Facebook is generally most successful for companies with a large following or customer base. But that doesn't mean you should skip it... create a personal profile so you can network with friends and family.

By being there, you can instantly share things about your business with people who already like you and will probably listen more than the average stranger. By keeping your brand in their mind, they'll be more likely to spread the word and pass you along to their friends, and so on. Word of mouth, my friends...

• LinkedIn is a must for anyone in business. Very straightforward here, like a virtual resume on steroids. It's always good to network with past and present colleagues and continue to build relationships, because you don't know when you may need them or vice versa.

Last Words: Keep your brand consistent among all of the networks you decide to join. Monitor your brand using tracking tools. And remember to Collaborate, Communicate, and Participate.

By Erica Erwin (c) 2009

About The Author

Erica works with marketing online, social media and public relations for a small-business improvement firm. Visit: www.webplus5.com www.businessways.com

4 Useful Tips To Start Your Blog Marketing

Congratulations your blog is live! Now you need to start marketing it so you'll build a group of followers and potential customers

How do you do this? How do you go about getting your blog out there to be seen and known by others? How do you draw readers and keep them coming back for more?

There are many ways to get your blog out there and known by others, this can be challenging for some and just quite easy for others, if you have ever had a successful blog before then you know what it takes.

You're not going to get anywhere by just setting up a blog and hoping that people will find it and read it, you're not going to gain any links, nor a higher search engine ranking by just having a blog.

This is just a part of the huge arena that is blog marketing, absolutely anyone can do it, even you.

Successful blog marketing tip number one.

When you first create a blog, of course it is unheard of, no one knows anything about the blog unless you give them the link and show it to them, However, for a new blog that has never been seen, there are many ways to get it out there and known.

You just need to know how. The first thing that you can do is to allow RSS feeds be taken from your blog. Let other bloggers and websites publish your content if they want to.

When you do this, they're giving you a link back to your blog, and also telling their readers all about your blog. You will get more traffic than ever with this tool. RSS feeds are wonderful for promoting and getting your blog out there.

Blog marketing tip number two.

Make sure you update your blog regularly, no there can't be enough emphasis on this tip, it really is worth it's weight in gold. If you tell your readers that you're going to update your blog daily, then do it.

If you tell them that you will be writing in your blog weekly, don't let them down. Your readers are what makes your blog successful. You may not get this at the start, you'll have few readers at the beginning, but you'll gradually build a readership and see other people checking out your blog.

Perhaps you not planning on telling your readers how often you'll post to your blog, that's OK just remember to post regularly. However, think about this, if you were reading a blog on a weekly basis, and you expected to see the blog that you like to read updated at least once a week, you would be very disappointed to find out that it wasn't.

Yes things happen and you might not always be able to post when you said you would, and that is fine let your readers know why (this builds rapport), but if you miss week after week you'll can hurt your credibility and lose readers.

Tip number three.

While you're working on your readership base, and trying to gain readers, you are going to find that commenting on blogs that are relevant to yours will surely help.

Find a blog on the same topic as your own, or perhaps a related topic and leave comments on them, you can also leave a track back to your blog postings so people will comment on your own blog.

Doing so will probably give someone else the urge to track back to your blog, which will be good for it as well.

Commenting on blogs that get many comments will make yours be seen by those interested in that market. You'll gain traffic and readers that way, and it is easy as well as free.

The fourth blog marketing tip.

Learn and apply SEO to your blogs, SEO is search engine optimization.

You're going to find that if you want your blog to go anywhere, you need SEO, and you need to know how to use it to the advantage of your blog.

So don't forget to make sure the search engines can find your blog.

By. Pete Craig

About the author :

- Marketer Blog Marketing is an extremely effective and powerful method of marketing and can be used to build credibility in your chosen market. To achieve the levels of success through blogging you desire the easiest thing to do is to model someone whose already achieved the success you want.

Http://www.bloggingforcash.cjb.net

6 Simple SEO Tips

Most SEO Tips was created by many Webmaster, but really I found 6 simple factor to all of SEO.  

* TITLE : (70 characters maximum, key words near beginning)

* DESC: (155 characters maximum, a complete sentence with key words near beginning)

* KEYWORDS: (200 characters maximum, key words in descending order of importance)

* H1 (Heading or Headline for the page... only use H1 one time and include key words) Text content (paragraphs, with key words especially near beginning of first sentence in first paragraph and your last closing paragraph of the page, and elsewhere in between)

* H2 (Subheading or Headline for secondary content paragraphs, and include key words) Text content (more paragraphs of text to the end of the page)

* Note that for all H tags, the words that appear in the headline should also be used somewhere in the text paragraphs that follow, and all META keywords in your keyword list MUST be somewhere on that page.

Integrating SEO Into The Web Development Process

Effective, ethical, and ongoing SEO can deliver targeted traffic to the pages of any website.

It can provide geographically and topically targeted traffic that is ready to begin or continue the purchasing process, but SEO needs to be done effectively.

It is best to implement SEO practices during the first stages of development although with a little extra work it is more than possible for an existing site to benefit from search engine optimisation efforts.

Planning

The planning stage of any web development is a critical facet to a successful online business plan. As well as planning your own strategy and interlacing your prospective customer's needs you should also consider the methods of marketing you will use.

The most effective SEO methods include the regular addition of fresh content, as well as the creation of pages that will encourage others to link back to your site. By adding content platforms and structuring a site according from the beginning, it should become easier and more efficient to add the required content.

Design And Development

Website design needs to incorporate many elements. It should be appealing to your visitors and should be accessible and simple to use for anybody that opens your site.

In terms of SEO, text based content should be given a prominent position above the code of the page. Pictures, videos, and dynamic elements need to offer alternative text as well as clearly labelled and optimised HTML tags.

Site Content

In terms of on-page optimisation, the content of your site is one of the most important factors. Optimised content should be clear and simple to understand for the benefit of your readers and should incorporate the relevant keywords for that page.

Using keyword inflexions and semantically related keywords, as well as introducing header tags and other formatting elements, can help to further improve your search engine results.

Fresh content is critical to your success, so a method of quickly and conveniently adding new website content should be implemented for the best results.

Creating A Marketing Mix

A marketing mix is a program or strategy of marketing that incorporates various advertising and marketing techniques.

SEO is certainly one of the more popular forms of online marketing but it is far from being the only viable option. PPC advertising, social media optimisation, and text links can also prove highly effective especially when combined into a single marketing mix.

Try to ensure that each page uses relevant marketing techniques so that they lend themselves to SEO, PPC, and any other technique you use without having to alter the page too heavily.

Ongoing Updates And Development

The Internet is a constantly evolving platform for business. Not only are new technologies being introduced that can be incorporated into most websites, but the way website visitors think is also changing.

Static websites with no content updates or new additions may prove successful for a period but the most effective sites should be monitored, maintained, updated, and improved over time to enjoy continued success.

Analytics And Performance Measurement

In order to implement successful changes, it is important to benchmark your efforts.

For the new website this means tracking analytics from day one and monitoring the effectiveness of any additions or amendments.

Different techniques work to varying degrees for different websites so there is no one size fits all solution. Learn what works for your website and use this information to improve or optimise your marketing efforts.

By. Matt Jackson - 2009

About the Author: Matt Jackson - WebWiseWords is a professional web content writer offering a range of affordable and ethical SEO copywriting services to generate targeted traffic and improve your online business results.

Keyword Fundamentals Will Determine Your Website Success

Successful sports teams have engrained in their heads the fundamentals of their sports. Business leaders and coaches alike who dwell on the fundamentals usually have the most successful outcomes. Failure is almost always rooted in a deviation from the fundamentals. So if your website is not delivering clients, perhaps you're missing the fundamentals.

Part of the answer is no one actually taught you the fundamentals of website success. Most businesses understand the need for a website, few understand the fundamentals. Getting your website to deliver clients is an exercise in fundamentals. First and foremost is a back to basics, grass roots understandng of your market, website style.

Keyword research is the first thing every website owner should have done but most didn't. With respect to your online business, keyword research equals market research. The coolest thing about being online is that you can absolutely KNOW your market, understand their interests and create an online business and marketing plan relative to your market and their needs.

There are probably hundreds of keyword research tools online that can help you do research. Our advice is to seek out an expert. Getting the data is one thing. Knowing what to do with it is quite a different thing.

Relative to keyword research, here's what we can find via search engine tools: keywords and keyword phrases, search volumes, total web pages using those keywords, web pages optimized for those keywords, keywords in hypertext (called anchor text) linking to other sites and pages. We can even look at any specific website and determine what keywords they are at least trying to rank for. And of course, type the keyword phrase into a search box will list the top ten sites ranking for that term. The result of such a search is referred to as the SERPS or the Search Engine Results Pages.

The best keywords to use are ones that will generate reasonable traffic AND have very little competition. One of the parameters we seek in our keyword research is to determine the competitiveness of the keyword phrases. Google will tell us how many web pages are indexed for the search term. Just run a search and notice in the upper right of the results that Google will tell you how many pages are indexed with your search keywords.

Without getting too technical here, Google and the other major search engines will also tell you how many web pages use those keywords in the page title, an indication that those pages specifically cover the topic of your search. Having keywords in the page title is one of the key ways to optimize a webpage for the keyword. Knowing how many pages are doing this gives you a better idea of how many pages are intentionally using the keywords you're researching.

KEYWORD STRATEGY

The first thing that has to go is the ego of the site and/or business owner. Unless you show up in the first page of the search engine results, you're NOBODY! Worse, you can't push your way through the crowd to get to the top of the SERPS. You can get there by Google sponsored ads - Adwords guarantee your visibility on the SERPS. But still the point is, you'll pay.

Let's consider three strategies for beating your competition relative to the search engine results.

DIRECT STRATEGY

Choose the same keywords that your competition is ranking for and go head to head. If they are doing pay-per-click, you do it too. In this scenario, you'll end up spending a lot of money to achieve and maintain top SERPS positions.

If your competition is ranking on good, high traffic terms, plan on spending time, money and resources to get to the same position it may have taken them years to achieve. A direct strategy can get bloody. Ultimately, it is the most obvious choice, the least creative and the stupidest!

INDIRECT STRATEGY

Choose keywords that your competitors didn't even think of! An indirect strategy is often associated with cross marketing and selling through an indirect channel. If you sell a service or product that your competitors don't have, you channel your efforts through that market knowing there's some pull-through relative to your other products and services. Very often you could be sucking business right out from under your competition' s nose and they don't even see it!

DIVISIONAL STRATEGY

Find out what keywords your competition is NOT ranking for in the same keyword set and go after them. The divisional strategy is the primary marketing method of niche marketers. Most business owners will equate the word "niche" with the word "small". On the web, niche site owners are millionaires! Get rid of your pre-conceptions. The web is huge.

We use a two step process for choosing keywords. First, you have to take your direct competition into account. The second part is to look specifically at the search engine optimization parameters to determine which keywords make sense for you to specifically go after.

The leverage a website carries is in part determined by its page rank. Page rank is in large part determined by how many other sites on the web link to yours. Your exposure in the SERPS is in turn affected by your page rank. The reason you need to know this is if the top ten websites all out rank you in terms of page rank, you're better off choosing another keyword.

Fundamental lesson: Small Fish eat smaller fish to grow bigger.

By Greg Newell (c) 2009

About The Author :

Keyword research is one of the fundamental strategies taught to clients of www.buildawebshop.com . BuildaWebShop.com offers the lowest cost, easiest ecommerce package available.

5 Simple Tips To Make Link Building

As the online market place continues to warm up to the idea of SEO, link building has become center stage as it tends to be the most time consuming and crucial part of any internet marketing strategy. Link building services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of SEO. This process involves finding qualified and thematically relevant one-way linking partners who will link back to your website.

At first glance this sounds easy and there are hundreds of automated products out there that claim to add thousands of back links overnight. The truth is there are no short cuts in cultivating authoritative back links for a site. Link building companies spend many hours link building by hand in order to get the best results.
Spammy automated products often don't cultivate valuable links and tend to do more harm than good. Here are a couple quick suggestions to help you get started.

1. Know What Keywords You're Targeting

Link building strategies are an extension of your current SEO practice. You'll want to reference the list of keywords you have selected to optimize your site. Make sure that the anchor text of the link has the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you're targeting the keyword "baby names" you'll want to place that keyword in the anchor text of the link. I've seen many companies go after links by using their company name. Although this does boost link popularity it fails to pass popularity for a specific keyword and can be seen as a failed attempt.

2. Develop a Link Building Strategy

There are many strategies link building companies use to source qualified back links to their clients. The most tedious but often most rewarding method is manual linking requests also known as "cherry picking". This method allows you to obtain exceptionally qualified links which can really help boost your position in the search engine results page (SERPS). A good place to start with manual link building is to look at your suppliers, vendors, clients, related organizations associations and more.

Besides manual link requests other well known tactics include:

1. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, Joe Ant)

2. article submission (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com)

3. optimized press releases (PRWeb.com)

4. social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)

5. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Furl)

6. Blogs (niche blogs)

7. Forums (niche forums)

8. Classifieds (niche classifieds)

3. Identify Thematically Relevant and Authoritative Linking Sources

Search engines see links as votes of confidence for your site. The more relevant and authoritative the site, the more consideration is given to the link and the subsequent keyword in the anchor text. It really pays off to focus on the quality of your links rather than the quantity. It is also important for your link building to look natural and not an attempt to deceive search engine spiders in search of links. Try looking for sites within your industry rather than general, unrelated sites to get links from.

[First Page Ranking on Google for Your Choice of Keywords!]

A good example of this would be content creation and distribution. Try creating content on a relevant subject of which you can speak authoritatively. An example of this would be a SEO company writing a short article on 5 simple ways companies can start link building and placing it on an authoritative, industry relevant site like this one. Remember, before placing a link on a site (or making a request), ask yourself three questions:

1. Does a link to my website belong here (does it look natural)?

2. Is this site relevant and authoritative?

3. Is there any benefit to my potential customers?

4. Look for the onsite attributes of the linking site

4. Determine Where Your Link Will Reside

Once you've nailed down a potential linking partner that represents the overall quality and thematic authority that your site deserves you'll need to see where your link will reside.

Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!

Here are a couple guidelines that I look for when placing links on a site. I try to get my links no more than a few clicks away from the homepage. The page must be thematically relevant and recently cached by Google's search engine (this lets me know that the page has been indexed by Google). I also take a look at the number of external (outbound) links leaving that page. I try to keep the number of external links below 50 as it will dilute the effect of the page. Lastly,

I look at the page the link will be placed on. For some sites this is harder to control, but if you have the option you should know where the most valuable locations are. I always try to get my links in line with thematically relevant content, like an article or blog post. I've found this produces some of the best results.

Try to avoid placing your links on a "sponsored" or advertisers section that runs throughout the entire site. Also avoid footer links as rumor has it Google has devalued links buried in the footer of the site. Links placed at the top of the page or inserted into the site's navigation also tend to do quite well. Bottom line is that your links need to look like they belong and provide value to the user and the site it is published on.

5. Be Aware of "No-Follow" Links

Within the last 5 years Google developed the concept of the "no-follow" link. The "no-follow" code is inserted into your link and instructs the Google spider to ignore it. The "no-follow" link can be seen used most commonly in blog comments and forum posts. This initiative was set forth to combat spam and automated linking mechanisms that would throw links automatically on blog comments and forum posts.

There are a lot of SEO professionals that will only place a link if it is a "do-follow" link, meaning it doesn't have the "no-follow" attribute. I tend to disagree with this notion especially when the link in question is on a highly trafficked authority site. If it makes sense for the link to be there, then add your link.

Even though Google won't give you any credít for it, it will be seen by thousands of people who may visit your site and link to you themselves because your site is highly relevant. I call this concept indirect link building. You are influencing and promoting your site to potential linking partners.

Link Building is a very time consuming process and link building companies spend a lot of time researching, testing and improving their techniques. Link building services are available for companies that don't have the time to invest in manual link building. The bottom line is that with a little help anyone can link build and move their site up the SERPS.

By Oliver Feakins (c) 2009

About The Author :

Oliver Feakins is the owner of WebTalent, a full service SEO company offering internet marketing services nationwide. Oliver is a frequent speaker at industry conferences as well as regional colleges and universities. He also writes for MarketingProfs.com, WebProNews.com, Social Media Today, ITworld and more.

For more information on WebTalent visit www.webtalentseo.com.

10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog

This is 10 best way to monetize your blog, this article was republish from conversionrater.net. I think we must know it to make us easier to create good blog for online business.

Two reason to know about monetizing blog ;

First, I should preface this discussion by saying you first need to seriously evaluate whether you want to work at monetizing your blog. Steve Pavlina has a very thorough post that goes over what’s necessary to really do this well, and why the majority of people who try end up not generating significant income.

Second, you have to make sure that making money from your blog directly is your goal. For example, for this blog direct income isn’t my goal. I didn’t have ads at all untli recently, and the only reason I added them was to use the ad network management application I’ve been working on called RMX Direct. It’s quite possible that your blogging goals may just to network, write about something you’re interested in, or serve some business purpose that isn’t direct income generation.

With that out of the way, let’s get started:

1. Contextual Advertising

Surprise, surprise. Advertising is easily the most popular blog monetization tactic, mostly due to it being the easiest thing to implement. Advertising comes in many forms, and contextual advertising is the most popular due to Google Adsense and it’s general success with blogs and niche sites.

I’m going to assume everyone reading this is familiar with it, but I think it should be mentioned that too many bloggers assume that Adsense is the best solution for their blog. For some blogs and topics it works great, for others, not very well at all.

My advice is to not limit your blog to one ad network or just one form of advertising. Other contextual options include the Yahoo Publisher Network, Chitika, Clicksor, AdSonar, and others. It’s not easy to manually test all these though if you’re shuffling ad tags around and randomly allocating your impressions to them, using a ad network management tool like RMX Direct can help you manage, evaluate, and control your various ad networks.

2. Display Advertising

As I mentioned above, contextual networks aren’t always the best solution for blogs. In some cases there aren’t enough advertisers in niche topics, and in others the users just isn’t likely to click. In this case, you want to be working with ad networks that provide CPM display advertising. This means you get paid something for every ad viewed, opposed to only getting paid per click.

Just like with contextual networks, it’s important to use multiple display ad networks to get more variety from your ads, to not let any one network control your inventory, and to make sure you’re earning the most amount of money possible.

3. Targeted Advertising

The most desirable form of advertising is having companies that wish to pay good rates to advertise on your blog directly whether it’s text or image ads. Many bloggers feel that this is a pipe dream, but I speak from experience from running a wakeboarding blog for many years that you can make solid income from targeted advertising without having insane amounts of traffic.

There are a number of key things you have to do though in order to get this type of advertising:

• Have a blog with leading content in your niche and a professional design
• Create a “media kit” which is essentially a page on your blog that explains that you take targeted advertising, what your rates are, demographics of your users, your traffic levels, examples of the types of ads people can run, testimonials from any companies that have advertised with you, and a phone number and email address they can use to get more information.
• Have obvious “Advertise On This Blog” links in key places on your blog.
• Give a company or two in your niche free or very low-cost advertising in order to get the ball rolling. When advertisers see their competitors or companies similar to them advertising, they get the idea that it’s available. If all they ever see is Adsense ads, they might not realize it’s an option.
• Be willing to be creative to help your advertisers achieve their goals, and lower your price to get the deals.
• Provide statistics and results to your advertisers. Use an ad server like RMX Direct, phpAdsNew, or something similar which has the ability to create reports per advertiser.

Once you’ve set your blog up properly, start approaching companies in your niche who will want to reach your traffic. You don’t need to go after the biggest companies, there are many small companies who are looking to get better results from the web, and they might not even know about your blog.

You don’t need to be an ad sales professional, you just need to present your case well on why they’re missing out if they don’t advertise on your traffic. Make it easy on them to work with you, help them create ads, help them determine what sizes to use, and work with them to make sure they get the results they need. It seems like hard work at first, but after you get a solid base of advertisers going, it’s a great source of income and it starts to streamline.

4. Text Link Advertising

Another somewhat unobtrusive form of advertising is using services like Text Link Ads or Adbrite to sell text ads directly to companies. This is pretty low effort and often doesn’t take up too much space on a site, so it’s easy to implement and try out. It should be noted though that you need significant traffic for it to be a big source of income.

5. Affiliate Links

One of the older web monetization methods is still as good today as it’s always been. If you’ve got a blog in a specific area, there’s a very large chance that there are companies out there that sell products or services your users are interested in. You can earn some nice income recommending or linking to those products.

Amazon.com is probably the most common affiliate merchant used by bloggers, but I’d advise finding other unique merchants who may pay better and be more specific to your topic. Amazon is always there as an option, but you’re more likely to get more help from the merchant if you go with a smaller company.

Another nice thing about affiliate links is that they fit well with quality content. Reviewing products and services for your users is valuable content, and if you can make money off it as well it’s a great combination. A word of warning though that you shouldn’t change your reviews or be biased due to the fact you can make money off a referral.

While traffic also helps for affiliate links, it can sometimes be an easier way to generate income without high traffic levels like advertising requires. As an example I did a review of a web analytics application a couple of years ago, and this blog had very little traffic at that point. I referred two sales through that review though that still earn me $150 a month every month two years later.

6. Selling Your Content (Ebooks, Videos, DVDs)

If you’ve got great content, another option is to package it and sell it. There are numerous bloggers who have created ebooks and even real books based on their blog content and made great income selling them. You can also expand to infoproducts like videos, DVDs, audio CDs, and printed books on demand.

This can take some significant work and it requires great content to actually sell, but it can be a nice income stream that lasts a long time.

7. Consulting

Depending on your topic and your level of expertise, you can sell consulting services. If you’re a web analytics expert, you could offer web analytics consulting services on your blog for an hourly fee. This takes very little work to setup beyond creating a page outlining your services, getting a standard contract, and having a way to take payments from companies. Again though, it just takes a little bit of effort to let people know that consulting services are available.

8. Donations

Not quite as common as it once was, it used to be fairly common for bloggers to ask for donations on their blog through Paypal or some other service. This only works if you have a dedicated userbase, and a large enough number of users that their donations add up. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re also putting a lot of advertising and other monetization methods on your blog. You’ll come off as a bit too greedy in that case.

9. Selling Products

Besides infoproducts, you can sell real products like t-shirts, bumper stickers, clothing, or whatever other kind of merchandise makes sense for your topic. Companies like Goodstorm, CafePress, Lulu, and others make it easy by creating the products based on your design and letting you set up a shop. There is no risk to bloggers, which makes it a great opportunity.

10. Selling Your Blog

Perhaps the most extreme of the blog monetization methods, but it can be lucrative! If you aren’t attached to your blog and are willing to part with it, you can usually find a buyer for it. Your blog must be pretty good, and have a level of traffic worth buying, and it really helps if you already have some income streams going for it. Blogs usually sell for 12-24 times monthly revenues, and there are numerous places you can sell them like eBay and the Sitepoint Marketplace.

Conclusion

It definitely takes some work to monetize your site well, and having good traffic really helps out. Work on building a blog with a solid userbase, and you should be on your way to generating income using any of the methods above. Good luck, and please share any blog monetization experiences you have in the comments.

Sourece : www.conversionrater.com

- http://www.conversionrater.com/2006/08/05/10-ways-to-monetize-your-blog/

Top 10 Don’ts for SEO Copywriting

Following in the footsteps of Rand Fishkin and Guy Kawasaki, I decided to come up with my own list of don’ts.

There is no shortage of don’ts when it comes to SEO copywriting. It seems this niche got off to a rough start many years ago when early comers somehow misconstrued the core principles of the trade. Allow me to elaborate on how not to write SEO copy.

1. Don’t shove as many keyphrases into the copy as humanly possible.

It’s not about the sheer volume of search terms you include. Yes, Google and other engines should be able to follow what the page is about. Yes, engines are looking to match a searcher’s query with search engine optimized content on your web pages, but which pages land at the top is decided through a series of calculations far more complex than any simple ratio. When you overload copy with keyphrases you sacrifice quality and user experience.

2. Don’t lose site of balance. 

If SEO copywriting isn’t about the percentage of keywords within the copy, then what is it about? Balance. You have two audiences with SEO copywriting: the search engines and your site visitors. But surprisingly, the balance doesn’t come with serving both masters well. The balance comes in how much you cater to the engines. You see, your site visitors always come first.

However, if you write with too little focus on the engines, you won’t see good rankings. If you put too much focus on the engines, you’ll start to lose your target audience. Balance… always balance.

3. Don’t let someone else choose the keywords.

If keyword research isn’t a service you offer, an SEO firm, keyword specialist or some other professional that your client hires will have to conduct the research. Don’t just accept keyphrases these folks toss your way. Ask to see the entire list with recommendations as to which terms would be best strategically. Then you, as the professional writer, can decide which will also work best within the copy.

4. Don’t sacrifice flow for numbers. 

This is a follow-up to number three and is a major issue with bad SEO copywriting. SEOs or clients sometimes insist on using hacked-up search phrases that simply don’t work in a normal sentence. An example? “Candies samples free.” Many copywriters will just grin and bear it, sacrificing quality and flow for the sake of competitive values or other numbers.

The result is often some obnoxious sentence like, “If you’re looking for candies samples free, you’ve come to the right place!” Forcing a phrase into the copy at all costs never turns out well.

5. Don’t use keyphrases that don’t apply to the page. 

If you operate a site about wedding receptions, don’t try to force a search term about wedding dresses into the copy just because it pulls a lot of traffic. (A) Unless you sell, alter or design wedding dresses, it won’t be applicable. (B) Even if you manage to get the page ranked well for the phrase [wedding dresses], once the visitor clicks to your site and realizes you have nothing to do with wedding dresses, they will leave. It’s a waste of time and effort and it creates a poor user experience.

6. Don’t use misspellings and correct spellings on the same page. 

I fully understand that the misspellings of keyphrases can be valuable search terms. However, to mix correct spellings and misspellings within the same page of copy looks like you’ve got a bunch of typos in the content. It’s just not professional. Some writers will go for the old, “We rent limousines (sometimes spelled limosenes) for the most affordable prices in town.” I don’t care for that approach. It’s just not natural. Would you ever see brochure or newspaper copy that reads that way? I think not.

7. Don’t use keyphrases the exact same way every time. 

This is how we end up with horrible SEO copy that sounds like a 4th grader wrote it. (See #4.) There are lots of ways to use keywords in copy, not just one. In order to sound natural, you have to get creative with your keyphrase use.

One way is to break up phrases using punctuation. Since search engines don’t pay attention to basic punctuation marks, you can easily write something using the search term [real estate Hawaii] that reads like this: “Currently there is an impressive selection of available real estate. Hawaii listings can be…” See? “Real estate” is at the end of the first sentence and “Hawaii” is at the beginning of the second sentence. The engines ignore the period so there’s no problem.

8. Don’t use all types of search phrases for every situation. 

There are many ways in which this “don’t” applies. One quick example is that of an ecommerce site. It wouldn’t be advisable to use specific, long-tail keyphrases on the home page of your site. They are much too specific in most cases and are better suited for individual product pages. Broader terms are typically best for an ecommerce home page. If you don’t understand the best applications for the various types of keywords, you’re likely to have lackluster results.

9. Don’t neglect ALT tags/image attributes. 

These tags are the ones associated with images on your pages and they carry a good deal of weight especially if the image is used as a link. The ALT text counts the same as anchor text in a text-based link. Depending on a few different factors, ALT text may be a good place for those misspellings mentioned in #6.

10. Don’t forget the chain of protocol. 

There’s a method to the SEO copywriting madness. The idea is not to get as many different keyphrases onto a page as possible. Just the opposite, in fact. Rather than having 12 different search terms used only one time each, you need to use two to four keyphrases (depending on the length of your copy) per page. The title, META tags, ALT tags, other coding elements and on-page copy need to support each other as far as keyphrase use goes. Your goal is to let the engines know that you have original, relevant content about a narrow topic.

Unless you have an exceptional number of back links built up, just mentioning [dark chocolate], [chocolate strawberries], [chocolate chip cookies], [chocolate cake], [chocolate desserts], [organic chocolate] and [chocolate cheesecake] once each on a web page isn’t likely to do a lot of good. Instead, pick two or three terms which are closely related and use them several times each along with mentioning them in your tags.

When you avoid making common mistakes, you’ll find your SEO copywriting flows much better, is more natural-sounding and ranks higher, too.

By. Karon Thackston

Source :

- http://www.sitepronews.com/2009/07/21/top-10-donts-for-seo-copywriting/

7 Effortless Ways To Increase Blog Traffic

Blog marketing is a powerful way to promote your business and more importantly it is a great way to brand yourself. If you are reading this article it’s because you know this and looking for simple ways to increase traffic to your blog.

Here are 7 Effortless Ways To Increase Blog Traffic:

1. Blog Carnivals – a blog carnival is simply a post that contains entries from other blogs. Links from other sites that have similar content is a great way to bring in visitors, so submitting a content rich article with no sales pitches or affiliate links from your blog is a great way to get traffic.

I submit my posts to multiple carnivals at BlogCarnival.com. No payment is required and it is user-friendly. Also, it doesn’t matter whether you have a free or self-hosted blog. If it is a an entry containing quality content it should be accepted. Get into the habit of doing this once a week.

2. Bookmarking/Sharing – bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, search and manage websites they have bookmarked. Sharing these bookmarks with other people gives you exposure because others will share their bookmarks containing your content.

I use bookmarking and sharing sites such as del.icio.us, Digg, and Stumbleupon. There are many more and it is important you also provide links to these sites from your blog to make it easier for your readers to share your link to others. Get into the habit of sharing great content by others and some of those people will return the favor.

3. Don’t Be Shy – I know this is obvious but there is nothing better than word of mouth. Just be tactful about it. Let your colleagues, family and friends know about your blog. Ask them to do you the favor to let others know about it too.

Add the URL to your blog on business cards, flyers, and anything else you can think of. Please keep in mind your goal should be to receive targeted traffic so be upfront about the content. Not everyone is going to have an interest in what you are writing about so letting them know ahead of time will streamline your visitors into quality traffic.

4. Plug-Ins – depending on the blogging platform you are using plug-ins may be accessible and there are some which were created to help with traffic generation. You still have to make sure there is quality content and plenty of it but these plug-ins give you advantages that would take you a very long time to do on your own.

I self-host my blog using Worpdress and the availability of plug-ins are endless. Some of the free systems may offer some enhancements as well, but whichever you use just make sure they are coming from a credible source because some of these plug-ins could do more harm than good.

5. RSS Feeds – an RSS (real simple syndication) is used to publish frequently updated content, such as blog entries and other announcements. You should encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed.

When people have access to your feed this gives them instant access to your latest entries and it gives you a great avenue to bring in consistent and returning traffic. To maintain that flow of traffic continue to provide quality content.

6. Social Networking – if you use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any of the hundreds of social networking sites offered today you must have realized how powerful these sites can be to your exposure. These platforms offer areas to add information about you, your business and interests.

Having access to such powerful sites gives you an edge many never had before and although they have had success in the past without them, I’m sure if they had access to these social networking sites back then it would have minimized their efforts and maximized their success much sooner.

7. Viral Marketing – these days it’s so easy to create your own audios, videos, podcasts, e-books and mini reports. What does this have to do with your blog marketing? Well, how about using one of these marketing platforms to promote your blog?

The key to viral marketing is getting people to pass your content along to others and have them pass it along to others, etc. Just imagine that happening multiple times over. You can use platforms available to submit audios, videos, etc., so others can pass your content to others freely without spending any money, if at all.

By. Jimmy Adames

Source :
- http://jimmyadames.com/blog-marketing-tips-7-effortless-ways-to-increase-blog-traffic/

Adsense When should you use it?

Well I have several sites, some of them I apply the AdSense to; to make a few extra pennies and some of my websites I wouldnt even dream of placing Adsense to.

For example, I will not use AdSense on a site that I wish to sell one product on, especially my own products. This can take your potential prospects away from what you want them to buy. Why would you risk losing them to your competition or to another site for a few lousy cents? Or dollars if you got the higher end priced AdSense ads on your site.

All sites where I am selling a specific product will not have any out going links for me. I want to keep them on my site for as long as possible.

However, I will use AdSense on sites that are more along the lines of Free Content websites. Usually these websites I set up, I use directly for making money with AdSense.

Whats interesting with AdSense is that your layout can have a detrimental affect on how much you can earn from using it. Of course testing and re-testing will be your ultimate tool in finding out what works best with your website.

I tend to stay clear of the lay out that looks like Googles sponsored ads on the main Google website. Everyone identifies these ads as paid and not as likely to have as many people to click through them.

Adsense can be a nice little profitable tool if used correctly.

By. Joanne King

Source :
- http://www.adsense.madeeasynet.com/adsense--when-should-you-use-it.html

A Smart Trick for Attracting Higher Paying AdSense Ads

There are no guarantees in life, so I dont guarantee that following these tips will bring you more money every time. However, I do guarantee that they will greatly increase your chances of pulling more of the top-paying AdSense ads to your site than if you dont follow these suggestions.

Enough with the disclaimers, lets get down to the business of making money. Google lets advertisers bid anywhere from a minimum of .05 per click right up to a whopping $100. It should be pretty obvious that youre not going to get rich running .05 cent ads on your site, but getting a few $100 ads, or even some $10, $20, or $30 ads cant be a bad thing, right?

Now the problem is, Google is pretty closed-mouthed about who is paying what for their ads, and there is no real way to determine which words pay the most per AdSense click.

But ah, far away in a parallel universe we find another Pay-Per-Click provider called Overture. It seems that Overture is less sensitive about releasing their top-priced words and anyone who cares to find out what web sites are paying for words and phrases can do so by simply using Overtures tattle-tale special pricing tool (http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/). And it couldnt be easier to use. You simply type in a key word or phrase and the tool returns a list of advertisers using that word and how much they are paying. It even shows you the actual ad.

Oh what a treasure trove of wealth-grabbing results this can be if you know what can be done with that priceless information.

Consider this possibility

Any key word or phrase thats worth big bucks on Overture is probably worth big bucks on Google as well, maybe even more, right? So try this experiment:

Enter the phrase SEO Services without the quotes in the Overture tool (http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/). When I entered that phrase on the day I wrote this article, I was found a company called SEO Inc. that was willing to pay $8.01 per click, followed by SEO Advantage at $8.00, and Online Web Consultants at $6.50. Other bidders appeared below them in the $3.00 range straight on down to some who wouldnt pay more than a dime per click.

Now, if a company is willing to pay that much money for a click on Overture, it is probably willing to pay that or more on Google. Even if that particular company isnt advertising on Google, you can be pretty sure that the same key phrase is drawing near the same bid price from other companies who do advertise on Google. So what that means is there is no way that you can possibly afford NOT to have some web pages posted somewhere that are targeted to those sweet-paying words.

All you have to do is use Overtures pricing tool to find the highest-paying key words that are related to your site and then optimize those words to start pulling similar ads. If all goes to plan, you can perhaps double, triple, or even quadruple your AdSense revenue without needing any increase in traffic or click-through rate.

by: Diane Nassy

About the author:
Diane provides marketing and internet profit tips.
For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense.deeljeabiz.com
Email : deeljeabiz@gmail.com

6 steps to Adsense Domination

When you make your living online, you realize the need for multiple streams of income.

One of the easiest and most lucrative ways to generate a secondary income, which also happens to be passive, is via Googles Adsense program.

Im sure youve read the claims of a few individuals generating five figure monthly incomes from Adsense. For many of you, Im sure you are wondering why you arent making this same income yourself.

Well, wonder no more. If you follow my simple six step system, you will be well on your way to healthy Adsense profits within three months.

Are you ready? Its now time to pay attention.

Step 1 Preparation.

The key to making money with Adsense is all about numbers. BIG numbers!

Sure, there are a few people making serious money with less than ten sites, but these are the exception.

Your goal will be twenty-four sites in three months. Thats just TWO sites per week!

In order to accomplish this, I recommend one of the many available page generation tools available today.

Step 2 Determine Your Markets.

In order to maximize Adsense income with only twenty-four sites, you must know which markets are paying well.

To break this down even further, you need to know which keywords within those markets are paying the most.

Step 3 Register you domains.

Once youve identified and chosen your markets, you must register domains appropriate to those markets. For example, if your market is Cabbage Patch Dolls, a domain such as http://www.cabbage-patch-doll.com/ would be appropriate.

Step 4 Create your site.

Using your favorite page generation software and keyword list, its time to develop your site. There are several key points to bear in mind when you develop these specifically for Adsense.

1. Format Always use the large 336x280 large rectangle.
2. Border Match the same color as your background.
3. Background color – Border Match the same color as your background.
4. Link = "0000CC"
5. Color_url = "999999"
6. Color_text = "333333"
7. Position Far left or center and just above the page fold (Top 25% of site)

Step 5 Verify and track your site

Visit your site and make sure all links work and that the sites appear to your satisfaction. You should also check out the ads Google is displaying. Are they targeted to your primary high paying keyword? If not, recreate your site using your high paying keyword in a higher density throughout your site.

Make sure you track your Adsense format, position, and traffic with a tracking system specifically designed for Adsense. Once you know your stats, you can adjust for maximum clickthroughs and higher revenues.

Step 6 Get your site listed in the search engines.

This is simple no tricks involved. Simply rent links to your site. A PR7 or PR8 link will do the job.

While Ive simplified the process here, you are now armed with enough information and resources to make some serious money with Adsense.

by: Keith Baxter

Copyright 2005 Keith Baxter

About the author:
This article has been authored by Keith Baxter, the founder of http://www.topkeywordlists.com
If you want to maximize your Adsense income and learn how to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website from the search engines, visit the site now. Only 203 spots are available at the special low introductory rate.

Blogging For Dollars

Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are:

1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs
Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served.

2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements)
Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale.

3. ) Product Promotion
Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement. Like sponsored reviews.

4.) Banner Ads
While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space.

As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many.

by: Sharon Housley

Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley

About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for the NotePage http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com product lines. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.small-business-software.net 

Why Blogs Are Better Than Websites

Blogs are now the most trusted media source for useful information according to a Blogads survey of over 35,000 readers. Value was compared against newspaper, radio, television, direct mail and magazines. It is estimated that in the US 27% of the people read blogs on a regular basis.

Blog marketing increases exposure, generates buzz, and creates a global message to which individual customers can respond. Blog marketing is also a powerful search engine optimization tool which can be used to dramatically improve website rankings.

Why Blogs Are Better Than Websites ?

1. Blogs are active and websites are passive. Blogs broadcast their content out to the web via RSS every time there is something new. Websites on the other hand wait to be discovered by search engine spiders. It’s like the difference between fishing and hunting. You can sit and wait for fish or you can actively hunt and pursue.

2. Blogs are faster. Posting and syndication is almost instantaneous. Technorati and other blog search engines index and list your postings within minutes after you publish.

3. Blogs build a readership. It is easy for visitors to subscribe to a blog so they can view new postings as soon as they happen. Blogs encourage repeat visits with content being delivered to your favorite reader or delivery by email. Compare this to bookmarking a website which depends on the visitor to come back.

4. Blogs have newer fresher content. By their nature, blogs have regular fresh content and they are more up to date. Blogs tend to deal with breaking events and technology insights.

5. Blogs invite participation and interaction. Blog conversations are encouraged providing multiple viewpoints and discussions. Comments can be made easily from each page.

6. Blogs are powerful influencers. “More than half (52%) of Europeans polled said that they were more likely to purchase a product if they had read positive comments from private individuals on the internet.” This is according to a Hotwire Ipsos MORI survey.

Why Blog?

Combining business blog marketing and traditional website marketing is especially effective when you start up a new business. Blogging is one of the fastest ways of announcing your business and spreading the word quickly about what you do.

New companies should look at launching a blog and a website for maximum exposure. A combined approach using a website and a blog is usually the fastest approach. You will that you will gain a much broader reach by using both a website and blog. The website and blog will have different functions.

The website is the advertising and marketing piece. The new website should be the marketing focus that touts the advantages, benefits and conveniences of using your business. The new website should bring in traffic with both pay-per-click advertising and organic SEO.

The website and blog will reach different audiences, have different focuses, have different conversational tones, but still strive to reach the same targeted customer. The blog and website reinforce each other and magnify the results.

By. Doug Williams

About the author :

Doug Williams is the founder and president of Doug Williams and Associates, LLC. DWA is an Internet marketing and search engine optimization firm www.dougwilliams.com.

Source :
- http://www.dougwilliams.com/blog-marketing.php

How Branding Helps Your Marketing Strategy

Branding by definition is the act of stigmatizing. In other words, it is a procedure done to establish a character that best fits the object you are promoting. In a person’s case, it can be an expertise, talent or skills that he or she possesses while in a product, it can be a logo, design or symbol. The most famous branding tactic for product promotion is the use of popular, celebrity endorsers.

Basically, branding involves delivering what the product is all about, hitting your target market right on the spot, and convincing the buyer to pay for the brand. Branding is a very important element in your marketing strategy.

This is because through branding, you’ll be able to plan your marketing tactics very well. Proper branding will enable your marketing strategy to be laser-focused to what the product is originally intended for. Your marketing strategy will then evolve around the already established brand.

Experts also believe that branding is what makes your marketing efforts stickier than most. When you are able to properly brand your product, it will be noted by your market and they will surely remember when your product is needed. Furthermore, branding has been found out to be helpful when you are trying to build trust. It also helps in building a community of loyal consumers as your branding efforts progress.

In fact, according to surveys, consumers are now more likely to trust branding efforts than blatant advertising and marketing strategies. Consumers find branding efforts as transparency, honesty and somewhat dignified whereas marketing is considered to be very tricky and misleading most of the time. This is why most marketing gurus opt to use branding as the way to go when trying to market a product or services.


Source :
- http://blog.sketchfirm.com/2009/08/20/how-branding-helps-your-marketing-strategy/

Affiliate Marketing vs. Google Adsense: Let the Battle Begin

Lately there has been a lot of discussion on how to make tons of money with Google Adsense. In fact, many people are making the claim that Adsense sites can earn a higher revenue then an affiliate-marketing site.

So that brings us to an important question: Which is a better online business – Affiliate-Marketing sites or Google Adsense sites?

Let's explore each one and then find out which online business is better option:

Google Adsense

How do you like the idea of earning m*ney without dealing with customers or answering emails. This is possible when you run a Google Adsense site. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining. But is this the best option for an online business?

Here are the positives of Google Adsense sites:

They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product

You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.

Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.

Here are the negatives of Google Adsense sites:

They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth.

These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.

Affiliate Marketing

Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come.

But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?

Here are the positives of affiliate marketing:

A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.

With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits..

Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.

Here are the negatives of affiliate marketing:

You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.

Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.

So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense?

The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.

Here is how you can do this:

1. Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.
2. Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.
3. Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.
4. Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.
5. Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of m*ney from your subscribers while giving them good content.

By focusing on both affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be building both short-term and long-term profits.

by: Scott Patterson

About the author:

Scott J. Patterson is a self-proclaimed Dunce, yet last month he earned $12,124 from one of his online businesses. To find out how YOU can do the same, download his fr*e ebook- The Secret-Guide to Home Businesses: http://www.duncemoney.com/affiliate-adsense.html

9 Tips for SEO Friendly Web Design

SEO: time-intensive, ever changing, and highly misunderstood. Creating a website design that is appealing, while also search engine friendly, is one of the hardest parts about SEO web design.

If you’re a designer, are your designs really search friendly?

A lot of misconceptions about SEO still exist in the web design community and many designers, who have at least some knowledge, are often acting with outdated information. Once a designer understands the value of SEO, there is still the concern of how to keep a design attractive, while also being search friendly.

Designers love beautiful websites and SEOs love optimized content and code, but neither should fool themselves, because these days, both matter. In that spirit, I’ve put together a list of 9 SEO tips that help keep your stunning website optimized for search engines. Instead of focusing on SEO design basics, I’ll be covering some design-focused SEO tips, to show how SEO and beautiful design elements can co-exist.

1. It’s not the same old SEO

SEO can be hard to keep up with, because it is always changing. Today, SEO doesn’t mean a site has to be ugly.

First, forget everything you’ve learned about keyword meta tags and keyword stuffing, because those days are over. This is a great thing for designers, because search engines are looking for great content, written in natural language. Metrics, like keyword density, which make sites look hideous, are a thing of the past.

If you’ve been a designer for several years, start fresh and learn search engine optimization from a source that keeps up with all things SEO. Don’t let out-of-date SEO practices make you think pages have to be riddled with repetitive keywords.

2. Links talk

Links tell search engines what pages are about. This holds true on-site as well as off-site. The words you use in your designs to link to other pages do matter. The web has matured and no longer needs to be told “click here”.

This is just another form of the dreaded “click here”. There is an opportunity wasted here, where the designer could link out with the keyword-rich headings like “HR solutions”. The “learn more” link is great for users, but leaves search bots blind to what is on the other end of that link. As a human, we make the connection, and know that this link is about “HR Solutions”, but you’re telling search engines it is about “learn more”.

CSS can be used to keep the style, but the site would benefit from either linking the major headings, or changing the link text to something like “Learn More about HR Solutions”. This would drastically improve the site’s internal linking, with minimal impact on design.

3. Design is linkbait

This is great news for designers. Much of the life of an SEO is focused around baiting links from the link-giving portion of the web. The amazing thing is that this portion of the web loves great looking websites. Great design improves credibility and the user experience.

If you design great sites, use services like The CSS Gallery List to get your site submitted to CSS showcases across the web, or at least do it by hand.

4. Look at search bots as browsers

Earlier I mentioned how using “learn more” leaves a search engine blind. Considering a search bot as a disabled user or another type of browser, is exactly the type of approach needed for search friendly web design.

Search bots are extremely disabled and unintelligent users who use a dreadfully outdated browser. This user’s ability to understand your site may mean the difference of thousands or millions of dollars for a business.

One of the best SEO tips I can give a designer is to test as if Lynx was one of the web’s major browsers. If you can properly navigate your site, and understand its content in a browser like Lynx, then you are on your way to being a great SEO web designer. Other tools, like the Web Developer toolbar, really help test a site without elements like CSS, images, and JavaScript.

Keep up on the Google webmaster guidelines, so you know the limitations of this highly impaired user of your site. Focus on creating beautiful designs that gracefully degrade for this limited web user, “the search bot.” Or, instead of designing the site and working backwards, start with the lowest common denominator (the search engine), and work up.

Let’s Get Tactical :

5. Smoke some hash

That little symbol, the hash mark or pound symbol, is an extremely powerful SEO tool in the hands of a developer who knows what to do with it. The hash mark creates an element in the URL that is not considered unique by the search engines, so it is dropped.

There are a lot of great ways to use this. I’ve seen it used well on sections where new pages hardly justify having a unique URL. One example I’ve seen recently is a “people” section where only minor content changes are seen on each page. The designer assigned each employee’s profile with “#name”. These multiple, near duplicate, pages are all seen as one page by the search engines. There are plenty of other great uses for the hash.

6. Use SEO friendly JavaScript

Any time you touch technologies like JavaScript, you need to tread carefully. I love Javascript technologies, and all the amazing things we can do with them, but they can create huge problems.

Traditionally, AJAX is not SEO friendly because calls are made through JavaScript, which cannot be executed well by search engines. The result is that the content is never rendered or indexed by search bots. I like what can be done with jQuery, since you can have html link navigation in place (for search engines), and still have jQuery effects.

7. Flash is OK, sometimes.

Ask your average SEO about flash and you’ll be told how horrible it is for SEO. Ask someone who casually follows SEO news, and they’ll tell you flash can now be crawled. So how should a designer approach flash?

While Google is improving, you should not depend on Google to figure it all out. Here are some basic Flash rules to keep in mind.

* Do not include an entire site on one page.
* Do not use flash as the navigation.
* Do not include important content in flash.

Search engines are nearly blind to flash, so do not use it for important page elements. Use of flash for design elements and non-important content is ok.

Flash can be used in a search engine friendly design. You can enhance web fonts by using slfr. Since the flash does not replace the HTML content, but styles it, search engines are still able to read the titles. It’s even Google approved.

8. CSS image replacement

CSS image replacement is one way to make a site look great, while also being search friendly. There are a couple different ways to do this, but the biggest concern boils down to intent.

Google says:

“If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages.”

The two words to focus in on here are “perceived” and “intent”. During a manual review Google will try to interpret your intent; a practice that has come under fire recently when Google profiled SEO.

I think CSS is a common tactic and a fine solution to SEO web design. If your intent is to improve the visual experience, and you make this intent clear, you should be fine. Do not use this method to stuff keywords or manipulate with hidden content.

9. Have great linking with footers

If you have a design that will be compromised by the inclusion of a robust navigation above the fold, a solid footer is a great solution.

Sometimes footers get the job done, like Yelp’s boring, but effect footer. And sometimes they highlight content you want to rank, like the footer over at We Build Pages. But, they can also look beautiful, impressive, and creative.

Bonus Tips for Designers!

Three mini bonus tips that are exclusively for designers to use to promote their business.

Many designers drop an attribution link in the footer of their designs like so:

“Website Designed by Creative Company Name”

Here are 3 Mini SEO Tips

1. Include a keyword in that attribution link. Stop linking your company name only and at least include the “Website Designed” portion. Even better, use something like “Designed by: Company Name – A New York Web Design Company.”

2. Once you design a few sites with your keyword-rich attribution link, change the wording. It doesn’t need to be drastically different, but create some variation. Do this periodically.

3. Create a pre-sale page on their site that features a testimonial and links back to your site. Then, link to this pre-sale page site-wide from the footer of their design. This will help you avoid the negatives of the run of site links, while getting a link from a page with a lot of internal PageRank flowing to it.

If you’re a designer, I hope these tips help you find some elegant design solutions to common SEO design problems. If you’re an SEO, I hope these tips are something you can forward to your designer.

I’d love to hear any tips or techniques you use in your designs to handle complex design needs in a search engine friendly manner. If you have any great SEO tips, ideas, or questions please leave a comment.

By. Justin Briggs

Source :
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/06/9-seo-tips-for-attractive-search-engine-friendly-web-design.html