Online Web Marketing Tips

Here is a list of a few of my favorite marketing tips and ideas. They all proved to be effective in my business, use them them for yours as well!

1. Seek out link sites. Linking up with other sites and linking other sites to your webpage is a great marketing idea. I've generated a lot of traffic hits, linking up with other sites alone. Make sure to be in touch with people whom have sites similar to yours or fit your genre.

2. HTML META. Meta tags are for your search engines. Using meta tags are effective when you want to be sprouting up on search pages, use your keywords.

3. Search Engines. Blast your site out into outerspace. Search engines drive TRAFFIC. And to increase your popularity of your site, utilize some common search engine sites like AltaVista.com, Google and Yahoo.

4. Your Website Headers are important! Make your titles strong. The titles are very important because it shows how your page shows up in the search engine. Make sure it has a great title or else your pages will show up very weak.

5. Updating your site. Keep your site updated regualarly and keep your surfers coming back for more. Everyone loves new refreshed content. That is key.

6. Newsletters. Offer updates, free newsletters, sms messages to your browsers. They will be updated personally on your site and be provided with regular infoformation.

7. Branding your web page. Branding your site is used to make a long lasting effect. Keep your logo, main title on every page. This will be sure to follow through in terms of getting the message down to your browsers.

8. Build more sites. The more the merrier, the more sites the more traffic. Its also great marketing if you are a newbie company trying to get your name well known.

9. Emails. Emails, we get emails every second, every hour, every day. Don't let them sit in your mailbox. That's a no no! Be proficient and answer them right away. No one likes to wait, especially online users. They have the least patience of them all.

10. Get Involved. Your surfers are important for if you don't have them then what do you have? Cutomoze your content and make it personal. If you involve them, interact with them they will naturally want to be involved as well. Add polls, offer them to bookmark your site, use your site as a homepage, place a forum, chat room, voting contest, etc.

There are many many more ways to effectively market your online site. Do some research on the web, look at some of the other sites and observe there strategies. They are all very different but we all have the same message we want to get through. We want to win our customers trust and loyalty to our sites. With a properly executed marketing plan and given time, your site should be getting the results you want in no time.

About the Author:
Jennifer Lynn is an ecommerce entrepreneur, artist, writer, and musician based in New York-Chicago.

She has written and contributed numerous articles online about adult entertainment, entrepreneurship, ecommerce, technology, pop culture, generation x, quarter life and city trends & news.

A highly creative entrepreneur with focus in web marketing, business development and ecommerce. Presently, she is involved in JMR, an online referral biz for artists in the entertainment industry. She also runs other ecommerce sites including an interactive entertainment hub and her own personal site.

Before startin' JMR, Jennifer Lynn was a tech recruiter with a Chicago based start-up company. She's also a professional pianist. Jennifer Lynn received her degree from De Paul University in liberal arts.

When she's not workin' away, you can find her lofting on a beach, into travel, and dabbling in new creative ventures with artists & entrepreneurs around town.

Jennifer Lynn believes passion in doing what ever it is you love to do is the key to one's personal success.

Source: internet-marketing-sites.info

Words To The Wise: Creative Methods for Adding Text Content to Your Website

There are two strategies you can use to develop content for your site. One is to create your own and the other is to acquire content.

If you were to open a store on Main St, the necessary ingredients for success are clearly established. It's been said that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. But when your door is a file on a server, it takes more than a road sign to direct traffic. What it takes, in a word is… words.

In regards to website traffic, always be aware that the words on your site are sifted through increasingly sophisticated software programs. These programs send out an army of virtual site reviewers, known as "spiders". Words are the food those spider bots love to gobble. It is impossible to over estimate the importance of relevant textual content in getting highly ranked. Without words, you cannot achieve rankings.

So how do you develop your own word-based site content? The most important thing to remember is that the words must be relevant to your site. It's not so hard really, just a mental exercise. A little creativity can yield a lot of good words.

Strategy 1: Creating Your Own Content

Exercise a: Write an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.

This one is easy. Review the questions you get from your site visitors over and over. What are the same things they are asking you about in 90% of the emails you receive? Do yourself, your customers, and your site a favor. Make a list, and answer each question. And use this opportunity to provide descriptive responses peppered with your key phrases. Let's say you often receive emails asking how long it takes for your special ordered doorknockers to ship. One question in your FAQ might read:

Q: How long does it take for your custom doorknockers to ship?

A: Our personalized, engraved doorknockers ship within 3 weeks of order.

Make the page look good… neat, orderly, and professional. Go ahead and add a few of your product photos in a column along the text.

Exercise b: Getting into the psyche of your site's visitors

Take a little time to think about your customer's related needs. The best way to illustrate this strategy is with an example. Let's say you're an independent realtor. If your site visitors are looking for available houses and prices in your area, they might also want be interested in a layman's breakdown of the various neighborhoods, suburbs or towns in the area. How close are they to the highway and downtown? What are the local public schools like? On another page, you could discuss how to price your home for sale, as well as tips on selling a home quickly. Even a simple glossary of real estate terms provides not only relevant, useful information, but also food for those hungry, hungry spiders.

Strategy 2: Acquiring Your Content

Exercise a: Pillage your wholesalers

If you have a product-based site, your suppliers can be a terrific source of content. One e-tailer who sold hand woven rugs received permission reprint promotional material provided by the rug maker on the details of weaving and hooking the rugs. This content was beautiful written by a professional copywriter and was naturally loaded with pertinent keywords. Additionally, it was supplied in digital format so adding to the site was a snap. A few product photos were placed along side the content, and it didn't take long before the site was ranking highly for handmade rugs, hand woven rugs braided rugs, rag rugs, and hooked rugs.

Exercise b: Lazy SEO method for adding more words to your site

The reason this is a great "secret" is because everyone wins. And that's my favorite method of doing business. Bear in mind, authorities and experts in a given field are often seeking collateral exposure, which you can provide them. The exercise is to find an article published online that contains content related to your industry and ask for permission to "reprint" it on your site. The trick is to identify complimentary, not competing materials. And it's out there.

Let's go back to the realtor example. There are numerous associated trades that go hand in hand with selling homes (i.e. home appraisals, financing, etc.). So get on the web and do your homework. Find a really good article that has something useful to say about the associated subject. If you are a regionally based business, it would be even better if you can find something from the site of another local business. When you find it, send a gracious email requesting permission to reprint their article on your site. Mention how helpful and informative their article is and how valuable it will be to your site's visitors. Naturally you will give appropriate credit to the author as well as a link back to their site. This provides them with additional credibility and exposure, as well as a nice reciprocal link. So… what if they ignore your request, or even say no? Just keep looking. The beauty of this process is that the information is readily available. Trust me, it won't take long before someone says yes. And voila… you have content. Juicy, relevant, wordy content. And all you had to do was a little surfing and a little sweet-talking.

Creating or finding content for your site is not rocket science. Think about it. Every product or service solves a problem for the consumer. Identify that problem, and in theory, you're an expert on it. So, write about what you know, or find related content that someone else has already written. Just get those words on your site. By doing your homework, providing pertinent content, and supplying your customers with a wealth of resources, you are building not only business, but also relationships. And there's only one word for that -- success!

Source: seonews.net

Get 10,000 "unique" visitors a month!

Get 10,000 unique visitors to your website - now

Are you using "social Media" sites correctly?

For the last 3 months I've gotten 10,000 plus "unique" visitors to my small site using "Social Media tips"

Can you "DIGG" it, can you - Digg it ????

One of my all time favorite movies is "Warriors", it's about a gang that is framed for the murder of an influential gang leader [ Cirus ] who only wanted to unite all the gangs of NY - sort of like organized crime today. It's a wonderful movie to watch.

But I bring it up only because I am curious if you are using "DIGG" and the other like kind social media's?If used correctly you can build your ranking, your website's traffic and even make money - Can you "DIGG" it.. can you digg it...

While people are talking about little things like : is myspace losing to Facebook? Or things like: Will Yahoo buy XYZ company? People like you and me are losing the opportunity to make good use of social media sites like "Myspace", "you tube", "face book", even "Blink"....I want you to think about it, a good catchy title and good content can get you hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your site - In one day.... I did a small experiment, just to test it out. I used "Digg" and linked a page from one of my sites [ can not divulge source ] and with a good catchy title had 3,560 visitors go to my site in one day.

You say so what, others do it all the time..... But for a new site that has yet to be index on any search engine. No ranking, no SEO, nothing - just - DIGG.......... ????

No this is not a replacement for good old fashion "SEO" or providing good content. But it can help a struggling beginner and a small website compete with the big boys.

Source : seoarticles4u.com

Top 3 Steps to Generate Traffic

There are 3 steps that will basically Guarantee traffic to your website, blog, etc.
First: Pay-Per-Click ads A Pay-Per-Click ad is an advertising campaign that is set up with one or more of the major Search Engines.(Google, Yahoo, etc.) You set up your account and pick the keywords that you feel will be the most relevant to your needs. Next, you design the look and feel of your ads. You try to "word it" in such a manner as to evoke a need to find out what your site has to offer. The ads are usually 4 lines tall with each line not exceeding 35 characters. You will find them placed on the search pages of the search engines and on other people's web sites. With Google... it's with Google Adsense and look like:

Title Goes Here Come See What's Here You'll Find What You Need www.YourDomainHere.com

You can monitor how many clicks are generated by your ads and what ads work or don't work. You can also see which keywords are working for you.

Second: Submit Articles You can writing as many articles as you can think of and submit them to Article Directory sites. This is something that you can do on your own and do it for free. Some people hire others to write articles for them and pay someone else to submit the articles to the article directories. Now, if you are just starting out and don't have a huge budget to work with... I would suggest doing it yourself. You don't have to be an award winning writer and submitting articles is one of the easiest things you to do on the Internet. By submitting as many articles as you can, you start to improve your "search engine" rankings. As people use the keywords you chose in your P-P-C campaign, your articles will come up in the search results. Also, you can include a link to your website at the bottom of your article which creates what is called a "back link". The more "back links" that are pointind back to your website, the better chance you have to rank higher on the search engines.

Third: Forums and Press Releases There are so many forums on the Net right now. Forums for anything you can think of. All you have to do is "Join the Forum" and let everyone there know about your website and what you have to offer. You can also submit "press releases". There are a number of press release avenues that you can pursue. Just type "press release" into your favorite search engine and go from there.

In conclusion, these three steps will almost guarantee traffic to your website. It just depends on how diligent you are and how much work you put into it.

About the author
T.J. Brian writes articles on a number of topics including, traffic generation, achieving, self-belief, internet scams, business, internet marketing, success , mortgages, credit repair, and real estate. For more information on succeeding on the Internet visit http://www.AlphaWealthProducts.com

http://seoarticles4u.com

Google Spam Team Targets Real Estate Websites

I have been debating the last half hour on whether I should even write this article/blog post. I have recently made a few comments over at Matt Cutts' blog about what Google has recently done and a few of my real estate peers thought it was a bit brave or stupid for being outspoken. I will take my chances and write about what is happening. Hopefully, someone can learn from this in the future. Will Google keep me in the penalty box longer? Hopefully not.
If you have any experience or background in SEO (search engine optimization) you know that Google likes website that have links pointing to it. A part of their search algorithm involves the popularity of the site determined by the number of other sites pointing to it via a link. With all else being equal Google will rank a website with quality links pointing to it higher than another website with no links. If you read Google's Webmaster Guidelines the very first bit of advice they give you is:

* have other relevant sites link to yours.

Google loves links and they admit it. Webmasters figured this out and came up with all kinds of different techniques for getting links to their sites - link baiting, reciprocal links, ninja links, 3 way links, one way links, contextual links etc. The problem is a lot of the techniques are frowned upon by Google. They want you to get links the natural way and not to try to cheat the system. Their guidelines say:

* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?

In one breath Google tells you to get links to your site and then in the other breath tells you not to participate in any link scheme designed to increase your site's ranking. How do you know what a link scheme is? What is acceptable? What is not acceptable? I guess you have to ask yourself "Does this help my users?" It definitely is not a black and white situation and has plenty for room for interpretation.

Google has a web spam team headed by Matt Cutts. Their job is to enforce these Google Webmaster Guidelines and crack down on link spam. When he talks people listen. He frequently speaks at search engine conferences around the world.

I could not find it anywhere (didn't really look long) but heard that Matt Cutts in the past has mentioned that he does not like the reciprocal linking that Realtors engage in. Supposedly, he had mentioned this several times over the last few years but has not done anything about it.

Real estate agents trade links with other agents around the country and world with the argument that we refer business to each other so therefore it is a legitimate link exchange and not done for the sole purpose of pumping up our rankings. This may be true in some instances but for the most part it is bologna. I would venture to say that 95% of the agents who trade links do so to achieve higher rankings in the results. That was the only reason I did it. What was the likelihood that a visitor to my Sarasota, Florida website was there to find an agent in Albuquerque, New Mexico? The only reason I ever traded a link with an agent outside Florida was to get to number 1 in Google.

In the beginning, when I knew absolutely nothing, I was told to trade links with anyone and everyone. I did that for awhile. Then someone told me to only trade with people in the real estate industry. So, I changed it up and did that. The link exchanging worked. I wasn't number 1 but was on the first page for a couple key phrases.

Fast forward a little bit, I changed to a more search engine friendly website, traded links sporadically, added plenty of original content, included and updated a blog frequently. My overall goal was to become an authority site and build a valuable, useful website to people looking for anything real estate related in Sarasota, Florida. I simply wanted to make a website better than my competitors. Eventually, I became number 1 for the most sought after key phrases in my market and was on the first page for hundreds of phrases. I got there by having a better website than most. That is a great thing about the Google search engine. It generally does the best job of providing relevant results.

It dawned on me that reciprocal linking with hundreds of agents around the country was pretty useless to my visitors so I stopped doing it about a year or so ago. I did a couple contextual link exchanges with other agents in Florida. I figured that would be useful to someone looking for real estate in Florida but was not sure in what part of the state to look.

I had stopped paying attention to what was going on in the SEO world for awhile as I get paid to service buyers and sellers of real estate, not updating my website. I continued to post in my blog but that was the extent of it. So, I was out of the loop for 6 months or so.

A shot across the bow

Advanced Access is an enormous real estate website provider with around 30,000 Realtor websites. I am not up to speed on the details but apparently many or all of the Advanced Access users were penalized by Yahoo. Many of the AA users would trade links with each other and it was possibly viewed by Yahoo as one big incestuous link farm.

Advanced Access hired Greg Boser, a search engine guru, to solve their problems with Yahoo. His recommendation to AA users was to erase all state pages containing excessive reciprocal links. He viewed them as useless spam. Not all of the AA users took his advice. Many of the customers resisted because of the hundreds of man hours they put into accumulating all of the links. Others were probably ranking well and did not want to rock the boat.

In April of 2007 many high ranking Advanced Access websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Was it an algorithm change? Probably not since the AA website were the only ones affected. Ultimately, the consensus was that the AA websites were manually given a penalty by Google. Of course, no one was 100% sure because you can't call Google on the phone or email them to get a definitive answer. Why would Google focus on only one website provider? Why the largest provider of real estate websites? Were they penalized for excessive reciprocal links? Probably. Evidently, Matt Cutts previously made warnings about it. Did the well connected internet guru, Greg Boser, have anything to do with the penalty? I don't know. Some people believe that. He supposedly knows Matt Cutts.

In the Advanced Access forums one participant noticed that some AA websites were penalized while others were not. Almost all of the sites had state pages and excessive reciprocal links. Why were some chosen and other spared? How did Google determine which websites to hit and why? The forum participant noticed that just about everyone who voiced their opinions, beliefs and thoughts in the forums were hit with the penalties while the site owners who were not active went penalty free. Did Google hand pick the loudest website owners?

In May, just over 30 days later, most of the AA sites had their penalties dropped and were found again in Google.

Real Estate Webmasters is another large and very visible real estate website provider. Many of their customer sites rank exceptionally well in Google. They also host a very active forum for webmasters. If someone (or Google) wanted to send a message through the real estate community this is a great place to do it. I found it interesting that Greg Boser, the well connected internet guru, became very active in the Real Estate Webmasters forum on April 27th. Just a few weeks prior to many of their websites getting hit with a penalty.

On May 9th, a number of high ranking Real Estate Webmaster websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Sites from all over country had been hit with a Google penalty. I own one of those sites and was probably penalized for state pages and reciprocal linking. The damn thing is that I deleted all of my state pages and links on the 4th of May. Google most likely pinpointed me as a violator before the 4th and it took until the 9th to employ the penalty.

It is interesting that Google would hit customers of another large and potentially loud real estate website provider with an active forum. Is Google trying to send a message to the real estate community about excessive reciprocal links? Maybe. Probably. Greg Boser became active in the forums a couple of weeks prior to the penalty. Did he have something to do with it? I don't know. Possibly.

Here we are 44 days later and almost all of the Real Estate Webmasters sites are still penalized. We all have deleted our state pages, reciprocal links, removed the URL's through the Google webmaster tools and have asked forgiveness via a re-inclusion request.

Is Google waiting for us to spread the word throughout the Realtor community about the no-no's of reciprocal linking? I don't know. Is it fair that a small group of us were targeted while others continue to fill their websites with spammy reciprocal links? No, but life is not fair.

Rand Fishkind at www.seomoz.org recently interviewed Matt Cutts. You can watch the interview here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-smx-diaries-iv-the-matt-cutts-interview. Watch the 2nd video and fast forward it to around the 5:30 mark. Matt acknowledges the Real Estate Webmaster thread discussing the recent penalties. He also mentions "a shot across the bow" technique of policing.

Isn't everyone employed by Google a genius? Couldn't they have come up with a better system to policing the real estate industry other than hurting a few mom and pop Realtors?

Lessons Learned:

* Don't try to game the Google search engine. They will eventually figure you out.

* Don't trade links with hundreds of Realtors around the country. Build links only for the benefit of your users, not your search engine rankings.

* Build a site with tons of unique content, provide lots of value to visitors and eventually links will come with time. I have received several one way links from the Sarasota Herald Tribune (my local newspaper) from articles they wrote about my website and blog. I imagine this is the way Google likes to see links built.

* Google isn't perfect.

* If you rely on Google search results to feed you and your family you better have some money stashed away in the event you get penalized. Fortunately, I did this.

* If you do make money off the web keep at least one eye on what is happening in the search engine world to stay competitive.

* I rank fairly well in MSN and really don't get that much traffic from it.

* Ranking very well in Google will bring tons of traffic to your website.

* Being penalized by Google sucks.

Marc Rasmussen www.TheSarasotaMLS.com


About the author
Realtor in Sarasota, Florida

http://seoarticles4u.com

SEO: The Answer to your Online Marketing Problem

When I was a child, people around me has many source of informations. For instance, they use the television, radio and newspaper for consumer information, which are called infomercials nowadays, and news for current events. Magazines and journals are for articles that illuminate people on a specific or several topics. I also remember my mom, when my sister is already entering her high school years, buying encyclopedias for reference purposes.

Now, there is a one-stop shop for all informations needed by anyone. Internet is the information hi way of the new age. There is a site for almost each and every need for information. Most consumers prefer this because almost all their concerns are met through the internet.

With this, online marketing is a phenomena. Promoting online of products of the smallest size and amount up to the biggest deals and services, is always a hit.

But it is not that easy promoting marketing online. Because most people use search engine before they enter a web site, it is necessary to have a high ranking on search engines. People frequently view only the first two pages of the search result. Given this fact, companies and even sole proprietors still often neglect this aspect or part of their business because they do not like to lose their focus on their business core objectives.

Search Engine Optimization plays a big role on this part. It helps the entities keep a high ranking in major search engines or help improve their rankings on some matter. It works significantly on boosting their client's web visibility on search engines. In this way more consumers will enter your site, therefore, giving more chances of increasing sales.

Some entities waste the thousands or hundred thousands of dollars they invested on web site design after which they will discover that their site is not visible to major search engines. Because of this, some companies reinvest in redesigning their web site and some just accept the awful limited result they are achieving with their site.

For the premium and most coherent results in online marketing campaign, have the best search engine optimization services. Use your website as your strategic weapon against your competitors and this will accordingly increase your return of investment.

About the author
RESOURCE: Methyl Vizcarra writes articles and press releases for WickedInnovations - a web site design company that offers affordable web site design and maintenance services, search engine optimization and other advance multimedia services for low prices

http://seoarticles4u.com

5 Search Engine Optimization Myths

Have ever heard about myths or rumors in your life ? Well, we hear it everyday, don't we ? It's purely understood that myths are not true, but then people still keep believing in it.
In this article, Ngadutrafik 2007 would love to share with you some of the SEO myths. Hope you find it useful.

Here are the myths :

1 - Optimizing META TAGS will boost my website ranking

This is true if and ONLY if your website has good and quality contents to visitors, and have a frequent and fresh updated. Some people asked me why they don't rank well in search engine even if they have optimized the meta tags and front page ?

Well, I figured out that the websites has only 2 content (1 considered as index.html and other is About Us page, and never got updated), so that's the main reason.Currently, due to some bad implementation in altering META TAGS (especially the keyword tags, known also as Keyword Stuffing, read Day 9 - Black Hat Techniques : Something You Should Know, but You Shouln't Do), Google has ignored the meta tags in their search algorithm, while Yahoo and others still use it but in a very little percentage of the search placement.

So bear in my mind that optimizing META TAGS will only work if you also have some quality contents in your website.

2 - Multiple domain names will multiply my rankings in Google

Multiple domain names with exactly the same contents (duplicate contents), will probably get your website penalized by search engine in rankings. Some webmasters go smarter : creating 15 or more websites exactly in the same niche, provide 1-2 contents for each website, and doing aggressive linking among those 15 websites to the targeted website.

Is it gonna work ?

It COULD be. But remember, 15 websites means 15 work and 15 more allocated time you should spend to those websites. If you just wanna give a shot to a website in specific niche, then build one with appropriate keywords, off page and on page optimization, and you save a lot of time. This is gonna work well and much better.

3 - SEO experts aren't cheap ?

Compare to other advertising media campaign, SEO experts that offer they services is still considered affordable. The benefit for you is : your website will get exposed in 24x7 basis, around the world, anytime, anywhere.

A well-optimized website nowadays will get more benefits in terms of business practice rather than any other advertising media (e.g. TV ads, radio, or paper).

4 - Submit website again and again will make my site better.

O rilly ? Now if you do this action, I bet you will get penalized by Google and others, ASAP. Do it just ONCE, and after your website get listed in the search engine, don't ever think about submitting again. Not only your website would get penalized, but the rankings will go lower and lower.

Ever seen supplemental result in Google? I bet you don't want that happened to your websites. Especially, if youre promoting an SEO websites like NgaduTrafik 2007 :)

5 - Search Engine is bad. TV is better

If you're an old school guy, this may be correct. Why put US$2,000 paying that Search Engine Optimization guy, we can use that for a low budget TV ads instead ?

The answer : How many spot you could have for US$2,000 TV ads ? Say 10 spot that cost 200 each. 10 spot of your TV ads can't guarantee anything related to your business. Yes, I am talking now, in the Internet era.

While search engine, placement with good position will get your website visited by millions people around the world in 24x7 basis. As more and more internet users join every day, this will be a huge benefit.

What kind of TV ads that are able you to have 24x7 spot ads everyday ?

OK, so you know the myths now. As it's very popular myths and false facts related to search engine optimization, please read it carefully and take some notes of action.

Believe it or Not ?

Read Full HTML story at : http://ngadutrafik2007.pakarseo.com/ngadutrafik-2007-articles/day-13-5-search-engine-optimization-myths-believe-it-or.html

Related source : http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/09/29/the-top-seo-myths-all-of-it-hearsay http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-myths.html

About the author Graduated from Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS, Surabaya), majoring Informatics, I have been in deep with SEO and Internet Marketing in the last two years. Originally from a system development background, the first time I was so focus learning SEO tricks is when I was asked to 'put' certain search results regarding Newmont issues on tailing in 2004 in Google first page, and I did it succesfully.

http://seoarticles4u.com/

11 Tips for Pay-Per-Click Success

This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.

1) Do your keyword homework.

Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.

2) Don't bunch your ad groups.

You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.

3) Drive home your selling point.

What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.

4) Don't send users to your home page.

This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to your Pay-Per-Click campaign. Internet users are notoriously impatient. Send them to your home page when they were searching for a specific product or service and see how fast they leave. Don't waste your advertising budget - send them to optimized landing pages.

5) Optimize your landing pages.

Your landing pages need to drive something home immediately for your users: "you have landed in the right place." They need to know that, yes, this is what they were looking for, here it is, here is why it is better than the rest and here's the easy thing they need to do to get it. In most cases you'll need to create multiple landing pages based on your different ad groups and keywords, but look at it this way - if your users aren't landing at pages geared exactly to their search phrases they'll leave and take your advertising budget with them.

6) Don't lie in your ads.

People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.

7) Your domain name counts.

In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.

8) Utilize negative keywords.

Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.

9) Test, test, and test some more.

The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!

10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.

Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!

11) Don't pigeonhole yourself.

We all know that Google AdWords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click service out there. Your competitors know it, your users know it - even your grandma might know it. It would be foolish to ignore Google as a venue for advertising, but don't forget that there are other search engines out there who offer similar services. Yahoo!'s new Panama search system is catching on, and Microsoft's adCenter is nothing to sneeze at either. Both companies are currently offering sweet promotional deals to new Pay-Per-Click advertisers to stay competitive so take advantage and diversify!
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About the Author: Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.

Microsoft Adds Copyrighted Works to Search Engine

Microsoft Adds Copyrighted Works to Search Engine
By Sari N. Kent
Staff Writer: ToTheCenter.com

Microsoft has expanded its book search engine by including copyrighted works for the first time, beginning Thursday evening.According to InfoWorld’s web site, “Microsoft has obtained permission for all the copyrighted books included in the Live Search Books service, said Danielle Tiedt, general manager of the Live Search selection team."...... For More Click Here : http://tothecenter.com

Source : tothecenter.com

A search engine for open-source code

Robert Mullins, IDG News Service

Krugle aspires to be the Google of software code search, even referring to itself as a verb. And recently, Krugle has started to become the go-to search site for open-source developers, partnering with key websites, including SourceForge.net, the leading repository for open-source software projects, to embed Krugle search. Krugle also announced a similar partnership with CollabNet, a community of 1 million developers.... For More Click Here : www.linuxworld.com.au

Source : www.linuxworld.com.au