Using Google Alerts To Build BackLinks To Your Website
July 10, 2008
Writes: Titus Hoskins
Building backlinks is an essential, yet tedious job for most webmasters. Here are a few tools and tips to make that job just
a little bit easier…
Google Alerts is a free program run by Google that allows you to keep track of any topic on the web. You select your “keywords” or “urls” and Google will alert you via email whenever links/content containing your selected topics appear anywhere on the web.
It is an excellent way to keep informed about your own domain or name. It is also perfect for keeping up-to-date on the latest
information in your market niche or niches. It’s also a great way to find out what other people are saying about you or your site…..[MORE >>]
How To Generate Traffic Using Only Free Methods
May 30, 2008
By Graeme Briggs
Putting up a company would of course require a lot of things, to get straight to the point, you need a capital. To make money requires money as well. But of course, with the versatility the internet offers, there are many ways you could find that could help optimize the potential of your site or business in generating traffic.
While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, many sites don’t have the resources that others have to generate more traffic for your site. Well, you don’t have to spend a cent; all you need is the proper mindset and a lot of eagerness. You also must have the drive and perseverance to do hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site.
How sweet it is to have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent. Now it’s a sure thing that many sites have articles that offer tips and guidelines in how to generate traffic using only free methods. Because it is possible, you don’t need to speed a single cent, it may take time, to say honestly, I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. You get better chances by paying for your advertisements, but at least you get a fighting chance with some of these free methods I’m about to tell you.
Take advantage of online forums and online communities. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for. You can discuss about lots of things about the niche that you represent or offer. Another great advantage is that you know what you are getting into and you will be prepared.
With online communities and forums you can build a reputation for your company. Show them what you are made of and wow them with your range of expertise about the subject, with that you can build a reputation and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.
You can also make use of newsletters. Provide people with a catalog of your products and interesting and entertaining articles. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic.
Another great idea is trading links with other sites. You don’t have to spend a cent. All you have to do is reach an agreement with another webmaster. With exchanging links, the efforts both sites do will benefit both sites. Every traffic that goes to the site could potentially click on the link of your site and visit your site as well. This works well especially when both sites feature the same niche.
Write articles that could pique the attention of people that have interest in your product. Try writing articles that will provide tips and guides to other aficionados. Writing articles that provide good service and knowledge to other people would provide the necessary mileage your traffic flow needs.
Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated. Include a link or a brief description of your company with the article and there’s a great probability that they will go to your site.
Write good content for your site. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that a content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your on but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain requirements as well as great quality. Generally, internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword searching in aiding their search results. With the right keywords, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.
All of these methods and more will drive more traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and extended man hours. Learn all you can about the methods depicted here and you will soon have a site with a great traffic flow without the usual costs that come with it.
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About The Author: Graeme Briggs — Learn how you can start making a fantastic income working from home with your family and using your home computer: http://nehoma.com/grabri506. For more great tips, visit my blog at http://briggosaffiliatecashsecrets.blogspot.com. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link when you sign up at my website: http://affiliatecashsecrets.com/go/71487/23
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Why should I care about Social Media Optimization (SMO)?
May 27, 2008
By: Brian Easter
Social Media Optimization has become a successful marketing tool for one simple reason. It works.
The gap between old media and new has gotten smaller and smaller with the majority of the prominent television and print media outlets finally embracing the Internet by launching sites of their own.
The different Social Media sites, like MySpace and Facebook, have exploded with profiles for everything from 8th graders discussing their favorite bands to full scale ad campaigns for Blockbuster movies.
If done correctly, SMO can expose your brand to markets you never thought possible. Whether it’s used alone to drive a campaign or in conjunction with your current interactive marketing strategy, Social Media Optimization offers you a significant advantage.
You should care about Social Media Optimization (SMO), because you care about your company’s image. There’s an old saying that goes something like, “A happy customer will tell one other person about his good experience. A disgruntled customer will tell ten people about his bad experience.”
Good or bad, that’s powerful marketing. Social Media Optimization gives you the power to take an active role in managing your brand by interacting with your current and potential clients by discussing your products, their comments and concerns and continually promoting your brand…..[MORE]
My Web Site is Built - So Where’s the Traffic and Business?
May 26, 2008
By John Clark (c) 2008
Your website is built and sitting pretty. So where are all the people you hoped would come over to play? You need traffic for your site to be effective and to start generating leads. Now that you know that just having a website won’t necessarily drive business to you, you should consider the most important thing most people miss in this effort.
Here are the 3 factors that need to be in place for a successful website and successful business. I’ll list them from least important to most important:
1. Sound ‘on-site’ Search Engine Optimization strategies. This refers to the things many consider the most important. There are the basic A-B-C’s of getting things set up with keywords and phrases so that you will rank well against your competition in Google, Yahoo and the like. This involves a lot of elements that you, as the end user, may never realize or see. Having the proper titles for each page, putting in the right key words and header tags. There are solid things that should be done and most web designers that I talk to rarely take it beyond this point. Being ranked well by search engines starts here but the best realize this is only the start.
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2. Content That Is Effective. Visitors are useless unless they buy something or make contact with you. We call this “Conversion Ratio”. What percentage of your website visitors convert into buyers and users of your services? This can and should be measured. The important things here are the attractiveness and professional appearance of the site with content that is compelling. Having the right mix of words, graphics and informational content can take conversion rates from being non-existent to well over 10%. Do this right and your income level can really zing.
Web designers get so many calls from business owners that can only think to ask, “how much do you charge to make me a website?” What they miss is what it will cost them in business profits if it is not done right. Web designers may know how to make a good looking site but not necessarily how to input the words and content for the best results. Writing compelling content is a very specialized talent. This takes more work and more time to do. It costs more, but the difference can be huge on your return on investment.
When you have this part right, the most important part of driving traffic can be taken advantage of. This aspect is where many web developers simply drop off the map in helping clients. If you are shopping price only, you won’t find this part of the mix. What is it that they miss?
3. Off Site Factors Are Most The Important Factors in Driving Traffic! What are ‘off site factors’? The most important key for ranking well with Google are the links that come to you from other sites that Google considers to be important sites. MSN and Yahoo are important sites. So are Digg.com, Wikipedia.com and WowWebWorks.com. OK, so the last one is more important to me than Google.
Here is the rub. How can you control whether or not other sites talk about you and link to you? I don’t mean calling other site owners and saying something like, “Hey, I’ll link to you if you link to me” stuff. Mutual links are not important anymore. One way links are. So how can you get those rolling? Well, this takes work. The nice part is that it is work that will have a direct effect on your bottom line. You have enough “busy work” as a business owner. This isn’t busy work; it’s vital.
Social-Business Networking Sites - Use Them
This is where sites like LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com and even MySpace.com come into play. I recommend using LinkedIn.com for business development. From there you can refer to your website and create interest in your site in others. I have a full article of ideas for this elsewhere so I won’t elaborate here. For more on this see “Why Bother with ‘LinkedIn’ or ‘Facebook’?” . Posting your information and inviting contacts to link in with you can be huge. It’s like having a second or third website with positive recommendations about you and your business.
Effective PR Campaigns
This can be the most important foundation for your business success. As our business partners Ray Lohner and Jerry Ogg from E3 Public Relations have drilled into me, most businesses have it all backwards. Here is what they preach for priorities:
1. Advertising => 2. Marketing => 3. Public Relation (If at all)
Wrong!
1. Public Relations => 2. Marketing => Advertising (If still needed)
Right!
Many businesses we build websites for already do some advertising with varying degrees of success. They do advertising yet often don’t know how that differs from marketing and ignore PR altogether.
It is PR that really sets the table for all the rest to work. The Internet is transforming even PR. Every time you have a bit of company news from hiring a new employee to lending support to a local charity it deserves a PR piece. Open a new office? PR. Have a unique solution to a problem? Let the press know - they may just do a story on it.
The idea is that if you get enough good PR working for you it opens doors for marketing and advertising because your company and name are more recognizable and respected. Just knowing who you are can be huge.
What has changed in the PR realm in recent years is the rise of online PR companies that will take your electronic releases and send them as feeds to news services nationwide. An example is www.prweb.com. It is chock full of information about good PR and advice on how to write it for best effect. Your submissions are sent out and picked up as a feed by other services. If your PR piece has a reference to your website, you now have 1 if not dozens of incoming links to your website. Do dozens of releases and you have dozens of one-way links and start to get noticed by other people interested in your field. Google notices this also.
Why Is PR All But Ignored?
So why don’t more businesses use this? Why do business owners nod in agreement but rarely follow through doing this? Because it takes time and effort to put together a good PR piece in a form that will be picked up by other sites or publications. It takes some knowledge to know where to even send it after you write it. Frankly, you probably don’t have time to sit down and pen out a 700-word piece. Few have the writing talent to do it right. It’s a skill, a specialized skill. Even if you do have the ability, you may well not know where to send it or who at a publication might be interested in it. This is exactly why PR firms exist. They do it well, know where to send it for greatest effect and they know what is newsworthy to send. They usually know people at the publications on a first name basis and what they are looking for.
I’m betting that if you cut your advertising budget in half and put that half into paying for a PR firm to take over that job that your remaining advertising will be even more effective than before.
This is one of the added values for quality web development companies. Next time you call a web design firm and ask, “How much does it cost to build us a website?” find out if “fries” come with that. Do you get just a website or do you get the added value of expertise in Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising. Trust this, you will get no more than you pay for.
If your web developer doesn’t do this, find a good PR firm and make sure they work together to do the job right.
Find out if they know enough about LinkedIn to even be there. If not, maybe they can’t help you there. How about their press releases? Do they even do them for themselves? How do they pro-actively do marketing for themselves? There are probably reasons why the cheapest bidder is the cheapest bidder. I hired the cheapest bidder to pave my driveway. Huge mistake now that it’s cracking after only 3 years.
A larger vision can make you a lot more money. You have to decide if “who’s the lowest bidder” is more important than how much money and exposure the site adds to your bottom line. After all, isn’t making money the point?
| About The Author: John Clark is the President of Wow Web Works in Kalamazoo, MI. This and other articles of interest are posted on his blog at wowwebworks.com/community. His profile in LinkedIn. You can also contact us at wowwebworks.com or at 269-321-5041. |
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