How to Know Which Online Opportunity is Right for You

Beware of the Fluff. They seem like great companies, they have a good sales pitch and their compensation plan looks good too. They have big corporate offices and have been around for years. Isn’t that good? Any company out there that sells products like lotions, potions, pills, miracle juices or miracle gas saving products usually doesn’t work for the average person for many reasons:

• Those companies usually make most of their money from you, the distributor, not from selling the products. They have you on auto ship, so you are their income.
  
• They only pay about 2% to 15% so many levels deep. They will tell you that when you fill the matrix, you won’t have to do anything and you’ll be making 20 to 40k a month. The truth is, there are so many loop holes to their comp plans that no body ever reaches those levels. You either will have too many people on your left, but not enough on your right side to make the higher level payouts. They tell you that you need more personal volume and your group volume is fine or vice versa, or my favorite, you had fallout this month, so you no longer qualify for that car bonus we promised you about.
  
• They make you hold home parties to push your crap on your friends. Listen to me…..If I wanted weight loss, I’d go to GNC. If I wanted Lotions, I’d go to CVS, Save on, Nordstrom or Bullocks. If I wanted to put additives in my gas tank, I’d go to Kragen, Chief or Pep Boys and buy a product from STP or Penzoil. You get what I mean….?
  
• They are a copy cat company of the original company. How many companies out there are selling a juice that is based from the Acai Berry, Goji berry or the Mangosteen fruit? How many of those promise to cure cancer? What a joke? Is our society that ignorant that if something actually cured cancer, wouldn’t we want to check it out? How many travel companies are there now? How many fuel additives are there now? How many of those have been shut down? How many make up, skin lotions and vitamin companies are there out there?
  

It just seems like there is so many junk companies on the internet, how do you what is good and what is not? Some of these companies above actually have a good product, but I would never go in business with them.

So, how do I choose a business that I can profit from and that I can be proud to represent?

When I evaluate a company, I look for these key points. Keep in mind, when I join a company, my #1 goal is to make money and to do it legitimately. I do not want to hurt anyone or rip anyone off. This is what I’ve learned and these guidelines will help you determine what company is right for you.

• If you are not making at least 75% of the upfront commission when you make a sale, forget it. This means that you are doing all the work and the company and/or the person above you is making all the money.
  
• If you have to have 1000, 10,000 or 20,000 people in your organization before you make any real money. DO NOT Join. Most people will NEVER get there.
  
• If they teach you to hold home parties and invite all your friends. Run away fast.
  
• If they have a sales pitch 2-3 times a day and only 2-3 training classes per week. This means that the company is more interested in selling you than training you how to make money long term
  
• If you can’t break even or get into profit with 3 sales, forget it.
  
• If you can’t speak with the owners or the corporate office via phone or webinar, Forget it. I like to know who I am doing business with before I will do business with them.
  
• If it is a start up or in pre launch, forget. The chances of these companies becoming the next Amway is about as good as winning the lottery. At least with the lottery, you have a chance to win once or twice a week. You might as well go to Vegas and blow your money on a good time. At least you’ll have some great memories, see a great show and have a great meal.
  

These are not all the rules for success on the internet, but this is a great guideline to follow when evaluating an internet company.

Sid Nelson is a Microsoft Certified Professional and has a Bachelor in Information Technology. He has a number of active Websites he personally developed. Discover how you can
be successfull with a business that includes live support from the owners of the company and your sponsors. Please go to http://EDCGoldZone.com to get more answers for the
question of which online opportunity is right for you!

How The Internet Is Changing Communication

by Steven Cancel

Over the past couple of decades, the internet has quickly changed the way the world has communicated. From discussion boards found all over the internet to the new wave of VoIP (voice over internet protocol); we have seen a substantial change in the modern way people interact. Communicating over the internet has made it possible to affordably communicate worldwide with the same quality you would expect from your standard phone lines. The internet holds the most of its information in searchable discussion logs and public viewable pages which not only allows you to review previously discussed topics, but the ability to find this information quickly and easily. It also contains more information than any library in the world.
Without face to face interaction, people are more willing to openly discuss more personal topics such as health, love, and life in general. Users are also able to fully think out their discussion board post, email, or message before it is sent which can allow a more meaningful conversation. The connection between different regions and cultures also provides a very unique experience.

Humanity is now seeing a greater demand in wireless data services through mobile phone carriers that are able to provide internet access within their networks which pushes this wave even further. In the United States, it is not uncommon for people to have 2-3 devices that access the internet. People are now able to access the internet at broadband speeds away from their home, office, or hotspot through their wireless carriers EVDO or EDGE supported cell towers. These speeds, along with mobility, allow people to do everything they are able to do on their home or work connection while they are out. PDA and Blackberry devices are paving the way to give an excellent high speed mobile experience offering slimmed down yet feature rich versions of our favorite operating systems.

According to the Internet World Stats, as of June 10th, 2007 1.133 billion use the internet. Many of us take for granted or simply don't acknowledge the fact that the evolution of the internet is quickly changing the way many of us live. One day, this period in time will be known as a huge milestone for the birth of the perfect form of communication. Many people are predicting that nearly every electronic device will one day be connected to the internet. Imagine you cars computer system having the ability to update or be trouble shoot over the internet without having to leave your garage. Many aspects of each of our lives will change as this technology expands and integrates into our everyday lives.

This article was written for our friends at a Health Forum to explain the benefits of communicating online. Article written and distributed by Steve Cancel, IT Manager of Secure Link - Free Domain Registration.

SEO: Internet Articles for Backlinks and Traffic

Author:Wayne Hurlbert

One proven way to increase your visitor traffic to your site, and gain additional new backlinks at the same time is to write articles in your area of expertise. Learn how to write an article and publish it to your own site and to article directories.


Getting more traffic to a website or blog at little or no cost is something everyone wants. Adding natural incoming links without having to reciprocate provides a major boost to your site’s Google PageRank and search engine rankings. I'm sure those are goals of yours. It is also a fact that people surf the Internet looking for information.

By combining those two ideas, you can increase your visitor traffic to your site, and gain additional new backlinks at the same time. One proven way to achieve that traffic is to write articles in your area of expertise. You not only gain potential new visitor traffic, to convert into paying customers, but you also become recognized as an expert in your field. Through archiving, the articles can also serve as added valuable content, on your own website.

There are literally hundreds of Internet magazines, called "e-zines" and Internet newsletters, who would love your article. They have literally millions of information hungry subscribers, waiting to read about your ideas. There are also many webmasters seeking fresh, keyword rich content to add to their websites. It's not as hard as you think.

How to Write an Internet Article

The first step is to think of a useful piece of information, that you know people would want to read. Think "5 mistakes to avoid when buying cars," "10 great ways to make money from home," or "How to find a great real estate agent." You can come up with many more that fit your area of business.

Simply find a problem, and prepare a short essay that helps the reader to solve it. The typical Internet article is from 500 to 800 words. There is a great amount flexibility on those guidelines, however, as shorter and longer articles are also in demand.

Once you have your idea, it is surprisingly easy to prepare your research materials, write some notes, and prepare a first draft. Often, you can draw on your own business experience to give the article some real world authenticity. Writing on what you know best is usually the best way to begin producing articles.

After the Rough Copy

Once that first rough copy is written, set it aside and don't look at it any more that day. After a day or two have passed, pick it up again, and read it over. You'll find a lot of sentences to add or subtract, change around, or rewrite completely. Great new ideas will pop into your head, making your article much more powerful and useful to the reader than before.

After you finish polishing it up, your shiny new feature story is almost ready for submission. Two things the completed article needs are a signature line and blurb. Write a short factual sentence or two (called a blurb) about yourself and your business or product. Include a live link back (called a signature line) to your own web site or blog URL.

It is a good idea to provide a "copy and paste" HTML link, to make it easy for the editor to include it. An HTML link is important to receiving passed along Google PageRank from the many web pages where your article appears. You will want to avoid being published with a link that search engine spiders can't follow, or one that fails to pass along Google PageRank. Without a useful link back to your website, part of the benefit of the article is completely lost.

You may also want to provide an extra line, giving permission to freely reprint the article anywhere; provided full credit and a link back are provided to you and your site, respectively. That is optional, of course. You might want to maintain tighter control over where your articles appear. In that case, you would not provide the reprint permission.

Sending Articles to E-zines and Newsletters

Many Internet magazines, commonly called e-zines and newsletters are hungry for free content. You can really help them out by offering to submit guest articles. Lists of e-zines can be found at:

http://www.site-city.com/members/e-zine-master/

http://www.list-city.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_Content/ (free membership required)

Look for e-zines in your field of interest. Check the list of Internet newsletters to which you subscribe. There are probably many other Internet newsletters published about your business area. There are also many general business newsletters available.

Guest Articles

Examine a few current and back issues of the e-zines and newsletters to see if they accept guest articles. Many editors produce all of their own editorial copy, so careful reading is important. Don't embarrass yourself by sending articles to editors who don't want or need them. Check out the types and length of articles they publish.

Be sure to find out the name and proper title of the editor or publisher, and show them you have actually read their e-zine. You would be amazed how many people don't check first. Professionalism on your part is important, as it helps you to stand out from the crowd. Once you have found some likely candidates, you are ready for the next step.

Write to your selected e-zine and newsletter publishers with your story idea. Include a brief summary of the main points your article will cover. This is especially helpful if the article is not yet written. In freelance writing, this step is called a query. It means sending out a story idea, without the article, that may or may not have been written.

Should the editor decide to accept your offer, send them a copy of your article, as part of the body of an e-mail. Because of potential viruses, many editors and publishers will not open an article sent as an attachment. Don't send attachments. Within your introductory e-mail, provide the one time rights to publish the article, provided your informational signature line is printed in full.

You'll be surprised how many editors and publishers will want to print your masterpiece. Your site will receive fresh new visitor traffic and your site will receive a valuable theme related incoming link. Seeing your name and URL as part of the e-zine is a thrill as well.

Sending Your Articles to Webmasters

You can use a similar process to send your articles to other webmasters. In this case, you are looking for sites that complement your site. If you don't want to have your articles posted on your competition's sites, don't offer then your writing services. You probably don't want to provide them with informative and keyword rich content anyway.

Fresh Content

On the other hand, many non-competing but related websites need fresh content. For example, if you are in the wedding gown business, florists and limousine services could be considered related, but non-competing sites. Those site owners might recognize, they need additional pages and information, to attract visitors and to achieve higher rankings in the various search engines.

You can help them and yourself as well. As you develop content relationships with other business site owners, other avenues of business will open up as well. Perhaps some joint ventures and cross promotions could result. The potential for working together is unlimited, of course.

The next pleasant surprise is finding many of the people who read your article, will click on the link to your website, to read more of your work. Many of them will stay, and become regular readers of your site's content. A lot of them will be long term customers for your products and services.

Putting Your Articles to Work on Your Own Site

Be certain to place all of your articles on your own website. The same benefits that accrue to the other webmasters who printed your articles will apply to your site too. Archive your articles with a link from your home page. The link will pass PageRank to the archived articles. One good solution is to give each article a separate web page with title tags targeting the main keywords of the article.

By individually optimizing each article page, your site will have many more keywords to attract search engine traffic. The addition of the keyword rich articles not only provides a boost in your search engine visitor traffic, but provides reasons for visitors to return to your site over and over to read fresh content. Many website owners will link to your archived articles, providing your website with valuable themed natural incoming links.

Adding an RSS feed to your site will help you to syndicate your articles to many websites. RSS (meaning both Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) requires a bit of simple XML code added to your site, to enable your content to be read by RSS reading software. Easily downloaded and installed, an RSS reader will accept the title, a link, and a summary of your article for reading, by those who subscribe to your RSS feed channel. A complete discussion of RSS feeds is beyond the scope of this article.

Conclusion

Writing Internet e-zine articles is a great free method to get new visitors to your site.

You will receive valuable theme related incoming links. With search engines like Google adding theming and Teoma using clustering, your articles become even more valuable than ever. Your rankings on the search engines get a double boost. You receive one lift from the article appearing on another website.

You receive even more benefit by archiving your articles as additional content on your own website. Other website owners may link to your archived articles as a service to their own readers, multiplying your benefits.

Published articles also establish you as a leader in your industry. That translates into new customers, as people like to do business with folks they know and trust. What could be better than that?

Get those keyboards clicking. Your reading public awaits!

Wayne Hurlbert provides information about marketing, promotions, and public relations for websites and business blogs on Blog Business World.

Article Source: http://www.bloggertalk.net

Leveraging your Website: Back to the Basics

Failing to leverage internet technology, many companies are being rapidly left behind. Slowly but surely businesses large and small have been coming to this realization. Without question the cornerstone of an effective internet presence is a polished and professional website. However, many companies fail to realize that building a dazzling, user-friendly website is only the first step in establishing and maintaining an optimal web presence. The bottom line: a website that no one visits has entirely no value.

In order to best utilize your website it is imperative to maximize quality traffic to it. Your firm may choose to go about this in any number of ways, some incredibly powerful, others not so much. Many companies choose to overemphasize online strategies, such as pay per click ads, to the neglect of tried-and-true, traditional "offline" methods. As part of an overall marketing strategy, it is important to maintain a firm-specific mix that is based upon sound market research.


Online Strategies
One of the best ways to drive traffic to your site is to have it rank highly on respected search engines such as Google. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important. However, not everyone can be in Google's top ten. So, where does that leave you? One possible solution is to buy high ranking paid search results through pay per click (PPC) advertising.

PPC, in which you pay a set amount each time a user clicks on your ad, can be an effective component of your marketing strategy. Unfortunately, PPC ads are inherently limited by the fact that most people are leery of clicking on what they know are paid advertisements. Aware of the fact that these ads may lead them to a website without relevant content (as opposed to organic search results) potential clients are reluctant to click on them.

Online directories and link sharing sites are two other avenues that, though valuable as a component of an overall strategy, often tend to be over-emphasized when it comes to maximizing website traffic.

These valuable online marketing and advertising strategies should be supplemented with the effective use of traditional strategies in order to maximize quality website traffic. This is especially the case with small businesses and those seeking to reach a local target market.



Traditional Strategies
Even today, in the midst of the "digital revolution," companies choosing to disregard traditional marketing and advertising strategies do so at their own peril. Well conceived and implemented strategies to achieve maximum website traffic should always include "offline," traditional components.

Successful businesses utilize proven methods such as radio spots, print advertising, targeted mailers, and even innovative mobile advertising. A disciplined public relations campaign, capable of generating publicity through 3rd party validation can also be invaluable in generating buzz and driving traffic to your website. These avenues provide the ability to reach large chunks of a target market that may otherwise go untapped by an over-reliance on internet marketing strategies. They should not be overlooked.



Take Action
Has your business put all of its stock into internet marketing? Are you missing out on reaching a sizable chunk of your target market by failing to utilize tried-and-true methods? An honest appraisal is in order. Re-visit your marketing strategy to ensure that you are delivering the maximum amount of quality traffic to your website. If you need help, seek out a firm that specializes in providing integrated website development and marketing solutions.


Tyler Hawkins is Strategic Communications Director at 1Degree, a Bellevue-based provider of website development and integrated marketing solutions. www.1degree.com; 425-274-0710

Seecrets On Writing: Free Requotable Quotes For Internet Writers

By: Stan Seecrets

Original quotes, when used at the beginning or at the end of an article provide a touch of class. At the least, it will make your article different from the thousands of articles filed daily. It can be witty, satirical, funny or just a different opinion on current issues. Perhaps, it could be an outrageous prediction that even no expert will dare to rule out.

Famous quotes are often used as templates. By substituting certain words, voila, you have created something worth pondering.

If you are the author of an original quote which you want to share with the internet writing community, send an email to this author. Objectionable material, pertaining to adult content, hatred, religious intolerances will be rejected. The list will be constantly updated at the author’s website

Stan Seecrets:

The sum total of all human knowledge is a prime number. (Spoof of Fermat’s Last Theorem and commenting the pool of public domain knowledge is great)

The sum total of all human wisdom is not a prime number. (Spoof of Fermat’s Last Theorem and commenting the lack of wisdom among our political leaders)

There are two types of people in the world – those who know what they don’t know and those who don’t know what they don’t know. (Commenting on the lack of common-sense among individual investors and the public)

The imminent war for world domination will be fought between the gods of the internet and the gods of finance. (Disagreeing with Samuel Huntington’s claim in “A Clash of Civilizations”. All wars are economic in nature)

Crypto will be a search engine’s nightmare. (Commenting of the possibility of using crypto as a safeguard against search engines increasing encroachments on individuals’ privacy)

Website promotion is a journey of a million sweats. Savor each drop and it will taste like honey. (Commenting on most websites’ futility in trying to use shortcuts and dubious methods to improve their site’s ranking)

If reading maketh the man, conference the complete man and writing the exact man, then the internet maketh writers free. (Addendum to Francis Bacon’s famous quote and commenting on the writers unprecedented freedoms)

Poets try to capture the essence of the universe with the elegance of words. Mathematicians try to do the same with their formula and numbers. Therefore, mathematicians are calculative poets. (Poking fun at mathematicians, and himself)

Those who write articles cannot write software. Those who write software cannot write articles. Those who can do neither, become publishers. (Spoof of Lao Zi’s 56th verse and poking fun at publishers while jealous of their top positions of the content food chain)


About the Author:

The author, Stan Seecrets, is a veteran software developer with 25+ years experience at http://www.seecrets.biz which specializes in digital asset protection and total website management. You can send your views or criticism by e-mail to Stan at seecrets.biz. © Copyright 2005, Stan Seecrets. All rights reserved

Read more articles by: Stan Seecrets

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Using Wikipedia to get more traffic, and to possibly increase your Google PageRank

Posted on July 15th, 2007 by Vishal

Here’s a neat little trick to start getting free traffic and also increase your inbound links and Google Page Ranking. Here’s what you need to do -

1. Make a list of all your top terms or keywords that are related to your website or blog. For example my Keywords for this site could be - Link Building, Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing, Viral Marketing etc.

2. Create a small section of articles on your website, or simply write articles that are related to the keywords above and make a note of their URLs. Write about 3 articles for each of these keywords. You may end up having a structure that looks something like this -

Link Building
| Article 1
| Article 2
| Article 3

Search Engine Optimization
| Article 1
| Article 2
| Article 3

Online Marketing
| Article 1
| Article 2

Viral Marketing
| Article 1
| Article 2

Important - Make sure that each article you write has good and valuable relevant content, and has links that point back to other stuff on your site. This type of internal linking will help in keeping people within your website.

3. Goto Wikipedia.org and search for these keywords. You may find many similar keywords and many keywords will have a high Google Page Rank (if you dont know what Page Rank is - look it up for now in Wikipedia itself). Briefly, Page Rank is Google’s way of ranking the popularity of websites. Read this to learn more how Google Page Rank works. Download and install the Alexa Toolbar - which will sit nicely on top of your browser area and will display the PAge Rank of the page you currently are browsing. So, going back to finding your keywords on Wikipedia… many of them may have a high Page Rank. The higher the better. Why? Because, you will now post a link on this Wikipedia page to your article. And, since a Wikipedia page with a high page rank points to you, your Page Rank and popularity on Google will increase! So, the final step is -

4. On Wikipedia, click on the Edit This Page tab. Go to the portion that says

==External links==
and add your link using the following code:
* [http://www.example.com Anchor Tag] A collection of free articles.

There’s nothing underhanded or wrong in doing this. Just make sure the articles you write are good and relevant. Do not spam Wikipedia with misdirected info and links leading to wrong and tasteless spammy articles - as its a self policing system and users will simply take down your spammy links - potentially banning your domain from Wikipedia. So, its in the best interest of everyone that you write good relevant articles and insert valuable and relevant links in the proper keyword/terms pages.

Online Internet Marketing - Blogs Affect on the Masses

There’s an old saying that says the only thing you can count on is change. Everything changes and nothing stays the same forever. That’s certainly true for the Internet, particularly in the methods used by the major search engines like Google to rank Websites in their search listing. Before the search engines upgraded their search algorithm, Webmasters would use techniques such as stuffing pages with hundreds of keywords in order to increase the keyword density of the page. Often the color of the keywords would be the same color of the page’s background so you wouldn’t see all the meaningless words, but the search engine spiders would pick them up and give the page a higher standing in the search results page.

The search engines eventually caught up with all of those types of unscrupulous methods and will actually penalize or blacklist domains that practice those methods. The entire Internet is experiencing a paradigm shift as technology continues its evolution. One of the major changes is the way the search engines look at information, and consumer generated media, like blogs; which are increasingly a major consideration in search engine’s algorithms.

It’s not necessarily the search engines consider people’s opinions to be more valid than news or information providers. The fact is the major bolgs are continually being updated with new information. Some of the major blogs have thousands of updates on a daily basis. Websites with continual updates are a prime consideration with the search engines because they consider them to be more valid than sites that are stagnant and rarely update their information.

As a result, over 40% of search results contain consumer generated media, or blogs; according to Bob Cefail of In Touch Media, Inc. The search engines are not going to “consider the source”, if you will. They simply consider the busiest sites to be the best sites. This can sometimes have a significant impact on people’s perceptions. Because there’s generally no editor between the blogger and the general public, blogs can significantly affect a business’ image or a political platform. Evident by the tremendous effect blogs had on the last presidential election.

If you’re familiar with Matt Drudge, then you know his site has a very powerful following on political issues. Sure, he posts the real news but in the beginning, according to Widipedia.com, “The original issues of the Drudge Report were part gossip and part opinion.” And now the site has a worldwide influence on the masses!

The paradigm shift in the Internet information consolidation includes top runners like Technorati.com and numerous other blog directories like BloggerTalk.com. Major article hubs like EzineArticles.com and others, are a prime source of information on a variety of topics. And most of the articles are written by the average person who has knowledge or opinions in a certain area. Each of the major article hubs can easily contain hundreds of thousands of articles. But the fact is they are simply super-blogs!

So although you can use a blog for personal reasons like staying in touch with family, friends and co-workers, a blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for promoting your services or products. As you develop a large following, your blog can become a centralized resource for a number of people who are interested in a particular topic. And you can easily monetize your blog by including Google AdSense ads, or sell advertising space to similar blogs or businesses.

The world is changing rapidly and instant access to information is a major player as the reason for that change. Politics, businesses reputation and local issues are just a few of the areas that will increasingly be affected by blogs and their standing in the major search engines.

Sydney Nelson is a Microsoft MCP and has a BIT Degree. Please go to PromoBlackBoxZone.com for audio and video details on how you can catapult your Website's presense on the Internet and generate more traffic and conversions!

Online Internet Marketing – 3 Top Tools and Services for an Effective Internet Marketing Solution

Everyone knows the Internet is growing exponentially and continually evolving. The major players in the continual evolution of the Internet are the major search engines and consumer generated media such as blogs. Because of the continual changes, a well rounded Internet marketing strategy must include a variety of proven marketing options to ensure success. I will outline 3 of the most effective Internet marketing solutions available and how they relate to your marketing strategy.

SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the first because the free advertising afforded by the search engines is partly determined by on-page optimization techniques. With thousands of new Websites being created daily, the competition for a listing on the first search result page is increasingly saturated for the popular keywords. Statistics show better than 90% of people only look at the first search result page, and a similar percentage only click on the top search listing.

In order to compete effectively, a Web page must be designed around a keyword or more effectively, a keyword phrase. The keywords must be included in the page’s title, keyword META tag, page’s description, the first heading (using the H1 HTML tag), throughout the body of the page and within the last 25 words on the page. These are just a few of the basic SEO on-page options that although will not guarantee a first page listing, are definitely required as a starting point in an effective Internet marketing strategy.

In most cases, there is too much competition for certain keywords such as “golf clubs”. A better strategy would be to use “golf clubs Chicago” or handcrafted golf clubs”. The more specific you make your keyword phrase the better. A number of free tools are available that will show the popularity of keywords and how often they are used in the search engines on a monthly basis. These will allow you to customize your Web page knowing the keyword phrase’s popularity. If you get the first page listing for a keyword with less than 100 searches per month for instance, then it doesn’t matter because your traffic will be very limited.

Link Exchanges

Once the on-page optimizations are complete, the off-page optimization options need to be addressed. Link exchanges are perhaps the best off-page SEO technique available. If you download and install the Google toolbar on your browser, you will see the Google PageRank of each site you visit. Your PageRank is determined by the number of other sites linking to your site, and the QUALITY of the link is a major consideration. Pages are ranked from 1 to 10. The higher the PageRank of the site linking to yours, the better. Sites with a PR7 and above are considered as authority sites and a back link will send Google’s spider to your page on a regular basis.

There are a number of ways to get a back link to your site. You can email a request to the Webmaster for a link exchange and if they agree you would return the favor by placing a link to their site on your page. You can also purchase the link. A number of sites offer this service for a monthly fee. So if you want to quickly get your site listed by Google and the major search engines, then paying for a PR8 back link for a month or two might be well worth the investment in the long run, as new sites are placed in a “sand box” by Google for several months until they prove their longevity.

One back link from a PR8 site is worth 1,000 back links from PR2 or less sites. As a matter of fact, numerous links from low ranking sites will actually be detrimental to your site, because each back link is like a vote for your site. If you have too many low ranking sites voting for yours, Google will be reluctant to reward your site with a higher PR. You have to do your research on the site that offers to link to yours because if they were blacklisted by Google, your site will receive the same fate and you probably will never recover from this.

A PR 4 or 5 is relatively easy to attain. So your best bet is to limit your back links to PR5 and above for the best results. And by all means avoid link farms. Before Google upgraded its algorithm, just the number of back links was considered. But now the actual PageRank of your back link is considered AND the PageRank of the sites listing to THAT link. Links from link farms are now looked upon as basically spam links. You would be better off purchasing a listing in a major link directory like Yahoo or DMZ. It’s definitely worth the investment as these are authority sites and are a major vote for your site!

Blogs

As previously indicated, consumer generated media is a major factor in the evolution of the Internet. Case in point is the enormous effect blogs had on the last Presidential campaign. A very large percentage of most searches will include blogs on the first page listing. Over 50% of purchases, online and offline, are preceded by an online search for more information. And a large percentage of the information is offered by blogs. People are very interested in the opinions of others on their topic of interest.

The major blogs are updated on a daily basis which is very important to Google’s algorithm which uses the frequency of updates (daily, hourly and by minute) as a determining factor in the search result ranking. A powerful marketing method used by the major blogs is to submit articles on a particular topic to the major article hubs such as EzineArticles.com. The article hub benefits by having continually updated information (which Google likes) where they can place their money making AdSense ads. The blogger benefits by having a back link to their blog at the bottom of the article.

As numerous other bloggers and Webmasters access the article hubs for fresh information, the article can be syndicated virally to a number sites on the Internet. This creates a number of back links to your blog or your site generating an enormous amount of pre-qualified free traffic.

In Summary

These are just a few of the most effective online Internet marketing options available. Other options such as auto-responder email, Ezine advertising and pay per click advertising should be included in a well rounded Internet marketing strategy. No matter what options you use, you definitely need to start with your on-page SEO techniques. Your listing in the search results will be enhanced by a properly optimized page.

Further optimization must include the off-page SEO techniques such as generating back links with the major site directories, link exchanges and articles submitted to the major article hubs. Using a blog for a reference in your article can be a good thing as people will be more inclined to visit a blog since it’s not a sales page. Once they have received enough information and you have generated their confidence in your opinions, you can end up with a life time customer.

Sydney Nelson is a Microsoft Certified Professional and has a Bachelor in Information Technology. Please go to http://promoblackboxzone.com/ for more information how to dramatically increase your Website's conversions and presence on the Internet.

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Article Marketing with the Search Engines

One of the best methods of marketing with the search engines is publishing articles. It’s a very effective technique and also free. Articles can be written on any subject and you don’t have to be an expert. The most important thing is they must contain valuable information on the topic it’s outlining. You would then publish them on any of the major article hubs, such as EzineArticles.com, where they will be viewed by potential Webmasters and bloggers for inclusion onto their sites.

The reason articles are so effective is the search engines like Google and Yahoo rank Websites higher if they are constantly including new information. Webmasters and bloggers know this and are continually accessing the article hubs for new information. In return, you can generate free traffic to your site or blog by including a return URL in the resources section at the bottom of your article.

The major article hubs are frequently spidered by Google and the other search engines, sometimes daily. The spider is basically looking for new information and will follow any URLs included in the article. If you post a very well written article to a major hub, it can easily be syndicated virally to a number of Internet sites. This is very powerful because your URL in the article will provide numerous back links to your site. Each of those back links are like a vote for your site with Google’s algorithm, for example, increasing your pagerank.

A well written article containing valuable information should not include a sales pitch. Potential readers will be more likely to read the entire article if it’s written in a professional manner. You should reserve your sales pitch for the resources box at the bottom of the article where you enter your site’s URL. If you’re not good at writing you should consider a “ghost writer”. Most of the article hubs have links to ghost writers who provide the service for a nominal fee.

Of utmost importance is your article must be original. The article hubs will not tolerate any form of plagiarism. They can even tell if you simply try to reword an existing article. So your best bet is to use your own words or have a ghost writer do it for you.

You should also read the guidelines for article submission at the article hub you choose. Most of them have similar requirements, such as avoiding self-serving links in the body of the article. Or a minimum or maximum number of words or characters in the article.

You can receive an enormous amount of free traffic to your site as readers of your article go to your site for more information. And to maximize the distribution of your article you should submit to several of the top article hubs. This is an excellent way to create numerous back links to your site and increase your name recognition as an authority on a particular subject. As you increase the number of your articles on the Internet, you’ll gain more free traffic to your site. And the best part is the traffic will be pre-qualified because they’ve already read your article.

Sydney Nelson is a Microsoft Certified Professional and has a Bachelor in Information Technology. Please go to http://PromoBlackBoxZone for more information on how to dramatically increase your Website's conversions and presence on the Internet.

Unbiased Blogging

Hi,

Sydney Nelson here. I just wanted to thank you for visiting my Blog.

Although I'm in the business of offering PromoBlackBox, this Blog's primary focus is to offer relevant information on how to be successful in marketing your Website with the major search engines.

Blogs can be a very powerful tool in the hands of a knowledgable person. The Blog itself can be even more popular than the Website it promotes. Cross-promoting your Blog with the major players like Technorati, can give your Blog a huge boost in the search engines.

So, you should endeavor to acquire as many inbound links as possible from the major players which the major search engines like Google and Yahoo recognize as authority sites.

Please feel free to express your opinions on any of the articles I enter here. I try to be as unbiased as possible and write with a professional attitude with out any spin. I'd rather be known as an honest opinionater rather than the run of the mill spam spreader.

Go ahead and link to this Blog, the information will always be true and unbiased! Also, you're welcome to view my Technorati Profile at your convenience.


Sydney Nelson