Making Money with Your Blog!

A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

Millions of webmasters are writing and submitting articles on a regular basis to promote their websites, making the competition in getting online users' attention stiffer than ever. If you would like to get ahead of the pack and make your articles stand out from the rest, you should take these 5 high powered ways to grow your article marketing campaign:

1. Use catchy, intriguing titles. The secret in getting impressive click through rate is giving your articles great titles that will pique the curiosity of online users. This is an essential element where you should effectively communicate to your potential audience the benefits they can get once they open and read your articles. Make them feel that there is valuable in store for them so they won't be able to resist your articles and read them.

2. Your articles must be well-written. To give your potential clients great reading experience, make sure that your articles flow well and free from grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

3. Your articles must be search-engine friendly. Knowing how and where to place your keywords can greatly help your articles fare well on searches.

4. Your articles must pass the standards set by various publishers. If you want your articles to be posted online, they must conform to the rules set by different article submission sites. Some of the general guidelines are the following: Your articles must be informative, must run at least 300 words, and must follow appropriate keyword density. In addition, your articles must be free from sales pitches or blatant advertisements and inappropriate content like terrorism or gambling.

5. Create a powerful resource box. Your resource box is what will ultimately bring readers to your website. Make it powerful, convincing, and enticing so you can effectively move your readers to click your website's URL.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

There is a lot of hype surrounding Internet Marketing; stories of millions of dollars being made in a few hours and this mythical pot of gold available to anyone with a computer and an Internet Connection.

Does Internet Marketing live up to the hype, or is it all hocus pocus; rumors circulated by people with fragile egos who are pretending they are making a fortune?

Like anything that is popular there is a lot of hype surrounding Internet Marketing. Some of this hype is inflated exaggerations of the truth whereas some of it is just plain untrue, designed to lure the unsuspecting into home internet business opportunities.

There are people online who are making an extremely good income from Internet Marketing with more people every day joining this crowd. It is possible for your home business to make you a small fortune, providing you plan carefully and work towards your targets.

As in any business there is a crest of the wave of new opportunities and ideas. If you want to have fantastic success then you need to be riding that crest and be ahead of the crowd.

The same happens in the offline world. Over the last few years there have been a massive increase in the number of Property and Housing based TV shows. In England they even have a channel dedicated to property renovation and restoration. This is an indicator that the wave has crested and that whilst there is still money to be made in that field, there is not as much as there used to be.

This happens online when you see a proliferation of, for example, made for adsense sites, or membership sites, or any other particular subject. When many people are selling these sorts of opportunities its an indicator that the main source of money has no longer in using what they are selling, but in selling those sort of products to people who are keen to buy them to make money applying them.

In the old California Gold Rush days it was always said the real money was in selling the shovels to the thousands of gold hungry prospectors. It is the same today on the Internet. The real money is in selling the tools the thousands of money hungry webmasters want to get their business running and profitable.

Amidst the Internet hype there are some nuggets of gold if you know where to look and use your intelligence. If you follow the herd and chase after the gold then you may strike a lucky vein of gold or you may just find nothing. However, if you set up your stall selling shovels to the prospectors then your chances of making a fortune are greatly increased.

Intimate Confessions Of Internet Marketers The Shocking Truth About Making Money Online ebook teaches you, amongst other things, how to identify that niche and set your stall up and how to leverage your skills to get the maximum return.

Lama Kalla, mentor, small business owner, internet marketer and author of "Confessions Of Internet Marketers- The Shocking Truth About Making Money Online" http://www.StopInternetMarketing.com

Making Money with Your Blog!

A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

This article aims to help you energize your marketing strategies so you can better promote your high ticket products online to increase your sales and revenue.

1. Article marketing. This is currently one of the best and effective product promotional tools in the internet. It does not only allow you to build up your offerings but it also allows you to showcase your expertise so you can easily earn the trust of your potential clients. This can easily be done by writing and submitting your articles online. To maximize the benefits that you can get from this amazing marketing tool, you must make sure that all your articles are well-written, informative, keyword-rich, concise, brief, and accurate.

2. PPC advertising. If you are like most online entrepreneurs who don't have much time to spare in writing and submitting your articles online, you can sink your teeth into PPC advertising. Just create ads that are keyword-rich that will be shown on search page results whenever online users searched for your keywords. You will need to pay the search engines, based on you bid price, every time an online users click on your ads.

3. Blog marketing. This is one of the best content base marketing strategies that will guarantee to boost your sales potential. It can act as your second website where you can further build up your product, post testimonials of your most satisfied clients, incorporate product reviews and recommendations, etc. You can also use this avenue in communicating with your potential clients who might have questions about your products and company.

4. Banner ads. This is another paid advertising tool that requires you to identify the websites that are frequented by your potential clients. These sites are the most ideal avenues to post your ads to so you can attract your target market to visit your website.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

If you are looking for a marketing tool that can virtually do it all - drive traffic to your website, improve your page ranking, position yourself as an expert on your chosen field, augment your sales potentials, and secure more sales - article marketing will work best for you.

Here are the 4 exciting steps to advance with article marketing:

1. Do not advertise on your content. Instead, strive to provide valuable information that will be useful and relevant to the needs and demands of your potential clients. Talk about their problems, issues that are affecting the niche to which they belong to, and possible solutions that can improve the quality of their lives. When you are able to educate and help you readers, they are more likely to trust you and consider doing business with you.

2. Improve your writing skills. The quality of the content of your articles is the major element that will determine the success of your article marketing strategy. Thus, it is vital that you continuously hone your writing skills to ensure that you will be able to deliver better articles each time you write.

3. Pick topics that are closely related to your products. In writing your articles, you must remember that one of your main goals is to sell your products and that it would help if the topics you write about are related to your offerings. This will make it easier for you to attract targeted traffic that can lead to improved sales potential.

4. Your articles must be scannable. As a writer, you have to accept the fact that most online users do not usually read articles word for word. They usually scan through the content to find specific information that they will find valuable to their concern and interests. To make it easier for them to read your articles, make them scannable. Use subheadings, short paragraphs, bullet points, and numbered lists whenever appropriate.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Article Marketing - Five Tips in Picking a Capable Ghost Writer

Many people who are interested in article writing success do not consider themselves particularly capable as writers themselves. If you are such a person, you may be interested in finding a ghost writer who can assist you in the creation of copy to further your own article marketing efforts. There are five tips that you should keep in mind when looking for a capable ghost writer to assist you in achieving your goals.

1. Experience matters. Always look for a ghost writer that has experience in the field.

2. Get recommendations. You should get references and recommendations from a ghost writer before you settle on selecting that person to assist you. A capable ghost writer will be more than happy to provide you with references.

3. Check out the portfolio. Just as a capable ghost writer will be willing to provide you with references, a solid and professional ghost writer will be more very willing to provide you with samples of his or her prior work. You absolutely must see what the writer has done in the past before you select that individual to assist you with article marketing.

4. Deadlines. You need to make certain that any ghost writer you select actually has the time to devote to your project. The fact is that quality ghost writers are few and far between and these individuals can be overbooked.

5. Communication: You need to make certain that you pick a ghost writer that is comfortable with communicating with you regularly. You will want to select a ghost writer that will keep you up to date on the progress if your project

Want to learn how I do it? Download my free guide here: Article Marketing Secrets

Mike Upshaw is an experienced internet marketer specializing in list building, traffic generation, article marketing and affiliate marketing. http://www.secretstointernetprofits.com

Making Money with Your Blog!

A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

Rumors are circulating that recent search engine updates are threatening to penalize web sites carrying articles by niche industry experts due to wide distribution and use of those articles on multiple sites. Not so.

Duplicate content filtering confuses everyone. It is absolutely not new and has been in effect for years, but is constantly refined in search engine algorithms to filter out abuses. Any suggestion that article marketing is targeted by the search engines as duplicate content is an understandable misunderstanding. Duplicate content filters look for abuses, not legitimate multiple uses in appropriate forums.

Duplicate content filters were first employed when people began setting up precisely mirrored domains without variation on multiple domain names to increase visibility. That ridiculous method worked to increase ranking until the search engines began de-listing one of the duplicate sites of those employing this technique. Usually it was the older domain that stayed in the index and the newer mirrored site was de-listed.

About the same time, unethical thieves began outright stealing entire sites and placing them on new domains to rank equally as well as the original owner for competitive phrases. Once the traffic was there, they sent them to their own product or affiliate pages. That worked for awhile, but the duplicate content filters nixed that as well and protected the orginal site in rankings.

Then sites began putting up "landing pages" and "doorway pages" for SEO purposes with minor keyword variations in headlines and body text on multiple pages on one site with very closely related text with minor keyword swaps to rank well for blue widgets, red widgets, purple widgets. No text varied but the color or brand or, in the case of travel sites, city and resort names. So search engines extended the duplicate content filter to include that ruse and filter it out.

Continually refining these duplicate content filters is an ongoing effort meant only to beat search engine sp*mmers. Search engines don't set about penalizing legitimate uses of duplicate content - such as press releases distribution and reproduced articles by experts on specialized topics used widely on niche sites and blogs.

There are dozens of legitimate reasons to have the same article on multiple specialty sites and even some good reasons within a single domain. Blogging software actually creates a duplicate page for every post which is deposited in an archive. That blog contains duplicate content until each post rolls off the bottom of the main page. AP and Reuters news stories run on hundreds of news sites. Experts, pundits and commentators within niche industries legitimately syndicate their content to appear widely across dozens of niche sites within their industry.

Many sites now put up duplicate "printer friendly" versions of pages without penalty, but it's always a good idea on the same domain name to post robots metatags telling them not to index duplicate pages. Printing pages or variations on landing pages used for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising should each be tagged by < meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"> so you needn't worry about being penalized.

Articles distributed for use by other sites appear on many sites with surrounding themed content, varied site navigation and differing internal links. Articles rank well if they match the theme of the site they are used on. The best ranked sites usually rank better for that article. There is currently no penalty for using articles which appear on several sites. If this were the case, hundreds of major industry portals would be severely penalized.

If you search for article titles in quotes, you'll see them repeated everywhere across the web. Try a search for "Blogging Chocolate Purses" and see the extensive use of that article. I first posted it on my blog and my blog post ranks just below a major search engine portal for that article title. No penalty there, Pandia.com is just better ranked overall than my blog and they are legitimately using that article with my permission.

Article marketing is something I recommend to ALL SEO clients to gain valuable one-way inbound links. How much better is an article - with 700 to 1200 words displaying your expertise than a so-called "reciprocal link" gained by begging for it by sp*mming, er I mean, sending mass unsolicited emails to unrelated sites? (I'm stunned that anyone still uses that technique as it seems to me to be the equivalent of begging for links on street corners.)

It is inconceivable that experts writing on specialized topics will ever be penalized by search engines because many niche sites reproduce their expert advice & commentary in newsletters, web sites and blogs. Search engines would face an insurmountable problem in flitering legitimate expertise and commentary simply because it is popular and made available for use on multiple industry blogs and niche sites

Your articles are no less valuable to the web community because they are syndicated and that appreciation is displayed clearly when they are used extensively across multiple web sites. Write on article marketers.

Mike Banks Valentine blogs on Search Engine developments from http://RealitySEO.com and can be contacted for SEO work at: http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm He operates a free web content distribution site at: http://Publish101.com

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

Article marketing has emerged as a very important means of marketing in the online world. Actually the competition amongst the websites has increased a whole lot. Never before was there such a huge number of websites on the internet as you can find today. The world of trade and commerce is being greatly affected by the online world. In this situation the online marketers are any and every possible way of promoting their websites in a competitive way. Article marketing is one of the ways which is considered to be an effective one by the people who are working in the field of internet marketing and who know and understand the pressures of such a high level of competition.

Article marketing is a somewhat sophisticated way of promoting your website. If you happen to article market your business and your website at the right places, you will get a very positive response. The articles will be greatly helpful in increasing the credibility of your website and your online business. Article marketing may take a little longer in producing results as compared to email marketing where the results may be generated in real time, but the effects of article marketing are lasting. If you search the web for results you can find lots and lots of people who have made it big due to their article marketing efforts. Article marketing can generate credibility if the articles are submitted to the right kind of article directories. Some of the article directories are more trusted than the others by the readers. Keep these points in mind and your articles will be more fruitful for you.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? Secrets of Article Marketing

Raymond Nesa is an experienced web marketer specializing in article marketing, traffic generation, and list building.

Making Money with Your Blog!

A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

The big news in the world wide web is the proposed purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft for a stunningly large amount of money. If you consider obtaining organic search engine rankings part of your marketing, the question is what this means to you.

44 billion dollars. Any way you cut it, that is a lot of mulla. If the deal falls through, it appears that Microsoft could seriously consider buying a few states. Regardless, this must be a huge event for the web with so much money on the line, right? Yes and no.

There is little secret that the efforts of Microsoft on the web have pretty much met with bleak results. The MSN Live search engine is weak and the total traffic controlled is miniscule compared to Google and even Yahoo. In short, this deal should be viewed as a "if you can't beat them, buy them" effort by Microsoft. Yahoo may be losing out to Google, but it is still a much stronger presence than Microsoft on the web. The question, of course, is will a combined effort do anything to slow Google down? Your guess is as good as mine, but I doubt it.

From an SEO point of view, there proposed purchase means little. If Microsoft was able to finalize the purchase tomorrow and take over Yahoo, it would take probably a year or two before we noticed any significant changes. As you can probably guess, the deal is going to take much longer to get through regulatory agencies and the like, so three to five years is a more likelihood for seeing any impact on the search engines.

Ah, but what about the long term? What if the deal is approved and Microsoft eventually takes over Yahoo? Will Google be running for cover? Not likely. Nobody is entirely sure what Microsoft will do with Yahoo, but many feel the deal would result in MSN.com and the Live search engine being rolled into Yahoo in some manner.

In theory, this will result in Yahoo picking up a bunch of new users. These new users would increase its percentage of traffic controlled compared to Google and, supposedly, give it more leverage to turn deals against the interest of Google. This theory assumes, however, that all of the current MSN users would start using Yahoo. There is no evidence that this is true. A more likely scenario is the traffic would split up between the two search engines.

Ultimately, nobody really knows what the impact of a Microsoft purchase of Yahoo would mean to SEO. Heck, Yahoo hasn't even agreed to the deal! What we do know, however, is that if it goes forward, any impact probably will not be felt for years, so don't get to wrapped up in it.

Sam Alucard is with AlucardSEOServices.com - providers of SEO services.

Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

The Search Engine Strategies event provided us with fodder for a series of articles to help business owners increase their market share, extend their marketing reach, and dramatically expand their geographical reach into new sources and new markets. Search engine optimization allows a company's web site to defeat time and distance to maximize the company's potential.

Why we went:

The last time we sent anyone to the Search Engine Strategies conference was in 2001 - I think. Not because we were really interested in that technical stuff, but because we thought our readers might be.

Only two of us went and found very little that seemed relevant. At the time our readers, established successful mainstream companies, were just getting serious about their Internet presence. What would we find for them? Not much.

The focus in 2001 was on the big companies with IT staffs and (relatively) unlimited resources, huge web sites and bulging budgets. We did come across a few things, the only one I remember was the session by Heather-Lloyd Martin and Jill Whalen, called "Writing For Search Engines". I was actually

interested in that session for us, not our readers.

This year, 2006, we decided to return. After all it was here in NYC and they were kind enough to provide me with press credentials. All I had to lose was cab fare and a few hours time.

Halfway through the first session I attended, hosted by Danny Sullivan the editor of SearchEngineWatch.com - I knew I had made the right decision.

In his warm-up Danny (I don't know him but you feel like you do after listening to him for a few minutes) asked the audience (probably more people attended that session - one of several at that moment, than attended the entire event in '01),

How many of you are web marketers?

How many of you are here for the first time? etc. etc.

After listening to him for 45 minutes it was clear to me that, we're all web marketers or we'd better be! Our serious competitors are and they will be taking our business right out from under our noses unless we begin to pay real attention to our search engine strategies.

Our readers, and probably too, want to grow their market share. They want to do more business with each of their customers, and they want to expand their reach (geographically). And they want to do it 24/7/365 as cost effectively as possible. How is that possible? That's what we were there to find out - and we did.

What we found:

Sessions for people like us (and our readers). Search engine optimization is not just for Internet entrepreneurs and giant companies anymore. It is for Main Street companies too.

There were three program tracks from introductory to expert. I found some very useful information in each - which I'll be describing in future articles. What I came up with were ideas and strategies our D.I.Y. (do it yourself) readers can use to maximize what they already have in place.

There were ideas that caused me to say to myself, "why didn't I think of that" and others that we'd started using but then lost interest in when there was no instant jump in our traffic. You know, those, "if I knew then what I know now" sort of things. And we learned how we and our readers can be better buyers of the services they can't or don't want to do themselves.

There's an SES event coming to a city near you:

That is not literally true - but there are several upcoming during 2006 and I met people from all over the country at the one here in NYC.

At lunch the first day (more about this in a future article) I met two guys from a family owned company in California. Their boss had attended the Search Engine Strategies event in Chicago (I think) and she told them to come to this one.

Their company is as non-Internet as any you can imagine and they were already busy making notes for what to do when they go back to the plant.

I called 3 of my colleagues and they attended just the "exhibit only" area the next two days. Time and (very little) money well spent!

This article will be posted on our web site complete with links to SES resources. There will be 6-12 additional articles described there. The articles will be posted as soon as they are written.

The bottom line:

"We are ALL web marketers or we had better be, because our competitors are!"

Our objective is to shine a light into the ways that each of you - no matter where you are in the process, can put your business (via your web site) to work more effectively - to realize your company's potential.

Wayne Messick at http://www.iBizResources.com and is the author of dozens of articles for mainstream businesses & Publisher of "Doing It Right" realizing your company's potential. His search engine strategies series can be found at

http://www.ibizresources.com/seo_articles/

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

Article Marketing for me is like a gold mine. A gold mine because when I write articles and submit them to the right article directory, I make money. Very predictable, and consistent.

Here is how I did it:

When I first got started online, I read something about writing and submitting articles to multiple article directories for the purpose of generating backlinks to my web site.

But through some form of beginners luck or something, I had the good fortune of tracking my links and I found that the bulk of my traffic was coming from the articles that I submitted to the big three article directories. Wow, I thought what if I just submit to the big three and I can focus on writing instead of submitting everywhere? And so that is what I did and my traffic from articles is pretty awesome. And the traffic is direct, from the article directories, rather than from the search engines.

I think the real key for me was realizing that the way to go was with the few article directories that get the most hits, and just work on getting the hits, rather than the search engine rankings. And it has worked out quite nicely for me. I continually rake in thousands of hits per month, directly from the article directories.

Heres what to do:

1) Write keyword optimized articles.

2) Write a good bio, including your link

3) Submit these articles to the top 1-3 article directories online, based on traffic.

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

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 800 articles in print and 9 published ebooks.

That Page Just Won't Fly

Here are a few design failures that may call for an informational page solution:

Graphics Without HTML

Since search engines can't optically recognize text contained within graphics, they have nothing to index when they encounter a Web site entirely made up of graphics instead of HTML. Therefore, the Web site receives no rankings. In such a case, a Web site designer might construct an informational page to address any of the important keyword phrases that the site covers, and then link the visitor to the other areas of the Web site that the search engine could not index.

Not Enough Text

Here is one place where the saying "less is more" doesn't necessarily apply. Unfortunately, search engines need a reasonable amount of text to analyze to determine the content of a Web page. If you only throw 10 or 20 words into the mix, your site is unlikely to be a winner in the rankings. Some search engines have even stated that they won't index Web pages containing less than 250 words of copy (sometimes more, sometimes less). One thing you can do is construct your informational pages to cover various topics in more detail and link to pages that are full of dazzling graphics.

Too Many Topics

Ever eat a dish that tasted like the cook threw in every spice at hand? If so, you know that not all flavors combine well. When a Web page covers several unrelated topics, search engines algorithms have trouble classifying it. For instance, a Web page that discusses "dashboard mounted cellular telephones, " "global positioning satellite navigational devices," and "bulletproof glass" (all high-end automobile after-market accessories) may have difficulty attaining rankings on any of those phrases. Remember, one of the search engine's ranking criteria is "keyword weight." If a Web page contains 1000 words of copy and only one paragraph dedicated to each of these items, the page is unlikely to reach the critical keyword weight for any one of those keyword phrases.

Dynamically Generated Web Sites

Search engines seek to index Web pages that exist. That sounds like an overly obvious statement, right? But what if the Web page does not, in fact, exist until it is "called" by a program? Dynamically generated Web sites present a challenge to search engines, both technically and philosophically, because until the user clicks on a particular link, that page may not actually exist or have been built. Philosophically, the search engines does not want to index a Web page that is not actually there, one that does not, in fact, "exits." Technically, many platforms that produce dynamically generated content produce URL strings so long and complicated that some search engines spiders are unable to read or comprehend them. Worse yet, depending on how the dynamically generated site has been programmed, that same URL appears identically. Hence, the search engine indexes describes a Web page, but the searcher clicks through to find an entirely different page.

Using Frames

Search engines don't do a good job of indexing framed content, and they don't understand Flash. Despite the many workarounds, framed pages just don't consistently rank well. In these cases, the developer might build an informational page that discusses or summarizes specific content of a Web site and that is more inviting and indexable to the search engines. Even the best efforts by the largest companies do not produce good incomes with framed Web sites or Web sites that use Flash.

Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative.

Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs.

Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business.

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

Part 1

Recently I was asked to optimize a site selling Spanish T-Shirts to attract lots of traffic from the search engines. Without traffic your site won't make any sales. Of the other hand getting lots of traffic does not guarantee sales if your web copy is lousy. There are many factors that should be considered when you optimize your web site. For my example site to optimize I chose Wild Lily Designs, a site that specializes in selling Spanish Shirts.

Here are the steps I took to optimize the site:

1. Create a keyword list

Write down all the keywords related to the topic of your site. Try to also include keyword phrases. ie T-Shirts, Spanish Shirts, Spanish Apparel, Spanish Clothing.

There are probably millions of web sites selling T-Shirts; therefore you need to narrow your focus. This is why Spanish Shirts or Spanish T-Shirts would a better niche because it wouldn't be as competitive. If your niche is too competitive you will have a difficult time getting high rankings. Ideally you want your site to appear on the first page for one of the major search engines...Google, MSN or Yahoo.

2. Find related keywords

These are words that are similar to the main keyword list you created above. You may be able to incorporate them into the content of your site as it grows. Keywords that have a very narrow focus ie Spanish T-Shirts, may not be a popular search term. If I broaden my search to include "Spanish" or "T-Shirt" I will find hundreds of words that relate to these topics.

Use a theosaurus dictionary or thesaurus.com to find similar words besides your main keywords. Another great free tool to brainstorm related keywords is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).

Here is the list of similar keywords generated when I inserted "spanish shirts" in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool:

madrid shirts language tee shirts spain shirt spanish shirt shirts in spanish spanish shirts spanish t shirts real madrid shirt spanish english dictionary spanish apparel sign language shirt language shirts madrid t shirts shirt in spanish hispanic t shirt spain t shirt language apparel hispanic shirts sign language t shirt madrid t shirt real madrid t shirts language t shirts sign language shirts language shirt shirts spanish sign language t shirts spanish t shirt real madrid merchandise i love shirts hispanic t shirts long sleeve shirts spain t shirts t shirts in spanish madrid shirt

From this list you get both the singular and plural forms of the keywords. You may also want to include madrid shirts, madrid t-shirt, spanish shirts.

To find out how often people are searching on these keywords you need to use keyword tools. I use a combination of both free and paid tools.

Part 2 of this article will discuss how I used Wordtracker, one of the most effective keyword tools on the Net, to decide if I should use spanish shirts as the main keyword phrase for Wild Lily Designs (http://www.wildlilydesigns.com) the example site I am optimizing.

To receive more of the author's in-depth articles subscribe to his Marketing Tips newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is a Professional Web Designer, SEO Specialist, Writer and Publisher. http://www.drostdesigns.com/

Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

Article marketing cannot be more popular these days. Marketers from across the globe agree that this is the most reliable method in generating traffic to their websites, pulling up their search engine rankings, establishing their expertise online, and building trusting relationship with their potential clients.

1. Create an interesting author's bio on leading article submission sites. If you want to build rapport with your potential clients, you need to offer them more than information about your target niche and your products. You also need to impart with them some personal information so they will be able to connect to you on a personal level. Make your author's box compelling by indicating your hobbies, the reason why you write articles, your desire to help, etc. You can also post your most friendly-looking picture so your readers will be able to incorporate the information with a face.

2. Plan ahead. When you sink your teeth into article marketing, you need to understand that this marketing method requires more than writing and submitting your articles. Create a workable plan where you can effectively schedule all the tasks associated with your marketing efforts. Have specific days for writing articles, submitting them online, checking on your progress, and learning advanced tips to help you excel in this field.

3. Write more. Just like any other marketers, I am sure that you are eager to increase the traffic on your website and would be happy to see that happen soon, right? You can easily realize your goals by multiplying the number of your articles. As you know, the number of your inbound links and your online exposure largely depends on your output.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Viral marketing is a methods of list building

There are multiple methods of list building, and if you are just getting started, until you have gained mastery over one or two methods, it is advisable to use multiple methods of list building strategies. You’ll see every step of the process, no matter how small, in exacting detail so

What is Google PageRank, and why do we need it?

Well, let me first start out by saying that we don't need it! At least not anymore. I'll explain.

Google PageRank (PR) results from a ballot of other pages on the web, and how important a page is.

A hyper link would support the rank of a particular page. PR would depend on the amount and value of links coming to a page. The scale is 0-10, with ten being the greatest, or at least the most important to Google. The scale is based on link quality and importance.

What the PR did was represent the likelihood that a random click would arrive at a certain page.

The Google toolbar could be downloaded, which would reveal the PR of a certain page, but not necessarily in real time.

Over the years PR has been easily manipulated. A low PR site redirected by a 302 header, or refresh tag, to a high PR site, would then show a high PR. In actuality, a PR0 site could redirect to a PR10 Google site, and the PR0 site would then show up as a PR10 on the next Google update.

It is also a possibility that higher PR sites would sell backlinks to the lower sites, which concerned Google because that would be gaming the system, and reducing the quality of the search results.

Eventually Google decided to use "nofollow" for the rel attribute HTML link, so that some links would not be considered for PR. In actuality people could try and raise PR by creating many false backlinks to their site.

The reason that Google is one of the top search engines, is that it has the ability to crawl, or spider, two billion web pages, and keep its database up to date. Eventually sites were checked everyday by the freshbot crawl.

What does a high PR mean for a website when its accurate?
-there are popular incoming links
-there are good page characteristics
-there is relevant content

By far, link popularity is most significant to Google. Even a page with search terms in the title, header, and body, would get buried for lack of backlinks. PR also determines Google's crawl. The higher PR sites would be crawled first, and then the lower, if there was time. It was once said that, "The nature of PageRank is so discriminatory, that it's rather like the exact opposite of affirmative action." Lately, a lot of webmasters would rather not give away backlinks, even though they may be in need of backlinks for their own sites.

Should excellent on page characteristics be cancelled out by few backlinks?

Should the crawlers begin with higher PR sites every time, only to fall short of a full crawl cycle, again and again?

If there was something on a new site that we needed to know about, we wouldn't have gotten any help from Google. Over time, it would seem that Google has become more of an advertising agent, rather than a search engine. Some time soon maybe they will bring in Orion; the algorithm invented by Ori Allon, an Australian student.

In any event, it seems as though PR is a thing of the past, as newer sites are getting indexed, and showing up on page 1 of certain Google searches.

Many people who optimize their sites well for search engines, conclude that PR is now irrelevant. It's now been proven that a PR6 site, could easily rank higher than a PR8 in the search results.

But you didn't really care what Google thought of your site, did you? Wouldn't the better question be; what do my customers think of my site?

Looks like PR will soon fade away like so many other things. Good riddance.

Copyright 2008 Dave Earley

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