Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Web Site Design Tips

Website promotion tips for small businesses

2005-12-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Stephen Hill to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

People are always wanting to attract more visitors to their website. We all would like to see more traffic, however what are the best ways to promote a website, which does not cost an arm and a leg?

1. Pay per click advertising.

Pay per click advertising is becoming more and more popular with programs such as Google adwords reporting bigger profits on a regular basis. This is a way of getting your website on the first or second pages by you paying an advertising fee. You set the amount you are happy to pay per click and when somebody clicks on your ad, you have an extra visitor, however at a cost to you. It is important to remember not to spend more on the pay per click advertising than what you are likely to earn etc.

2. Writing articles.

Writing articles such as this one is a good way of promoting your website. Article websites such as http://www.ezinearticles.com and http://www.goarticles.com allow you to submit your articles for free. Other webmasters are able to use your articles on their website which gives you an extra backward link as you are able to add you website address at the bottom of the article. People who are reading the article on the article websites are also potential visitors.

3. Obtaining backward links.

If you are looking to increase your search engine position it is a good idea to try to increase the amount of backward links you have. This is not as easy as it seems as people are not always happy to add a link on their site to your homepage. It is worth making a few phone calls or sending a few e-mails and asking the question, if the person would like to exchange links. It is of more value to have a link from a website in the same type trade of your own.

4. Always include your domain address in advertising.

Wherever you advertise it is important to include your website domain address, and also at the bottom of any e-mails you send.

About the author: Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

www.insomnia-symptom.co.uk

www.meditation-symptom.co.uk

www.stammering-stuttering.co.uk

Forums and how it can get you the business you want

2005-11-25T06:13:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Joseph Then to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Forums is one of the "forgotten" tools. You can actually get a bunch of TARGETED visitors just from forums.

If you are marketing niche product this is one of the MOST effective way.

I visit 5-8 forums everyday and I post some messages once a while. This activity takes up about 20 minutes of my time everyday.

As an advocate of testing, I decided to test the effectiveness of forums. I joined 3 marketing forums and contributed over 20 messages for each forum. I attach my signature with each post and promoted Easy Niche Product.

After 1 week, I checked my weblog: I saw that I have a combined total of 150+ unique visitors coming from the 3 forums! 150+ unique visitors are not much, but take note that it is 150+ FREE, targeted & unique visitors.

Some other benefits of getting involved in forums:

- You get free advertising Obviously, you get free advertising for every message you post. Make sure that you have created a signature with your website link so that your signature will be seen with every post you make. You will be surprised how many people click on your signature's links
- You will be recognized With enough contribution, you will be recognized as a contributor and even an 'expert'. Your postings will carry some authority and if you want to post an advertisement, your 'authority' becomes the endorsement for your advert.

- It is easier to look for Joint Ventures This is my favorite.
Because I contribute to the forums and people recognized my contribution, it is easier to ask for Join Ventures. You will get people who are interested to join you because of your 'authority' in the forum.

There can be other benefits. But the above are good enough reasons for me to participate in forums.

About the author: Joseph Then operates an business that provides 3 Themed Niche Products for the members. You can read more about it at http://www.EasyNicheProduct.com

Proper Opt In Email Marketing - Step by Step

2005-11-23T06:06:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Michael Lawrence to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Direct Email Marketing can be one of the most effective forms of advertising you can use to spread the word about your product or service. You need to properly plan and structure the tiers of your email marketing campaigns otherwise you can run into SPAM complaints, domain blacklisting, email blocking, and an overall bad reputation.

This article will explain a step by step procedure to take your list of single opt in (unconfirmed) prospects and filter them into a list of targeted double optin subscribers. This article assumes you have already acquired a list of single opt in subscribers (either by purchasing a list, using an existing subscriber database or by utilizing other lead capture techniques).

Recommended Opt In Lead Vendor:

Key2Net - 60 000 Free Leads

Step 1 - Setup an Autoresponder

An Autoresponder is a set of scripts that automatically sends timed email messages to a database of subscribers. You have two options available to you.

1. Purchase and host your own Autoresponder scripts

2. Sign up for an account with an Autoresponder service.

Recommended Autoresponder Software

ListMail Pro

Interspire SendStudio

Ecom24 AutoResponder Plus

Follow Up Xpert

Professional Autresponder Services

AWeber

GetResponse

IntelliContactPro

TrafficWave

Step 2 - Set Up Subscriber Databases and Import Opt In List

You will be setting up two Autoresponder Subscriber Databases.
The first database will store your raw single optin prospect list and send a one time promotional message. The second database will store your confirmed prospects and send them a timed follow up message sequence that you will configure in Step 3.

Begin by importing your raw optin list subscriber list into your first Autoresponder System. Make sure you include the user's first name, last name, email address, ip address, and date stamp fields. If you ever need to refute a SPAM complaint having all the proper optin information is a must have.

Any reputable Autoresponder service will require all of the listed information at a minimum before they will allow you to put your list in their system. Ensure any lists you purchase from optin list vendors have this information included as well, otherwise you are taking some big league chances with your reputation.

You should now have two databases set up to store your prospects. One will be empty, and the other will contain your uploaded optin list of raw unconfirmed prospects.

Step 3 - Configure Your Autoresponder Follow Up Messages

You will need to add a confirmation message and follow-up messages to your second Autoresponder system.

Typically a person needs to see a brand or product up to 7 times before they will buy it. Win your prospect's trust by providing them valuable information. A free ecourse or newsletter are great ways to enhance your credibility.

Do not bombard your subscribers with product advertisements. They will eventually get tired of you and remove themselves from your list. Your prospect may not want to buy today, but if they ever do want to buy, you want to be their brand. This requires maintaining regular contact with your prospects so that your name is fresh in their mind without having them tune you out because your information is of no use to them.

If you provide valuable content through your Autoresponder prospects will happily open your emails giving you the chance to turn them into customers. Better yet the system is Automated meaning you could be gaining customers while sitting on the beach in some tropical locale.

Email Writing Resources

Free SPAM Checker

Writing Effectively

How To Write Autoresponder Messages

Write Autoresponder Messages Subscribers Will Love To Read

Step 4 - Configure your One Time Message

You will be sending a one time CAN-SPAM compliant message to the list of raw prospects in your first Autoresponder System. This message will contain a mechanism to get your prospect subscribed to your second Autoresponder system which will be sending your follow up message sequence or newsletter.

When the prospect confirms their subscription they are added to the second Autoresponder database automatically and will begin to receive your Follow Up Message Sequence. Congratulations, you now have a targeted double optin subscriber.

Typical Autoresponder Subscription Methods

Lead Capture Page with Form - You can insert form code into a webpage that allows a user to subscribe to your second autoresponder system. You would then add a link to the page where you inserted this code into your one-time promotional message. If a user visits your webpage and fills out the form, they will get the confirmation message from your second Autoresponder system and subsequently your follow up messages or newsletter if they confirm their subscription.

Send a Blank Email to a Preconfigured Email Address - All autoresponder systems allow you to create an email address for remote subscription. You can insert this email address into your one-time message (do not make this your from address). When someone sends an message to this email address they are issued your confirmation message and follow up sequence once they confirm their subscription.

Insert Form Code in HTML Message - If you send your messages as HTML you have the option of inserting your signup form directly in your email message. Unfortunately, if your prospect does not have HTML messages enabled they will not be able to use your signup form.

Choose your preferred subscription method and make sure you add the necessary URL, email address or form code into your one-time message.

Items to Include in your Message:

Proper return email address - (not an autoresponder subscription address). If a user chooses to "reply" to your message it has to be deliverable to a "resolvable" email address.

Proper email header information - If you are using hosting that has been set up for you with your own domain you shouldn't have to worry about configuring header information. If you run your own servers you will have to ensure you set up the proper DNS records for your domain and mailing services. Do not spoof or forge your header information.

Removal Mechanism - Insert a link to a webpage containing your unsubsribe form, or an email address they can send their "Unsubscribe" request to. This link must be valid for at least 30 days after you send your email message.

Contact Information - Insert your name, contact email adress, and street address (or your company street address) information at the end of your message.

Appropriate Subject Line - Don't bother trying to fool people with tricky subject lines like "open me" or "look here". They hurt your credibility and scream "I am an amateur".

Your Promotional Message - Include a short benefit and feature filled message about your offer or service. Remember the goal is to get them into your automated follow up system, not close the sale.

Prospect's Optin Details (Optional) - Reduce the risk of SPAM complaints by including the prospects optin details with your message. Sometimes people do not remember signing up for things and this gives you a level of credibility with the prospect right away.

Remember to adhere to the Policies and Terms of your Web Host at all times. Some will allow you to send to large lists, some will not. It is up to you to be responsible and find out what you are allowed to do prior to starting your email campaigns.

After you have completed preparing your one time message you will be ready to start your email campaign.

Step 5 - Send One-Time Message

Use your Autoresponder System to send your one-time message to your unconfirmed subscriber database.

Make sure to include a couple of your own email addresses in the list so you can verify whether your messages are getting delivered.

You can keep adding users to the first database as you acquire more leads. As you get more advanced you can begin tracking your email campaigns through specialized Ad tracking URL's.

Congratulations, you now have a Fully Automated Follow Up and Contact Management System.

About the author: Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for BDN Web Design and also administrates a Directory of Website Promotion and SEO Resources

The Promotional Calendar Has Just Evolved...Is Your Company Ready?

2005-11-21T06:02:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Titus Hoskins to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

There are over a Billion or so computer and Internet users. That's one BIG marketplace!

Finding ways to directly reach out and contact this huge consumer base has always been a problem for the small web site owner and most online/offline businesses. Those who have devised ways or methods to reach this huge marketplace have reaped the rewards.

Microsoft comes quickly to mind with its Windows Operating System and all those default features such as MSN that's pre-loaded onto your computer. But for the little business owner accomplishing this feat for just a small percentage of this 'Billion Plus Club' is an enormous task - but again, the rewards are worth it.

One of the best ways or places to reach and touch these computer and Internet users is the DESKTOP. Place a direct link to your business, web site or product directly on the desktop of your potential customers or interested parties.

Many successful online sites and businesses have done just that - developed a software program or programs that go directly onto the computer desktop. This is usually some interactive program that the user accesses daily, whether they're online or off.

These businesses keep their brand name, company message, and live links constantly in front of their customers 24/7 - 365 days of the year. Designed properly, this can be a very powerful marketing system, bringing in targeted traffic, building leads and over time creating brand loyalty or company awareness that's worth its weight in gold.

These programs can also be very 'viral', designed so that users recommend or pass them along to family, friends and colleagues. It's also the right situation where a smartly designed program or site can hit the 'Billion Plus Club' in a head-on collision. Resulting in instant mass promotion and name recognition.

One such example was 'Hotmail'.

The 'Hotmail' phenomenon surprised everyone. How that simple email program suddenly spread everywhere almost overnight was amazing. There have been numerous examples since. The viral nature of the Internet can be very beneficial to those who can harvest it!

Although not on par with the 'Hotmail' example, there's a viral technique any company, no matter how small, can use. It's a system that's so simple, its almost laughable, but sometimes the simple stuff works best. Especially if you want to reach the largest demographic of this 'Billion Plus Club'. Even the newest computer user should feel comfortable using your program. You can only do that if your system is simple and very easy to use.

What's the program? System?

The Computer Desktop Calendar.

Actually most of these programs are both a Calendar and Personal Planner which fits directly onto your computer desktop. Businesses have been using promotional calendars for centuries, it's a simple way of keeping your business contact information, your brand name or product directly in front of potential customers.

It's simple and direct. And it works!

However, instead of the kitchen wall, the eCalendar sits on your client's desktop, the best location in all of 'computerdom'. Prime beach front property. This desktop calendar can be customized to contain your company or web site message, your images, your contact information, and plus, BIG plus - live links to your business, web site or your contact email links.

A small, simple and powerful device reaching out to that 'Billion Plus Club'.

But this device or any device would be useless, if it's not used! However, everyone uses calendars and planners - to remember everything from your favorite uncle's birthday to little Susan's next dental appointment. We all use calendars - it's a fact of life.

Savvy marketers and company directors have figured this fact out long ago. They also know the promotional calendar can be an effective marketing tool. The real smart ones, have also factored in the huge 'Internet' market and have covered all the bases in their promotional campaigns. They use both the 'old paper' calendar and the newer 'eCalendar'. Reaching as many potential customers as they can - covering all the bases.

Like Putting Your Business Card In Front of 1000's Each Day!

But there's one MAJOR difference between the two - the 'old paper type' usually lasts for only one year; the promotional eCalendar lasts forever. For the promotional calendar, along with everything else in the computer age, has evolved. This calendar is perpetual, all your dates, plans, anniversaries, etc. can be entered and kept for a lifetime. This is a distinct advantage the eCalendar has over its out-dated paper cousin. An advantage, businesses should be aware of as they prepare their next promotional calendar.

For the small business owner or webmaster acquiring such a program or device can be expensive in the short term but it will pay big dividends for years to come. Most quality programs will have 'unlimited copies or downloads' and if the program is designed right, these calendars will last forever! One time investment, where companies can get more 'bang for their advertising buck' by using an eCalendar instead of a paper one.

These promotional eCalendars are small, simple, powerful and easy to use. If you're a web site owner, business owner (large or small) you should be considering such a promotional viral device for your own company or product - remember the 'Billion Plus Club'.

Alert companies and businesses should be 'factoring in' the computer and Internet into any promotional campaigns. As more and more business is filtered through the Internet and the Almighty Computer, those who have their company's brand name, sales message and contact information placed directly into this mix will reap the rewards.

At the very least, using a promotional eCalendar will give any company a slight edge over their competition.

About the author:
Get a Free DATEwise eCalendar & Personal Planner for your Desktop. It's a perfect example of a promotional eCalendar in action! Click Here: Free Desktop Calendar

Copyright � 2005 Titus Hoskins of Free Marketing Tools

How to Gain and Retain Customers for your Online Business

2005-11-18T17:47:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Kristie Weddell to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

It�s the most basic rule of business: you need to sell some to earn some. Salesmanship therefore, or the art of closing a sales, is of paramount importance for any business venture. After all, we can�t expect any earnings if we don�t make any sales.

Winning customers is essential for the success of our enterprise. And this is also true for online businesses. In fact, some would say that winning customers online has its share of pros and cons. The good news is that the entire world is your market, and you could potentially reach more people through the World Wide Web. The disadvantage? The Internet offers a more impersonal channel in our dealings with people, making it more difficult to garner their trust and favor.

So what are we to do then? Fear not, dear friend. As with everything else in life, we should try to accentuate the positives to compensate for the negatives. Here are a few ways by which you could gain a good number of customers, and keep them for a long and profitable business for you and your family. Always deliver quality goods or services. There is no better vehicle for our business message than our products themselves. Consistently offering things that are more than worth our customers� time and money will brand us as enterprises that are committed to quality products and services. This would only serve us well in future dealings with the same clients.
Additionally, this would make our clients as advertising vehicles for our business as well, as they would spread the word about the excellence of our service to people belonging to their network.

Always try to over-deliver. People love receiving more than what they paid for. If you consistently give them some extras, their minds would be conditioned to trust your business for future transactions.

Provide bonuses. In addition to the product you�re selling, add some more goods that would perk up the package. Do this in a manner that you will make your customers aware of the value of the bonuses if they were otherwise purchased. This would definitely increase the worth of your product, and such would make it more favorable for a successful sale. Additionally, your bonuses would foster good will with your clients, and this could go a long, long way for future orders.

Build relationships. The importance of building good relationships with your customers cannot be undermined. As we�ve discussed earlier, the Internet is a rather informal venue for personal dealings. So try to humanize your approach so that your customers can relate to you as someone who is more than just a business provider, but also as a friend.

Make use of a mailing list. A mailing list is an Internet marketers number one weapon. By capturing the contact details of people who may not have been interested with their current offer, they will be able to condition the same people for future sales. And this could serve their businesses well for quite a long time, as one successful sale can beget another and another after that. So invest on an excellent autoresponder service and prepare those follow-up messages well. Take good care of your subscriber base, and they will take good care of your business in return.

Winning customers is more than just luck. It entails a lot of strategizing and good planning. Retaining customers involve the same level of commitment as well. In the highly competitive world of online marketing, trust plays an integral role in achieving our goals. Try your best to win your customers� trust. Take care of it. And for sure, this trust would fuel good business for you for many years to come.

About the author:
Kristie Weddell is an affiliate marketer and internet researcher. Kristie scours the internet searching for and developing strategies that provide quality information and tools for internet marketers. www.affliatesource.com

Search Engine Optimization For Google

2005-11-16T06:45:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by David Bell to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Expert Google search engine optimization have increased exponentially, because of the proven search engine optimization and search engine positioning techniques.

A group of Google employees have recently filed a patent application (#20050071741) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office which gives insight into how to optimize one's website to do well in the Google rankings. The filing of the patent gives verification that Google uses or intends to use historical data in its ranking algorithm. This patent also gives credence to the Google Sandbox Theory for new websites.

Under the Google Sandbox Theory, new websites are placed in a sort of holding tank for observation for a period of time (6 - 9 months at present) until the website has proved that it's not a fly-by-night operation. Once the Sandbox period is over, then new websites will climb rapidly in the rankings. The Google Sandbox Theory is an unofficial theory based on observation and anecdotal evidence from those within the search engine optimization industry.

Based on the new Google patent here are the top 5 suggestions to better optimization for Google:

1- Build links slowly to your website. Websites that put up a bunch links quickly send up a red flag that links are being added in order to boost rankings. According to Google, natural links happen slowly over time, so one's link-building strategy also needs to include link-building slowly over time.

2- The anchor text in the back links to a website also need to be natural as well. If a website has lots of great content of interest to visitors, other Webmasters will naturally link to the website. Content is still king when it comes to building natural links. In fact, having great content is the best natural linking strategy.

3- If content is king, then fresh content is prince. Google thrives on websites that are constantly adding fresh content.
Websites with stale content erode in value over time.

4- When adding fresh content, make sure it is substantial.
According to the patent, Google measures substantial versus insubstantial content that is being added to a website. Don't try to trick the search engines with lots of minor content updates.

5- Outbound links to trusted, authority sites help in the rankings. As a reputable online business, it makes good business sense to refer customers to other reputable businesses as well.
Referring customers to disreputable websites only hurt a business's reputation and credibility and Google takes this into account when deciding how to rank websites.

There are more insights to be gained from the patent application, but these are the highlights that will help Webmasters and SEO's focusing on Google to achieve higher rankings. Many of these ideas have been stated before as theory and now the patent application verifies these theories.
Historical data has always been thought to play a significant role in the Google rankings. So now that it has been confirmed, taking action seems to be the next logical step.

I hope this helps in your future advertising decisions.

About the author:
David Bell

# 1 Internet Marketing Agency -Online Advertising Agency

Advertising research and development center

Best Practices Guide: Ad Swap

2005-11-15T06:51:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Dejan Bizinger to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Ad swap is one of the best ways to get new subscribers for your email newsletter if you have a limited budget for online marketing. Swapping ads is a great free technique. If you make good ad swap partnerships with email newsletters or web sites that focus on similar target audience like yours you will get quality (targeted) subscribers. Different Internet marketing studies show that most of your visitors will come to your site from links on other sites.

1) How to find swap resources

You will have to spend some time in finding ad swap partners. It can be time-consuming but if you find the right partners it is well worth it. You have to find partners that have similar businesses like yours, but not the same. It is not recommended to advertise your competitors. For example, if you offer web hosting services you can make ad swap partnerships with email hosting companies. You have to add only those ad swap partners in your email newsletter that will provide value-added services for your subscribers.

Several sites and services will make your job of finding swap resources easier.

Ad swap web sites and email newsletters

Link Partners - Free link exchange with searchable directory. http://www.linkpartners.com

Link City - Reciprocal link directory with a number of categories. http://www.link-city.com

Swap Resources - Free email newsletter where subscribers can post their swap requests. join-swapresources@texaslists.net

Services

LinksManager.com - Links management application service which automates links page management. It also promotes your website through a reciprocal link exchange which increases link popularity and web site traffic. http://www.linksmanager.com

Link Exchange Experts - Paid service that finds ad swap sites for your site. http://www.linkexchangeexperts.com

Zeus Internet Marketing Robot - Reciprocal link robot generates reciprocal links by automatically finding web sites he is trained to find, and building a link page or directory. http://www.cyber-robotics.com

2) How to arrange ad swaps

When you contact webmasters for possible ad swap cooperation it is recommended that you personalize your message. So instead of: "Dear Webmaster..." you should write: "Dear Mr. Last Name or First Name..."

After that, you will introduce yourself and your web site or email newsletter and tell them why you are interested in making link exchange with them. It is important to persuade them, to tell them "what is in" for them. It is best if you exchange links with email newsletters with similar number of subscribers. However, quantity is not the most important thing. The most important thing is quality. Both parties have to be sure that their ads will appear on reputable web sites and email newsletters.

If you want to advertise in email newsletters you should send them your ad, preferably max. 5 lines and formatted with 65 characters in each line. You have to ask them to let you know when they will place your ad in their email newsletter and to forward you a copy. You will do the same. If you want that your ad appear in HTML format you can make a special section on your site where you will place your banners in several formats and to place HTML codes so that you will make your ad swap partner's job easier.

It is also important to discuss about ad placements and how many other ads will be in that issue. It is not the same if your ad will be at the beginning of the issue, in the middle of an article or at the end of email newsletter. Also, it is better that your ad be the only one in that particular issue.

If you want to advertise in email newsletters that have more subscribers than yours, you can give them special deals like "3 for 1" so that you will place 3 times their ad for one placement of your ad.

Swapping ads is time-consuming but can bring very good results. Also, this way you can make some good online friends that can be of help for your business development.

About the author:
Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

Making the Most of an SEO Competitive Analysis

2005-11-14T06:39:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Michael Murray to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

If you're ready to embark on a search engine optimization campaign, you'll want to take a close look at your competitors. Either they'll be ahead of you in the SEO world or you'll detect their deficiencies and rush right past them in terms of search engine visibility.

Here are 8 key considerations.

1. Page Titles See what kind of page titles competitors use. Do they only include their name or a page name? How much do they vary? Is there a different page title for every page? Do they seem to contain reasonable search terms? Are they dominated by keywords or marketing messages?

2. META Data

Do they do a good job of providing keyword-rich META descriptions? What balance do they strike between mentioning the company's value or special offers and conveying core keywords?

3. Quality of Content

How much copy is apparent in each page? Is there any emphasis on the visible text? Can you even count 250 keywords on critical pages? How are the headers organized? Does the company take advantage of text navigation?

4. Robots.Text File

See what the Web site owners are telling the search engines. Are search engine spiders encouraged or discouraged by the directions listed in the robots.txt file?

5. Link Building

Find out how many places are linking to the competitor. You may not have time to determine the quality of all of the links, but see how many they have compared to your Web site.

6. Saturation

Determine how many pages of the Web site have been indexed by the major search engines. How does each competitor compare to your efforts to provide relevant content that can be crawled by search engines?

7. Site Design, Architecture and Technology

Is it professional? How would you describe the design? Is it SEO-friendly? Does the site rely on static pages or dynamic content? Are there frames or Flash with the familiar "skip intro" button?

8. Rankings

As best you can, select 10 keywords and phrases and find out how well they're ranking on the major search engines. Do they rank well? Can you catch up?

If you need help with the assessment or whether SEO even makes sense for you, start with our complimentary Keyword Marketplace Activity Report.

About the author:
Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a search engine optimization firm in Cleveland, Ohio. A member of SEMPO and OSEOP, the firm specializes in organic search engine marketing campaigns, permission-based marketing and other SEO services for clients across the US.michael@fathomseo.com

Tips for a Successful Website for Any Organization, NGO or GO

2005-11-13T06:32:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Soren Breiting. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Most NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) don't understand these important aspects of a successful website. Even many governmental organizations (GOs) could improve their sites by following these tips.

1. Everything should be viewed and evaluated with the eyes of the visitor: "What's in for me" as the main benchmark for a successful website. That is pertaining to the copy and to the content what ever directed to members or non-members: "You will here find ...." is a better and more inviting statement at the home page, than: "We are the main organisation of ......"

2. Most visitors on the Internet are searching for information, so please provide them with that.

3. Concentrate content on themes, because that will give you an easier way to the attractive top search positions at the main search engines and to be included in some directories, (Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, Open Directory, AltaVista etc.).
Site-Build-It is probably the best approach to fulfil that requirement.

4. Make navigation easy and transparent on all pages.

5. Have a search facility, best on all pages. http://www.blogger.com/www.FreeFind.com offers a free and useful service. I use it on a number of websites, for example about photos: http://www.blogger.com/www.azfotos.com . In addition to the search facility for the visitor it gives you a record of what people have actually been searching for. In that way you can prioritise the stuff available for people on your website when you revise your pages. Google is also offering a search box, but only with the pages they have indexed, and you cannot get any record of the searches.

6. Try to organise the content of your website quite "flat", meaning the visitor does not have to dig too deep into your website to find what he/she is searching after. Most visitors will at best not go further deep than to the 3rd level. This is the same with "spidering" bots of search engines.

7. Have your contact information visible on your home page (first page), including address, phone, fax, email, may be even postal giro, bank account etc. - All to make it more easy for people to find the kind of information they need about your organisation. Avoid to write the email address, use a script to hide it from email harvesters and spammers.

8. Make it easy for visitors to find information on people, their phone numbers and email address and keep them updated. Do the same for departments of the organisation.

9. Keep each resource in only one place and make many links to them around on other pages.

10. Make it visible when you have provided new material at the website.

11. Make your website SIMPLE and quick loading. Avoid heavy graphics, flash movies etc. They will not help your visitors, but only help them click away. If you use graphics, you have to optimise them for the smallest amount of file size. GifBot, http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm , can do it free and online. Else use one of the picture editing programmes available with the function like 'publish picture on the web'.

12. Keep your web copy short e.g. use a new paragraph for every 4th line. Make bullet points. files.

13. Manage to have at least your entrance page with a simple domain name, like http://www.blogger.com/www.iucn.org or http://www.blogger.com/www.ensi.org or www.nature.org

14. It is not enough to have a good virtual address by having an intuitive domain name on the internet. You also have to be registered properly in search engines and directories. The best way is to have other important sites to link to your site. In some months your site will be picked up by the spiders of search engines. For the directories it is best to do it manually, start with dmoz.org and yahoo.com

15. Make it easy for people to link to you. Provide them with a variety of text links, banners and logos and with simple instructions concerning the html code.

16. Encourage visitors to bookmark your site.

17. Exchange links with other relevant organisations. Include your important key words in your link text you ask them to use.

Implement these 17 tips and in half a year you will have many more visitors and they will be much more happy to come back to your organization's website.

About the author:
Soren Breiting has worked with a number of national and international websites for NGOs and NOs. Find more tools and tips at http://www.allemarketingtips.com/ . Soren is also the editor of the ezine Stock Photo News http://www.stockphotonews.com/ - The first Modern eZine combining Stock Photography and Marketing. - An effect of his engagement in stock photos, SEE http://www.azfotos.com/ .

Submitting Articles to Ezines

2005-11-12T06:21:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Anne Ahira to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Ok, your article's ready to go!

Now, you should take out your list of Ezines that you have chosen to submit to.

If you chose to use a mail merge program to submit them, I have a few good ones listed in the resource section.

If you chose to send them out manually, make sure you do not use the BCC field or CC function for this.

Here are the things you need to include in your message to the
editor:

Introduce your article and give personal information about yourself. The editor needs to have your contact information and a little background info on you helps as well.

You need to make your email stand out from the crowd.
Personalize the first paragraph and speak directly to the editor about how well your article fits with their Ezine's content.

Give your editor the number of words in your article

Do not send your article as an attachment . Most editors will simply throw it away because it poses a risk of having a virus.

Your headline should tell them what you are sending - Ex- New Article for Your Consideration To find the addresses of Ezines publishers, you can use databases such as, Ezines search database

You can also post your article to several websites where Ezines editors go to search for new material. They are:

ideamarketers.com

Ezines articles

Submit marketing articles

Writing articles for Ezines is a wonderful, free way to get your name out there and establish yourself in your field. Don't underestimate the power of a well-written article in the right, targeted Ezine!

About the author:
By: Anne Ahira Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter http://www.thebestaffiliate.com

Ten Ways to Keep Your Website Unnoticed on the Internet.

2005-11-11T06:17:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Barbara White to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

If you are a person who likes to keep up with current trends you will know that it is important to have your own website. After all anybody who is Anybody Important has a website of their very own. However one of the dangers of having a website is that someone browsing on the internet might discover it one day and what is worse, actually pause to visit your site and read its contents! They might even be interested stopping for a while to read what you wrote in it, or want to buy the widget you thought might be good to sell as you have more than one of them.

If you would like to reduce the possibilities of that happening be sure to follow these ten tips, and you can be sure that very few people will even know your website exists.

1. Choose an obscure domain name. Make sure the name you select has no relevance to the content of your site, to you or your business. Whatever you do make sure the domain name contains NO keywords that would indicate what your site is about and attract attention when someone searches for a site with your content or product.

2. Do not submit your website URL to any search engines, especially the big ones like Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Do not participate in any offers for your website to be submitted to search engines for free.

3. Never add fresh content or pages to your website. In fact it is a better idea to identically duplicate your content on every page.

4. Avoid reading anything about how to promote traffic to your website. One of the strategies might sink into your sub conscious, and you might find yourself promoting your site by accident.

5. Set up your website and then just leave it. Try not even to visit it yourself if possible in case your computer has tracking cookies. Any visits to your site could attract attention.

6. Make sure that you have a generic e mail address that you use all the time. An example of this might be a hotmail or yahoo address. Then when you write emails no one can track down your website through your email address. An address like me @mywebsite.com would just give the game away.

7. Even if you are passionate about writing, do not even consider writing an article and submitting it to a free article submission site such as Articles Beyond Better.Com. The problem with submitting an article is that you have to put something in the resource box which tells other people who you are and how to visit your website and buy your widget. It's amazing how just one article can be reprinted all over the internet, and read by people all over the world. That kind of exposure is very harmful to secret websites which do not want to receive any visits.
8. Do not put a blog or bulletin board on your website. This just encourages all sorts of visitors who want to read what you write and ask you questions. Some people often make return visits, or even become regular visitors to blogs, forums and bulletin boards. After all it would be terrible if someone actually 'bookmarked' your site and came back because they liked it!
9. Do not ever mention or put your website address on your business card, any promotional business material, or as a signature file on every e mail you send.

10. Choose an unreliable hosting service that has a bad reputation. In this way the server will not be up all the time, and people will not be able to access your site even if they wanted to.

By following these guidelines you can be pretty sure that no one will notice that your website exists. I hope you have plenty of money though, and are not wanting to make any income from your website. The problem with a website that is un noticed is that you still have to pay your hosting server every month for the privilege of your website taking up space on their server even if no one comes to visit it.

About the author:
Barbara White of Beyond Better Development is a Speaker as well as an Internet Entrepreneur. Barbara's passion is to empower others to become Beyond Better. For more informative and inspirational articles visit http://www.livingbeyondbetter.com and http://www.articlesbeyondbetter.com

Quick Tips for Designing Your Banner

2005-11-10T06:15:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Anne Ahira
to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

While banners have lost the appeal of many marketers on the web, they are still an effective means of pulling in traffic. The key is to have a visually appealing banner with an enticing offer.
Here's what you need to do:

Before you start, decide exactly what you want your banner to do. Decide the action you want your prospect to take. Keep this in mind at all times when you're designing the banner! Who are you making this banner for? Stay focused on your target market Generate curiosity, Create excitement, Make it urgent! Write about BENEFITS

Make sure you tell people what action you want them to take! If you want them to go to your website, put a box that says CLICK HERE. This will dramatically increase your traffic. This works even better if you underline text in your message and make it look like a link. Promote Free Reports, Free Samples, Free Ebooks - Free Always Pulls Well! Use bright colors that draw a person's attention. Yellow, blue and green tend to pull the best. Make sure your banner is fast loading. Keep it under 10K.
You want your banner to load fast for everyone, even people will slow 28.8k modems!

Animated banners tend to catch people's eyes better than static ones. Just don't overdo it! Remember, you want a fast loading time. Surf the web for a little while and look at banners that catch YOUR eye. This will give you ideas for designing your own banners. Change your banners on a regular basis to maximize effectiveness. Test all your banners! A good way to do this is through banner exchange programs. Once you establish which ones have the best response rate, you can place the 'winning' banners on targeted private sites.

About the author:
By: Anne Ahira Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter http://www.thebestaffiliate.com

Secrets of Writing Killer Sales Copies

2005-11-09T06:12:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Gerrick W to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

When it comes to writing killer sales copies you must have potential buyers in mind. You must understand their needs, their apprehension, their buying behavior, and bring a good presentation across to them how your product or service will benefit them. You must put yourself in your customers' shoes.

Secrets of Writing Killer Sales Copies...

1.Great Product or Service

First and foremost, a killer sales copy must be backed by a great product or service. Don't push a lemon. It will tarnish your reputation. Word gets around very quickly on the Internet.
People will only be hoodwinked once. And don't give the rest of us, the good guys, a bad name.

If you are promoting an affiliate product, be sure you have tried and tested it.

Practice responsible marketing - give your buyers value for their money. Their lives must be improved or enriched by your product or service. Put the interests of others first.

Spend time and effort to develop or source for quality products, and over deliver with dynamic pre and post sales services. You will make more sales in the long run, and earn a reputable name for your business.

2.Two Psychological Barriers to Overcome.

To sell your product or service you must first overcome two psychological barriers of potential buyers. The first question potential customers ask is: Will I be scammed? Is this product as good as it sounds? Or am I an experimental species? This is especially unnerving for people who are making their first purchase over the Internet.

After the first barrier is overcome, there arises a second one: Will this product or service work for me?

What are the solutions to the above 2 psychological barriers?

Testimonials.

You want to assure people that there are other people who have bought and used your product, and benefited from it.

Testimonials allow other people to do the marketing for you. When people see and hear of others like themselves benefiting from your product, their confidence level will be raised, "Wow, if it worked for them, it will also work for me." In your testimonials try to include people from the different walks of life eg. college students, stay at home moms, seniors...

No bluffs and inflated figures, please! The credibility and trust you took time to build will be destroyed instantly by a moment of stupidity.

3.Be Specific

Your sales copy will be very effective when you use testimonials where people are specific about the results they achieved. Instead of saying I gain self-confidence after enrolling in the YYY program, try saying I was toastmaster of the month of the Superachiever Club after doing this and this in the YYY program. Each testimonial does not have to be half a page long. Two or three sentences will suffice, but be specific.

4.Be clear and concise.

Cut all the fluff, and quit telling people about your dog. Spell out clearly the benefits of your product or service. Unless you are selling exclusively to techno geeks, most people are not interested in the features of what you promote. They want to know how your product or service would benefit them, and yes the one million dollar question, "How Much?"

Cheap does not necessarily equal more sales. With a good presentation you can command a higher price especially info-products. People are prepared to pay more if they perceived that the information you provide is useful to them. It boils down to how you present your product and its benefits.

Be clear, concise, and yes, be truthful.

Writing killer sales copies is not beyond reach. You need great products to begin with, understand and address the needs of your potential customers, and how your product can meet their needs. Top it all with clear and concise presentation, which comes with consistent practice. And wah la, you are churning out killer sales copies!

About the author:
Gerrick W - mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
Information and Software Tools You Need to Effectively Promote Your Online Business. Visit:
http://www.1stinternetmarketingsolution.com

The Benefits Of Writing and Submitting Your Articles To Ezines and Article Directories

2005-11-08T06:10:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Bryan Thorby
to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

By submitting your articles to ezine publishers and article directories you are in effect branding your web site, business and yourself. You include your name, business name, your credentials, web site URL address and e-mail address in your resource box.

You will become known as an expert on the topics you write about, particularly if the topic is for a tightly focused niche market subject. This will give you and your business extra credibility which will help you compete against your competition.

You might get extra exposure if the ezine publisher archives their ezine on their site. People might want to read the back issues before they make the decision to subscribe.

Your article published in an online ezine, ezine archive or article directory will also be found by search engines and count as a link back to your website.

If you gain a reputation for being a quality article author you might get extra income from people wanting to hire you as a freelance writer to write other articles or contribute to ebook publications.

You could allow ezine publishers to publish your articles in their free ebooks. Since people give them away, your advertising could multiply all over the internet - your viral marketing in operation.

You will get your article published all over the web when you submit it to an ezine publisher that has a free content directory on their web site. The same applies to article directories. These sites allow visitors to republish your articles in their ezines or on their websites.

In publishing articles you aid the process of gaining people's trust. If they read your article and like it, they won't be as hesitant in buying your product or service. You will then be able to increase your profits.

About the author: Bryan Thorby is involved in Home Based Internet Marketing and is the owner of an Article Directory site where you can submit articles or use the submitted articles for your ezine/website. Free Article Directory.Com

Forum Advertising: Getting the Most from Your Investment

2005-11-07T07:05:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Travis E. Staut to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

As an interactive marketing professional and also a forum webmaster, I have come to the conclusion that many smaller online marketers - the type that sponsor many forums - are prone to making a few key mistakes that wind up costing them sales. Quite often, this leads to a lost sponsor for the forum or other small web site as well.

If you're currently running a banner on a web site, or are considering the prospect, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Update your banner often.

If you've purchased a text ad, update that often as well. I can look at my site's banner click-through stats and tell you exactly which banners are brand new and which have been running for more than a couple of months. In the marketing world, we call it "wear-out" or "poster effect." Either way, it's caused by the simple fact that after your audience has seen your banner enough times, it blends into the scenery of the page and they no longer even notice it.

The good news is, it's easily corrected. Change your image.
Change your color palette. Change the text. Change the animation. Any combination of the above are almost guaranteed to breathe new life - and click-throughs - to your sponsorship.

Participate!

As part of the sponsorship package, my forum offers the right to post specials, updates, coupon codes, sales, and group buys in the appropriate sponsor forums. I'm amazed at how few of our sponsors actually take advantage of them. A banner is great for getting your name out there, and for the "window-shopping" click-through. But it's the good deal that will send buyers your way, wallet in hand. If you simply email the banner and paypal the money every month and forget about it, chances are the forum's users are forgetting about you too.

Clicks aren't everything.

Here's another common and frustrating pitfall. In this pay-per-click world, it's all too easy to get caught up in the click-through stats when it may not be your best statistic to look at. You need to look at the impressions of your banner. Because, if done right, a banner does an excellent job at getting your name out there. It hammers it home to the people who see it hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times. Then, when they're ready to shop, you're top-of-mind and there's a good chance they're gonna type in your URL.

Notice what I just said: They'll TYPE IN your URL. That's right, people who are actively shopping don't click banners, they visit the sites they can think of. Imagine you wanted to buy a book from Amazon, that you saw featured on a web site. Would you go back to that site and refresh the page until that banner came up, then click on it? Nope, you'd type www.amazon.com and be done with it. The click won't register for the site you're sponsoring, but the register still rings. So remember, clicks aren't everything.

Become a part of the Community

Of all our sponsors, the ones who are there day-in and day-out to give advice and answer technical questions are the most successful. People still want to buy from someone they like, even in this crazy Internet world where they've never actually met anyone.

In conclusion, if you want quality results, be a quality sponsor. The time you invest will pay off, and the banner you run WILL do its job.

About the author:
Travis is Associate Creative Director at a worldwide interactive marketing agency. He's currently responsible for creative development of interactive marketing initiatives and sites for two fortune 500 companies. He is webmaster of Reef Sanctuary reef aquarium forums and the Reef Aquarium Index, a saltwater fish and coral reference guide.

How to Write A Compelling "About the author" bio in Your Articles

2005-11-06T11:53:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Ashley Keane to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

As business owners, you boost your exposure and credibility by writing and submitting many articles. However, how do you compel your reader to visit your website? How do you let them know you do know your stuff? Easy, write a compelling "about the author" bio at the bottom of your article with a specific description of your expertise to add credibility.

The bio is supposed to hook your readers to visit your website and subscribe to your newsletter. Once you hook them, you'll get visitors who are:

- likely to forward your ezines to their friends who have the same interests

- willing to recommend your services to others

- likely to buy your products

- likely to subscribe to your newsletter

Most important part is that you'll get targeted traffic FREE - just by writing a compelling 4-line "about the author bio" at the end of your articles.

Take these 2 easy steps to edit your "about the author" bio today:

Step 1 - The first line tells the reader what solution you offer on your website

A mistake some authors make is in their "about the author" bio, they describe their accomplishments and forget about helping the reader. The website link appears at the end. The reader is not compelled to click on it. He wants a compelling reason to stop and click on your website.

You see, after the reader looked at your article, he wants to know about your expertise and how you can solve his problem. He's thinking "what's in it for me?" Let your website talk about your accomplishments. The bio is supposed to hook your readers to visit your website and subscribe to your newsletter. They need to know what info they'll get when they click on your website.

Here's an example: On your website you help people "learn how to cook Greek meals in less than 20 minutes." Your website offers an ezine with cooking tips, and an ebook on the history of the famous Greek meals. The answer to the reader's "what's in it for me?" is "I can help you cook a quick Greek meal in less than 20 minutes!"

You're telling them that you're solving their problem of not knowing what to cook for a quick meal. Therefore, your bio's first line would read: Ellena Pakis was raised in a Greek American family. She shares her love for Greek cuisine by helping people learn how to cook a Greek meal in less than 20 minutes on www.yourgreekmeal.com . It's on her website where she describes in detail her studies in the Cordon Bleu, and that she's cooked for prime ministers and presidents.

Step 2 - The second line offers a free test-drive with a free report or e-newsletter.

Now that the reader knows what to expect to see on your website, entice him to a free test-drive of your knowledge. Why? Not everyone who visits your webpage will buy a product in that moment. Some people want to see that you "know your stuff." Some want information now and can't spend more time surfing on a website. You're answering their "what's in it for me" question with a clear offer.

Give your readers what they want by offering a free report or your free newsletter. The title of your free report becomes more compelling when it includes numbers or the words 'how to.' Think of the headlines you see on magazine covers. They tend to say '6 ways to a firmer' 'steps to a better.'

Here's an example: Your website helps people save hours by giving tips on automating their emails with an autoresponder. The compelling free offer might look like, click here to get your free report on 'how to write a 7-day e-course to double your opt-in subscriptions.' Some examples are, get your free report on 'the 7 things you must know before you write an ad' or '2 steps to writing compelling subject lines.'

Don't have a free report yet? Don't guess what people want. Save time by already having an idea of what they want. Here are two ways you can get an idea for your free report.

- Know your top keywords. Include in your free offer your website's specific top keywords. For instance, what keywords did people search for the most this month according to Overture and wordtracker. Make the topic of your free report about your top 3 keywords.

- The most frequently asked questions by your customers, visitors and subscribers. What do your visitors ask you most often? You can write a free report that includes three of your most frequently asked questions. You can include these words in your free report title: '10 most common questions about..,' or 'The 7 most common problems' and 'how to solve them,' '3 things you must know before.'

To save you time and still get your readers to visit your website and subscribe to your newsletter, send them to the page on your website where the sign up form is. It saves your readers time. If you just put your autoresponder email address, they need to open up their email account, or paste it on their 'compose' line. They want your free report NOW so save them some time by providing them with blank sign up form on a page of your website. That page is the link you put on after your free offer.

One of my 'about the author' bio reads like

Ashley Keane offers tips on how to start a home based business & profitable internet marketing tips on www.EarnYourOwnMoney.com. Need a free strategy to get more sales? Discover how you can get more sales using your email autoresponder! Get your FREE 7-day e-course by visiting www.earnyourownmoney.com/SalewithEmail.html

Here's an example offering a weekly ezine

Anna Overweight No More, a work-at-home mom, shows you the weight loss tips she used to lose 80 pounds from 230 pounds. She reveals how YOU can keep that weight off for good- Subscribe to get your Free Weekly Weight Loss Tips ezine so you can burn fat, increase your metabolism and simple meal recipes click on www.officialoverweightnomore.com now.

Your FREE offer needs to be compelling enough for them to give you their name and email address. You've hooked them. You showed them with your article that you know your stuff. Someone's more likely to try out your services free before they buy a $100 product. Wouldn't you? I do.

Now, go ahead and edit your 'about the author' bio to get targeted traffic and prospective customers while building up your credibility.

About the author:
Ashley Keane offers tips on how to start an internet business & profitable internet marketing tips on www.EarnYourOwnMoney.com. Click on www.earnyourownmoney.com/SalewithEmail4.html to get Your Free 7 Tips on 'Writing Profitable Business Email Campaigns - like the words you must include in your subject lines.'

Got Blog? - Dawn Wentworth

2005-11-05T09:35:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Dawn Wentworth to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

In 1999 I asked my friends and colleagues if they blogged. The responses I received ranged from odd looks to questions about the blogging practice. The end results of my findings was "Blog" was a new term and not highly recognized. That was then, a half million blog users ago.

Blogs have become and I do believe will continue into their plight of greatness for sometime, until a new technology slides into place. For the time being, blogs are a great way to define who you are to your visitors and provide dynamic content that the search engines go nuts over.

Clogged email boxes and spam eaters have taken a dramatic effect on the once powerful email marketing tool. As email marketing loses its effect, marketers and small businesses are seeking ways to fulfill this lost art of communication between staff and customers. Blogging could be that much needed answer for you.

SO what is a blog?

Blogs are a time and date stamped, easy to search, web based journal or self publishing tool. Blogs can have a corporate style, but in most cases are written by one person in a relaxed, candid atmosphere. True personality usually shines threw in the opinions of the blog writer. You do not have to be a writer to produce a blog. Even so, many blogs owners become recognized as small journalists, as the writer speaks their mind or offers self analyzed materials on their preferred subject matters.

You may think at this point, that a blog does not sound like a business tool.

Let's take blogging into a business approach and see how we can benefit.

Problem: Many marketing methods and advertising spiels fall on blind eyes and deaf ears across the net today with such a medium we have created where advertising is abundant and often shoved at us in every direction.

Solution: Visitors will come to your blog of their free will to read your newest content of choice, giving you a higher ratio of targeted visits.

Problem: Email marketing is losing ground. Overflowing email inboxes and spam filters that don't deliver your ezine.

Solution: Using your blog as a web based area for your product and service announcements and updates. When someone subscribes to your blog or RSS feed, they will receive automatic updates that include the headline, summery and URL of your new entries.

Bonus: Email gets deleted ... Blogs get indexed in search engines!

Problem: Internet marketing can be a non-personal medium, gaining trust becomes increasingly harder and more important to gain new customers.

Solution: Blogging can give your visitors, existing and potential customers a great area to gain insight about the face you present to the world. If you're a small business owner to a large corporate business, you can benefit by giving your company or web site personality via blog.

Now let's take a look at blogs from another angle. Rss and/or live feed. You may be thinking, do I Really Need to Know About Rss?

Yes, but we are not going to give a full history of RSS here. What you need to know is that RSS is the "code" that underlies a blog. It includes a headline, a short summery of the entry and the URL of the page that the new story has been posted to. In order for users to subscribe to RSS feeds they will need to download a news aggregator. There are many available for free, we recommend NewsGator http://www.newsgator.com for its ease of use within Microsoft Outlook.
Visitors and other websites can syndicate your RSS feeds to their desktop, their email, newsreaders and on their own websites. Talk about getting the word around! Submitting your RSS feed, can get you listed in hundreds of new emerging RSS feed directories. Of course this will bring traffic to see what your feed is about to those looking to syndicate them to their own sites or readers. Also creating more links pointing to your site.

Let me touch on one of the most important features of a blog. Search engines love them. Most bots including google will visit and reindex blog pages daily. Yahoo will index your RSS free and quickly.

There are many ways and places you can begin your blogging journey. You should first decide if you want to house the blog on your site or let other sites manage your blog system. For this we recommend www.blogger.com, now owned by Google. The google toolbar has a one click Blog This button that can make blogging quick and painless. You can set the blogger.com blog files to ftp to your host for you so that your files are housed on your server. There are many blog services online today, and there are many free and low cost scripts that you can easily run your own blog from your site without the need of any other service provider.

We hope to provide many learning materials and resources for the online promoter using blogs and rss feeds for the online advertising medium.

About the author:
About The Author Dawn Wentworth has been providing insight to site promotion sense 1994. You can find her Marketing Resource Blog at http://blog.masteradvertising.com/

How to Gain More Profits Through Website Promotion - Ignacio Anguiano

2005-11-04T09:33:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Ignacio Anguiano to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Anyone who is any sort of internet business knows that profits are the most important thing to attain. The key to gaining more profits is through website promotion. With the right website promotion, you can be sure to gain mass profits that you would not have had without it. If you are interested in learning how to gain more profits this way, please read on for some tips.

The first part of gaining profits through website promotion is to have an excellent website design. You cannot expect to gain any profits through a website that is designed poorly or that is difficult to navigate. Make it easy for visitors to your website to find what they need and make a purchase. This will gain you fast profits.

The second thing you should do to gain profits is to use search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO has been widely used to put people's websites at the top of a search engine's list. It is found that most people that use a search engine only visit the website that is listed at the top of the list. This is why you need to use SEO to help with your website promotion. With the proper SEO, you can attract more visitors to your website. More visitors means more profits for you.

Next, to gain more profits you can use email marketing. Be sure that when you use email marketing to gain profits that you are not using spam. Use an opt in list instead. Have an opt in list posted on your website. An opt in list is when people request to receive email material from your website. It has been shown that opt in lists give a 40% increase in response. This means that you will again have more profits.

In order to gain profits through website promotion, you must be sure that you go after your target audience. Be sure that your website's design attracts the type of people that would be interested in your product or service. Also, be sure that your email marketing sends out emails and ezines to people that will actually read it and have an interest in it. If you don't, you cannot expect to gain profits.

Lastly, you can incorporate the use of affiliate programs to help with your website promotion. Have links to your affiliates on your website. Your affiliates will also do the same. With you and your affiliates working together to promote your website, you will start to see more website traffic and more profits.

Website promotion is the only sure way to gain profits for your business. Without it, you can easily find yourself in a hole that is hard to dig your way out of. Be sure to utilize all of these methods so that you can attain more profits.

Source: cyberindia.com

About the author:
Ignacio Anguiano can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours! To learn more, visit: http://www.Help4Profits.com/pips.html subscribe to my news letter mailto:help4profits@ThisSecond.com

Finding Ezines that Accept Articles - Anne Ahira

2005-11-03T09:30:00.000-06:00

There are currently over three hundred thousand ezine publishers online and they are all looking for one thing - good material for their newsletters. If you have good content for their readers, you can get great exposure for your business!

As I mentioned earlier, think about the newsletters that you are already subscribed to. Your target market is probably reading the same ones! The best place to search for Ezines that accept articles is: Directory of Ezines

You can use this site to find some of the top Ezines in your field.

Make sure you become a subscriber to the best ones.

Read the articles they're using.

This will give you a very good idea of what they are looking for in future submissions

About the author:
By: Anne Ahira Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter www.thebestaffiliate.com

10 Ways to Increase Web Traffic - Noah Ulrich

2005-11-02T09:25:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Noah Ulrich to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

Internet traffic is the life of any website or e-commerce business, and if you are an internet marketer, you already know that good traffic is not always easy to achieve. There are however, some simple and effective strategies for getting quality traffic to your site, and most of them are FREE or low cost.

1. Good old fashioned search engine optimization. This is perhaps, the most cost effective way to get many customers to your site, because it does not cost a thing. A web site with top ranking on even a mildly popular term, can get thousands of visitors per month. Visit any SEO forum or article database and you can find hundreds of effective search engine optimization tips and tweaks to apply to your website for free.

2. Pay-Per-Click Campaigns (PPC). Almost all of the major search engines offer some sort of Pay-Per-Click marketing. This is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site, and with some bids as low as $.01 per click, it can also be very economical.
Although Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) are the main players in the PPC market, there are really good deals to be found with some of the smaller search engines, such as ExactSeek.com and GoClick.com.

3. Traffic Exchanges. Traffic exchanges offer a website owner an instant, free way to get traffic to his/her site. Traffic Exchanges come in all kinds of themes and forms, but the underlying principle remains the same: I view your site, you view my site. The ratio of sites you view to your site views can be diverse, depending on the individual exchange, however it is recommended you find one with a 2:1 ratio or better. Traffic exchanges also offer a multi tier referral program that gives you a percentage of traffic earned by affiliates you bring into the program. Traffic Swarm, NoMoreHits.com, and StudioTraffic.com all offer a website owner great ways to increase traffic, or you can simply search the term "traffic exchange" in any search engine to find an exchange that fits you.

4. Link Exchanges. Link Exchanges are a fantastic way to increase web traffic, and the benefits are two-fold. Not only do you get traffic from the linking website, you also get the added benefit of better search engine placement with every link that is pointing to your site. Reciprocal linking has always been a major component of effective search engine optimization, with more and more weight being placed daily on the quality and quantity of links pointing to your site. Be sure your anchor text is the keyword(s) you are targeting, but at the same time, periodically phrase your anchor text differently so that all of the links pointing to your site do not say the same thing. This makes your links appear more "natural". Linkalizer.com and Linkmarket.net are some good, free services to help you with your link exchange campaigns, or you can also visit any SEO forum or article/ezine database for more tips.

5. Banner Exchanges. Banner Exchanges work on the same principle as Link Exchanges, and depending on the banner you decide to promote, can be very effective at drawing targeted web traffic to your site. As with link exchanges, look for ratios of 2:1 or better, with some banner exchanges providing a 1:1 ratio. The banner you decide to use is very important, as many internet users ignore most banners they see. Your banner needs to be catchy and needs to compel the user to take action and click it right away, but at the same time you do not want it to be too flashy as to turn off potential customers. Most banner exchange programs also have an option to purchase banner impressions at very low prices, usually a few dollars for thousands of impressions. This is a great way to put your business in front of many customers, and helps to increase your "brand awareness". Click4click.com and ThebannerExchange.net are some free banner exchanges that can provide your site immediate advertising and traffic.

6. Write Articles. Writing articles is a great, free way to promote your online business, and can bring in a substantial number of targeted customers to your site, usually within a few days. The key is to submit your article to as many databases and directories as possible. Hundreds of thousands of webmasters and other internet users worldwide search these article databases and directories daily, usually looking for quality content for their own websites. Every webmaster who reprints your article has to include your resource box, which should include a link pointing to your site. Not only will this give your business tremendous exposure, it also improves your search engine ranking with a free one-way link that your article provides. EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com are very popular article databases with free submission and fast approvals.

7. Paid-To-Read Campaigns (PTR). Paid-to-Read campaigns are an extremely low cost method of getting real, guaranteed visitors to your site quickly. With PTR campaigns, people are paid to view your site for a certain amount of time. Because most PTR campaigns are not targeted, this is not the most effective way to advertise. It is however, a great way to build an opt-in list or ezine subscriber base inexpensively. Usually for only a few dollars, you can send an ad out to all of the members of a program. It is always a good idea to find PTR programs that are well established, with many members in its database. Most programs have the number of subscribers and other stats prominently displayed on the main page of their web site Donkeymails.com and Maxprofit.org are well established, have thousands of members, and low advertising prices.

8. Email Campaigns and Safelists. Email campaigns and Safelists provide yet another great option to increase web traffic. These campaigns can run the entire pricing spectrum; from free, to hundreds of dollars per email blast. Although spam concerns seem to have some advertisers reluctant to use email, if you use a proper third party or safelist, you can have targeted traffic to your site in hours. BusinessWorldList.com and Herculist.com are some safelists with huge number of opt-in subscribers.

9. Create your own Opt-In List. This is a terrific way to get your own group of ready-to-buy prospects to your site. Getting the content for your list is as easy as searching any ezine or article database, and an easy way to get people to join is to simply give something away. Another way to build a list is through viral marketing. Sites such as ListFire.com can help you build a large list quickly with proper advertising.

10. Purchase Web Traffic. There is not a more "hands-free" way to get traffic to your site, than to just buy it. Pricing for quality, targeted web traffic can vary greatly from site to site. It is recommended to look for web traffic campaigns that offer targeting to your specific audience, and real time stats.
This way you can better manage and track your advertising dollars.

As you can see, With a little effort, and not much money, you can bring quality web site traffic to your site right away.

Although not every technique is appropriate for every site, choose a few that fit you and watch your traffic surge.

About the author:
Noah Ulrich is webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com His site provides top quality resale rights, guaranteed signups, and web
traffic to businesses worldwide.

Self-publishing Is The Real Secret To High Search Engine Positioning - Christopher Kyalo

2005-11-01T09:19:00.000-06:00

AlphaOne Technology Low Cost Web Hosting Services & Professional Web Design has found this great article by Christopher Kyalo to be useful. You can find this article, as well as over 900 other articles helpful to webmasters in our free webmaster tools area.

What does search engine positioning have to do with a self-publishing online writer? The answer is simple. Actually it has everything to do with a self-publishing writer.

Everybody including self-publishing online writers needs traffic to their sites - actually lots of it. In other words without traffic, nothing happens. And the most efficient and reliable way of getting that traffic is through high search engine positioning. Everybody knows that when most people do searches, they hardly go beyond the first few pages. So the idea behind high search engine positioning is to make every effort to get your site or blog listed on the first few pages.
Yet online self-publishing writers have a huge advantage in that articles or online content plays an extremely important role in search engine positioning and ranking.

Self-publishing Articles Are The Most Effective Search Engine Positioning Tool The whole reason why somebody uses a search engine in the first place is to find information.

Actually mostly, free information. This is precisely what an online self-publishing writer provides in plenty. Well-written articles from a self-publishing webmaster or online writer will always get any site much better search engine positioning. If those articles take trouble to use the right, less competitive keywords, then the result will be very high traffic coming in from search engines. This is closely related to search engine positioning because it usually leads to more links pointing at a site. If most of these links are from higher ranked sites, then there will be a dramatic impact on the search engine positioning of the site.

Self-publishing Writers Use The Resource Box To Get High Search Engine Positioning One of the really important keys to getting a good search engine positioning for a site is for the self-publishing writer to make full and proper use of the article resource box. This is an art and skill that requires lots of attention.

It is the resource box that will usually contain links to the site where you want to drive traffic. And it is the way a self-publishing writer writes the resource box that will determine how many people reading the article will actually make an effort to get to the site. Believe it or not, a couple of words in the right order will make the difference between getting a dozen visitors and receiving thousands.

High Search Engine Positioning And The Right Keywords Will Lead To High AdSense earnings There is little doubt that the Google Adsense PPC ads program is the most successful small business affiliate program on the World Wide Web. Good search engine positioning will lead to high traffic which will in turn impact very positively on the Google Adsense ads posted at the self-publsihing writer'' website.

There is really no other way of getting high consistent traffic other than through search engines and positioning is naturally critical in this matter. The higher the search engine positioning, the higher the traffic the site will tend to enjoy.

The AdSense program has become a very important source of revenue for most self-publishing online writers, most of whom will tend to post their articles to a certain blog and then apply to Google to be given the privilege of carrying AdSense ads on their sites.

Conclusion High search engine positioning is therefore very important and critical to the earnings of a self-publishing online writer because a good ranking will attract much more traffic thus making the online writer more visible and much more capable of attracting clients to hi writing services and other writing-related products.

About the author:Christopher Kyalo is a successful online writer and entrepreneur. Read his blogs for valuable online writing and business tips; http://100grandonlinewriters.blogspot.com/ and http://big-online-story.blogspot.com/. He can be reached at strongwallafrica at yahoo.com