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Monday, May 26, 2008

Article Marketing - Let These Figures Motivate You

So why the noise about article marketing? It's a great traffic generation technique that suits those of us who like being in total control.

If you are one of those people who just wants to know what works no matter what it takes, article marketing is it as far as getting high quality traffic is concerned.

Look at these figures...

One high quality article on Ezinearticles will get around 10,000 views within one year. Let's say you have 100 such articles, that will translate to around one million page views within a year.

Let's just say that out of those 10,000 views per article only 500 visit your site, that will mean 50,000 visitors from 100 articles on only one directory.

What if you have those hundred articles on 100 different article directories? Let's say you get just 50 visitors on average per article per directory?

Let's do the maths...

100 articles x 100 different directories x 50 visitors per article per directory

You'll get 500,000 high quality visitors within one year. Now what if you submit 1000 over the same period? If you do, you'll get 5 million unique visitors!

Take note that we did not include visitors that will come from webmasters who publish your articles in their newsletters and/or sites. Also note that we did not count in the value you get in branding by all those page views. We also did not count in what such a high number of incoming links will do for your page rank and, therefore, free search engine ranking. You know that means a lot more traffic.

If you add up all that happens through article marketing, you'll see that it is a great way to get massive high quality traffic without breaking the bank.

However, there are ways to maximize your results using this method. I have a newsletter that teaches anyone who is committed to working smart and hard how to get 100,000 monthly within one year or less.

Learn how to get massive traffic (100,000 visitors monthly within 12 months). Subscribe to my newsletter.

Chimezirim Odimba writes to help hardworking folks succeed online.

Big Guide Through On Page SEO Factors - Part 2

Keywords in the title

Try to include the main keywords in the title. Keywords in title are extremely important so never underestimate this step! Title of every page should be unique, depending on the page topic. Place the title as high as possible in the website source, ideally as the first tag in the "head" section.

Google shows about 60 first letters of the title in SERPs, Yahoo! and MSN a little more. So if you will write longer titles, the main information about the page should be included in the first 60 letters.

If possible, the main keywords should be in the beginning of the title. This will help you to achieve higher prominence. Example: "Web Hosting Company located in Seychelles | Company Name".

Keywords in the description

Meta tag description describes the content of the particular page. It means that every page of your web should have its own unique description. Many webmasters make the mistake that they use only one general description for the entire website. Yes, it can save their time but there are some disadvantages. First, the description probably will not fit good the page content. Keep in mind that content of the description tag is usually used by search engines as a part of website's listing. Your potential visitor will see this listing and if he will not find what is he looking for he will probably visit website of your competitor. Another problem can happen if some of your pages has too little content. There is a big risk that search engines will classify these sites like duplicate. Nobody knows exactly their algorithm but search engines like fresh, unique content and not duplicate sites.

Case study:

Some time ago I started a jokes site. The goal of this site was to be ranked good for the main keyword "jokes" and joke categories names (e.g. blonde jokes). So I used unique titles, description and keyword meta tags for the home page and joke categories. The particular jokes had one general title and description (each site included one joke and most jokes was about 15 - 25 words only). And what happened? When I typed into Google site:mysite.tld, I saw this: "Results 1 - 7 of about 43 from mysite.tld. In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 7 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." So 36 sites was considered duplicate. I probably didn't get "points" for having a lot of unique content. Anyway when I realized this, I changed all titles and descriptions -- I made them all unique. When I tried site:mysite.tld one month later, Google said: "Results 1 - 43 of about 43 from mysite.tld".

Conclusion -- if you make your description tags unique, you provide better information for your visitor and search engines too. They will like you both.

Meta tag description should contain keywords related to particular page. Always include the keywords used in title (the most important keywords) and add some more specific keywords. Google displays about 150 from description characters in its listings, msn and yahoo more (I have seen up to 300 characters in some yahoo listing descriptions). Anyway if you plan from some reason use longer description, always write the most important information in the beginning. It will be useful not only for your potential visitor when he finds your listing in search engine but also for your search engine ranking. You get a few "points" from search engines because you achieve higher prominence of your keywords you are targeting.

Some webmasters confuse meta tag description and keywords. I have seen many websites with description like "Keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3 etc.). This is called "keyword stuffing" and you can be sure that search engines don't like it. Here is an example of meta tag description for web hosting site: Web hosting service offering 25,000 MB web space, 400 GB bandwidth, PHP, MySQL and Perl, website builder and free domain name.

In the next part of this article I will show you how to use meta tag keywords, alt tags, how to integrate your keywords to the website content and I will say you something about anchor text.

For more webmaster articles visit http://www.marblehost.com/webmaster-articles.php For reliable web hosting have a look at Marble Host - web hosting service offering Link Popularity Check, Search Engine Site Submission and more.

Breakthrough Article Marketing - Discover 5 Popular Secrets to Supercharge Your Article Marketing

As more and more ebusiness owners are taking advantage of article marketing as a free traffic-generating technique, it is becoming apparent that there is overall reduction in quality of articles. Mainly because webmasters pay more attention to the quantity of their articles to get more inbound links. They sometimes forget that the success of article marketing campaign largely depend on the quality of the articles. If you want to succeed on this method, do not commit the same mistake and discover these 5 popular secrets to supercharge your article marketing:

1. Focus on the needs of your target audience. This is the best way to please your readers. By giving them what they want and what they need, they will feel that you truly done your research and that you really mean to help.

2. Use attractive titles. This is the defining element of your clickthrough rate. If your titles are catchy, keyword-rich, concise, and communicate the benefits they can provide your readers, your articles will be most likely to be read.

3. Learn from the experts. Identify the methods and techniques that are being utilized by popular authors and apply them on your writing. Just make sure that you don't lose your personality along the way or you'll be branded as a copycat.

4. Strive for excellence. This is the fastest way so you can make a name online. When you deliver only the best, online users will learn to trust your and support not only your articles, but also your products as well.

5. Be an expert on your chosen field. As an expert, you must be a great source of information to your potential readers. You can do this by keeping yourself abreast with the latest information that is related to your field.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Internet Marketing Tips: How To Find Profitable Keywords In 3 Easy Steps

Each day I go on the hunt for profitable keywords for my sites. I have been doing this daily task for years and have come to enjoy the simple steps I take to find profitable keywords. It has become so enjoyable because I know with each valuable keyword I find I am adding hundreds, sometimes even thousands to my yearly online income.

Keywords power much of the online traffic and commerce on the web. Keywords are the exact word or phrase surfers type into search engines to find what they're looking for on the Internet. They are the essential elements in your website's profitability and in many cases keywords will largely determine how much revenue you earn from the web.

Finding profitable keywords is not a difficult task, anyone can use popular online sites and tools to find valuable and profitable keywords with a few minutes of work. Quick, easy and simple. You just have to know how to find the answers to these three questions:

1. How Many Searches Are Made Each Month For Your Keyword?

A keyword that receives no searches is worthless. A keyword which receives just 10 to 100 searches each month may be very profitable. Your first task is to find out or discover HOW MANY SEARCHES are made each month for your keyword or keyword phrase. You can use sites like Overture (Yahoo Marketing) or WordTracker and they will give you the number of searches made each month and also variations of your keyword phrase. For quick reference I use this site: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/

Once you know how many searches are made for your keyword you can determine how much traffic you will receive if your site lands on the first page SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). The closer you are to the number one spot will determine the percentage of these monthly searches you will receive. Most of your traffic will come from Google, even if you get #1 spots in all three major engines, Yahoo and MSN will return less traffic - at least this has been my experience.

Keep in mind, even keywords with low search numbers may still be profitable. For example, 'unique corporate gift ideas' only has around 400 searches but this may be very profitable for companies or websites that cater to corporate gifts. Also remember, some keyword searches are seasonal, i.e. the number of searches made for 'valentine gifts' in July will greatly differ from those made in February.

2. How Much Competition Does Your Keyword Have?

You must know the level of competition for each keyword phrase you target with your online marketing. Extremely competitive keywords are not worth your time because you will not place for these keywords on the SERPs and you will get no traffic. As a general rule, the most popular keywords with 100's of thousands of searches a month will have the stiffest competition.

You can still place for very competitive keywords but it may require months, usually years of content/link building. Unless you use a PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising system such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Marketing; you won't get any traffic from extremely competitive keywords. It's best to target keywords with little or no competition.

One of the best sites to use to find out your keyword's competition is Google. If you type your keyword phrase 'corporate gift ideas' into Google search you will see there are 7,660,000 pages/listings returned. To get the number of pages that have your exact keyword phrase, you need to search your phrase within quotation marks "corporate gift ideas" and you will see it has around 275,000 pages featuring your keyword phrase.

If you check out the sites on the first three pages of listings you can determine the level of your competition. I use the professional keyword research software Keyword Elite to determine my competition. But here's a quick way to check the PR (Page Rank) of the listings for your keyword phrase. Let's run thru an example.

First do a search in Google for 'corporate gift ideas' and then highlight and copy the return url.

Next go to this site http://www.iwebtool.com/visual_pagerank and paste in your Google keyword return url:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=corporate+gift +ideas&btnG=Search

This will give you a quick visual pagerank of all your chosen keyword's Top 10 competitors!

3. How To Know If Your Keyword Is Really Profitable?

One quick and simple way to tell if your keyword is profitable, i.e. people are making money from promoting and optimizing your chosen keyword phrase.

Take your keyword phrase and type it into Google, Yahoo and MSN. Just count the number of Sponsored Links at the top of the page and at the sides. If your keyword phrase is profitable you will see a lot of sponsored links, which means sites/businesses are advertising. Where there is advertising, there is profit!

You can use Yahoo advertising (Overture) to discover the amount each advertiser is welling to pay for each click or visitor to their keyword phrase; this amount can range from $.10 to $10 to $100 per click!

I use the keyword software mentioned above to monitor the different sites promoting my keywords. If my competitors are buying PPC advertising month after month, you know this keyword phrase is profitable for them and chances are it can be also profitable for you.

Many savvy Internet Marketers instead of targeting extremely popular keywords, find a niche market and target a whole string of related keywords that have little or no competition. This Long Tail marketing method can prove very profitable.

How profitable will largely depend on what you do with your keyword traffic, how well you can convert this traffic into a sale or how well you can monetize it with affiliate programs or Google Adsense?

Just follow these three easy steps for finding profitable keywords and you will have a simple system for adding valuable keywords to your site or online marketing. Take full advantage of these little income magnets which powers so much of the commerce done online and you will succeed. Always remember, these little nuggets of gold are yours for the taking.

...
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous niche websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools For the latest Internet Marketing Strategies go here: Internet Marketing Strategies

Copyright 2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Discover New Internet Marketing Strategies For Greater Profits!

Are you ready to discover new Internet marketing strategies for greater profits?

If your business is not on the World Wide Web, you are missing out on opportunities for people to find your business. Did you start your business without a business plan? Of course not! So why would marketing your business be any different?

How do you know if your Internet marketing strategy isn't working?

Simple. Take an inventory of your current business practices. Are sales numbers falling short? When was the last time you sent an email out to customers reminding them of a new service or product? When was the last update to your web site made? If so, you need a new Internet marketing strategy-pronto!

Marketing is different from advertising.

Marketing is the effort to increase brand awareness among consumers with a strong focus on customer's current needs or wants, as well as future ones. Marketing includes a variety of different aspects, including research, direct marketing, events and strategic planning.

Advertising, on the other hand, informs consumers on what the product is, promotes purchase of the product, and how or where to obtain the product. These outlets often include: print, radio, billboards, TV, and of course, the Internet. Both cost money and both are critical for success.

Understanding the differences between the two, as well as how they complement each other, is critical in the success of your Internet marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is the process of creating and directing targeted traffic to web sites from search engines based on targeted keywords.

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click is a tool used on search engines. Using keywords that relate to your business, you can advertise on the page when people are searching for a key word that you choose to associate with your business. Pay Per Click is often referred to as a "Sponsor Link" or a "Sponsor Ad." Google AdWords, Yahoo! and Microsoft are the biggest providers on the Internet today.

Newsworthy Information

Create a link to a news section on your web site can provide credibility to your business. Press releases and any external links to where your business is mentioned or featured can often make or break a deal for some customers who are deliberating between different options. Make sure your brand is supported on your own web site.

Tracking who is looking

Do you know who is viewing your web site? Companies, such as WebTrends (webtrends.com), can assist your business with statistics on your web site. These reports can break down the number of visitors per day, the last page they were on before closing a browser, and can provide enhanced insight into the workings of your web site.

If you email them, they will come

Do you have a new product or service? Are you offering a special deal on a current one? Try sending an email blast to your current customer base. Offer a discount on your services if they refer you to a friend via email.

Collecting email addresses from your customers is a valuable tool to have. Keeping a connection to your customers every 30-90 days is crucial for maintaining good relationships and drive your sales pipeline.

Blogs

Blogs, also referred to as Web Logs, can bring visitors to your web site and attract potential customers. Blogs can feature a variety of content. It can be an online diary, a place to provide insight into your products, tips and tricks, and more. It is also a great way for immediate interaction between your customers and you.

Web Site Structure

While ensuring that SEO for your business is effective, you also need to make certain that your web site is functioning, easy to use and informative. This will not only create a user-friendly experience for those who visit your web site, it can also entice those to come back again when seeking additional information.

Keep it fresh

Content, that is! If your web site is outdated, people will leave just as fast as they arrived at your site. Outdated information suggests that your business is behind the times and will not instill confidence in those seeking your products or services.

An outdated web site can kill any marketing efforts you have put forth. The last thing you want is time and effort wasted on increasing traffic to your web site, only to leave visitors wondering why when they get there.

The bottom line is that an Internet marketing strategy can help successfully position you to your target market/customer base as well as increase leads and convert them to final sales. Today, if no one can find you on the Internet, at least via Google, you don't exist. And that's bad for business.

Sel Patterson

Writer, Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer.

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Low Investment Internet Marketing

A common problem for new internet marketers is to learn the right way of advertising products and websites without going bankrupt running PPC campaigns. There are several ways in which you can make use of economical methods of advertising. You can run PPC campaigns at reasonable costs. There are also ways in which you can get some advertising done for free. Given below are some of the products and services that can help you conduct internet marketing without heavy investment. The basic thing that causes a high cost in PPC campaigns is the fact that they are poorly planned. A good marketing plan will automatically cost lower. New internet marketers often make the mistake of not planning their campaigns properly and hence they run into high costs.

The commonly use form of PPC campaign is keyword targeted ones. The outcome of such campaigns depends on keyword research. If you choose keywords without any research you may as well be throwing your money away. A keyword targeted campaign means every keyword you choose should give good returns. You should not choose generic keywords because they pop into your mind. Even a well planned campaign can end up in ruins if the keywords are not chosen properly. Generic keywords will not yield any respectable volume of traffic. You must remember that a single paying customer is more important than a thousand visitors to your website. The more tightly you target your customers the better results you will achieve.

Get rid of all the general terms that seem related to the keyword. They will get you traffic but not the traffic you want. Related terms and phrases do not convert enough to justify their use in PPC campaigns. You are paying for every click in PPC and using related or similar terms is simply a waste of money. Instead switch to very specific keywords and remove all surrounding fluff. For example suppose you are promoting an affiliate program and you have keywords like "make money today", "earn over the internet", and so on. These sound like they are specific but they are completely generic. You can find this if you do research on these keywords. Instead try being specific like, "make money with internet marketing". This way the person reading the ad already knows what needs to be done in order to make money. Only those people willing to do this will end up on your website.

If you are selling something then use precise keywords like "purchase product", "place order", "buy product". The only people who will click these are people who are ready to buy the product and place the order. This is the best form of traffic PPC campaigns can deliver. Site targeted ad campaigns are also available on Google. Though often overlooked they are a very profitable method of internet marketing.

The only free method of internet marketing is article marketing. Not only does this drive high quality traffic to your website/blog but it also helps increase your brand awareness and your own popularity.

Benjamin Seow is the Founder of NetpreneurCollege.com

Visit his website at http://www.NetpreneurCollege.com to access hundreds of resources for internet entrepreneurs.

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