Secrets to Fill Your Business

Recently I was asked in an interview to imagine that I was starting all over again, and as a newbie, how I would fill my business in 60 days. Things have changed tremendously since I began my online business in 1999, mostly for the better. Most of the steps, however remain the same. Best of all, the strategies I recommend to fill your business are the same ones that can be applied to any business, and then applied again and again to other online ventures. Here are 8 secrets to filling the prospect funnel in your business in 60 days:

a. Success Mind Set
Don't gloss over this strategy it may be the most important of all. If you truly want to succeed in your business and are passionate about what you do, nothing will hold you back. This often means that you have to step out in faith that you'll succeed, and most importantly, believe in yourself as a success. Sure, you may stumble, or even fall, but you must be willing to pick yourself back up and persevere -- even without a safety net hanging under you.

b. Target Market
The biggest mistake that business owners make is wanting to sell to everyone. If you've tried this, you have no doubt discovered that casting your net around everyone is a very difficult task. Narrowing that group to a more manageable number will actually serve you much better, believe it or not. If you can identify a smaller group of hungry prospects who are willing to pay for the solutions to the problems that keep them awake at night (or those who are willing to pay for more information about a hobby or interest that occupies much of their free time) AND who are reachable in groups (associations, membership sites, magazines, newsletters, discussion forums or lists, social networking groups, etc.), then you have made a key discovery that will catapult your business forward.

c. Client Attraction Device
You've heard it said time and time again that "the money is in the list." This still holds true today, as well. Without a list of interested prospects to whom you can market, you don't have a business. The quickest way to begin to develop a list is to give something away. Yes, you heard me correctly. If you have content you have already created, dig through that to see if you have something appropriate for your chosen target market.
If not, identify a problem of your target market, and create some content that answers one of those problems. Perhaps it's a checklist, a Top 10 list, an ebook or special report, an audio interview, a pod cast, a video do whatever is easiest for you. Just ensure that it is in a plug and play format, i.e. don't make your prospect download some weird software that's not commonplace to read and view this material.
Make sure that your Client Attraction Device has some valuable content in it. Nothing is more frustrating to me than to read a free giveway that only serves to remind me that I have a problem and offers no solution unless I pay for it. Don't be afraid to demonstrate your expertise by giving "how to" information away. Trust me, if you are truly good at what you do, there's no way that you can share everything you know on a topic in one short information product. Your Client Attraction Device starts your prospects on the like, know, and trust road that is imperative for them to travel before they will decide to buy something from you.

d. Email Marketing System
You must have some way to collect your prospect's information and a system by which you can stay in contact with them. The best way to do this is by purchasing email marketíng services. Do not use a free service for this, nor try to send emails out of your Outlook program. If you want to be a serous online business owner, invest in the most important asset in your business your email marketíng system.

e. Blogsite
A blogsite, which is a web site/blog hybrid, is the quickest way to build an online presence. The two most popular blogging platforms, the fee-based Typepad and open source software Wordpress, can be used to create a blogsite very quickly. If you want either of them customized with a particular look or feel, that may take a bit longer and require a greater investment. However, either will work well to get you started, and both will permit you to enter your email marketíng system's signup code onto a page so that you can immediately begin to collect contact information from prospects who have requested your Client Attraction Device.

f. Stay in Touch
Whether you do this by submitting regular blog posts or publishing an email newsletter (or both), you need to reach out and touch your prospects at least weekly (or several times a week if you are blogging). Give them some insights about what's happening with you personally as well as sharing some aspect of your expertise with them by creating a content-rich article or answering their questions. And, don't forget to sell provide some product or service in each email newsletter, or submit regular blog posts that remind your readers about what you are selling.

g. Social Networking
Never before have we had the opportuníty to connect with others online easily and inexpensively as we do now with social networking. Create profiles on the social networks) used by your target market, do research to add friends/followers in your target market, and use the status updates to be useful to your followers, i.e. by sharing resources, asking questions, and updating them about how you help clients/customers.

h. Drive Traffic to Your Site
There are a number of ways to accomplish this, but my favorite starts with writing an article. Once it's written, I publish it in my ezine, my blog, and to my web site and syndicate it on article directories all over the Web. Then I have the option of making a pod cast with the content; creating a screencast video or "talking head" video from it; writing and submitting a press release; creating a teleclass; create a Q&A radio show interview opportuníty; breaking up the points as separate Twitter posts, or Tweets, and tweeting them to my followers; or sharing it on my Squidoo lens or other information-sharing portals. The point here is to work once and profit, profit, profit. Repurpose one article as many ways as you can to drive traffic back to your blogsite and thus get more and more prospects to sign up on your list and ultimately convert them to customers.
The advent of the Internet makes it easier than ever to create and promote an online business with very little startup capital. And, if done correctly, the strategies will results in you filling your business in 60 days with eager and willing prospects ready to buy what you are offering.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Successfully Tips

Whether you're looking to do Paid Search Advertising yourself or to hire someone to do that for you - you should know what makes a Pay Per Click campaign successful - or you will end up suffering. Paid search advertising may look deceptively easy to do. Countless times small business owners decide (and correctly so) that PPC is going to do wonders for their business and 'dive' right into it...




Unfortunately most of them don't really educate themselves enough on what to do and how to do it, and then they end up spending a helluva lot of money, with little to no results. Next they declare that Paid Search Marketing doesn't work and then they're out!
Alternatively, the small business owner hires an overpaid, over-promising PPC management firm, and lets them do whatever they like - not knowing what to be aware of in order to make sure he's getting the best possible results for the best price...
Well despite the doom and gloom scenarios above, I'm here to tell you that PPC works for most businesses!
It works very well, and can be one of the best, quickest, most cost effective and best tracked medium of advertising/promotion there ever was... Sure, there are other ways you can market your business, but if you know how to, and if you want almost immediate results that are fully tracked - then PPC can't be beaten.

OK, let's get to the top 10 essentials of Pay Per Click marketing:

1. Know your market place
It's as obvious as daylight, but people still go into PPC without doing their research. Bear in mind that you may know your market place offline, but when you consider the internet - it may be a whole different environment. So make sure you look into it - even if you have to pay for professional research, it will be worth your while.
If you're letting an agency manage your paid search, then make sure you ask them about your market - make sure they have done their homework thoroughly.

2. Know your target audience
Again an obvious one - and yet again people don't do this step properly. Don't just list out a bunch of demographics about your prospective customers. Get into character - engineer 'real-life' people profiles (avatars), describing everything about them.
Creating about 3 customer avatars for your business, will help you understand your customers, and thus you'll be able to anticipate how they behave. Knowing how they are likely to behave, will allow you to setup a VERY effective PPC campaign process, that will guarantee you success. Remember, your customer just wants to feel understood, then if your product/service is good - they will buy.

3. Know what you want your visitor to do
In other words decide - do you want a prospect visiting your site to:

- call you to make an appointment?
- email you with more info about themselves, before setting up a consultation?
- click on the "Buy Now" button on your landing page?
- sign up to your membership site?
- sign up to your free newsletter?
- download a free report?

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The clearer you are about what you want visitors to do, the easier it will be to entice them to do just that. If you don't tell your prospects what it is they need to do to progress this visit to something that is of benefit to them, they will click away, most likely to never be seen again...

4. Know how they look for you & your product,i.e. understand searcher intent
This one's not so obvious. Only very good paid search marketers know that keywords have different intent behind them. In other words, if a searcher on Google types in "running shoes" they are highly likely to be doing some preliminary research on what types of running shoes there are.
If the same searcher typed in "running shoes reviews", then they are likely to be still researching - but they now know that they will buy - when they find the shoe that appeals to them. A prospect with 'buying' intent, however, will likely type in "buy asics gel kayano running shoes" or "asics gel kayano stockists". You get the idea...

5. Start small, grow big later
This simply means that it is better to find the most suitable keyword phrases for your business, and run with that small group first. This will allow you to test the 'waters' and it will help you keep control of your budget. Later on, when you know what works and what doesn't you can add other phrases to your heart's content.

6. Split test your ads
It is amazing how many people don't take advantage of this feature on Google AdWords. Split - testing will give you a constant way of improving on your ads. Your ad is the 'window' to your sales... so you cannot afford not to be constantly trying to make it better converting than before.




7. Use landing pages (LP)
Landing pages are powerful when using them correctly. They allow you complete control of what your visitor experiences. I always recommend that if you are only wanting one result from your prospect you should use LPs. But if your resources and knowledge are limited, then at least make sure you are leading the searcher to the most search-relevant page you have on your site.

8. Track everything
This says it all - even if you don't know how to, or with what - find someone that can help you. Outsource this job, or simply head over to Google and read all there is on their Analytics service. In some cases this is perfectly sufficient.

9. Listen to your stats
Once you have your tracking working, make sure you look at your stats to see the results. I recommend you look at them once a day in the beginning - depending on the size of your campaign, the amount of traffic your keywords are getting, and the amount of money you've budgeted to spend.
Once your campaign is working and making you profit, you can start looking at it less often, but at least once a week. Also make sure to optimize it regularly on the basis of your stats.




10. Learn consistently and constantly
Learn from your successes, your failures, your competitors' successes and their failures too... I have a document template that I use for all my campaigns called - Lessons Learned. It's only through experience that you will be able to progress and optimize any paid search campaign.
Well - hopefully you'll find the above list of PPC essentials very useful. Of course there are a lot of other important points to consider, like daily budget, competitive research, and return on investment requirements, but the above 10 will be able to start you off in a very strong way.
Bear in mind that whether you're managing your own PPC campaigns, or you're hiring a professional to do it - you can use the list above to make sure you're getting the best out of your campaigns.

Write Ads That Work

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This is as close to a magic formula as you can get. There's a lot more to writing ads than following a formula, of course, but having this framework should get you well on the way to writing a competent, if not great, marketing piece. If you've been digging around at the library and gotten into the archives of the masters you've almost certainly discovered the formula of AIDA = Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. that's a good start, but this is how it's really done.
As you write your piece, try to get into the head of your client or prospect. What exactly are they looking for and how would they benefit from using your product or service? Furthermore, how would they benefit by buying from you rather than a competitor. So.. give it a shot.
Just one thing.. make sure you budget a whole bunch of time - even a short piece can take a non-writer as long as 10 to 20 hours to get right.


Here you go:

1. Headline (the "Attention" part)
This is, by far, the most important element - this has to be a big, bold promise of some kind. Give them a reason to read the next line.

2. Sub-Headline.
Just as the purpose of the headline is to get you to read this line, the purpose of this line is to get them to read the next line. Plus, backing up the promise is really important.

3. Benefits (sort of today's version of "Interest.")
Use the benefits of your product (as opposed to features) to put your prospect smack in the middle of the picture. How should your customers feel when they're using it? How would they feel if they missed out?

4. More Benefits.
Skepticism is high these days; it takes a lot to convince people.

5. Proof.
Testimonials work. Amazing facts are always good. Easy-to-understand statistics help, too. That sort of thing. Prove that your product does what you say it will do.

6. Risk Reversal.
How about a money-back guarantee? There can be no risk whatsoever.

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7. Photo.
This isn't required, but it will definitely increase your response rate. Show someone enjoying the product. Illustrate the benefits. Even a photo of you, which personalizes the piece and makes it seem real, helps a lot.

8. Offer. (Just one, though)
You have to offer something. It's amazing how many ads are produced without an offer. "It's important to get your out name out there," is the reason heard most often. Sorry - without an offer, your ad is dead. Nothing happens.

9. Call to Action.
You must ask your prospect to do something. Really! If the rest of the ad is reasonably well-structured, people will act - they'll take advantage of your offer and do exactly what you ask them to do. This is where your ad can become your best salesperson.

10. Reducing the Resistance to Accepting Your Offer.
It's that guarantee again. And it's OK to mention it more than once - reducing your customer's risk to zero is really important.




11. Create a Sense of Urgency.
Use language like: "Just five days left..," "Only 12 lucky golfers will..," "Take advantage today and you'll also get.." You know what I'm talking about, right?

So there you have it. Try writing a couple different versions and split up your mailing or post two different web pages to see which one draws responses. That's how it's done.

SEO for Newbies

With so much information - and misinformation - available on the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it can be tricky trying to separate fact from fiction. Coupled with the fact that SEO changes only slightly less rapidly than the weather, it can be downright overwhelming to know where to start. So, if you're an SEO newbie looking for a place to start, here's a look at some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics. What Is SEO?
Even the most beautifully-designed site won't do you much good if potential customers can't find it. That's where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in: SEO helps ensure your site is more visible in the search engines, drive qualified traffic to your website, and convert that traffic into actual customers. In short, SEO increases your website's rankings in the search engines by making the pages within your site more attractive to the search engines. The more attractive your site is to Google, the higher its rankings in the search engine results pages. And the higher your rankings, the more likely users will visit your site. Obviously, a site with a result on Page 1 of Google is going to get more traffic than a site buried on Page 14. If your site is missing from the top search results, then you may not be maximizing your ability to generate new business and add revenue to your bottom line. Let's take a look at some stats:



* 1.3 billion Internet users
* Over 85% start at a search engine
* Less than 25% will go beyond the top 10 search engine results
* Top 10 results get 80% more traffic than those ranked in the 11-30 spots

Besides gaining better rankings in the search engines, SEO is effective in several other areas as well:

* Branding/establishment as an authority
* Pre-qualified lead generation
* Easily tracked ROI
* Cost savings compared to other mediums such as glossy brochures and yellow pages ads (average cost per lead is $0.29!)

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Breaking SEO Down
SEO consists of several key elements that work together to generate increases in a website's rankings, traffic and conversions: Keyword Selection, Copywriting, Link Building, HTML Optimization and Analytics. Let's take a look at each element in more detail:

Keyword Selection
The foundation of any SEO campaign is good keyword research. That's because targeting the right keywords is essential to getting your SEO on the right track. If your sell silver ladies watches, then you're going to want to rank in the search engines for the phrase "silver ladies watches" and other similar phrases. If your keyword research is off and you target the wrong keywords, then you may not get visitors who want what your site has to offer. That's why you need to make sure that your site is properly optimized for the most-searched-for keywords related to your business.

Copywriting
Getting potential customers to your site is only half the battle; you've got to convince them to buy. That's where persuasive copywriting comes in. Be sure to tell people why they need your products or services and include conversion points throughout the site. The search engines like content, so you also need to optimize your copy to include your keywords. This includes things like descriptive product pages, built-out content like biographies, news sections, etc. One important point to remember is to keep your most critical content "above the fold" - that's the area that's visible to your users before they have to scroll down.

Link Building
Think popularity contests ended in high school? Think again; you're not so lucky. Link building is like one big online popularity contest, and the search engines like the popular kids. Your success in the search engines depends, in part, on the amount of relevant incoming links to your site. Of course, having lots of good links also drives customers to your site, which is a good thing, too. Links can come in various sources, including directories, business partners, organizations, social media sites, and much, much more.

HTML Optimization
Title tags, header tags, Alt tags, Meta-descriptions -- the search engines want your site's HTML to be descriptive and clean. Search engines want to know exactly what your page is about; they don't want to sort through a bunch of extraneous code to figure it out. That's why you'll hear SEO types talk about the importance of having clean code and how to use CSS to make that happen.

Measuring Success
No SEO campaign is complete without analytics. After all, if you aren't measuring things like traffic, link popularity, and conversions, then how do you know if your SEO strategies are working? Programs like ClickTracks and Google Analytics help make the number-crunching a little easier. When analyzing an SEO campaign, it's important to only make one change at a time so that you know which changes are effective.
If you want to have an effective SEO campaign, you need to include each of the five SEO elements listed above. Keep in mind the information here just scratches the surface of these topics, and there are certainly other more advanced SEO strategies that can benefit your site as well. These building blocks, however, are the perfect way to get your SEO campaign started on the right track. Check out our SEO case studies or get a free SEO analysis of your site now!

Images Optimized for the Web Development

Creating graphics and posting images for your site is one fun thing to do in web development. Nothing makes your site stand out better than some great images.
Graphics and images can be used for entertainment, professionalism or a visual queue. A graphic designed properly can change your visitor's outlook and/or decision for your site. It is important to you have images ready and optimized for your website.

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Optimize Your Images
One thing to remember when creating graphics and images for your site is to optimize. What do you mean by optimization?
Optimization is a way to compress data to make your file size smaller. One way optimization works is that it will read through all the color of the image and use other color combinations to make similar colors. This will then discard some colors that will not be needed for the particular image. But there is a downside with optimization. You will lose quality in your graphic and/or images.

Quality vs Size
When optimizing your images watch the quality compared to size. You want the smallest size possible for your site, making your site load faster. This will make it easier for your visitors and search engine bots.
If you image or graphic becomes too distorted, raise your file size. You don't want a pixelated image on your site. You want your images to look good and professional. You just need to find a balance between having a clean professional picture and having a decent small file size.

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Image Optimization Tools
Adobe Photoshop has put this into consideration in some of their new application versions. You can now do a File > Save for the Web Options and Adobe Photoshop has a pre-built optimizing process that is very good. You can choose what file type to save in and how much to compression and optimization. Adobe Photoshop is an expensive commercial program, another option is using Dynamic Drive's Image Optimization.

Types of Image Files
Last thing to touch on is JPEG, GIF and PNG. There are so many file types, but these are highly recommended for web development.

JPEG
JPEG is a compressed file that has very good quality standards. Because of its compression, colors and data are squeezed out of it to create smaller file sizes. This can cause some blur with images with sharp edges, which is great for photos. If you look at a photo there are no straight lines or edges. Everything is blended together, which why JPEG is great for photos. You can get great optimization out of a JPEG file.

GIF
GIF is used more for vector based graphics. A vector based graphic is when a graphic is made of lines and shapes. Vector graphic have sharp corners, edges or text. When dealing with graphics like described, it is better to use a GIF rather than a JPEG. A JPEG could case distortion on your sharp lines. GIF can also be use for animation. Frame by frame animation saved as a .gif will animate on your page. Transparency is another feature that GIF can support. You can save your images with a transparent background.

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PNG
PNG is one of the newest web graphic technologies. PNG is great for quality and file size. You have the best of both worlds in a PNG. PNG can also support transparent backgrounds. The only downside to a PNG file is that some old web browsers don't support PNG. This problem is becoming less and less a concern. But keep that in mind.

Quickest Time for Web
Optimizing images and graphics is almost a must in web development. Having big file sizes could cause some of your visitors to leave your site. If your site is too slow to load, you need to optimize immediately. Rumour is that you have 3 seconds to pull a surfer in. If you site doesn't load in that amount of time, then you might lose them. Time your page in your browser and see how long it takes. If you are under a couple of seconds, you're doing a great job.

Web Design Components

Professional website developers know the importance of web design and the role it plays in making a website successful. Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for someone who is new to the world of web development. With the help of web development applications many people can and do create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial standpoint. There are five crucial components of web design that you must focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and successful for you.

SEO
Getting free traffic to your site. Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site you have to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and abundant traffic.
The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to your site. The keywords you select should be based on high usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you select keywords you can then begin the development of your site. Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The keywords you choose will be applied within the design in strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site. To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and learn more about this important subject. If you don't, your website success will be difficult to achieve.

Usability
Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired information quickly.Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get the information they want. One of the goals of your site design is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the following three fundamentals of usability.


Provide a site search tool
A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then move on to the action they desire.

Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation
This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore their way through your site.

Provide logical and simple to follow content
The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more detailed information or explanation as needed.
In the cases above the goal is to make it easy for your visitor to find the information they want without frustration or difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on increasing the return of your visitors.

Aesthetics
Visual appeal. A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout brings unity and openness to the page. Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel and proven color strategies.
Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated look. A better approach is to provide less content and open space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to scan and explore with ease.

Content
Valid, up to date, relevant information.An important feature of any website is the quality of the text content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems or for entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be well-written, without grammatical or spelling errors. It also has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up to date information for your visitors. Content is King!

Graphics
Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the visitor. You can have a functional and usable website without graphic elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can't be any willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic elements into your site, take some time to look around the web. Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.
The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to say that you must hire a professional, however you must implement professional design elements to improve your chances for success.

I Explain, Flash is SEO Friendly

People who say that Flash is not SEO friendly are absolutely wrong. It is just a myth that Flash is SEO unfriendly. Creating accessible flash content for search engines is crucial for you to preserve your online presence and drive traffic to your site. Follow these Flash Optimization Tips to get most out of the major search engines.

Adding SWF content to your HTML source
An iron-clad way to guarantee that a SWF's content is picked up and ranked by search engines is to extract the content and place it into the page's HTML source. Tools such as Dreamweaver use SWF Object to embed Flash. The code view in Dreamweaver displays comments where you should add your alternative HTML content.

Keep your URL unique
If your site is just one big lump of Flash in an HTML template, your page is never going to refresh. Consider having a different URL for each page of your site's Flash content. Each page would have its own HTML source title, "H1" and body copy containing the keyword you want to rank.

Use source content dumping
A one-page HTML rich internet application (RIA) will not be SEO enhanced simply by adding the content for each section of the Flash application into the HTML source for this page. Doing this doesn't establish any prominence of content, as there are too many competing terms. Keep extracted Flash content relevant to the page it's on.

Keep an eye on new initiatives
Adobe has been working with Google and Yahoo! to make the Flash file format (SWF) search engine friendly. This will enable the engines to see what's inside a SWF's content and index it. However, the use of Flash Player technology by search engines is still developing and so can't be relied on as the only step towards optimizing your project for SEO.

Add text to your Flash applications
A simple Flash SEO enhancement is to use Flash-generated text in your creative when displaying or animating type. You can do this instead of using text that's a flattened bitmap. Flash text can contain keyword-based messages, which help increase traffic. Include this text in the HTML source of the page as well.

Remember that search engine spiders hate pop-ups
We've all visited sites that urge us to click to launch Flash content into a new window. This removes any chance of the site's content being picked up and indexed by search engines. In addition to search spiders not being able to see them, pop-ups suffer from being blocked by many browsers.


Get robotic help
Robots.txt is a plain text file found at the root of a server. This tells search bots which content needs to be allowed or disallowed when it visits their website. If your Flash text content is the same as your HTML version, you could set the Robots.txt file to ignore the SWF content and push only the HTML content to the search bots.

Embed Flash content with SWF Object
SWF Object is a search engine-friendly way to embed Flash content. Alternative (non-Flash) content is produced first, and then snippets of JavaScript are used to swap out the alternative content with the Flash movies. This ensures that the content is indexed by search engines. Users without Flash will still see a working HTML page.

Google Adsense is The King

When it comes to making money with a website, one of the most popular methods is running text and/or image ads on various pages. It's referred to as contextual advertising and "inline ads". Text or image ads are shown which match the content of the pages. Inline ads appear as highlighted words on the page when the visitor hovers over highlighted text on the page. Ads appear in small boxes. Contextual ads are often displayed to the right or left of website copy, or as blocks within sections of the text. The ads shown are related to the content of each individual page. As visitors click on these links, you earn cash.
Probably the largest and most used of the contextual ad programs is Google's Adsense. Google really is a giant when it comes to the Internet, and their talents go far beyond just being a search engine. Adsense is used by many site owners to bring in a monthly income.
If you're interested in running Adsense ads, first you'll need to apply and get approved. Once approved for one site, you can place Adsense on any other site that you own. You can decide to run only text ads or choose from image and text. Various sizes are offered, and you can custom select colors to match the look of your site. Once the code is generated, you paste it on your HTML pages where you want the ads to appear. Simple & easy.
But what happens if you're not approved by Google, or for some reason your Adsense account were to be terminated? What would you do then? There are other ad network options out there and I've gathered some of the best alternatives together here. Before signing up for any ad program, make sure you read their terms of service and any requirements to make sure it's a good fit for your website. Also, review the payment options so you'll know how and when you can expect to be paid. Let's review:

a. Text-Link-Ads.com
Once your site is approved, you insert the code on your page and they sell simple text ads that appear on your site. You have final say over any ads being published. Payments are made via Paypal or Clickbank. You receive 50% of the sale price for each link they serve up. This ad network is acceptable to be run on the same page as Google Adsense as this is not considered contextual advertising.

b. Adbrite
A variety of ad formats to choose from. You can run text ads, banners, inline ads or even full page ads. You can choose to approve or reject ads before they appear on your site. Pays monthly with the default minimum check amount of $100.00. Once your site is approved, ads will appear within 24 hours of your pasting the code. Adbrite has no policy against using other ad networks on your site at the same time.


c. Kontera
Contextually relevant ads and ad units which are linked to keywords on your web page. Ads displayed will match the content of your site. For your website to be approved it must be in English, be content rich with more than 50 words per page. You can run text, image, billboard, and video ads.

d. Quigo.com
Quigo offers content-targeted advertising to those with strong traffic. Publishers with 500,000 or more monthly page views are encouraged to apply. Once approved, simply copy and paste the code.

e. Yahoo Publisher Network
Works very similar to Google's Adsense program. You design your own ads, choosing colors and formats, then paste some code on your page. You'll be paid per click. Advanced ad targeting and display capabilities can sometimes improve your results. You can choose to be paid via Paypal once your earnings are $50.00, or a check when you hit $100.00.

f. Chitika.com
A full service online ad network which serves over two billion monthly impressions across more than 30,000 websites. Chitika ads are not contextual and can be run on the same page as Adsense. Twenty-four different ad sizes are available. Payment is via Paypal once your account is at $10.00, or a check when you reach $50.00.

g. Miva
Miva offers a wide variety of ad formats to choose from: content ads, inline ads, search ads. You'll be paid on a per click basis. Payments are made monthly by check or Paypal once your balance reaches $25.00. You can also block competitor ads from appearing on your site.

h. AffiliatesGarage.com
A different type of ad network which allows you to display affiliate ads in an "Adsense Style". You can run Clickbank and Paydotcom text ads on your site or blog and earn up to 75% commission.

i. Bidvertiser.com
Display text ads on your website and let advertisers bid against each other. Ad formats are skyscrapers, banners, rectangles, buttons. They even have ads for your RSS feeds. Payout is monthly via Paypal once your balance is $10.00. This one pays on a cost per click basis.

j. AmaSense Ads
This service allows you to create Google Adsense styled ads for Amazon products. Different ad formats are available which makes it easy to integrate into your site. Amasense can also be used side by side with Google Adsense without any problems.
As ads are clicked on, you earn a percentage of the product which is paid by Amazon depending on the type of product that is bought. You must have an Amazon associate account first before signing up. To get one go to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com.

As you can see Adsense is not the only game in town when it comes to running ads on your site. If you have multiple sites, you may want to use one of the services mentioned above, then test, to see which one is a better earning opportuníty. You might be surprised at what you learn.
It's against Google's terms of service to run another contextual ad service on the same page as Adsense, but there are exceptions to the rule. Most of the services above will tell you if you can run their ads alongside Adsense.
If your websites are mainly information based, network advertising is an excellent way for you to earn an income with little effort on your part. No matter if you use Adsense or another service, it just makes for good dollars and cents.

The Role of Articles in SEO

You have employed every trick in the SEO handbook but that first page ranking in the search engines has been eluding you. You are about to give up. But before you do, perhaps you may wish to consider taking up article marketing. First of all, what exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and submitting original content to article directories. This is not a new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for their businesses.

The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is looking for.
On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your author signature.

Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed articles.

In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and submits articles, the wheels of SEO has already started to turn, whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In other words, the author website gets high quality back links from well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.



How to prepare your articles for submission
Article submission can take up a lot of time. So you want to be sure that you get the highest rate of approval from the editors. Here is what you should do to ensure that you get most of your articles approved.

Appropriate word count
Articles should ideally be 500 words and above. You can write whatever you want. But bear in mind that the editors are looking for valuable content that their readers will enjoy reading. So your articles should not be self promotional. All promotional materials should be included in the author resource box, which will appear at the end of the article.

Proper formatting
The article does not have to be perfect. But it has to be legible, and relatively free of grammatical errors. The style of writing is not that important. Most styles will be accepted. Use the hard return to separate paragraphs, and do not include any HTML. Not all article directories accept HTML tags in the article body. As long as the article is of decent quality, it should be approved.

Include target keywords in article title
Your target keywords should be include in the article title. This will increase the chances of your articles rising to the top in the search results. Having keywords in the article title is also part of SEO. When performing SEO, you want the search engines to find relevant content that link to your sites. Having your target keywords in the title is one way of letting the search bots know that the content in the article is related to what you have to offer in your website.

Write a catchy title and interesting summary
The title is very important because if it cannot capture the attention of your reader, you have just lost a potential visitor. Your title should be speaking directly to your target audience. The article summary should also be clear and concise. Don’t beat around the bush. You can elaborate further in the article body. For the summary, use short and powerful sentences.

Delivering the promise of your article title
Make sure that you stay on topic and deliver the promise in the article title. For example, if your article is about link building, then make sure you share some methods on how to build one way back links quickly. Don't stray and write about your pet and then forget to go back to your main topic.

Using anchor texts in links
Anchor texts are the words that are in between a set of HTML link tags. Before going into article marketing, you should already have a set of keywords to target. Use these keywords not just in your article title, but also as your anchor texts. For instance, if you are targeting the keywords "Search Engine Optimization", use these words in your links. Don't use words like "click here" or any other generic term.

Once you have the above in place, you can start submitting the articles to the article directories.

How to submit articles quickly and easily
Before you start submitting the articles, you must first get a list of article directories. Your list should contain at least 200 article directories. Choose directories that have been around for years, and have high page rank.
The article submission process can be grueling if you don't have the right tools to help you. As a business owner, you shouldn't be doing such manual tasks yourself. You have more important things to do, like developing products, marketing, and so on. The process shouldn't be consuming too much of your valuable time. Here are some quick suggestions.

Use a free form filling tool to help you
There are tools available for download, such as RoboForm that will help you fill up the forms at the article directories. Once you set this up, it's just clicking and submitting. That will save you from having to copy and paste the article into each and every submission form. A great way to submit articles if you are on a shoe string budget.

Invest in article submission software
There are special software in the market that will help you submit your articles either on a semi-automated basis, or on a fully automated basis. If it's a fully automated process, you don't have to be actively involved. You will, however, have to let the software complete the submission process before shutting it down.

Outsource article submission
You can hire someone else to submit the articles for you. This can be a dedicated person that you work with, or it can be a professional service provider. The difference between this option, and that of using software, is that you don't have to monitor the submissions. Simply place an order, and you can switch off your computer and go work on other stuff.
Article marketing, when done right, can bring short, mid and long term traffic. The short term traffic comes from the current readership base of the article directories. The mid to long term traffic comes from the search engines and the articles. As articles remain online indefinitely on the Internet, they remain as traffic baits and help to attract more visitors to your websites.
If you have done your keyword research, and heed the advice given above, your site could achieve top rankings in the search engines within weeks.

Mistakes SEO Avoiding

Following are the 9 Biggest SEO Mistakes which Web Designers & Web Developers should avoid.

Splash Page
I've seen this mistake many times where people put up just a big banner image and a link "Click here to enter" on their homepage. The worst case -- the "enter" link is embedded in the Flash object, which makes it impossible for the spiders to follow the link.
This is fine if you don't care about what a search engine knows about your site; otherwise, you're making a BIG mistake. Your homepage is probably your website's highest ranking page and gets crawled frequently by web spiders. Your internal pages will not appear in the search engine index without the proper linking structure to internal pages for the spider to follow. Your homepage should include (at minimum) target keywords and links to important pages.

Non-spiderable Flash Menus
Many designers make this mistake by using Flash menus such as those fade-in and animated menus. They might look cool to you but they can't be seen by the search engines; and thus the links in the Flash menu will not be followed.

Image and Flash Content
Web spiders are like a text-based browser, they can't read the text embedded in the graphic image or Flash. Most designers make this mistake by embedding the important content (such as target keywords) in Flash and image.

Overuse of Ajax
A lot of developers are trying to impress their visitor by implementing massive Ajax features (particularly for navigation purposes), but did you know that it is a big SEO mistake? Because, ajax content is loaded dynamically, so it is not spiderable or indexable by search engines.
Another disadvantage of Ajax -- since the address URL doesn't reload, your visitor can not send the current page to their friends.

Versioning of Theme Design
For some reason, some designers love to version their theme design into sub level folders (i.e. domain.com/v2, v3, v4) and redirect to the new folder. Constantly changing the main root location may cause you to lose backlink counts and ranking.

"Click Here" Link Anchor Text
You probably see this a lot where people use "Click here" or "Learn more" as the linking text. This is great if you want to be ranked high for "Click Here". But, if you want to tell the search engine that your page is important for a topic, than use, that topic/keyword in your link anchor text. It's much more descriptive (and relevant) to say "learn more about {keyword topic}"
Warning: Don't use the EXACT same anchor text everywhere on your website. This can sometimes be seen as search engine spam too.

Common Title Tag Mistakes

Same or similar title text:
Every page on your site should have a unique