Get Amazing Promotion Online

How To Stop Petty Commission Thieves And Increase Your Conversion

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:49:00 +0000

Keyword: affiliate link, conversion rates, clickthrough, cloaking links, personalized recommends links, build trust

Did you know there are people out there that hate knowing that a third party is going to be making money off them when they purchase things through affiliate links.

Often when they buy through an affiliate link they will remove your affiliate id from the links and most times they will even replace it with their own.

How many commissions are you unknowingly missing out on? And what if I told you that there is a way you can stop these petty hijackers in their tracks and increase your click-through and conversion rates?

This technique is currently being used by the top internet marketers and most of them paid 97 dollars to learn it. What am I talking about? Well, I am talking about cloaking your links with personalized “Recommends” links.

When you use cloaked links, your link is hidden and no one can change or remove your affiliate id. What does this mean for you? You will almost instantly notice an increase in your sales and click-through rates.

When you use personalized “Recommends” links you are giving your prospects the feeling that whatever you are promoting is being recommended by a friend.

This helps to build trust between you and your customers.

Now you tell me, isn't that much more appealing than a normal affiliate link with a bunch of random numbers and letters?

It is a known fact that people will more likely purchase a product or join an opportunity if it is recommended by a friend. Start using this technique in your marketing strategy and I guarantee it will have a huge impact on your bottom line.

How to Earn the Trust of Your Subscribers, The Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:48:00 +0000

How easy is it to gain the trust of your customers?

It is a fact that having the trust of your customer is not only having constant people who always believe in what you are offering, but also an assurance of a steady flow of profit being generated that will last for quite some time.

Earning the trust of your customers is as easy as….

Writing your own articles.

There is some kind of special magic when a subscriber reads an article that you publish. And that has been written by you.

If your subscriber reads your articles, they will consider you an expert of whatever it is you are writing about, especially if you provide free up to date information that is quite useful.

They are also more likely to trust someone who puts forth the effort in creating their own materials, rather than use just an older article that has probably been used before by someone that they are completely unaware of.

Providing useful information.

This one is probably one of the more common sense parts, but a very necessary tool for building your subscribers trust. It is just common sense that people want quality information.

For example, if the ezine being subscribed to starts lacking in useful information, people have the tendency to unsubscribe. It may sound cruel but many people do just that.

More often than not, the majority of subscribers are to those that provide useful information and quality resources.

If you provide useful information that people needed, they will build a never ending trust that will earn you much more money from the products you recommend.

Being who you are - yourself.

This is one of the absolute most important parts of gaining your subscribers trust by far.

When you are writing to them, just be yourself. Do not try to be something you are not. Do not pretend to know stuff you do not know.

A very important thing to remember is to give both good and bad review of products. People hate buying bad products and services.

What better way to build your subscribers trust than by telling them to stay away from some products or services that you feel would not be beneficial for them to try or use.

Making personal recommendations and not advertisements.

Many writers overlook this completely. They stuff their ezine with mostly ads that any reader can obviously see right through.

The 100% fool-proof way to send your list something that you want them to read, is by a personal recommendation.

Never use the exact same copy the affiliate program says for you to use. If affiliate programs are showing you their ads to advertise with, they are showing their entire affiliate database.

Besides, most affiliate programs sugar coat their ads, or even worse, completely hype them up to make people "buy now" as they say.

Get to know the product you want to sell, get to know the affiliate program, and write up a personal recommendation about it. Tell them why they would benefit from it, how you personally have benefited from it, etc.

A great way to go about a personal recommendation letter to your list is very, very simple. Simply do this.

Give them what they want.

Sometimes it can be hard to give the readers the "exact" type of information that they want. Not everyone is a mind-reader in the first place.

Try this. Send a separate broadcast out and ask them what they want. Provide them with about 5 or more options, and an extra space for them to choose from.

Simply ask them to take one minute from their busy schedule and email you their number one answer.

Getting your subscribers to trust you should not be any harder than talking with your mother, your best friend or your pets.

The main thing to do is give them useful up-to-date information and treat them with respect.

Being open, honest, and respectful to them will only have good effects. Ask the experts. They will tell you the exact same thing.

In the long run, you will see not only success but customers who will stick with you for a long time. All this with little effort played on your part.

How to Build an Opt-in List as an Affiliate Marketer

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:16:00 +0000

How do you build a highly profitable opt-in list as an affiliate marketer? An opt-in list is the absolute most effective marketing tool available on the Internet.

Not only do they give you with a direct line of communication with your target market, but they also enable you to develop a trusting relationship with your subscribers.

For an affiliate marketer, the key to using an opt-in list effectively is to develop a large subscriber base. Not just a large subscriber base but also a list of targeted potential customers.

Although a large opt-in list is an important part of your success, the quality of your publication is even more important. If you really want to build a considerable opt-in list, you must provide your potential subscribers with an incentive.

You will also need a way to manage your opt-in list. The best way to do this is with the use of an auto responder. This is a very powerful marketing tool after all, The money really is in the list.

The competition on the Internet is fierce. You no longer can simply tell your visitors what your publication will provide and expect a large percentage to subscribe. It simply would not work. You must give your visitors a reason to subscribe.

Incentives.

Using incentives is a highly effective method of obtaining new subscribers. However, your incentive must be of value and be of interest to your target audience.

Some popular incentives are:

1. Exclusive ebooks that provide valuable information.
2. Exclusive and special reports.
3. Special software programs.
4. Provide access to a "members only" area of your website.
5. Provide a service that will be valuable to them.
6. List their website within your Directory or Search Engine.

In order for your visitors to receive your incentive, they must agree to receive your publication.

Pop-ups.

Although pop-ups can be irritating if not used correctly, they provide a highly effective means of obtaining new subscribers. The key to using pop windows effectively is to combine them with your incentives.

Now that you know how to build a large subscriber base, how do you keep them?

Developing a large subscriber base is the easy part, keeping them will be a little more difficult.

The key to keeping your subscribers is to provide quality content that teaches or informs in regard to the subject matter. You must provide your readers with unique content that cannot be found in any other publication.

Providing original content can be a lot of work but it is well worth the effort. Not only will it provide your readers with unique content, but it will also enable you to build your credibility and gain your readers' trust by sharing your expertise.

Although providing some original content is an important part of a great publication, it is perfectly acceptable to run articles written by other authors.

Editor's Note.

Another very important part of a successful publication is an Editor's Note section. This section will enable you to talk to your readers and develop a trusting relationship.

You can also use this section to provide recommendations. There is no better way to develop a relationship with your readers than by including an Editor's Note section.

Advertising.

A great way to increase sales with your publication is to run sponsor ads. Not a list of classified ads like you see in many publications, run five or six sponsor ads depending on the size of your publication, instead.

These sponsor ads can be ads promoting your products, your affiliate or even ad space you sell. Place one ad at the top of your publication, a couple within the article you run and work your way down the publication.

Sponsor ads should be clearly marked and only promote legitimate products and services.

No matter how many new subscribers you may acquire, the key to a successful opt-in list is keeping them. The relationship you build with your subscribers will determine your success.

Above all, you must provide your readers with quality content. They subscribed to your publication for a reason. If it does not meet their expectations, they will simply unsubscribe and find another one that meets their requirements.

Once you have developed a trusting relationship with your subscribers, your personal recommendations will be a highly effective means of closing sales.

It is very important that you only recommend a product or service that you truly believe in. Your professional reputation and the success of your opt-in lists will depend on it.

How To Turn Your Customers Into A Long-Term Goldmine

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:44:00 +0000

Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about marketing? The information below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about marketing.

It is all in the list. This is the simple answer on how to turn your customers into a long-term goldmine.

To most recognized Internet marketers, this is no secret at all. But to those who have not been practicing this powerful marketing campaign, you will be amazed by the capabilities a targeted opt-in list will provide you.

You will discover a whole new realm of profit once you maximize your loyal opt-ins and present your offer properly.

You may be skeptical about asking your potential customers for their email addresses. It is understandable. You do not want my visitors to think you were snooping into their privacy.

Besides, people are becoming increasingly wary about handing over their email addresses to just anyone.

But there is a gold mine of opportunity in those e-mail addresses, and many marketers do not take the time to look for it.

It is a fact. Hardly anyone ever buys anything the first time they visit a web site. In fact, studies have determined that it takes a typical Internet customer about seven visits to a single website before they buy anything. If you are just depending on hits alone then you are in trouble.

The number one reason for collecting and using e-mail addresses is for establishing an electronic, permission-based, relationship with loyal visitors and customers. E-mail is so commonplace and pervasive that its existence and use are many times taken for granted.

According to studies, 69 percent of U.S. e-mail users have made purchases online after receiving permission-based e-mail marketing, 59 percent have purchased in retail stores, 39 percent have purchased through catalogs, 34 percent through call centers and 20 percent through postal mail. 78 percent of those surveyed say they want to receive e-mail from their favorite online merchants.

The information about marketing presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about marketing or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

If you are not actively collecting opt-in e-mail addresses and using them for marketing purposes, you are missing out on important relationship building, credibility enhancing, and advertisement improving possibilities that could translate into a long-term sales.

This is your chance to turn one-time visitors into your loyal customers. If you are not providing a way for customers and visitors to express interest in hearing from you in the future, you have just lost a valuable sale.

Your opt-ins are loyal visitors to your site. They have willingly asked you to send them newsletters, ezines, eCourses, promotions, special offers, and other free information. They want what you have to offer.

The more people you have on your list, the more potential customers you have. It has been reported that up to 10% of subscribers to a newsletter are converted into sales and long time customers.

There are no hard and fast rules about how you should hold or store your email list but it should contain the ability for people to unsubscribe also. Providing this ability shows you operate a respectable list and you are far less likely to be accused of spamming.

Without a doubt, the hands-down best and most compelling opt-in offer is a Free Newsletter. You will not only get a truck-load of opt-ins, but you will also be able to expose them to your company and your offer many times over the course of a few months.

These are the people who are most likely to be open to future offers from you, once you have established a credible relationship with them. It has been reported through rigorous research that up to 50% in sales can be generated from newsletter auto responder follow-ups. It is also been shown that offering free newsletters is the single, best way to increase your opt-in e-mail list.

When done correctly, email marketing can become your most powerful way to generate a long-term goldmine of customers and sales. Your opt-in incentive needs to entice potential subscribers with a benefit that is strong enough to overcome the common objections of not wanting to share their personal contact information.

Once you have their email address, you must design the proper strategy of promoting your product if you want to boost your sales from your opt-in list.

Keep in mind that these devoted subscribers are sitting there waiting for your offer. Do not just keep waiting for them to come to you. Instead, you go find them yourself. And make sure you know how to present it in a way that will entice your ‘new best friend’ for life.

If you've picked some pointers about marketing that you can put into action, then by all means, do so. You won't really be able to gain any benefits from your new knowledge if you don't use it.

It's All About PageRank

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:58:00 +0000

You need to download and install Google Toolbar to understand this articles ( you can find on this blog )

This articles deals largely with theory. However, because of the misunderstanding of Google PageRank (PR), it is important that you understand how PR works under the hood and what role it plays in influencing rankings.

Many people obsess and over-hype the importance PageRank and therefore introduce worry and confusion that is not warranted.

There are PR=8 sites that you cannot find in Google unless you search for them by company name, while there are PR=4 sites that are in the top 2 or 3 search results for relevant keyword phrases.

PageRank vs. Search Result Ranking

People tend to confuse PageRank with their page's ranking for a certain search result for a certain keyword. PR is just one factor that is used to determine your page's actual rank on a search results page for a given search query.

It is not uncommon to see a page with a lower PageRank that is positioned higher on a search results page than a page with a higher PageRank. This shows that PageRank is not the most important factor in Google's ranking algorithm. A properly keyword-optimized page with a lower PageRank can outrank a non-optimized page with a higher PageRank.

This is a common scenario for large corporate sites. The corporate site may have a high PageRank as a result of the large number of other business partner sites that link to it, but they may end up being outranked due to their lack of keyword optimization for their pages.

Toolbar PageRank vs. Actual PageRank

The Google Toolbar allows you to see a crude approximation of PageRank value for any page in its index. Download and install the Google Toolbar ( you can find somewhere in this blog )

Most people don't realize that the PageRank values shown in the Google Toolbar are not the actual PageRank values that Google uses to rank web pages. The Google Toolbar is divided up into 10 equal linear ranges from 0 - 10. These linear divisions correspond to a logarithmic scale that Google uses. The actual scale is estimated to be between log base 5 and log base 10. The public Toolbar PR value is however what people talk and agonize about.

The Toolbar PageRank value only indicates that a page is in a certain range of the overall scale. One PR=5 page could be just above the PR=5 division and another PR=5 page could be just below the PR=6 division, which is a vast gulf.

Although the exact logarithmic base used for PageRank is a secret, the following table should give you an idea of how different Toolbar PR is from actual PR.

Toolbar PR (linear) Actual PR (log base 5) Actual PR (log base 10)
0 0.15 0.15
0 - 1 0.15 - 1 0.15 - 1
1 - 2 1 – 5 1 - 10
2 - 3 5 – 25 10 - 100
3- 4 25 - 125 100 - 1,000
4 - 5 125 – 625 1,000 – 10,000
5 - 6 625 – 3,125 10,000 – 100,000
6 - 7 3,125 – 15,625 100,000 – 1,000,000
7 - 8 15,625 – 78,125 1,000,000 – 10,000,000
8 - 9 78,125 – 390,625 10,000,000 – 100,000,000
9 - 10 390,625 + 100,000,000 +
This means that moving a page from a PR=6 to a PR=7 is much harder than moving from a PR=4 to a PR=5.

Although PageRank is assigned per page, your site is a collection of web pages under a domain that you control and hence your site has a total PR value too.

PR as viewed using the Toolbar can be pretty inaccurate. Sometimes home pages for sites will suddenly show a PR=0 (no green bar) when indeed the page does have a PR value. Appending /index.html to the URL (or whatever the filename is for the home page) in your browser restores the proper value displayed in the Toolbar.

Also, new web pages that the Toolbar displays a PR value for may not have any “r eal” PageRank of their own yet. Rather, the new page is “assigned” a PR value 1 point below an indexed page on the site, but this is an “estimate” PageRank that exists only in the Toolbar.

My suggestion is to simply ignore that little green bar. It never was that accurate to begin with and it's just gotten worse over time. It really doesn't have much bearing on how well you are ranking.

Increasing PageRank

Each page of your web site has a PR value, and as such you can simply add up the individual PR values of each page to arrive at the total PR that your site has (bear in mind however that when someone speaks of PR, it applies to a page). How you structure your internal links can influence what the PR value of a page will be, as will links pointing to a page on your site. Although page PR value is important, you should really be trying to increase your total site PR value.

The actual PR value of each page indexed by Google is in constant flux. On the Web new pages are added, old pages are removed, more links are created – all of which over time slowly degrade the “value” of your links.

As the number of web pages in the Google index increases, so does the total PageRank value of the entire Web, and so does the high end of the overall scale used. This is kind of like the top student setting the “curve” for an exam. The top-ranking site (or handful of sites in actuality) gets the maximum, perfect PageRank score of 10 in the Google Toolbar) and everyone else is scaled down accordingly. As a result, some web pages may drop in PageRank value for no apparent reason. If a page's actual PR value was just above a division on the scale, the addition of new pages to the Web may cause the dividing line to move up the scale slightly and the page would end up just below the new division.

As such, you should always strive to obtain more links that point to your site, otherwise your site can naturally start slipping in rankings due to this “raising of the bar” of PageRank across the Web.

Decreasing PageRank

The amount of PageRank value a link forward on to your site is diluted by the presence of other links on the same page. This is where link strength comes into play.

The greater the number of other links on a page, the weaker the strength of each individual link. The strength of that “vote” is divided equally among all other links on the page.

Which means, all other things being equal, if someone has a link to your site on their page with 100 other links, you may not get any appreciable value from that link in the overall calculation, unless the page has a very high PageRank.

The PageRank Equation

Here is the official PageRank equation. It is calculated by solving an equation that includes each of the billions of web pages in the Google index:

PR(your page)=

0.15 + 0.85 [(PR( page A) / total links (page A) ) + (PR ( page B) / total links( page B))+…]

A couple of observations to note about the PR equation:

PR is based on individual web pages – not on a website as a whole.
The PR of each page that links to your site in turn is dependent on the PR of the pages that link to it, and so on iteratively.
A link's va lue (amount of PageRank or “voting power” forwarded to the linked-to page) is at most only 85% of the linking page's PageRank value, and this value is diluted (decreased) by the number of other links on that page.
PR has nothing to do with keywords or text in links - it is purely dependent on link quantity and link strength, as discussed previously.

Some may incorrectly conclude that a link from a page with a PR=4 and with only a few outgoing links is worth a more than a link from a page with a PR=6 with 100 outgoing links because for the latter, the “voting power” or value is divided up among 99 other links.

However, you must remember the logarithmic nature of actual PageRank. A link from a PR=6 page with lots of outbound links may indeed be worth more than a link from a PR=4 page that has only a few outbound links.

The Evolution of PageRank

Pagerank used to be a simple weighting factor for all links regardless of the topic of the page that contained the link. This led to a small industry that focused around buying and selling high-PageRank links. However, when anyone can achieve high rankings by simply buying enough links from any website, or trading links with any unrelated website, Pagerank loses its value as a factor in ranking websites accurately.

As such, Google has done some tweaking of how it analyzes the value of links. Links are now scored differently and some links may not count as much as they used to.

PageRank as the defining metric for links is becoming less important and the other variations listed below are becoming more important.

Topic-Sensitive PageRank

Topic-sensitive PageRank computes link value based only on incoming links from pages that are returned from a given search result set that matches the search query (whether the result set is 100 or 10,000 pages is not known).

This means that a flower site only gets links counted from other sites that are related to flowers and gardening - not from sites that are about mortgage loans for example.

By using Topic-sensitive PageRank, Google hopes to filter out irrelevant links that have skewed the value of PageRank in the past.

LocalRank

A variation of PageRank whereby links from sites that share the same Class C blocks are worth less than links from a variety of different IP addresses, which are generally different servers owned by different businesses.

As you may recall, a Class C block is that number shown in the third position of an IP address. For example, for 255.137.xxx.255, xxx represents the Class C block.

This attempts to deal with the problem of different sites owned by the same company that cross-link to each other. Put another way, Google wants to see incoming links that are from different business entities, not different sites owned by the same person.

TrustRank and the Sandbox

A variation of PageRank whereby links from site that are “trusted” by Google carry more weight than other links. This also related to the Google Sandbox. As you recall, the Google Sandbox is a series of filters applied to new sites that cause them not to rank well or rank at all for anything but very niche, unique keyword phrases, such as their company name.

TrustRank says that new websites either have to reach a certain age (say 6 - 18 months) OR obtain relevant, quality links from authoritative "highly-trusted" sites to escape the Sandbox. However, links from highly-trusted sites can be very difficult for new sites to get. For this reason, most new sites must be of sufficient age AND the links that point to new sites need also to be of sufficient age and at least “moderately trusted" before a new site can rank well.

The TrustRank threshold that new sites need to overcome to escape the Sandbox varies by keyword and industry. Gambling and pill sites have a much harder time breaking free from the Sandbox filters than say baby blanket sites.

a Dynamite Link Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:55:00 +0000

The more strategically chosen links you have to your site, the better! Increase your traffic and improve your search engine ranking by orchestrating links from related Web pages. In this articles, you will learn:

Developing a link strategy
How to arrange links from one word, picture, or information
Getting noticed, providing an icon and tag line
Link positioning
Tools to check your competitors' links
Using links to enhance your image
Web rings and meta-indexes
Getting links to your site
Reciprocal link pages
Associate programs
How links can enhance your search engine placements.

Links Have an Impact

Developing your link strategy is one of the most crucial elements of Internet marketing. It is a time-consuming task, but it is time well spent.

Links are important for several reasons.

Strategically placed, they can be a real traffic builder.
A number of the frequently used search engines use link popularity and link relevancy as part of their ranking criteria. The more links to your site, the more popular it is, so the number of links you have to your site can significantly impact your placement with those search engines.
The more links you have to your site, the more opportunities search engine spiders have to find you.

Links Have Staying Power

When you post a message to a newsgroup where you promote your Web site through your brilliant contributions and your signature file, you receive increased traffic while the message is current and is being read by participants in the newsgroup. As time passes, your message appears farther and farther down the list until it disappears, and then your traffic level returns to normal. The same goes for a promotional effort in a mail list. You can expect increased traffic for a short while after your mail list posting, but as soon as everyone has read your posting and visited your site, traffic levels return to normal.

This is not the same for links. Traffic from links does not go away as easily as other forms of Internet marketing. Links generally stay active for a long time. When a link to your site is placed on another Web site, you hope people see it and are enticed to click through to visit your site.

As long as the site that hosts your link has new traffic, you continue to receive traffic through it. The beauty of links is that in three months, that link will still be there and people will still be clicking through!

Links are very important because if you have links placed on a high-traffic Web site, they can turn into traffic builders for your own site. They also are important because they can have a major impact on your ranking in search engines, because some of the busiest ones use link popularity in their ranking criteria. Some of these search engines include: Google, Yahoo search, AltaVista, HotBot, MSN, Inktomi.

Once your link strategy is implemented and you begin to see an increase in the number of sites linking to your Web site, you will see your ranking in the previously mentioned search engines improve.

A Quick Talk about Outbound Links

The more links to your site, the better chance that someone will be enticed to visit. However, a quid quo pro usually applies, and this means providing reciprocal links, giving people the opportunity to leave your site with the click of a button. To minimize this “flight effect,” make sure you place outbound links two or three layers down in your site.

Never place outbound links on your home page. You want your visitors to come into your site and see and do everything you want them to before they have the opportunity to go elsewhere.

There are two ways you can provide outbound links. The first is by providing a hypertext link, which transports the visitor from your site to some one else's with a single click. The second and preferred method is to have each outbound link open a new browser window when clicked.

This way your visitors get to see the referred Web site, but when they are finished and close that window, the original browser window with your Web site is still active. The browser window with your site should still be visible on the task bar during their visit to the referred site.

Regularly test all of the links from your site to ensure that they are “l ive” and are going to the intended locations. Dead links reflect poorly on your site even if they are out of your control. There are tools available on-line to help you determine whether you have dead links. These tools include NetMechanic and Dr. Watson.

Strategies for Finding Appropriate Link Sites

Ideally, you should be linked from every high-traffic site that is of interest to your target market. Develop a strategy to find all of these sites and arrange links.

Start with the popular search engines. Most people use search engines and directories to find subjects of interest on the Internet. Most of the people searching never go beyond the first 20 to 30 results that the search engine returns. Thus, these top 20 to 30 sites get a lot of traffic.

Search relevant keywords in all the popular search engines and directories, and investigate these top sites for link possibilities. Some of these sites will be competitors and might not want to reciprocate links. The best opportunity for links is with noncompeting sites that have the same target market. I suggest you take your most important keywords, do a keyword search in the 20 most popular search engines and directories, and review the top 30 sites in each for potential link sites.

Another strategy to find useful link sites is to see where the leaders in your industry and your competitors are linked. I use the term “competitors” very loosely. It would include your direct competitors, your industry leaders, companies selling noncompeting products to your target market, companies selling similar types of products or services to your target market, and companies that compete with you for search engine ranking. See what your competition is doing. Determine where they are linked from, and decide whether these are sites that you should also be linked from. Learn what they are doing well, and also learn from their mistakes. You should be linked everywhere your competition is appropriately linked, and then some.

Explore These URLs

There are many tools on the Internet to help you identify a Web site's links. These tools can be used to see which sites are linking to your Web site. But they can also be used to see what sites are linking to your competition. This is a great way to research where your site could be linked from but isn't, yet! Let me walk you through a step-by-step process to increase the number of links to your Web site.

When determining which sites you should be linked from, you first have to develop a lengthy list of competitors. A competitor can be any business or site that offers the same products or services as you do or anyone targeting the same demographic group. Because the Internet creates a level playing field for all businesses, you are also competing against large and small companies from around the globe. Someone using a search engine to find information on services that your company can provide might see results from companies from all across the world in the top ten results.

Once you have developed your extensive list of competitors and have gathered their URLs, you must then find out what sites they are linked from. Tools have been developed to assist you in finding who is linking to your site. In most cases you enter your URL, and then these tools provide a list of sites linking to it. However, by entering the URL for a competitor's site you can just as easily determine which sites are linking to your competition and industry leaders.

The more organized you are for this exercise, the better. I suggest that you:

Gather an extensive list of competitors and their URLs.
Choose the tool(s) from the next section that you are going to use for this exercise.
Enter the first competitor URL to find the sites linking to it.
Copy and paste the results into a Word, Notepad, or other file that you can access later.
Enter the next competitor URL to find the sites linking to it.
Copy and paste the results into the same Word, Notepad, or other file, adding to your list of potential link sites.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have found all the sites linking to your competition. When this is done, you have your potential link sites list.
Now develop a link request (see the next section for details) and keep it open on your desktop so that you can copy and paste it into an e-mail when you find a site you'd like to have a link from.
Next, visit every one of the potential link sites to determine whether the site is appropriate for you to be linked from. If so, send your link request. If the site is not appropriate for whatever reason, delete it from your list. Also delete duplicates. When you get to the bottom of your list, it has changed from a potential links list to a request links list.
Follow through and follow up. Follow through and provide an appropriate link to those who agree to a reciprocal link. Follow up to make sure that they provide the link to your site as promised, that the link works, and that it is pointing to the correct page on your site.
Submit the Internet address of the page that has provided the link to the popular search engines so that they know it's there.

This will help boost your link popularity scores.

Tools to Identify Your Competitors' Links

The following tools can be used to obtain a list of locations on the Internet that are linked to your competitors' Web sites: AltaVista. To find out where your competitors are linked using AltaVista, simply enter the competitor's URL in the search area like this: link:

yourcompetitorsdomain.com. This returns all pages in AltaVista with a link to your competitor's Web site.

Excite and Other Search Engines

Just enter your competitors' URLs and see what comes up. (Be sure to include http://.) If anything, the search query will include all indexed Web sites that contain the URL searched.

Google
Enter your competitor's URL in the search box like this: link:
yourcompetitorsURL. The results will contain all Web sites linking to your competitor's Web site.

HotBot
Enter your competitor's URL in the search box and change the default from “all the words” to “links to this URL.” When you type in the URL, remember to include http://. The results will contain all Web sites linking to your competitor's Web site.

Link Popularity
Simply type in your competitor's URL and it will give you a list of all the sites linking to that particular site.

Link Popularity Check
Use this tool to compare your Web site to up to three other competitors' sites using their link popularity check. In addition to a comparison graph of the number of links each site has, it also gives details on where those links are coming from.

WebCrawler
Enter your competitor's URL into the search query box to find out how many links are provided to that page. WebCrawler provides the names of all the referring sites.

Making Your Link the Place to Click

There are links and then there are links. Usually links are your company name hyperlinked to your home page, and your company's site link is listed with a number of other companies' links. Sometimes, if you are lucky, there is a brief description attached to the link.

You should take a proactive approach with linking arrangements.

Explore every opportunity to have your link placed prominently and, if possible, to have it differentiated from the other links on the page. Once you have an agreement with a site willing to provide a link, you should ask if you could send them an icon and the HTML

HTML, include a tag line or call to action that entices people to click on the link. With the icon or logo, the tag line, and your company's name, your link will stand out. Again, remember to include appropriate keywords to add to your link relevancy score to improve your search engine ranking.

If another Web site is generous enough to provide a link to your site, your image should be only a thumbnail, for you don't want to take up too much space. This image could be your corporate logo or a graphic from a current promotion for one of your products or services. By having this image and tag line strategically placed on a Web site, the chances that a viewer will click through to visit your Web site are much higher.

Here is an example of what it should look like:

Catchy tag line here.

To Add or Not to Add with Free-for-All Links

There are thousands of free-for-all links on the Net. These sites allow you to add your URL to a long list of links, but they provide little traffic unless you make your link stand out from the rest. One advantage you can get from these sites is in search engine ranking. As mentioned previously, some search engines use the number of links to your site in their ranking criteria.

Add Value with Affiliate Programs

Another way of benefiting from links to your Web site is by developing an affiliate program. Affiliate programs (also called reseller or partnership or associate programs) are revenue-sharing arrangements set up by companies selling products and services. When another site agrees to participate in your affiliate program, it is rewarded for sending customers to your business. These customers are sent to your site through links on your associates' or affiliates' Web sites. By developing and offering this type of program, you generate increased business and increased links to your site and increased link popularity for search engines.

Maintaining a Marketing Log

Record all new links to your site in your Internet marketing log. It is important to maintain this log and review it regularly. You must periodically check to make certain that links to your site are operational and are going to the appropriate location. Along with the URL where your site is linked from, you should also keep track of all contact information gathered when communicating with the Webmaster.

A Word of Caution with Link Trading

You must be aware when trading links that all links are not created equal.

If you provide a prominent link to another site, make sure you receive a link of equal or greater prominence.
Be aware, when trading your links with sites that receive substantially less traffic than you do, that you will probably have more people “link out” than “link in” from this trade. Consider trading a banner ad and a link from their site for a link from your site, thus making it more of an equal trade. If their site has more traffic than yours, don't mention it unless they do.
Never put your outbound links directly on your home page. Have your outbound links located several levels down so that visitors to your site will likely have visited all the pages you want them to visit before they link out.
When incorporating outbound links, make sure that when the link is clicked, the Web page is opened in a new browser window so that the visitor can easily return to your Web page.
Sometimes when people update their site, they change the Internet address or delete a page altogether. If you have placed a link on your page to that page, and one of your viewers tries to link out to that page and receives an HTTP 404 error, this reflects badly on your site. You should frequently check your Web site for dead links.
When you change content on a page within your site, don't create totally new pages; just update the content on your current pages and keep the same file names. There might be links to your pages and if you delete them, anyone trying to click on a link to your site from another site will get an HTTP 404 error.

This results in a dead link on the referring page as well as in any search engine listings you might have.

References

Link Exchange Site

Traffix Exchange.com - Improve Link Popularity !

Link2Expire.com

Affiliate Link Page

Establish Private Mailing List

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Generating your own mailing lists is highly recommended because a targeted opt-in list has many marketing uses. The list can be used to maintain dialogue with customers and potential customers regarding updates, support, specials, and so on. It can also be used to distribute corporate newsletters, price lists, new catalogues, product updates, new product announcements, and upcoming events. In this you will learn:

Why have your own mailing list?
The issue of privacy
Managing your mail list
Building your mail list
Promoting your mail list
Tips to stay under the spam radars
Recent legislation.

Why ?

There are numerous reasons to own and use your own mail list. Running a private mailing list can be beneficial in many ways, including:

Permission-based marketing
Establishing yourself or your business as an expert in your field
Networking
Conserving contacts
Building repeat traffic to your Web site
Branding
Promotion of your business's products and services
Potential source of revenue.

Permission-Based Marketing

Permission and privacy are critical to the success of any e-mail marketing campaign. Unsolicited e-mail (known as spam) runs the risk of damaging your company's reputation, not to mention the very real possibilities of flames, public blacklisting, hack attacks, or having your Internet services revoked. Because of this, online marketers are using many techniques to get their customers, potential customers, and Web site visitors to give them “permission” to send e-mail on a regular basis.

Permission e-mail marketing generally yields response rates ten times that of banner advertising.

So how do you get this coveted permission? There are many opportunities on your Web site to ask for permission. The more repeat-traffic generators on your site, the more opportunities you can provide for visitors to give you the permission. You should leverage repeat-traffic generators with permission marketing that “sells the sizzle” and accelerate responses with a call to action. Here are some typical examples:

“We change our coupons every week! Click here to join our mail list to be notified as soon as we update.”
“ Click here to join our mail list and receive our biweekly Internet marketing tips, tools, techniques, and resources newsletter.”
“We have new specials on a regular basis. Click here to be notified by e-mail when we post our new specials.”
“We have a new contest every three weeks. Keep checking back or Click here if you'd like to be notified by e-mail every time we begin a new contest.”
“We constantly update our Calendar of Events. Keep checking back or Click here if you'd like to be notified by e-mail every time we update.”
“Join our e-club to receive our member-only specials, our great newsletter and advance notice of upcoming events!”

Permission marketing enjoys its success because it is personal, relevant, and anticipated. Your messages should be personalized, enhancing the one-to-one relationship marketing element.

It is very important to assure your visitors that you will not pass on their e-mail address to others or use it for anything but the purpose intended.

The Benefits

Establish Yourself as an Expert. Offering your advice to members of your list, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Networking. Use your mailing list to create these sorts of relationships. It could be that you find new business partners, establish new clients, or start another business venture.
Conserving Contacts.Stay in constant contact with these individuals. This helps you to maintain these relationships in the long term, and ultimately results in more business and a stronger reputation for your business.
Branding. Mailing lists are an effective way to brand your business's products and services on-line. If you send messages to your subscribers on a regular basis, they will be exposed again and again to your corporate ID and products and services.
Promotion of Your Business's Products and Service. It is important to remember that people are subscribing to your mail list to receive valuable information that helps them in some way, always include a call to action that encourages a subscriber to click through to your Web site and learn more about your products and services. This is a great way to generate exposure for your products and services.
Potential Source of Revenue. Needless to say, a mailing list becomes an excellent revenue source as its credibility and membership numbers expand. In the end, the time and effort you exert nurturing your list to prominence can pay for itself and more.
Administer your own private mailing list and earn advertising revenue for yourself.
The Issue of Privacy. You can boost your mailing list's sign-up rate by guaranteeing that subscribers' e-mail addresses are kept confidential and not sold to anyone else. To do this, you should place a link to your business's privacy policy in a prominent location on your Web site, especially on your mail list sign-up page. You should never add someone's name to your mailing list without his or her permission.

Where ?

There are only two ways to do more business on-line:

Have more people to receive your offer.
Improve your conversion rate of Web site visitors to Web site customers.

There are only a few ways to have more people to get your offer:

Increase the number of visitors to your Web site.
Increase the number of people whom you reach with your online marketing in newsgroups, public mail lists, affiliate marketing or any of the 101 ways in this book.
Increase the number of people in your mail list who have given you permission to send them e-mail on an ongoing basis.

Ideally, where we'd like to be in terms of mail list marketing is:

Have the right mail list technology.
Grow your mail list through permission-based marketing as big as you can as fast as you can.
Provide consistently valuable content to your list on an ongoing basis.
Learn as much as you can about everyone in your list, building a profile on each person, so that you can send more targeted communication.

The Right Mail List Technology

There are several ways that you can manage your mail list:

Use your e-mail program (not recommended)
Use mail list software
Outsource your mail list management.

Using Your E-mail Program

Although managing your mail list through your e-mail program might look like a great option in that it doesn't cost you anything and is run from your desktop, giving you ultimate control, there are limitations.

Your e-mail program doesn't generally provide the technology to quickly and easily personalize your communication - that is, insert the recipient's first name in designated areas within the e-mail. It would be nice to be able to track such things as how many people opened your e-mail, how many sent a copy to a friend, how many clicked through and visited your Web site. The tracking technology is generally available only through mail list software or from the third party that manages your mail list marketing if you choose to outsource this activity.

The time really has come when you need to invest in mail list software or outsource if you want to take this element of online marketing seriously.

Using Mail List Software

There are numerous mail list management software programs available to help you organize your list distribution. This software enables you to easily add or remove subscribers. Mail list management software enables you to draft and send properly formatted messages directly from within the software. Mail list software generally allows you to personalize your e-mails quickly and easily. Most of these programs can be integrated with your Web site so that people can add themselves to your list right from the site. You can also use this software to set up notification mechanisms to reply to subscribers confirming that they have been added to the list. This makes running your mail list less time-consuming, as the software does most of the work for you.

The cost to purchase software can range from an entry-level program at $99 to a robust, full-featured program at $2,500. The ASP model could cost you from $30 a month to several thousand if you use an application that charges you per e-mail sent and you have a very large database.

Some of these programs run from your desktop; others have to be run from your server or through your Internet service provider. Most of these programs are sophisticated enough to allow you to segment the e-mail addresses in your database so you know who has asked to receive what from your Web site.

Most of these programs today have the personalization capability to allow you to insert a recipient's first name throughout the correspondence and in the subject line of the message as well. Keep this in mind when asking people if they'd like to give you permission to send them e-mail for whatever reason - in addition to their e-mail address, have a mandatory field for their first name.

From an administrative perspective, many of these programs do a great job of adding new “Subscribes,” deleting “Unsubscribes,” and managing undeliverable addresses. This feature alone is worth its weight in gold.

Features to look for in mail list software include:

Personalization capability - You want to be able to personalize each e-mail by inserting the recipient's first name in the subject line, salutation and throughout the body of your message.
HTML capability - You want to be able to send HTML e-mail (e-mail that looks like a Web page rather than text), which gets much higher readership than text e-mail.
Message editor - You want to be able to bring up a past e-mail, edit it and re-send to a group.
Previews - You want to be able to preview your message before you send it to make sure the formatting is correct, the personalization is working and that the message looks great before you send it.
Spam checker - The spam checker is a valuable tool to ensure your message has the best chance of being received and not being rejected as spam.
Multi-threaded sending - This feature is important for large lists. It divides a list and sends multiple messages at one time through different streams.
Filtering - This feature allows you to send specific messages to parts of your list such as, individuals in a specific state by filtering on the name of the state, only to those interested in golf.
Scheduling - Great if you want to set up all of your “Tips of the Week” in advance or if you are going to be traveling when you want you newsletter to be sent out.
Autoresponders - Some mail list software applications have autoresponders built in.
Web site integration - You want your mail list software to work with your Web site so when someone subscribes from your site their contact information is automatically included in your mail list software. This really cuts down on the administration you have to deal with.
Reporting and tracking - Some mail list software provides reports on messages sent (audience selected, date sent, clicks, total sent, number of bounces), subscriber activity (subscribes, unsubscribes, e-mails opened), link tracking, and bounce activity (number of undeliverables, hard bounces, soft bounces).

Outsourcing

A third option is to outsource your mail list management to a third party. There are companies that specialize in this service with great depth of experience. One such company that we have had the pleasure to work with is W3 Data - a division of WhitePages.com.

When you outsource this activity, of course you have a monthly service fee. The software is run from the outsource company's server or their ISP's server.

Virtually all of the mail list service providers have the latest software, allowing you to personalize your messages, segment your lists, and get great tracking reports. Generally, administrative issues like adding the “Subscribes,” deleting “Unsubscribes,” and managing the undeliverables are handled by the outsource company.

On the down side, you might lose some control - over content, over your customer, and over timing of your message release. It is imperative to have a clearly laid-out contract with the outsource company, addressing:

Ownership of e-mail addresses
Use of e-mail addresses
Timing of correspondence
Final approval of content
Responsibility and timelines for replies to subscribers.

It is important that you retain ownership of all e-mail addresses and that the contract clearly states that all subscribers' names and e-mail addresses are the property of your company. Also include in the contract that you are provided the current list in digital format every month.

Make sure that your contract clearly states that your e-mail addresses are not to be used by anyone else or provided to anyone else for any purpose whatsoever. People on your list have given you their e-mail addresses in confidence. They trust that you will not abuse the relationship. Make sure it is in your power to live up to that expectation.

Make sure that you have final control over the timing of your communication. It is important that your messages be delivered when you want them delivered. Timing is everything.

Make sure that your contract has a clause that permits you to approve the final content going out to your list. You want to see and approve everything. You want to make sure the formatting is the way you want it; you want to be sure the personalization is working as it should; and you want to make sure there is no problem with graphics or word wrap.

You want to have a clear understanding with the outsource company regarding replies from messages going out to your list. Often the “From” field, although it looks like it is coming from you, is actually an address that resides with the outsource company. Discuss and agree on what happens when a recipient replies to your communication. Where does it go? When does it go? To receive a batch of replies three weeks after your communication went out is not acceptable.

There are certain benefits to outsourcing this activity to a third party that specializes in mail list marketing. This is their core responsibility.

Often the outsource company has been involved in many campaigns - gaining expertise in what works and what doesn't. Often they can help you tweak your content or format to help achieve your objectives. Also, outsourcing this activity to a competent third party frees up your time and allows you to focus on other priorities.

Build Your Database

Once you are committed to private mail list marketing, you want to focus on building your database of e-mail addresses. The more people you can reach in your target market with your message, the better. There are many ways to grow your list:

Import from your existing database. You should send a one-time message asking them if they'd like to be on your list or join your e-club. The best way to handle this is with an opt-out message.
Use permission marketing techniques to ask if site visitors would like to be included in your list to receive your newsletter, your e-specials, your coupons, or anything else you want to use to entice them to join your list.
Collect names and e-mail addresses at your point of contact - registration desk at a hotel, checkout counter in a retail environment, member renewal or registration forms for membership associations or organizations.
Have employee contests and reward the employee who collects the most sign-ups for your e-club.
Have posters in your bricks-and-mortar location promoting your e-club and letting people know how to join. Think about providing an incentive: Join our e-club and get a 10 percent off coupon for your next purchase or a free gift.
Promote your e-club in all your direct mail pieces and ads.
Use direct e-mail rental lists to ask for sign-ups.
Use brokers to run campaigns on complementary sites to get targeted sign-ups.
Promote your e-club in your signature file.
Encourage viral marketing via existing list members: “Send a copy to a friend” works for a number of repeat-traffic generators such as coupons, newsletters, e-specials, contest information, special offers, and promotions.
If you use tele-sales, add an element that promotes your mail list and asks if the person would like to join.

Promote Your Private Mail List

Promote your private mail list wherever you can reach your target market: on your site, on-line through various online marketing techniques, and off-line. You will:

Encourage your Web site visitors to join your list by making sure you have “Join our mail list—click here” calls to action throughout your site.
Include a viral marketing element as previously described to encourage your subscribers to recommend your mail list to others.
Publicize your mailing list in postings to other mailing lists and newsgroups if it is appropriate.
Invite your friends, colleagues, current clients, and potential clients to join your list.
Remember to mention your mailing list in your e-mail signature file. This is an easy way to promote the list.
If you are looking for a large distribution list, you might even register your mailing list with Topica.

Communicate with Your Mail List

To be successful with private mail list marketing, you have to have a great targeted list and you have to know how to communicate effectively with your subscribers. How often should they receive your messages? When do you start to become an irritant? What time and day are your recipients going to be most receptive? How should your communication be formatted? Should it be text or HTML? These all are important questions to be answered if you want to improve the response.

How often should you communicate? It depends on what you're sending and what they asked to receive. Newsletters should generally be sent out every couple of weeks. Special promotions, coupons, and e-specials generally will be sent out weekly at a consistent time. What's- new updates would generally be sent monthly unless you've got something “hot.” Tips of the day should be sent…daily. Tips of the week should be sent…weekly.

When should your communication be delivered? There have been many studies on this topic, and consensus has it:

Never send your message late in the day or first thing in the morning.
Not after 2 p.m. on Friday or afternoon on Friday in the summer months.
Lunch hour is best for business-to-business messages. Generally, people clean out their e-mail first thing in the morning and again before they go to lunch.

When it comes to the formatting of your correspondence, if you communicate in a newsletter, coupons, e-specials, or this type of marketing content, an HTML message has a better chance of grabbing the viewer's attention. If your message is meant to look like a personal one-on-one message, then text-based is better.

Your content should always be valuable, fresh, relevant, and succinct. One bad message could result in many “Unsubscribes.”

Each paragraph should be written so it can be easily scanned, containing no more than six or seven lines. Include calls to action. Always encourage viral marketing, “Send a copy to a friend”, and provide instructions for the friend to subscribe to be included in your list.

Use a personal name in the “From” field. You want to build a relationship!

Take time with your subject field:

Avoid ad copy
Avoid gimmicky slogans
Build business credibility
Use action words
Be positive
Personalize.

Stay Under the Spam Radar

These days anywhere between 5 and 20 percent of legitimate, permission-based e-mail is filtered out by the spam detectors and never reaches the intended recipients. Always run your marketing messages through a spam checker before sending out. The spam checkers will give you a spam rating score and tell you how you received that score. Today if your score is 5.0 or higher it will be deemed to be spam by most of the spam filters. If your message scores too high you should edit your message to eliminate or change the items that gave you the score. Then you should run your new message through the spam checker to make sure you have an acceptable score before sending your message out.

Many ASP mail list software programs have an integrated spam checker. If yours does not there are a number of free spam checkers online and others that charge a fee. Some of the e-mail elements that add points to your spam rating include:

Using software and listservers that are commonly used by spammers. The header identifies the software that you are using.
Spam words in the subject line. Things such as:

FREE in CAPS
GUARANTEED
Subject talks about saving
Starts with Hello
$

Hyperlinks - Using links without the http:// prefix or using IP numbers instead of domain names.
Color discrimination
Color tags not formatted correctly
Using colors not in the 217 Web-safe colors
Hidden letters (same color as background)
Background other than white
HTML issues
HTML message has more than 50 percent HTML tags
JavaScript within the message
HTML forms within your e-mail
HTML comments that obfuscate text
Using excess capital letters.
Using large fonts and characters. Fonts larger than +2 or 3 can cause you to have points added to your score. Use H1, H2, H3 instead.
Using spam words or phrases in the body of your message adds points to your score. There are way too many of these to list. Your spam checker lets you know what words are adding points. The following are the type of words and phrases that they are looking for:

Great offer
Risk free
You have been selected
Guarantee
Call now
Amazing
Act now
Millions
Order now

Carefully word your Unsubscribe. Claims that you can be removed, claims that you listen to removal lists and list removal information all add points to your score. Use text like “Use this link to unsubscribe.”
If your communication is a newsletter, say so. The spam rating also allows points to be deducted from your score for certain elements. When the subject contains a newsletter header, or contains a newsletter frequency, month name or date, you might be spared some unwanted points.
Use a signature file. This is another element that can cause points to be deducted from your score. Spammers never include their signature file.
Don't mention spam compliance, only spammers do this.
Keep your message size over 20k. Spammers' messages are very small in file size because they often send millions in a mailing.

Remove any addresses that have bounced back to you as undeliverable if your software doesn't automatically do this for you. Remove and “spam flag” addresses in your database, those that begin with spam@, abuse@, postmaster@, or nospam@.

Set up test accounts at MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and some of the popular ISPs. Always monitor the Blacklists to make sure you are not included.

Recent Legislation

It is essential to make sure you are in compliance with legislation regarding anti-spam (in the U.S.), privacy (in Canada) and other rules and regulations related to commercial e-mail throughout the world.

The U.S. legislation, which took effect January 1, 2004, is called the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM). This legislation provides regulations for commercial e-mail. The full details can be found at spamlaws.com ( http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html ) .

The main rules for CAN-SPAM include:

You must provide accurate header information. The sender has to identify him/her/itself accurately.
You must provide an accurate Subject line for commercial e-mails.
You must provide a functioning return e-mail address that is clearly and conspicuously displayed and permits a recipient to decline future commercial e-mails (opt-out) from that sender.
Commercial e-mail must include the (snail mail) postal address of the sender.
Commercial e-mail must include clear and concise identification that the content of the e-mail is an advertisement or solicitation.
If a person opts out of your mailings you must remove that individual from your database within 10 days and you are not allowed to transfer, sell, or give that individual's contact information to anyone else after they have asked to be removed.

The Canadian legislation is the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, commonly referred to as PIPEDA. The Canadian legislation establishes rules to govern the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. It recognizes the “right of privacy” of individuals with respect to their personal information. Full details on the Canadian legislation can be found at privcom.gc.ca ( http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e.asp ) .

The main rules for PIPEDA include:

Accountability. An organization is responsible for personal information under its control and shall designate an individual or individuals who are accountable for the organization's compliance with the following principles.
Identifying purposes. The purposes for which personal infor-mation is collected shall be identified by the organization at or before the time the information is collected.
Consent. The knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information, except where inappropriate.
Limiting collection. The collection of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified by the organization. Information shall be collected by fair and lawful means.
Limiting use, disclosure and retention. Personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law. Personal information shall be retained only as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes.
Accuracy. Personal information shall be as accurate, complete and up-to-date as is necessary for the purpose for which it is used.
Safeguards. Personal information shall be protected by security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.
Openness. An organization shall make readily available to individuals specific information about its policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.
Individual access. Upon request, an individual shall be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information, and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.
Challenging compliance. An individual shall be able to address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the designate individual or individuals accountable for the organization's compliance.

Measure

You want to track such things as delivery rate, how many undeliverables, how many unsubscribes, click-through rates, gross response, and net response. You want to compare response rates within different timings, different types of creativity, different formats, different segments of your list, and different target markets. Once you analyze what is working and what is not, you'll be in a better position to improve your conversion ratios.

Where to Go from Here

Private mailing lists are prime marketing vehicles if you manage them correctly and actively promote them. You can reach out to your target market with a mailing list.

References

Professional Cart Solutions ( http://www.profcs.com/ ) - This is the mail list software I use for my newsletter. It is a combination shopping cart and mail list software solution. Great in terms of functionality, easy to use and fantastic support. The program has built in autoresponders, integrates easily with your Web site, automatically handles the administrative issues of subscribes and unsubscribes, provides great reports, and allows you to build the profile of everyone in your database.
nTarget ( http://www.ntarget.com/ ) - nTarget's permission e-mail marketing software allows you to manage your own marketing program with only a Web browser. nTarget's permission e-mail marketing software is so intuitive and easy to use that even beginners can create an account, enter contacts, and distribute an e-mail promotion within minutes.
Topica Email Publisher - Topica's Marketing Automation Software allows you to build and manage your customer database, create and send targeted e-mail campaigns, and track and optimize your campaign results.
Lyris - Lyris is a powerful e-mail list server that automatically delivers newsletters, announcements, and discussion lists.
SparkList - Sparklist is an outsourcing service for e-mail announcement and discussion lists. With Sparklist, you don't need special equipment or an IT staff, all you need is a Web browser connected to the Internet, and you're ready to mail!
EmailFactory - EmailFactory helps you build superior customer relationships with sharp, targeted permission e-marketing tools. A start-to-finish e-mail marketing solution, EmailFactory offers you every tool you'll need to achieve your unique marketing.
Majordomo ( http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/ ) - Majordomo is a program that automates the management of Internet mailing lists. Commands are sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to handle all aspects of list maintenance. Once a list is set up, virtually all operations can be performed remotely, requiring no intervention by the postmaster of the list site.
GotMarketing Campaigner - E-mail marketing with Campaigner is fast, easy and affordable. Campaigner has plenty of self-serve tools to help you get started. Tutorials, live-chat assistance, online help and audio best practices are integrated right into the product! Create and send campaigns whenever you want, 24/7.
Constant Contact ( http://www.roving.com/ ) - Constant Contact, Do-It-Yourself E-mail Marketing helps small and mid-size businesses and associations develop an ongoing relationship with their customers and site visitors. Constant Contact makes it easy and affordable to build and manage permission e-mail lists, create and send eye-catching HTML e-mail newsletters, announcements and promotions, and track results.
MailWorkZ - MailWorkZ—experts in the business of e-marketing software and services. With products like Broadc@st's E-mail Marketing Software and services like ezListZ and the newest addition, ezTrackZ, thousands of MailWorkZ customers have everything they need to increase market share, revenue, and profits as well as improve their customer relationships.
EmailUnlimited ( http://www.4officeautomation.com/EmailUnlimited/index.asp ) - EmailUnlimited makes it extremely easy to send professional-looking e-mail messages to large lists of recipients. Just select your address list, type in your message or select an existing text or HTML file, click on the Send button and your customers can soon be informed about your newest products and offerings.
Microsoft bCentral ListBuilder ( http://www.bcentral.com/products/lb/default.asp?LID=32559 ) - List Builder is the e-mail marketing software of choice. Use it to quickly and easily create professional-looking e-mail newsletters, targeting different customer segments with personalized messages.
InBox360 - The 360 System is one of the most flexible and powerful database and permission-based e-mail-marketing systems available today.
Bluestreak - Bluestreak is a global online direct marketing firm founded upon advanced technologies and best practices for interactive marketing.

Blacklists

Razor2 – http://www.razor.sf.net/

DCC List - http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc/dcc-tree/dcc.html

Pyzor - http://www.pyzor.sf.net

Mail Abuse Prevention - http://www.mail-abuse.org

Network Abuse Clearinghouse - http://www.abuse.net

Not Just Another Blacklist - http://www.njabl.org

SPAM Blocking Blackhole - http://www.blackholes.bruli.net

Ultimate Relationship Program (Professional Version)

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:19:00 +0000

How can you: * Spark passion in a couple that has not made love in twelve months? * Quickly obtain the cooperation and agreement of a reluctant spouse? * Trigger profound reconciliation within the space of a single session? * Motivate couples to learn new long-term relationship habits?

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Keith Cunningham's "Keys to the Vault"

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:13:00 +0000

Whether you are stuck in a dead end job or pursuing capital for your new entrepreneurial venture, or if you are well on your way to financial independence, this series will provide you with the tools, strategies and motivation to obtain financial freedom.

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FIND YOUR TRUE GIFT: 3 PATHS TO MAXIMIZING IMPACT IN YOUR CA

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Learn: Uncover what truly drives you and find the secret to fulfillment, Restore your sense of drive and commitment, Recognize your inherent resources and strengths, Develop a greater understanding of others around you, Create the ultimate meaning in everything you do

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Send 1 Million Web Hits to any Site!

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Many promotional techniques will bring visitors that are fairly targeted to your site, but maybe not looking for the exact thing you are offering. By optimizing your website, you are telling the visitor EXACTLY who will appreciate your information...you're prequalifying the traffic at the highest possible level!

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Magic Subscriber

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Bulk Email Software

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When it comes to email advertising services and bulk email marketing solutions you can completely forget about other online paid internet marketing and bulk email marketing services out there and depend on our software IEmailer - Bulk Email Software to become your main tool to market your online business effectively.

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Autoresponder Unlimited

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Autoresponder Unlimited is the number one choice of website owners who want to take control of their online operations.Have the same power features of the other expensive autoresponder services. But our price is the difference. Big savings means more money in your pocket. Save as much as $200.00 to $1,000.00 a year.

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AdBlaster Submission Software

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:51:00 +0000

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1st Advanced Site Submitter

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:48:00 +0000

When you submit to these 66 search engines, search results will show up in quite a few other engines. For instance, Google powers the Yahoo search engine. Search listings in Google will show up in Yahoo as well. Why would you pay $299 to Yahoo when you can get listed in their directory by submitting to Google??

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Permission Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:59:00 +0000

Resources: Promote and Marketing eBook, Pure Profits Email Autoresponder Course, Start Selling your Products Online

What is Permission Marketing

Permission boils down to asking your target market and Web site visitors for the authority to perform a specific action, for their permission to do, or send them, something. The key to permission marketing is to get your target market to willingly volunteer to participate in the process. If your target market sees no benefit in participating, then they will not participate, it's that simple. Almost every repeat-traffic generator provides an opportunity for permission marketing. Examples include:

“We change our coupons every week! Click here to join our mail list to be notified as soon as we update”.
“Click here to join our mail list and receive our biweekly Internet marketing tips, tools, techniques, and resources newsletter.”
“We have new specials on a regular basis. Click here to be notified by e-mail when we post our new specials.”
“We have a new contest every three weeks. Keep checking back or Click here if you'd like to be notified by e-mail every time we begin a new contest.”
“We constantly update our Calendar of Events. Keep checking back or Click here if you'd like to be notified by e-mail every time we update.”

What makes permission marketing so effective? Your target market volunteered to receive the information you're sending because it is of interest to them, and as a result they expect to receive it. This significantly increases the likelihood of your target market's viewing the material sent to them and their being receptive to it.

How to Using of Permission Marketing

Permission marketing techniques can be integrated with many Internet marketing tools, including newsletters, surveys, contests, and so on.

Newsletters are one of the most popular resources for permission marketing.

In your newsletter you can integrate strategic promotional opportunities to encourage users to come back to your site or to take some other course of action. If your newsletter is about recent happenings in your business or new product updates, encourage users to “follow this link” to see the updates or additional details and then, when they do, transport them to your Web site.

On the warranty registration card or online registration form for your product, you can include a section encouraging the consumer to sign up to receive additional information on your products and services. Many software vendors integrate the warranty or user registration process into their software and allow the user to submit it via the Internet once it's completed. Along with the information they requested, you can include relevant promotional opportunities. The simple act of posing the question increases your chances of capturing your consumers because you have put the idea into their head something that might not even have crossed their mind.

Contests and sweepstakes represent another ideal opportunity to put permission marketing to work. In this case, the contest is the primary motivator to encourage people to sign up. The e-mail notification sent out to notify each contestant of the winner can also include promotional material and can encourage people to visit your Web site.

Once users enter the contest, they should be sent an e-mail confirmation stating that the entry was received. Also include in the e-mail a viral marketing call to action to tell others about the contest as well as a call to action for the user to visit the site and shop around. Referring back to the contest window, directly under the e-mail address entry field should be the option for the visitor to sign up to receive details on the latest hot deals at your site. This is an excellent example of how to combine contests, newsletters, and permission marketing and maximize the opportunity.

Permission-Based Marketing

Recently, there have been major changes in the privacy and anti-spam legislation in Canada and the United States. This legislation affects every business that does outbound e-mail marketing. Everyone has to be in compliance with the new privacy and anti-spam legislation. If you do not know what the terms of the legislation are, then you might unknowingly be breaking the law and subject to penalty.

The current Canadian legislation revolves around privacy and rights of an individual to the protection of their private information. Canada's legislation, Privacy Law – Personal Information Protection and Electronics Document Act (PIPEDA for short), came into effect January 1, 2004, for commercial businesses. The latest information on this legislation can be found at the Web site of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

The current U.S. legislation revolves around spam and pornography. The U.S. legislation, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM for short) came into effect January 1, 2004, for commercial e-mail. The latest information on this legislation can be found at spamlaws.

Respect and More Respect

When used correctly, permission marketing can be a very rewarding and cost effective means of promotion; however, if you make ill use of this technique, you can do more harm than good. In order to avoid this pitfall, remember that you should never send your target market anything that they did not ask to receive, and you should never use their personal information for anything other than what they were told they were signing up for.

People like to know how their personal information is handled and are very reluctant to hand over their details to a company or organization that does not explain how their information is used. Privacy and security policies help in building trust and confidence with your target market.

Again, make sure you stay current with privacy and anti-spam legislation. Always provide the opportunity for any e-mail recipient to opt out of future mailings.

Personalization

When asking permission to communicate with your target market, you want to make it easy. Don't have visitors complete a long form on which they have to provide all kinds of information. At this point, less is better. Have a simple form on which they provide their e-mail address and their first name.You want to use a software program that manages all the permissions, the unsubscribes as well as the subscribes

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Bulk email marketing program is totally safe to use because it does NOT use or go through your local ISPs email server. Instead, it turns your PC into your own private email server! It simulates the sending of the email messages to the server you choose, the same one you are verifying email addresses on. Like: hotmail.com - yahoo.com - msn.com - alexa.com - usa.com - usa.net - etc...

For example, if you select hot mail.com as your email server to verify and start sending bulk emails to, the program will start query hotmail with a potential address as though it has a valid email address to deliver. the program gets verification from hotmail if the address is valid or not valid. and then will add all valid email addresses to a list, and actually deliver a message to the same address or abort the delivery, depending on the settings you choose. Since you are NOT abusing your local ISPs email server they have NO problem with you, and you have NO problem from them.

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Sell the Benefits

When you are asking permission to communicate with someone on an ongoing basis, you need to sell the benefits. People are inundated with junk e-mail and need to be “sold” on why they should subscribe to or join your communication list. “Join our weekly newsletter” just doesn't cut it. “Join our weekly newsletter to receive our Internet-only specials, coupons, and tips from our pro” will get you more subscribers. You have to know your target market well and know what is enticing enough to get their.

Data Mining

Data mining is sorting through data to identify patterns and establish relationships. Over time, you might want to ask a question or two in an appropriate manner to learn more about your subscribers so that you can target your communication with them a little better.

Cooperative Permission Marketing

Cooperative marketing is starting to take hold on the Internet. Look for opportunities to form an alliance with other sites that are trying to reach the same target market you are, and then see how you can do some win - win marketing. For example, if you have a monthly newsletter, you can allow subscribers to sign up to receive alliance partners' newsletters at the same time they sign up to receive yours. In return, your alliance partners do the same. The same can be done for many repeat-traffic generators like coupons, e-specials, e-zines, etc. Get innovative!

Incentive-Based Permission Marketing

To increase the response to any permission marketing opportunity, you might consider offering an incentive: “Sign up to receive our Internet- only e-specials and be included in a drawing for (something of interest to your target market). You can also offer a free gift to new e-members or subscribers. It could be a sample of one of your products or an e-book on a topic of interest to your target market.

Comment on Permission Marketing

Once you are in front of your target market, you want to take every opportunity to stay there and continue to communicate with them time and time again. Permission marketing helps you achieve this, but it is a game of give and take. You give them a reason to give you permission to send them e-mail, they provide you with the permission and their personal information, you provide them with valuable content. There is a trade-off and the cycle continues.

Why should you use permission marketing? To summarize, permission marketing can return a much higher response rate over intrusive advertising; it can increase sales, build your brand, and help develop relationships with your target market; and it is cost effective.

Another Best References for Permission Marketing

Permission marketing is an important aspect of Internet marketing. When you put forth the additional effort to proactively ask your target market to do something, you receive a much better response than if you just sit back and “hope they do it.” Similarly, if you ask people for their permission to send them materials on a specific topic, and they accept, you do not risk intruding on their privacy. Companies that force content on individuals through the Net hold little credibility in the eyes of their target market, and bad news spreads quickly. New legislation further imposes restrictions on what you can and cannot send via e-mail.

When you play your cards right, permission marketing can be a valuable asset to any marketing campaign. In this articles we discuss permission marketing and its uses to provide you with a greater understanding of this topic.

Canadian Marketing Association - The Canadian Marketing Association represents information-based marketers—those who reach consumers through media such as the Internet, television, telephone, radio, and addressed advertising mail. CMA provides a voice for responsible marketers and has earned a reputation for leadership in the area of self-regulation with respect to consumer protection, privacy, electronic commerce, and marketing to children.
ClickZ: Permission Marketing - You should look at ClickZ's section on permission marketing, updated weekly by Nick Usborne.
Seth Godin's Web Site - Seth Godin is author of four books that have been bestsellers around the world and have changed the way people think about marketing, change, and work. His book Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year and a Fortune Best Business Book, and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on the New York Times business book bestseller list. Check out his site for lots of info on permission marketing.
The Direct Marketing Association - This is the Web site of The Direct Marketing Association, the leading direct-marketing organization.
Mandating Permission Won't Solve Spam - This is an interesting article on permission marketing and spam.
Should You Opt in to Opt Out? - An article about the benefits of opt-in permission e-mail marketing.
Top 12 Best Practices for Permission-Based E-Mail Marketing - An article outlining best practices that should be followed when it comes to permission marketing.

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Effective Promotion through Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:45:00 +0000

Internet mailing lists are quick and easy ways to distribute infor mation to a large number of people. There are thousands of publicly available online lists. You can also create your own Internet mailing lists to keep your clients and prospects informed of company events, product announcements, and press releases. In this article, we cover:

How to identify useful publicly accessible mailing lists (discussion lists)
Subscribing to the mailing list
Writing messages that will be read
Mailing list netiquette
Creating your own mailing list.

Connecting with Your Target Audience

Participating in a discussion list relevant to your line of business can help you attract new customers. Discussion lists are organized hierarchically by subject in a way similar to Usenet newsgroups. Likewise, the membership of each discussion mailing list varies. When you post a message to a mailing list, the message is sent out by e-mail to everyone who has subscribed to the list.

The difference between discussion mailing lists and newsgroups is that while anyone on the Internet can visit newsgroups at any time and anonymously read any articles of interest, a discussion list delivers all messages posted directly to the subscribers' e-mail. Only discussion list subscribers can receive these messages.

Types of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists

Publicly accessible mailing lists can be one of several types, each with varying degrees of control. Following is a discussion of the two major types of lists.

Moderated Discussion Lists

This type of list is maintained by a “gatekeeper” who filters out unwanted or inappropriate messages. If you try to post an advertisement where it is not permitted, your message will never make it out to the list of subscribers. Similarly, flames (i.e., publicly chastising another list member) are screened out.

Unmoderated Discussion Lists

All messages are automatically forwarded to subscribers. Unmoderated lists tend to have more blatant advertisements and flame wars because there is no gatekeeper to guide the discussion. It is then the responsibility of the list members to police their own actions. If the list participants aren't rigidly abiding by the rules and reprimanding others who stray, the list could end up being a landfill for spammers. When this happens, many members simply leave the list.

Targeting Appropriate Discussion Mailing Lists

There are four types of mailing lists:

Publicly accessible mail lists
Direct mail lists
Private mail lists
Bulk mail lists.

There are thousands of publicly accessible lists on-line and a number of sites that provide lists of these mailing lists. Several of the most popular and comprehensive are:

• Topica

• Tile.net

There are also companies on-line that specialize in providing targeted lists for a fee, much like purchasing a direct-mail list in the offline world. One company that provides this type of list is Post Master Direct Response at postmasterdirect . This company rents e-mail lists of people who have requested information on a particular topic.

Finding the Right Mailing List

Whether you join a publicly accessible discussion mailing list or choose to purchase an opt-in e-mail list from one of the many online sources, you want to find a list whose members are your target market. You need to do your homework here, because there are thousands of lists to choose from.

There are various meta-indexes of publicly accessible mailing lists where you can search by title or by subject. Some of these sites provide detailed information on the lists, such as their content and the commands used to subscribe.

Once you have identified mail lists that have your target market as members, subscribe to those lists. To confirm that the list is right for your marketing purposes, lurk a while to monitor the discussion taking place. Then you can begin participating in the list by providing valuable content. If advertising is not allowed, abide by the rules. However, signature files are generally allowed, and you can always have that one- line tag line or mini-ad to advertise where advertising isn't allowed.

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Subscribing to Your Target Mailing Lists

Topica and tile.net are great resources that provide a huge roster of accessible mailing lists plus specific instructions for joining those that interest you. After you subscribe, you generally receive an e-mail response with the rules, FAQs, and instructions on how to use the list. For the most part, the rules for posting to newsgroups apply to mailing lists as well.

List Digests

When subscribing to a mail list, quite often you are given the option to subscribe or to subscribe to the digest. When you subscribe, you receive each message as it is posted. When you subscribe to the digest, the messages are accumulated and sent in one e-mail, usually overnight. The compilation of many individual messages is sent to each subscriber as one bulk message. Many digests contain a table of contents. The good thing about a digest is that you do not receive as many separate e-mail messages and your mailbox doesn't become clogged.

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Composing Effective Messages

Your e-mails must be carefully prepared before you post to a mailing list. Remember to make your subject line relevant, keep your messages short and to the point, and always include your sig file. If you are unsure whether your posting is right for the group, you can send a test message to the moderator asking for advice.

Unlike newsgroups, the members of mailing lists receive all the messages directly into their mailbox every day. Some people prefer to receive the postings in digest form; that is, all the messages for that day are compiled into one e-mail sent to the recipient at the end of the day.

At the beginning of the e-mail, the digest provides a listing of all the messages with the “From” and “Subject” identified, followed by the complete messages. Just as individuals who visit a newsgroup don't read all the messages, subscribers to publicly accessible discussion lists do not read every posting. They decide which messages to review based on the subject line. Thus, the content of the “Subject” field is extremely important.

Never repeat the same or similar messages to a mailing list, as you might do in a newsgroup. Once members of a mailing list have seen your posted message, they don't appreciate seeing it again, whereas a newsgroup has different readers all the time and similar postings are acceptable if they are timely. The following tips on mailing list postings should assist you in becoming a respected member of their online community:

Make sure that your messages are on the subject. List subscribers don't want to receive announcements unrelated to their topic.
You should be a regular contributor to your list before making any commercial announcement. If your mailing list does not allow advertising (most do not), use your sig file. Sig files are generally accepted. Be sure to make effective use of your tag line to get your mini-ad into discussion mailing lists where blatant advertising is not permitted.
Track and record your responses when you use a new mailing list. You should have a call to action in your posting, encouraging the readers to visit a specific page on your site or to send e-mail to an address designated solely for this purpose. Only by tracking responses can you know with any certainty which mailing lists are successful and which are not. It's amazing how well calls to action work. For some reason, people tend to do what they're told.
Set reasonable and achievable goals. As a benchmark, in most e-mail marketing campaigns, a 1 to 3 percent response rate is considered a good response. However, if your mailing list is well targeted and you are offering something of interest or value to a particular group, your response rates should be significantly higher.

Building Your Own Private Mailing Lists

You might want to build your own private mailing list. Generating your own lists is often beneficial because of their many marketing uses. They can be used to maintain dialogue with existing customers regarding updates, support, specials, and so on. They can also be used to communicate with current and prospective customers through distribution of corporate newsletters, price lists, new catalogues, product updates, new product announcements, and upcoming events.

Starting Your Own Publicly Accessible Mailing List

You can create your own publicly accessible Internet mailing list. This is something you should carefully consider before you make your final decision. It takes lots of time and effort to do this right, so be sure you're ready and that it would bring sufficient return on your investment. First you must give it a name that reflects the desired discussion and is enticing for your target market. You must draft an FAQ file or charter containing information on what the list is all about. You must develop guidelines for participation.

You should create a Web page for your list to provide information about the list as well as its charter and guidelines. You should provide an opportunity to subscribe from the Web site as well. This adds credibility to your mailing list.

Once the list is up and running, advertise it so that people actually subscribe. You can promote your list by participating in newsgroups that relate to your mail list topic. Remember not to post blatant ads where advertising is not allowed. Contribute to the newsgroup with your postings and use a tag line in your signature file to promote your mail list. You can also trade e-mail sponsorships with other mailing lists for promotion purposes.

There are a number of places to announce your list. Get your mail list linked from the many lists of lists on the Internet. We provide some of these in the Internet Resources section at the end of this article.

Make your list worth reading by ensuring that you and others have valuable information on the topic to share. You should make sure you include an opportunity for your subscribers to spread the word or to recommend your mail list to others. You can do this in your mail list messages and also through the companion Web page. In the newsletter or announcement mail lists where messages go only one way, it is easy to encourage your subscribers to send a copy to a friend who they think might be interested. If you encourage viral marketing in this way, you want to make sure you have included the how-to-subscribe information in the messages as well. When encouraging viral marketing through the companion Web page, make sure you include a call to action. It's amazing how well this works!

References

AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe - All have their own areas where you can search for mailing lists.
Campaign E-mail Marketing Software - This is e-mail marketing software used to conduct legitimate e-mail marketing campaigns. Campaign can import your contact database information and send personalized e-mail messages to all of your contacts.
HTMARCOM - A mailing list that discusses high-tech marketing. To subscribe, send the message “subscribe htmarcom your name” to the e-mail address listserv@usa.net.
Internet Marketing Mailing List - The Online Advertising Discussion List focuses on professional discussion of online advertising strategies, results, studies, tools, and media coverage. The list also welcomes discussion on the related topics of online promotion and public relations. The list encourages sharing of practical expertise and experiences among those who buy, sell, research, and develop tools for online advertising, as well as those providing online public relations and publicity services. The list also serves as a resource to members of the press who are writing about the subject of online advertising and promotion.
L-Soft's CataList - CataList, the catalog of listserv lists! From this page, you can browse any of the 56,423 public listserv lists on the Internet, search for mailing lists of interest, and get information about listserv host sites. This information is generated automatically from listserv's lists database and is always up to date.
List-Etiquette's Guide to E-mail List Guidelines, Rules and Behavior - Helpful tips for publishers, subscribers, moderators, and discussion list members regarding good mailing list netiquette.
Topica - A very big directory of mailing lists and newsletters organized by subject categories. Topica provides details on how to subscribe to each of the mailing lists in its database and provides information on content as well.

Effective Promotional Use of Newsgroups

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:43:00 +0000

People participate in newsgroups by “posting” or e-mailing comments, questions, or answers to other participants' questions, thus taking part in a conversation or thread. Using proper netiquette is important. To do this, read the FAQ files and rules, “lurk” first, and stay on topic. In this article, you learn:

The benefits of using newsgroups in your marketing plan
Newsgroup netiquette
Reading the FAQ files, abiding by the rules, and lurking
How to advertise if advertising is not allowed
Developing your Usenet marketing strategy
Identifying your target newsgroups
Participating in this online community
How to respond correctly to messages
Cross-posting and spamming
Using signature files.

Newsgroups, What Are They?

Every day, people from all over the globe enter a virtual community with others who are interested in the same topic. These people are brought together by their common interest in the topic of discussion.

There are many communities discussing different topics. These virtual communities are called Newsgroups are hierarchical and are arranged by subject. Each newsgroup is dedicated to a discussion of a particular topic, such as antique cars, home schooling, travel, artificial intelligence, or the latest hot band.

Visitors to these virtual communities can “post” messages. These messages might be questions or comments or responses to other participants. Everyone who visits the newsgroup has the opportunity to view these “postings.” There are three types of newsgroup visitors:

People asking questions or advice
People providing answers or advice
People who read the discussion without taking part.

The Changing Face of Newsgroups

Back in the early days, Usenet newsgroups started out as places where academics conducted discussions on research. They quickly expanded to include newsgroups on every topic imaginable, with participants having wonderful conversations relevant to the topic.

Then commercialization saturated the Web, and today there are many newsgroups overrun with advertisements with very little topical discussion taking place. However, there are still many newsgroups that have vibrant discussions with loyal participants that provide a great opportunity for communicating with your target market.

Every visitor to a newsgroup made an effort to get there. If your business's products or services are related to that topic, you have found a group of your target market (they have pre-qualified themselves) in one place interested in discussing what you have to offer.

The Benefits of Newsgroups

There are many ways online marketers can benefit from participating in newsgroups:

Reaching prospective customers. You can immediately reach thousands of your targeted potential customers with a single message.
Communicating with existing customers. You can provide your loyal customers with valuable information.
Market research. You can use newsgroups to find out the latest trends, customer needs, what people are looking for, and what they are talking about. These newsgroups can be beehives of information where you can check out your competition and gather invaluable data on your market.
Reputation building. By answering people's questions and helping to solve their problems, you build your reputation as an expert in the field.
Increased traffic. You can direct people to your commercial Web site if you do it in an informative way.

Thousands of Newsgroup Categories

Newsgroups are organized into different types of discussions or categories. Each of the major categories has lots of individual newsgroups in which you can participate. Major newsgroup categories include:

alt - Discussions on alternative topics.
biz - Discussions on business topics. You might find groups that allow advertising here.
comp - Discussions on computer hardware- and software-related topics.
humanities - Discussions on fine arts, literature, and philosophy topics.
misc - Discussions of miscellaneous topics that don't have their own categories such as employment, health, and other issues.
news - Discussions on Usenet news and administration.
rec - Discussions on recreation topics such as games, hobbies, and sports.
sci - Discussions on science.
soc - Discussions on social issues.
talk - Making conversation.

Each of the major categories has a number of subgroups, and each of the subgroups has a number of sub-subgroups. Here the discussion revolves around all kinds of sports. Under the subgroup rec.sports you can find sub-subgroups and sub-sub-subgroups, for example:

rec.sports
rec.sports.hockey
rec.sports.hockey.NHL
rec.sports.hockey.NHL.BostonBruins.

As you can see, the longer the name, the narrower is the discussion that is taking place.

Target Appropriate Newsgroups

Look for a close fit between a newsgroup and the product or service you are offering. Try finding newsgroups that your target market would enjoy reading, or ask your clients or customers which newsgroups they participate in or find interesting. There are many ways to find appropriate Usenet newsgroup listings.

Search the newsgroups for keywords that relate to your target market, your product, or your service to identify possible newsgroups for your marketing effort. A good place to start is Google Groups , or you can go to Google.com and select “Groups” from the four tabs (Web, Images, Groups, or Directories). You should choose keywords right for your target customer or client. These methods can identify a fairly large list of potential newsgroups to be considered for your marketing activities.

A benefit of the Google site is that you can post to the newsgroups directly from the site. You don't have to go through alternative software to do so.

Read the FAQ Files and Abide by the Rules

Read the FAQ files, charter, and rules about posting and advertising for each of your target newsgroups. It is very important that you abide by all the rules. Conduct a search based on the group's name and charter. This tells you where the newsgroup stands on commercial activity.

Lurking for Potential Customers

Once you have narrowed your potential newsgroup list, visit each one to determine whether its participants are, in fact, potential customers. Spend time lurking. Monitor the types of messages being posted. Is there likely to be an opportunity for you to contribute?

Are the participants your target market? Research the newsgroup to ascertain if it might appeal to your customers. The name of the newsgroup might not reveal what the newsgroup is about, so take your time and make sure.

Tips on Posting Messages

Remember to abide by the rules! If the rules do not allow advertising, then do not blatantly post an ad. To take full advantage of the newsgroup, you have to gain the trust of its members. With one wrong message, you could outrage all of the potential customers who participate in the newsgroup.

It is a good idea to run a test before you post a message to a newsgroup. Doing a test shows you how the posting works and prevents you from making a mistake when it comes to the real thing.

Becoming a respected member in a newsgroup is a way to promote yourself as well as your company. You will find yourself reading newsgroups in order to participate in stimulating discussions. You will be discussing anything and everything about the newsgroup subject.

Only mention your Web site when you find an opportunity to bring your business knowledge into the conversation.

They might have hundreds of messages sorted and available for access at any moment. Newsgroup participants will decide whether to open or pass up your posted message based on the words in the subject area. Make your subject short and catchy so that your message will be read.

Start your message with a short description of how it relates to the group's main topic. People are looking for answers to specific questions, so it is rude to jump into the conversation with a topic that doesn't match the one in the subject line. By doing so, you catch the readers' attention and ensure that they read the entire message. Message length should be short, no longer than 24 lines. Short paragraphs of six or seven lines work well. Write for scannability.

Determine which is better under the given circumstances. If your message is of value to the entire group or promotes your company's capabilities, then post the response to the newsgroup for all to see. If you think that your company has a solution for the individual and would like to provide details to the “target customer,” but feel that it would not benefit the other members of the group, then deliver a private response. Often you do both because once the answer to a question has been received, the original poster might not visit the newsgroup for awhile and you want to make sure he or she has the benefit of your posting. Whichever approach you take, make sure that you respond as quickly as possible so that the first message is still fresh in the mind of the recipient.

Tips to Ensure That Your Messages Are Well Received

Here are some basic rules to help you post well-received messages.

Keep to the Newsgroup Topic

Make sure you always stay on the newsgroup's topic of discussion. People participate in specific newsgroups because of that subject and don't appreciate off-topic postings.

Stay on the Thread

When responding to a message, use the Reply option. When you reply without changing the subject line, your message will appear immediately below the message you are responding to in the newsgroup. This is referred to as “staying on thread” and makes it easy for others to follow the discussion.

Make a Contribution

Informed, quality responses to people's questions give you credibility with the group and reflect well upon you and your company. If you post positive and useful information, visitors will return to the newsgroups and look for your posts.

Don't Post Commercials or Advertisements

Advertising is not welcome in most newsgroups, and many charters specifically forbid the posting of ads. Read the FAQ files before posting a message. If the newsgroup does not allow commercial messages or ads, don't post them.

You Don't Have to Have the Last Word

Don't post gratuitous responses in newsgroups. Never post a message with just a “Thanks” or “I like it” if you have nothing else to contribute. If you feel such a response is warranted or would like to discuss the issue privately, send a private e-mail to the person to convey your appreciation or opinion.

Newsgroup Advertising Hints

Newsgroups have been developed for different audiences and different topics. Some newsgroups are dedicated to posting advertisements. If advertising is appropriate for your company, the following newsgroup types might be included in your Internet marketing strategy. Most of the newsgroups that allow advertising are readily identifiable. The newsgroup name itself might include one of the following:

biz
classified
for sale
marketplace.

Again, read the FAQ files and lurk to determine if the newsgroup is appropriate for your target market before you post. Use a short, catchy subject line with keywords at the beginning—the subject will determine whether your message warrants a read or a pass. Avoid ALL CAPITALS. This is equivalent to shouting on the Internet. Stay away from !!!!, ****, @@@@, and other such symbols.

When you have found a newsgroup whose participants include your target market but the newsgroup does not allow advertising, don't despair. When responding to queries or providing information that is of genuine interest to the newsgroup, you have the opportunity to attach your sig file. A sig file can be as effective as an ad if it is designed properly. Your message should offer valuable information pertinent to the discussion. (A thinly veiled excuse to get your sig file posted will not be appreciated.) If your information is relevant and of value to the participants of the newsgroup, the fact that the tag line in your sig file is an advertisement will not matter—in fact, it could add credibility to the information you have provided and enhance your company's reputation.

Cross-Posting and Spamming

Cross-posting is posting identical messages to a number of relevant newsgroups. Doing this is considered to be inappropriate because of the number of common users in associated newsgroups. Spamming is posting identical or nearly identical messages to irrelevant newsgroups without care or regard for the posting guidelines, the newsgroup topic, or the interests of the group. Cross-posting and spamming annoy the readers of the newsgroup. Doing these things reflects badly on you and your company and prevents you from achieving your online marketing objectives.

Earning Respect with Newsgroup Netiquette

Following are ten rules for netiquette. Incorporating them in your newsgroup posting will gain you respect by the other participants.

Don't use CAPITALS. They are akin to shouting on the Internet.
Don't post ads where they are not welcome.
Do provide valuable, on-topic information for the newsgroup.
Don't be rude or sarcastic.
Don't include the entire message you are replying to in your response. Only quote relevant sections of the original message.
Do a thorough review of your message before you post. Check your spelling and grammar. Check your subject; it should be short and catchy with the keywords first.
Do provide an appropriate sig file.
Don't post messages that are too lengthy. Online communication tends to be one screen or less.
Don't spam or cross-post.
Don't post replies that contribute nothing to the discussion (e.g., “I agree” or “Thanks”).

References

Google, The Source for Internet Newsgroups! - The Web site where you can read, search, participate in, and subscribe to more than 50,000 discussion forums, including Usenet newsgroups. Google has recently bought Deja.com , a resource for finding people, getting noticed, and getting answers to all sorts of questions. You can find discussion forums on any topic imaginable.
Internet FAQ Archive - Formerly at the University of Ohio, the Internet FAQ Archive is the place to look for Usenet newsgroup descriptions and Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) lists. They also have quite a bit of general information about Usenet as well.
MG's House of News Knowledge - A great resource filled with information on every aspect of newsgroups, from how to post to how to create your own newsgroup. Newsgroups
- News.newusers.questions
- News.announce.newusers
- News.newusers
These provide information to new Usenet users on posting, finding appropriate newsgroups, netiquette, and other frequently asked questions new users are faced with.
Tile.net - A service for finding newsgroups and mailing lists as well as their descriptions.
Worldnet User's Service Desk - The Worldnet User's Reference Desk (WURD) is dedicated to providing AT&T Worldnet members the very best information available about AT&T Worldnet Service and how to use third-party software.

Fantastic Exposure for Your Articles

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:50:00 +0000

Submit your website, your blog content to some articles directory, its make more traffic to your website, its like easy way to make online marketing, and fast way to indexing in google, yahoo, and MSN

read more | digg story

Keep All Visitor Coming Back

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:03:00 +0000

Repeat Visits

Just as you would want customers to visit your place of business frequently, so too in cyberspace you want customers and potential customers to visit often. The more often people visit your site, the more likely they are to purchase something. You want to offer something of interest to the market you are targeting.

If your target is business professionals, then something along the lines of the latest pocket PC that they could use in their everyday business would be appropriate. If your target market is skiers, then a weekend in Vail might work. You should always remember your objectives when doing any form of online marketing, because you don't want to do something inappropriate that might drive your target audience away from your site.

What's New Page

A What's New page can mean different things to different sites. For some, this page updates users with the summaries of the most recent product or service offerings. Your What's New page should be accessible from your home page so that when people visit your site they do not have to search through your entire site to find out what is new. If visitors repeatedly find interesting additions in the What's New section, they will come back to your site on a regular basis to check out what's new. Without this, they might visit and search through your site and find that nothing is new and they just wasted 20 minutes looking for anything new. Here you can leverage this repeat-traffic generator with permission marketing by asking if visitors would like to be notified via e-mail when you've added something to the What's New section. It's all about getting their permission to send them e-mail and therefore include them in your community.

Sample Giveaways

Use a traditional marketing approach and give away free samples of your product from your Web site. After giving away the samples, follow up with an e-mail. Ask the people who received a sample what they thought of it, if they had any problems, and if they have any questions.

Direct the samplers back to your Web site for more information and discounts on purchasing the regular version of the product. If you have a number of products, you might consider alternating your free samples.

Ask if visitors would like to be notified by e-mail when you change your free sample. This can entice them to visit your site again. Make sure you include your signature file in your e-mail message.

Free Stuff

Giving things away is a great way to increase traffic, everybody likes a freebie. If you give something different away each week, you are sure to have a steady stream of repeat traffic. When you have freebies or giveaways on your site, your pages can also be listed and linked from the many sites on the Internet that list places where people can receive free stuff. To find these listings of free stuff, simply go to a search engine and do a search on “Free Stuff Index” or “Free Stuff Links.” You will be amazed at how many people are giving things away online.

Try to give away something that only people interested in your industry would want. If you don't care what traffic comes your way, and any traffic is good traffic, then give away useful things that everybody needs. Try to have your logo and URL displayed on the item. If your freebie is something that has your URL on it and is something that is generally kept around a computer, it reminds and encourages people to visit your site. A mouse pad displaying your URL is a good example.

You should change your freebie often and let your site visitors know how often you do this. Something like “We change our free offer every single week! Keep checking back” or “Click here to be notified by e-mail when we update” also works well.

Freebies provide ideal viral marketing opportunities as well. Have a “T ell a friend about this” button near the freebie so site visitors can quickly and easily tell their friends.

Know Your Visitors

Knowing that you have three totally different kinds of unique visitors coming to your web site can save you time, money, and headaches .

Visitors are the fundamental currency in web measurement the top of the pyramid. The idea of the "known visitor" is important to web measurement because, given the right message, any good salesperson can sell; the sales process breaks down when forced to sell to anonymous groups. Because of the universal desire to "know" the visitor, it's important to understand the three major visitor categories: totally anonymous, mostly anonymous, and known.

Totally Anonymous Visitors - Some of the visitors who come to your web site will be truly and potentially forever anonymous; there's very little you can truly know about them except where they came from (their referring URLs) and which pages they view during their visits. This small but persistent group may be as many as 15% of Internet users who disable all cookies, surf through proxies that hide their IP addresses, or otherwise work to obfuscate their identities. While there are alternatives to using cookies to determine the relative uniqueness of a visitor, anyone with motivation, desire, and a basic understanding of how Internet browsers work can prevent you from knowing much about him at all. The fact that this group exists is reason enough to exclusively use first party cookies in your analysis.
Mostly Anonymous Visitors - The bulk of people who visit your site are mostly anonymous : people who don't go out of their way to hide from you but also don't offer up any truly useful personal information. Most of your Internet audience will accept cookies, allowing you to determine whether they have been to your site previously, how they originally found you, whether they are customers or not, and how you can segment them into meaningful categories. Still, unless you provide a reasonable trade for their personal information (or require it, as is becoming increasingly popular), visitors are unlikely to divulge enough to allow you to feel like you truly "know" them.
Known Visitors - Known visitors are those folks who, for whatever reason, have provided you personally identifiable information (PII) and allowed you to set some kind of unique user identifier (UUID) in their browsers. Typically the smallest of the three groups, known visitors are tremendously valuable to site operators and Internet marketers because, by virtue of allowing their identification to be known, their online activities can be tied to offline information, including demographic profiles and purchase or support histories. One way to think about the differences between the three types of visitors is this: truly anonymous visitors force you to say that "some people visited my web site." Mostly anonymous visitors allow you to say that "some people visited my web site, and 30 percent of them had been to the site within the previous week." Known visitors allow you to say that "Bob, Ted, Alice, and Mary visited my web site; Alice looked at a product that she ultimately purchased in my store; and Mary later called to complain about a problem, which was handled by our support group."

Coupons and Discounts

Offer coupons and discount vouchers that can be printed from your site. You can change the coupon daily or weekly to encourage repeat visits. People will come back to your site again and again if they know they can find good deals there. This is a great strategy to use in conjunction with a free sample giveaway. If people liked the sample, give them a coupon to purchase the regular version at a discount. If they like the regular version, they may purchase it again at full price or recommend the product to a friend. You can also ask people if they want to be notified by e-mail when you update the coupons on your Web site. This once again gives you the opportunity to present them with new information about your business. Offering coupons is a great idea if you have a physical location as well as a Web site. These can be your loss leader to get customers to come into your store.

You can develop a coupon banner ad that links to your site, where the coupon can be printed. The banner ads should be placed on sites frequented by your target market. You can trade coupons with noncompeting sites that target the same market you do. Your coupon on their site links to your site, and their coupon on your site links to their site.

By offering coupons from your Web site, you also cut down your overhead cost because people are printing the coupons on their own printers, thus not using your paper. Remember that you should have terms and conditions on the coupons that are available for printing. For example, you should have an expiration date. Someone could print a coupon, then visit your store in a year and try to use it. You should try to have the expiration date close to the release of the coupon. This will entice the visitor to use the coupon more quickly and then come back for more coupons.

We are seeing an increase in the number of coupon-related sites that are appearing on the Internet. CoolSavings.com is an online coupon network where businesses can advertise and place coupons for their products and services. Sites like this are a good way to promote your business, for they receive a high amount of traffic. Another benefit is that the traffic is already in a buying mood. CoolSavings.com has been a household name since it launched its national advertising campaign in the late 1990s. If you offer coupons from your site, it benefits you to be listed on these types of sites. If you are not aiming for a national appeal, you should search to find out if there are coupon networks in the geographic location that you are targeting. Other coupon sites are listed in the Internet Resources section at the end of this chapter. There are meta-indexes to sites with coupons or discounts from which you can be linked for greater exposure. Coupons provide ideal viral marketing opportunities - for example, “Send this coupon to a friend.”

A Calendar of Events

A comprehensive, current calendar of events related to your company or your industry can encourage repeat visits. Your calendar should always be kept up to date and be of value to your readers. A calendar of events for a band might show their scheduled appearances. A calendar of events of what is going on in your business community is very appropriate for a Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade site. This can encourage a lot of repeat traffic as long as the calendar is kept current and complete. Calendars of events are also appropriate on community sites, because residents access these calendars often to stay current. Again, you can ask people if they'd like to be notified via e-mail when you update your calendar of events.

If you have a great calendar of events, you can encourage others to use it by providing a link to it from their Web site. This offer works well because you are providing them with great content that is kept current and they are providing you with traffic. If you don't have the time or inclination to develop your own calendar of events but one would be great content for your site, you might provide a link from your Web site to a calendar you consider top-notch. If you do this, make sure your link opens a new browser window rather than takes the visitor from your site to the referred site.

Specials and Promotions

Everyone likes to get a deal. You might consider having a special promotions section on your Web site. You'll want to change your promotion fairly frequently and let your site visitors know: “We change our specials every week. Bookmark our site and keep checking back!” You might employ permission marketing here as well: “We change our specials every week. Click here if you'd like to be notified when we update” or “Click here to receive our e-specials weekly.” If you send e-specials via e-mail, make sure you give them a reason to visit your site and provide the appropriate hypertext links in the e-mail.

Make it easy to have your site visitors tell their friends about your specials. Have a "Tell a friend about this special" button placed next to each one of your special promotions. You can leverage the viral marketing with an incentive: “Tell three friends about our special and be included in a drawing for (something appropriate for your target market).”

Create Visitor Loyalty Segments

Merely watching your percentage of returning visitors rise and fall is not enough to understand visitor loyalty. You need to segment your visitors in profitable ways to truly understand and identify opportunity .

Converting more visitors into customers is absolutely essential to any successful business effort, but then what? You probably already know the answer: it's time to think about whether these customers will visit or purchase again. If they don't visit or purchase again, then your efforts to attract and convert them in the first place could be money losers.

Your particular web site may not need to create repeat visitor and customer behavior, but most web sites do. Customers who come back over and over generally have the highest value, and this value translates into profits for your business. Most web customer databases have from 80 percent to 90 percent one-time buyers or visitors. For an offline comparison, you could look to the catalog or TV shopping companies, where the one-time buyer rate is 40 to 50 percent. Why are web sites so ineffective at creating repeat visitors and buyers? Asked another way: why is the average value of a web customer so low when compared to offline customers?

Notice I said "average value." Some web visitors are, in fact, worth a lot. But there are so many that are worth very little that the average value of a visitor is quite lowthat is, for most companies. Other companies seem to create visitors of much higher average value. For example, the online exotic pet store that generates $3.50 in sales per visit and has an 85 percent repeat buyer rate. Or the online specialty jewelry store that generates $25 in profits for every $1 spent on advertising. Or the content site with 5 million unique visitors, 90 percent of whom have visited at least once in the past 10 days. How do they do it? They understand the metrics of customer loyalty and valuethe art and science also known as customer retention marketingand apply these metrics every day in their analytics to drive higher marketing ROI. And they constantly test new ideas and measure the results based on the long-term value of their customers.

In short, they analyze visitor and customer behavior not just in the present, but also over time. And they use specialized time-based metrics to predict what visitors and customers will do in the future.

Contests and Competitions

Contests and competitions are great traffic builders. Some sites hold regular contests on a weekly or monthly basis to generate repeat visitors. Holding contests is also a great way to find out about your target market by requesting information on the entry form.

What type of contest you hold depends upon your Internet marketing objectives. If you want to attract as many people as possible to your site regardless of who they are, then offer items such as money, trips, cars, computers, and so on. If you want to attract potential customers from your target market, then give away something that relates to your products and industry.

You can simply request that people fill out an electronic ballot to enter the contest. If you want to find out something about the people entering, ask them to answer an appropriate question or two. If you want to do some market research, again, ask a question or two. Make it easy and unobtrusive. The more fields they have to fill out the fewer people will enter your contest. Be selective with the questions you ask.

If the prize is one of your products, consider asking entrants to write a short note outlining why they would like to have the product you are giving away. You can award the winner(s) with the product and follow up with the other entrants. These people might be in a position to buy your products, and you will have gained some valuable knowledge from the notes submitted.

If your product is appropriate for a prize that would be of interest to many different types of people, consider finding contest sites that are willing to offer your product as the prize on their site. This can generate brand awareness for your product. You can have the site show a picture of your product with a link to your site. The contest site should be more than happy to do this because you are offering to give something for free that adds value to that site.

You can turn a contest into a competition. If your Web site relates to cooking or baking, ask entrants to submit their best recipe using your food product. People will visit your site to see the winning recipes, and you might get some ideas for future marketing efforts. Other competitions might include things such as best photo with product X, best short story about product X, best drawing of product X, and so on. This creates better brand awareness and reinforces sales of your product. The closer the contest relates to your product, the better.

Instead of offering just one prize, offer a number of smaller prizes as well. This makes the odds look better and people feel they have a better chance of winning. You might have contestants answer three questions relating to your product or service on the entry form. Of course, to find the answers to the questions, the visitor has to visit a number of pages on your site, and the three questions are marketing related.

You can have the contest one where you get information about your target market. When contestants enter the contest, have them rank what influences their buying decision. The information you request can also provide you with demographic or psychographic information.

Allow site visitors one contest entry per day, you're happy to have visitors return to your site often. You might consider changing the information on the contest Web page around the entry form on a regular basis. Provide links to other repeat-traffic generators such as your coupons or your e-specials.

Whatever type of contest you determine best meets your marketing objectives, be sure you encourage permission marketing (“Click here to be notified when we have a new contest”) and viral marketing (“Tell a friend about this great contest”). Leverage, leverage, leverage: “Tell five friends and receive an extra ballot for yourself.”

Make your contest conditional: “Sign up to receive our weekly e-specials and be included in our drawing for (something of interest to your target market).”

Before you go ahead with holding any kind of contest, find out if any legal issues concern you. There may be restrictions that you are not aware of (e.g., you might be required to purchase a legal permit to hold lotteries). You should also remember to ask the entrants the e-mail address at which they want to be notified of the winner. This, again, grants you permission to e-mail them to tell them who the winner was, and also to inform them of the specials that you might have at your site that month.

You want to promote your contest through public and private mail list postings, newsgroup postings, your e-mail signature file, press releases, and links from contest sites. Some popular contest sites you might want to be listed from include:

Employment Opportunities

People involved in a job search or interested in new job opportunities will revisit your site occasionally to see your list of available positions.

Create Useful Links

Provide visitors with links to other sites similar to yours or a meta-index of links that would be of interest to your target market. Do not put outbound links on your home page. Place them down a level or two after the visitors have seen all the information you want them to see before you provide the links away from your site. Links can be incorporated in two ways. The first is where clicking the link loads the new page in the same browser window. (It replaces the content of your page with the content of the linked page.) The second and preferred method is to have the link open a new browser window. (Your page stays where it is and the content from the linked page opens up in the new browser window.) This is preferred because once visitors are finished with the new page, they can close the new browser window and your page is still there in the “old” browser window. Try exchanging links with others so you receive a link from their site to your site. As long as the links are of value to your visitors, people will come back to see if you have found any new and interesting sites for them to visit.

You might consider asking visitors if they are interested in being notified when you update your list of links or just make updates to your site in general. By offering this, if they choose to do so, you have the opportunity to send people an e-mail message and remind them about your site while presenting them with new information about what might be going on with your site.

Online Chat

Chat rooms are very popular and, to some, even addictive. If you have a chat forum on your site, make sure that the topic relates to your business and that participants are likely to be your target market. To encourage repeat visitors, you could change the topic from day to day or week to week. You could also have celebrity appearances in your chat sessions. These sessions should be regularly scheduled, and the upcoming events should be posted on your site so that your visitors will know what is going on when, and will not miss the session if it is of importance to them. They could be on Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m., or on Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. Also remember to have the information in your signature file and do some postings through your appropriate mail lists and newsgroups to promote the event.

You should try to post the topics of the discussions at least a week in advance so that your visitors will remember to come for the entire session if they are interested in the topic. You would be surprised how many people schedule time so that they can chat with someone special or knowledgeable in an area that interests them. You might also think of asking your visitors if they would be interested in being notified of upcoming chat sessions or celebrities who might be visiting your site to chat. This again gives you the opportunity to e-mail people, at their request, and present them with information that can entice them to visit your site again. You can also ask your community whom they'd like to see as a guest or what topics they would like to have discussed.

Tip of the Day

Have a section that offers cool tips that relate to your business, your products or services, or your target market. These tips can be from one sentence to one paragraph long. If visitors find your advice helpful, they will return repeatedly to see what interesting piece of information you have displayed that day. Ask your visitors if they would be interested in receiving the tip via e-mail or if they would like to be notified when the tip has been updated so they can then visit your Web site. Encourage people to send the tip to a friend. You can also encourage others to use your tip on their Web site as long as they provide a link back to your site as the source.

Gets Bookmarked

Encourage visitors to add you to their bookmark list. At appropriate parts of your site, display the call to action “Bookmark me now!”. A call to action is often effective. Make sure the title of the page that has the “Bookmark me now!” clearly identifies your site and its contents in an enticing way, because the title is what appears in the bookmark file as a description. Whenever I see “Bookmark this site now!” I always consider it. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, but I always consider it. Often, when the call to action is not presented, I don't think about it and don't bookmark it. Then, days later when I want to go back there, I wish I had remembered to bookmark it. Here I am with 5 reasons why social networks can succeed:

Viral Nature - They key to social networks quickly moving up in size is their viral nature. Because people who get on those need to expand their network, they invite their friends. And those friends, in turn, invite their friends. The viral nature of a new social network is an important part to making it succeed. Some networks have taken the model one step further by being by invitation only. Initially, this represents a certain level of exclusivity, with people then trying to get in. This exclusivity breaks down, though, if the social networks do not have a mechanism to slow down or limit the number of new invitations going out. All it takes to tear down that sense of exclusivity is for one person to start inviting hordes of people.
Online Identity - Not everyone has a personal website. It may come as a shock to most of my readers but, for some people, social networks personal pages are the only place where people maintain an identity. Some, like MySpace, have capitalized on that effect by providing tools that allow to enhance those profiles in ways that make them indistinct from personal sites, beyond the fact that the URL is on the service instead of being a personal one.
Enhanced Knowledge - When used properly, social networks can be a great way to enhance knowledge. Tapping into one social network can allow for people to fill an information gap if members of their extended social network have deep subject matter expertise in a certain area. At the current time, few social networking sites have used that capability but, I believe this is one of the most useful aspects of social networking sites.
Basic human need to share - The proliferation of blogs have shown that people love to share their opinion. The proliferation of the open source movement shows that some people love to share their expertise. I think there is a deeply rooted need among human beings to share, whether it is information or opinions. Social networks appeal to the altruistic side of people by allowing them to share their connection and introduce friends to other friends.
Basic human need to connect - Most of all, though, human beings are social creatures. As such, the root of all success from social networking sites is based on a need to connect and expand connections. For most of history, connections were largely limited by geographical or economic considerations. Social networks allow people to expand their connections around interests. This first appeared with the rise of Usenet and bulletin boards, where members formed communities around specific interests and has now expanded into the social networking realm, where people can find out more about people who are most like them.

Social network sites are the new breed of online social hubs . More and more users turn to social networking sites to find loved ones, reconnect with old friends, or even host a high school reunion. However, social networking sites offer more than just meeting new and old friends, it can also be an avenue to promote your latest book, show online users about your website and updates, or even use the social sites to promote your views and agendas. Social network sites or User-created content sites like blogs, forums, or dating websites are basically places online where users can congregate to share information, give advice, or work on similar interests. Users flock social network sites, making it a good vantage point for web marketers to launch their products.

There are two types of marketing involved over social networking sites. Different types of individuals who promote their products or skills over social networking sites often employ varying tactics to get their message across. Several online marketers employ the use of the comments system on social marketing sites to post information about their products or use social sites to improve search engine placement for their websites. Though some web marketers would go overboard with the promotion and quite literally spam their target audience with useless data just to lure them to clicking a link which will direct them to the website being promoted. Other types of web marketers employ a subtle technique of social engineering to make users trust them and to make them purchase their products or click on a link to their main website. Other marketers would go as far as using black hat search optimization techniques to force web browsers into redirecting to another site. This type of marketing is not allowed on most social communities, and could get you banned on that social site, if caught.

Taking the different strategies piece by piece we identify different patterns on how web marketers coordinate their efforts to capture a wider scope of online users on a social networking site and achieve better search engine placement for their websites. Web marketers who operate viral marketing strategies often use software tools that will allow them to harvest different user profiles or account numbers, which they would use to send or post messages on. Web marketers meticulously gather user details and interest, and seek out vital social community sections like forums and rant pages where their messages can go around with the least possible chance of getting erased by members. Web marketers usually lace their promotional words with entertaining music or videos. But this can still be the tip of the iceberg on the grand scheme of online promotions. Once you give into the advertising, you will see yourself clicking on different links which will make you download or get redirected to another website which can force you to download a certain application or Trojan which they can then use to either force your browser to redirect to other web pages when you are browsing or quite literally force your computer to accept different ads from their website.

Social engineering on the other hand employs more interaction between the marketer and the end users. Web marketers who employ social engineering often use chatrooms or utilize the email system of social network sites to send messages to users. VoIP or Internet telephoning can also be used to improve marketer and user interaction. This type of online marketing may take awhile to be realized, but is often more successful in landing repeat customers, if done right.

Social networking is not just for people who are "looking for their soul mates" or "seeking activity partners". For a lot of people, social networking can be all about business. This is because you can have lots of new customers from your pool of contacts. Nowadays, it is not surprising to find social networking accounts of bands, home based business or small-scale service providers. They are all over the internet, adding people, conducting transactions, making money and meeting new contacts. This cycle, if maintained properly can go on for a fairly long time for as long as there is a demand for the online marketer's business. To be part of social networking and start making profits as a result, read ahead for the eight practical tips that will help you advance in social networking.

Sign up with as many sites as you can. You want to target people from different places, and the only way to do this is to go where they go and be part of their virtual social circles.
To get noticed, fill up your profile page with interesting information that people will like.
Add lots of good pictures of yourself and your business as well to give them an idea of what kind of things you produce.
Use the bulletin function to update your contacts about important announcements concerning your business.
If you happen to make a transaction online, leave that person a comment, thanking him or her for his or her interest in your products or services.
Likewise, invite your customers to leave you with testimonials.
Get personal by sending out PMs to people whom you are extra close with and invite them to special private sales or discounts as a way of thanking them for their friendship.
And finally, always follow up with your customers about their purchases. People will see that you are a genuine seller and will refer you to people who would probably want to be your contact.

Drive More Traffic to Retailers

UK retailers are attracting more and more business from social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, according to new stats from Hitwise. The data shows that the amount of UK web traffic retailers receive from social networks increased by 153% in the first nine months of this year. In September, 3.1% of visits to sites in Hitwise's Shopping and Classifieds category came from the top 25 social networks in the UK. According to Hitwise, eBay is the main beneficiary – it received almost a third (31.4%) of all downstream traffic from those sites. The ‘more traditional' brands, such as department stores and clothing and accessories retailers – are next, respectively receiving 1 in 8 and 1 in 9 of those visits. Music and video & games retailers also do well. Hitwise's research director Robin Goad said: “In terms of internet visits, social networking has grown by over 70% in the UK since last Christmas, and it is starting to have a serious impact on many different types of website.”

According to Hitwise, social networks accounted for 5% of internet visits during September. It says Facebook is now the fifth most visited URL in the UK and the fifth most popular source of traffic for other websites.

Bulletin Boards

It can be very satisfying to see people join in from all over the world just to interact with each other on a topic that relates to your Web site. Beware, you will have to keep an eye on the messages and may even have to play referee occasionally.

Contribute with Surveys

Performing surveys is a way to increase the traffic to your site. For people to want to fill out the survey and see the results, the survey topic must be interesting. To encourage input, consider having the survey results available to participants only. Your survey could be on a topic concerning current events or something pertaining to your industry. The more controversial or debatable the topic of the survey, the more people will visit to contribute or see the results. If you want to draw a very targeted audience, pick a topic that is of interest to that market alone.

In performing these surveys, you are building repeat traffic and you are gathering valuable information on your market. If you hold an interesting survey every week or every month, then you will retain a loyal audience of repeat visitors. If your surveys are newsworthy, then you can send out press releases to publicize the results and gain publicity for your site.

Your surveys should be short and to the point. Let people know why you are asking them to do the survey and when the deadline is.

Make your questions clear and concise. The responses should be Yes/No or multiple choice. When reporting the results, don't just put them on your Web page; post the results to newsgroups and mailing lists that would be interested. Don't forget to add your signature file. If you are holding weekly or monthly surveys, let people know via your signature file what the next survey topic will be and that there is more information on your Web site.

Again, ask people if they'd like to be notified of survey results, either by e-mail or by prior notification as to when the results will be posted on the site. You might also ask if they'd like to be notified when you are conducting a new survey.

Site of the Day

Having your own Site of the Day or Site of the Week listing means a great deal of work, searching the Internet for a cool site to add or looking through all the submissions.

However, if your picks are interesting to your audience, you might find that avid Internet users come back every day to see what great new site is listed. Remember that this must be updated on schedule; displaying a week-old Site of the Day reflects poorly on your site and your company.

Happy with Cartoons

Displaying relevant cartoons keeps your site dynamic and fun. You do not necessarily have to create all of the content and features yourself. If you update this weekly, ask if visitors would like to be notified via e-mail when you update your Web site. A good example of a site that uses cartoons is the Myke Ashley-Cooper Cartoons4Fun site , which continuously provides humor to its viewers. Cartoons provide a great viral marketing opportunity.

Humor with Jokes and Trivia

“Laughter is the best medicine” and could prove to be a popular feature of your Web page. People enjoy trivia, or a Thought of the Day, and there are many sources for you to draw from. Be sure to update regularly. Again, this gives you the opportunity to ask if your visitors would like to be notified when you update this section of your Web site and offers a viral marketing opportunity as well. Always make sure that whatever you include as content on your Web site is appropriate given your objectives and target market.

Games

More and more sites are featuring fun activities and games. Again, your content must be appropriate given your objectives and target markets. Just about anything goes here. You can host anything from a Star Wars trivia contest to having guests play an interactive game with other visitors. Allow visitors an easy way to “Tell a friend” about your game.

Update Reminders

Ask visitors to your site if they would like to be notified when there are updates or content changes to your pages. This is similar to a mailing list except that you write to the “list” only when changes have been made. This is effective when you have a newsletter or a frequently visited calendar of events on your site.

Special Events Reminder

People can sign up to be reminded of something via e-mail on specified dates. This feature was originally thought of by a florist to remind people about important dates. You can remind people about any number of things relating to your business. If you own a site that sells fishing and hunting gear, you could get visitors to sign up to be reminded when certain fishing or hunting seasons start. You should try to develop a reminder service that relates to something that you sell from your site. In your reminder you can include suggestions about what fishing fly works best at this time of the year.

Reminder services

Their services are very much appreciated by busy people who are not good with remembering dates. This has saved me on more than one occasion and made it very easy to purchase from the site that provided the reminder. I have five nieces and nephews across the country. I have registered their birthdays with a site that also asked for some details about the reminder—things like what the date is, the relationship that I have with the person, their ages, things they enjoy, and how far ahead of time I want to be notified. Like clockwork, ten days prior to Ryan's birthday, I got this e-mail: “Your nephew Ryan's birthday is in 10 days. He will be 12 years old. Ryan likes PlayStation video games. We happen to have several that might be appropriate as a gift for Ryan. Click here for more details.” I am then able to choose the gift that I want to purchase, the paper I want it wrapped with, and the text that I want on the card that will be attached to the gift. Then I simply provide the address I want it sent to and give them my credit card number, and they send it off. Everyone is happy, especially me.

Advice Columns

Some Web sites are incorporating advice columns. People will return again and again to read the e-mails asking for advice and to see the responses that are given. This also helps perpetuate an image of your company as an expert in your given field.

Profitable Loyalty Segmentation Strategies

How should you divide up or segment your traffic to analyze the percentage of visitors repeating? There are hundreds of ways to segment provided in most web measurement applications, and here's the hack: only five of them really affect the long-term behavior of visitors in a way that can make you more money.

By media source of the visitor - Segment based on search engines versus banner ads, or compare the repeat rate of visitors generated by different banner ads or keyword phrases. There can be huge differences in visitor behavior by source. Those of you already involved in pay-per-click marketing know what I'm talking about here, and the good news is if you are tracking source for your short-term conversions, you're already tracking what you need for longer-term loyalty and value metrics. Visitor source is the king of segmentation characteristics, and action taken in this area leads directly to bottom line improvements.
By the "offer" you make to the visitor - For commerce sites, offer is pretty self explanatory. For other types of sites, think about what you do to encourage visitors to do what you want them to do. This is your "offer." Whether it is a software download, white paper, game or interactive device, product sample, communications options, or newsletter, your "offer" has a significant effect on the retention of visitors. Test new offers regularly.
By the advertising copy you use - Ad copy is often closely tied to the issues in offer above. You can make the same offer in several different ways, and the way an offer is made will define the quality of the visitor segment it attracts.
By content area - Ask yourself, which areas of your site create the highest repeat visit percentage, and which create the lowest repeat visit percentage? Compare high and low scoring content areas to understand whatmight be causing the difference in repeat rate. Is it the content itself? The navigation? If you make a design change to a section of the site and the percentage of repeat visits drops, you should probably reconsider the changes.
If your web site is in the self-service category, you may have to look at this measurement in reversethat is, there may be parts of your site where you would like to see repeat visit percentage decrease . For lead generation sites, it might go either way. For a long sales cycle or high-ticket product, repeats may be good because this behavior demonstrates ongoing interest. For a short sales cycle or low-ticket product, one might wonder why it takes repeat visits to convert the visitor and strive for decreasing repeat visits. For branding sites, repeats demonstrate loyalty and ongoing brand involvement, so high repeat rates would be desirable overall.
By category or item of purchase - Loyalty segmentation based on category of item purchased should be further segmented into first-time and repeat buyer segments. This will tell you which products are most profitable in the long term to feature or promote to new and current customers. It's not as important to understand why certain products generate repeat behavior. Simply understanding which products generate repeat behavior is a very powerful tool.
The power of this type of segmentation, however, really lies in being able to see differences in metrics, such as the average revenue per order for televisions: $1,475.56 for new buyers and only $524.95 for repeat buyers. Data like this should have you asking "What is it about new buyers that makes their television purchases so profitable?" and "How can we replicate this behavior throughout other product categories?" If you aren't segmenting loyal visitors, you won't have access to this type of data and will always be forced to deal with averages.

Refferences

Bring 'em Back for More - You shouldn't just work to get visitors to your site; you should work to keep them coming back time and time again. This site gives you some tips on how to do just that.
Driving Traffic Back - An article on how you can use e-zines to create repeat traffic.
Brain Storming - The Dynamic New Way to Create Successful Ideas, by Charles H. Clark
Six Things You Can Do to Increase Your Repeat Traffic Today - Some great ideas for encouraging repeat visitors.
Stimulate Repeat Traffic with Bookmarks - An article about using bookmarks to increase the likelihood of repeat traffic.
Does Your Site Extend Its Welcome? - This article provides good tips about how to generate repeat traffic.

Increase Your Web Traffic through Online Publications

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:31:00 +0000

More than 60 percent of Internet users frequently read online publications, or e-zines. You can identify marketing opportunities by searching for and reading e-zines that are relevant to your business. In this topic, we cover:

What electronic magazines are
Finding online sites on which to advertise or arrange links
How to find appropriate e-zines for marketing purposes
Submitting articles to e-zines
Advertising in e-zines
E-zine resources on-line.

Appealing to Magazine Subscribers on the Net

Many Web users frequently read e-zines. This is one of the reasons they are among the most popular marketing tools on the Internet. Five years ago there were a few hundred e-zines in publication. Now there are thousands of e-zines dedicated to a wide variety of topics such as travel, business opportunities, food, child care, you name it. For any topic you are interested in, there quite likely are several e-zines dedicated to it.

What Exactly Are E-zines?

Coastal Living, Southern Living, Time, People, and Sports Illustrated are all accessible via the Internet. Some of these provide the full version of their traditional magazine; others are selective about the articles they provide; and still others provide the previous month's edition.

E-zines, or electronic magazines, are the online version of magazines. They are content-rich and contain information regarding a certain topic in the form of magazine articles and features. Many e-zines display ads as well. Some e-zines are Web-site-based and others are e-mail-based.

Many offline magazines provide a version on-line as well.

Web-Based E-zines

There are Web-based e-zines that have only an online presence. These e-zines are accessed through their Web sites by browsing from page to page. They have the look and feel of a traditional magazine. They include lots of glossy pictures and advertisements. Usually there is no charge to view the Web-based e-zines, but some do charge a subscription fee. These Web-based e-zines tend to be as graphically pleasing as offline magazines.

E-mail E-zines

Although e-mail e-zines can come as text or HTML, these days we are seeing more and more HTML as they get a much higher readership and most e-mail viewers have no problem displaying HTML e-mails, which look like a Web page. Today we are seeing a blur between newsletters and e-mail e-zines as most newsletters now are sent as HTML and most are content-rich on a specific subject.

E-mail-based e-zines tend to be very content-rich and, as such, tend to be more of a target-marketing mechanism. E-mail e-zines tend to be several screens in length with one main or several short articles and, sometimes, classified advertising. The benchmark is that these e-zines should be able to be read in about five minutes. Circulation is often in the thousands. Most run weekly or biweekly editions. Most e-zines are free to subscribers.

People interested in the subject have taken the time to subscribe and ask to receive the information directly in their e-mail box. Once you have found an e-zine that caters to your target market, the e-zine could be a valuable marketing vehicle.

Every subscriber to an e-mail-based e-zine has access to the Internet.

These people regularly receive and send e-mail and quite likely surf the Net. If you advertise in this type of medium and place your Internet address in the ad, your prospective customer is not more than a couple of clicks away from your site.

People subscribe because they are interested. Even if they don't read it immediately when it is received, they usually read it eventually. Otherwise, they would not have subscribed. Subscribers will see your URL and product advertisements. For this reason, e-mail e-zines are a great marketing tool.

Using E-zines as Marketing Tools

Online publications are superior marketing tools for a number of reasons. They can be used in a number of ways to increase the traffic to your Web site. You can:

Advertise directly
Be a sponsor
Submit articles
Send press releases
Start your own.

Finding Appropriate E-zines for Your Marketing Effort

There are many locations on-line to find lists and links to both Web based and e-mail e-zines. A number of these resources are listed in the Internet Resources section at the end of this topic.

You evaluate an e-zine's marketing potential by its audience, reach, and effectiveness. The most important element of choosing an e-zine is to find one that reaches your target market. E-zine ads are effective because there is a high correlation between the target customer and the magazine's subscribers. If you advertise in an e-zine simply because it has the largest subscriber rate, you will probably be disappointed unless your products or services have mass-market appeal.

Some of these sites have keyword search capabilities. Others have their e-zines listed by category. Once you have a list of e-zines you feel fit well with your marketing objectives, you should subscribe and begin reviewing these e-zines.

The Multiple Advantages of E-zine Advertising

One of the major advantages of e-zine advertising is the lifespan of your ads. E-zines that are delivered to e-mail addresses are read by the recipient and sometimes saved for future reference. Many e-zines archive their issues with the ads intact. Advertisers have received responses to ads that are several months old!

When you place an ad in an e-zine, you see it in a relatively short period of time, perhaps the next day or the next week depending on how often the e-zine is published. Most traditional magazines close out their ad space months before the issue is available on the newsstand.

Your ad in an e-zine is also much more likely to be noticed because there are so few of them. In a traditional magazine every second page is an ad, whereas e-zines have a much greater focus on content and far fewer ads.

When your ad appears in an e-zine, your customer is just a click away because your ad is usually hyperlinked to your Web site. This brings your customer that much closer to being able to purchase your products or services.

Another advantage of e-zine advertising is that e-zines are often shared with friends and associates. Most e-zines use viral marketing effectively, encouraging readers to send a copy to a friend. Your ad might be passed around a number of times after it first enters the mailbox of the subscriber. You are being charged for the ad based on the number of e-mail subscribers. Therefore, the extra viewers of your ad cost you nothing.

One of the most tangible advantages of e-zine advertising is the relatively low cost due, in part, to the low overhead for development, production, and delivery. E-zines need to fill all of their available space. If an e-zine advertising section has empty spaces, the publisher might be willing to negotiate. Some will even barter with you—advertising space at a discounted price in exchange for their e-zine promotion on your Web site.

E-zines provide a very targeted advertising medium. People subscribe to various e-zines because they have a genuine interest in the topics covered. This provides a major advantage over other advertising mediums. E-zine ads have been shown to have very high response rates due to their targeted nature.

Because they are distributed via the Internet, e-zines reach a far wider audience geographically than most traditional magazines. It is not uncommon for an e-zine to have subscribers from all around the world.

There are thousands of e-zines out there related to every topic imaginable. Most e-zines have thousands of subscribers. When you couple the low cost to advertise in these e-zines and the many e-zines that might reach your target market, it is no wonder many companies are allocating more and more of their advertising budgets to online activities.

Guidelines for Your Advertising

Once you have found e-zines that reach your target market, you should consider a number of other factors before you make a final decision on placing your ad.

Check the ads displayed in the e-zine for repetition. If advertisers have not advertised more than once, then they probably did not see very positive results.
Respond to some of the ads and ask the advertisers what their experiences were with advertising in that particular e-zine. Be sure to tell them who you are and why you are contacting them. If you are up front, they will probably be receptive to your inquiry.
Talk to the e-zine publisher and ask questions (e.g., how many subscribers there are). Ask what other advertisers have had to say about their results. Find out what types of ads they accept and if there are any restrictions. Check to see if the publisher has a policy of never running competing ads. Maybe the e-zine has a set of advertising policies that you can receive via e-mail.
Find out if the publisher provides tracking information and, if so, what specific reports you will have access to.
Find out if your ad can have a hyperlink to your Web site. If the e-zine allows hyperlinks, make sure you link to an effective page—one that is a continuation of the advertisement or a page that provides details on the item you were advertising. Provide a link to the order form from this page to assist the transaction.
In some cases e-zines have an editorial calendar available to assist you with the timing of your ad. The editorial calendar will tell you what articles will be included in upcoming issues. If an upcoming issue will have an article relating to your type of product or service, you could choose to advertise in that issue. You might contact the editor regarding a product review or submit an article relevant to the issue topics.
Make sure that the advertising rates are reasonable based on the number of subscribers, and ask yourself if you can afford it. Find out the “open” rate, or the rate charged for advertising once in the e-zine. Ask what the rate is for multiple placements. If you are not in a position to pay for the advertising now, ask if there are other arrangements that could be made. For example, the publisher might accept a link on your Web site in exchange for the ad.
Develop your ads with your target customer in mind. They should attract your best prospects. Wherever possible, you should link to your site or provide an e-mail link to the right individual within your organization.
Develop a mechanism to track advertising responses. You could use different e-mail accounts for different ads to determine which ads are bringing you the responses. You can also use different URLs to point viewers to different pages within your site. If you have a good traffic-analysis package, you can track the increase in visitors as a result of your ad.
Make sure you are versed in the publication's advertising deadlines and ad format preferences.

Providing Articles and News Releases to E-zines

Besides advertising, a number of other marketing opportunities can be explored with e-zines. Once you have found the e-zines that cater to your target market, these e-zines could be fruitful recipients for your news releases. Refer to Topic 21 for recommendations on news release development and distribution. The editors might also accept articles of interest to their readers. You might be able to incorporate information on your products and services in an interesting article that would fit the editor's guidelines.

Write Articles about your website and Submit to Press Releases: Click Press - Web Wire - Emedia Wire - Business Wire - PR Web Direct - The Open Press - Free Press Release - Press Box - I News Wire - pr9 - PR Inside - News Wire.ca - Press Release Network - Market Wire - URL Wire - PR Urgent - PR Leap - PR News Wire - PR Free - Open Press - Soft Press Release -

There are many e-zines looking for great content. If you can write articles for them that provide great content for their readers and at the same time provide a little exposure for you, it's a real win–win situation. You'll want to target those e-zines that have the same target market you do and have a broad subscriber base. You'll want to make sure the e-zine includes a resource box at the end of the article crediting you as the author and providing a hyperlink to your Web site or your e-mail address. Having articles published enhances your reputation as an expert, and people like to buy products and services from people who are experts in their field. You might see if you can be a contributing editor or have a regular column or feature in their e-zine.

Besides sending your articles directly to targeted e-zines, you can also submit them to “article banks” on-line. Article banks are online resource sites for e-zine publishers. E-zine publishers search through these banks for appropriate articles for their e-zine and, if they use one, they include the resource box of the author.

Reasons You Might Start Your Own E-zine

You can start your own e-zine. Today, this is relatively easy. There are lots of resources on-line regarding e-zine development and administration.

Don't make this decision without much thought, though, as you can damage your reputation if you don't deliver consistent, valuable content.

There are a multitude of reasons that you should consider developing and distributing your own e-zine. E-zines can be an extremely effective online marketing tool for the following reasons:

You become established as an “expert.” By providing your readers with valuable articles related to your area of expertise, you become, in their eyes, a valued and trusted expert.
You establish trust. The first time someone visits your Web site, he or she has no idea who you are, how capable you are, or how professional you are. Sure, visitors get an impression from the look and feel and content of your site, but are they ready to do business with you? By providing them with free, valuable content over a period of time, you earn your visitors' trust, and they are more likely to turn to you when they need the type of product or service you provide.
You generate significant traffic to your Web site. Your e-zine should always reference and provide a hyperlink to something available from your Web site. Once your visitor links through, there should be elements that encourage him to stay awhile and visit a number of pages on your site. The more often people visit your site, the more likely they are to do business with you.
You build loyalty. Relationship marketing is what it's all about on the Web. You build relationships over time, and your e-zine will help you do just that. Your subscribers receive something free from you every month. Whom are they going to do business with when they have a need for your product or service? People prefer to spend their money with businesses they know and trust.
You stay current with your customers and potential customers. When you are in front of your subscribers every month, you're not too easy to forget. You can keep them up to date on what's new with your company and your products and services, or what's new in your area of expertise.
You grow your database. See Topic 14 for tips on how to build your database.

Developing Your Own E-zine

If you do start your own e-zine, you should spend sufficient time planning and testing before you publish to ensure that you do it right.

You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, and you want your readers to subscribe and tell others about the great e-zine they found. You want them to be excited to read your e-zine every time it is delivered to their e-mail box. The following tips will help you in your e-mail-based e-zine planning and preparation:

Provide great content. This goes without saying. If you have content that people want to read, they will remain subscribers. Don't think that shameless self-promotion is great content; your target audience certainly won't. As a rough guide, make sure your e-zine is 80 percent rich content and no more than 20 percent promotion and ads. Your e-zine should be full of what your target market considers useful information.
You should keep length a consideration because you want your e-zine to be read and not put aside for later because it is always too long to read quickly. In this case, less is more. Subscribers should be able to read your e-zine in five minutes or less. If you do have a lengthy article, you might give a synopsis in the e-zine with a hyperlink to more detail on your Web site.
Limit your content to four or five dynamite articles for an e-mail based e-zine. Provide a brief table of contents at the beginning of the e-zine. Keep the copy short and to the point.
Keep your line length under 60 characters including spaces to avoid word-wrap issues.
Encourage your readers to send a copy to others they feel might be interested in your great content. Make sure you provide subscribing instructions as well for those who receive these forwarded copies. You should also provide instructions on how to opt out, or unsubscribe.
Test your e-zine with different e-mail programs to ensure that your e-zine looks the way you designed it no matter which e-mail program your reader uses. Send test copies to friends with different e-mail readers such as Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Pegasus Mail, and Eudora. See how it looks, make sure that word-wrap is not an issue, and make sure the hyperlinks work.
Keep your subscriber addresses private and let subscribers know your privacy policy. As the word about your e-zine spreads, you will have a large community of people who fit your target market reading it.

Once you have your own e-zine, you'll have to:

Promote it to your target market through newsgroups, mail lists, your Web site, and your e-mail signature file. If you do promote your e-zine in newsgroups and mail lists, be sure it is appropriate to advertise your e-zine in a given newsgroup or mail list before you post. You do not want to be accused of spamming. However, promote your e-zine shamelessly on your site (let people subscribe to the e-zine on your site) and in your signature file.
Provide an opportunity for subscribers to let others know. In your online e-zine, have a form that allows subscribers to e-mail a copy of the e-zine to their friends and colleagues. Use a call to action statement such as “Do you know someone who might be interested in this e-zine? Click here to send them a copy.” This is a great way to pick up additional subscribers because some of the non-subscribers who read your e-zine might then become subscribers if your content is interesting to them.
Make it easy for people to subscribe to your e-zine. Provide clear subscription instructions in each e-mail version of your e-zine and on the online version. Have a form handy on your site to collect e-mail addresses from people who wish to subscribe. Always ask for the first name so that you can personalize your e-zine.
Provide an archive of past issues on your Web site so that visitors can sample your wares before subscribing. Make sure you provide an option for visitors to subscribe from that page as well.
Don't provide your list of subscribers to anyone. This protects your subscribers' privacy and keeps your list spam-free. Thus, when you mail your e-zine, use the BCC feature or use a specialized e-mail program that hides all the recipients' addresses so the entire list is not compromised. People will not be happy if they start receiving spam as a result of your e-zine.

Write some Articles about your website, and post it to: Amazines - Article Alley - ArticleCity - Rolista Articles - Article Emporium - Articles Factory - Article Finders - Article Submissions - Article Warehouse - Author Connection - Business Know How - BusinessToolChest - Buzzle - Common Connections - Connection Team - Constant Content - Create Online Business - Digital Women - Ezine Articles - Family-Content - Free Content - Free Traffic Tips - Free Ezine Site - Fresh Articles - Go Articles - Home Business Directory - Home Based business Opportunities - Home business Tips Newsletter - How to Advice - Idea Marketers - Isnare - Jogena - Jorbins - Li'l Engine - Link Snoop - Main Street Mom - Marketing PitBull - NetterWeb - Organic Rankings - Promote Newz - Promotion World - Sales Masters World - Search Warp - Smart Ads Info - Store Builder.co.uk - T & I Grafix - The Ezine - Top Web Marketing - U Promote - The Warrior Forum - Web Host Industry Review - Web Momz - Web Pro News - Website Fuel - Web Source - Work At Home Articles - Work At Home Jobs Iowa - Work 911 - Xongoo - Zinos -

Resources

BestEzines - Directory of e-zines organized by category. A great site to find e-zines to reach your target market.
The Book of Zines - Dynamite site with tons of links to e-zines, advice on developing your e-zine, reviews, interviews, how-to section, newly noted, and zine tips.
Ecola Newsstand - Ecola Newsstand has more than 8,400 magazines, newspapers, and publications. There are more than 100 categories of magazines from which to choose.
Ezine-Universe - Ezine-Universe is a great directory of e-mail-based e-zines.
InfoJump - Browse a huge directory of e-zines by category.
List City's Book of E-zines - A list of e-zines organized by category that accept paid advertising as well as all the details and contact information for each e-zine.
MediaFinder - A national directory of magazines with details on target audience, publisher, contact, telephone numbers, Web addresses, e-mail addresses, editorial descriptions, issue frequency, and subscription price. In many cases, an information request form is attached should you want further details. Great resource!
Ezine Directory - The Ezine Directory lists over 2,400 of the best e-mail newsletters available on the Internet today. Search, browse, or add your e-zine for free!

Design your site with correct way

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:27:00 +0000

Structure by Theme and Topic

The main idea is to separate content onto different pages by topic (keyword phrase) within your site. Suppose that a site sells house plans online and that is the theme of the site (it's Primary Keyword Phrase). This site also sells country house plans, garage plans, and duplex plans, and let's say for this example that each page of the site mentions all three plan types.

The general subject or category of your website dictates it's theme. Loosely stated, the theme of your website is generally your Primary Keyword Phrase.

Ideally, your site is only about one major subject or category. If you have more than one major subject for your site, say, for example, you sell baby diapers AND garage door openers, you should strongly consider creating multiple sites, one per subject.

However, what is each page's specific topic? The different plan types have been mentioned on multiple pages, so each page contains the keywords country house plans, garage plans, and duplex plans. None of the th ee plan types would be strongly relevant on any of these pages for Google.

The correct way to structure this site is to have one page that discusses only country house plans, another page that discusses only garage plans, and a third page that discusses only duplex plans. Each page is now strongly relevant for one keyword phrase. No “dilution” occurs in any of the pages, and each page should subsequently fair better in the rankings for its particular keyword phrase. This is important.

Next, you would add links on each page so that garage plan pages link only to other garage p lan pages, duplex plan pages link only to duplex plan pages, and so forth. By using the applicable keyword phrase in the link t ext (the clickable pa rt of the link), you can also help strengthen the importance of each page. We'll discuss in greater detail later how to link pages correctly between pages.

To properly structure a site that offers different products, services, or content categories, you should split the content onto different pages. You ideally want a single topic, or keyword phrase, applied per page.

Create Some Pages With Content

Break up your pages using “-H1-” and “-H2-” heads, and include your keywords in these heads. Not only will it help visitors read your pages by providing visual separators, it will give your pages more relevance with Google.

Websites with lots of pages in general rank better than sites with just a f ew pages, all other things being equal. It is better to have a 50-page site with short pages than a 5-page site with long, flowing pages. Each page should however contain a minimum of about 200 visible words of text to maximize relevance with Google.

Also, you need pages with real content – don't create just a lot of “fluff” pages that are standard fare anyway – About Us page, Contact Us page, Our Mission page, etc.

Keep your web pages simple. Try to avoid gratuitous animations, junk graphics, large imagemaps, JavaScript, or anything else that may get in the way of Google or, more importantly, of your customers getting the message you are trying to convey.

Don't create pages that are identical or nearly so in content. Google may consider them to be duplicates and your or site may be penalized. Pages full of high quality, unique, keyword-rich content are a must. Be careful if you use both HTML and PDF versions of the same content. Google will index both.

To prevent this, create a robots.txt file and place it in the main (root) directory on your server. A robots.txt file specifies which directories and file types to exclude from crawling. If your PDF files are duplicates of your HTML files, put all the PDF files in a different directory and specify that this directory by excluded from crawling. For more information on creating a robots.txt file, see searchengineworld .

Here are some standard pages you should consider for your site:

Home page
Your main product, service, or content pages (this is the meat of your site)
FAQ page(s) (Frequently Asked Questions) or Articles pages
Sitemap page (links to each page on your site)
About Us page
Contact Us page
Related Links page(s)
Link to Us page
Testimonials page
Copyright, Disclaimers, Privacy Policy page
Ordering page

Don't Nest Your Pages Too Deeply

When Google crawls your site, it typically starts at the home page and then follows each link on the page to all your other pages. Google finds your home page in turn from following a link on another website that points to your site.

Google seems to attach more importance to files that are closer to the root folder on your server - the folder on your Web server where the home page file is located. Some web designers however may create multiple folders and subfolders on the server for ease in maintaining lots of files.

Google may not value pages located in subfolders as strongly as files located in the root folder. In general, Google doesn't like to index pages that are more than about three folder levels deep. Ideally, all pages should live in the same folder as your home page or at most be one level deep.

Don't Bloat Your Pages With Code

Google has a time limit that it sets to crawl sites. If you have a very large site, Google may not have time to crawl all pages during the first pas. This problem can be minimized if you keep the code of your web pages lean and clean.

This also makes your pages download faster, which improves the visitor experience. Studies show that you lose 10% of your visitors for every second it takes your page to load. After about 5 seconds, you might as well forget it – most people will have left your site. Remember there is a still a percentage of people who still use dial-up modems – particularly outside of the US. This will not change real soon, despite the hype over broadband.

Try not to have more code than visible content (text) on your page. Frequently web pages are comprised of over 80% JavaScript code and style code (hard-coded font information or inline style blocks). Right-click a web page and then click View Source – you will be amazed at the amount of code present. Although Google ignores such code, it still takes time for it to wade through to find your content.

Put your JavaScript code in a separate (.JS) file and link to it from the “-HEAD-” section of each web page, as follows:

“-script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"

src="YourFile.js"-”“-/script-”

In addition, create a stylesheet file (.CSS) file that contains your font information and link to it also.

“-link rel="stylesheet" href="YourFile.css"-”

Stay Away From Frames and Flash

No popular websites use frames and neither should you. Yes, they provide some degree of navigational ease and yes there are workarounds but search engines simply cannot properly crawl framed sites. In addition, visitors can't bookmark any interior pages of your site or link to them. There are some that still beat this dead horse but framed sites simply ha ve too many nega tives to contend with. Don 't do it.

Same goes for sites whose entire home page is a Flash movie. How many times have YOU actually watched a Flash movie when arriving on a home page? If you are like most, you've clicked “Skip Intro” as quickly as possible. We are all busy and to wait for a gratuitous Flash movie to download is downright annoying – especially each and every time we visit the site. The only people who care about Flash are Adobe, the Flash developer that you paid, and the CEO or Marketing Director who enjoys it for the coolness factor. Google can index Flash somewhat successfully, but this doesn't mean it's going to boost your page ranking or increase sales.

If you must use Flash, confine it to a small location on your page or provide a link to it. Flash movies that take up the entire web page do have their uses but the home page is not one of them. If you do use Flash on a page, make sure to add the following code:

“-NOEMBED-”My keyword-rich content”-/NOEMBED-”

Pay Attention To Your Dynamic Page URLs

Many sites today display content dynamically from a database. Common examples include search engines on a site that return directory pages, product pages, shopping cart pages, or news articles. Some content management software also produces pages with dynamic URLs. All dynamic pages can be identified by the “?” symbol in the URL, such as

http:/ /www.mysite.com/products.php?id=1&style=a

Google can crawl and index dynamic pages as long as you don't have more than 2 parameters in the URL (the example above has two parameters separated by the “&” symbol). Even so, Google may not spider your dynamic pages for some time. Spiders do not want to get caught in a loop of trying to index hundreds of thousands of potential pages.

Google will not follow links that contain session IDs embedded in them.

Specifically, Google will not index pages that include "&id=" in the URL string, whether you actually use session ids or not. This means that if you have a dynamic site that generates multiple-parameter URL strings, you should strongly consider changing your server code to use a string other than "id" for generating dynamic URLs. Don't use anything that uses "id" anywhere in the string, including sessid, rid, pid,id1, etc.

A simple solution is to create static pages with hard-coded links to your most important dynamic pages whenever possible. You can create a series of sitemap pages just for this purpose. Yes it can be tedious if you have hundreds or thousands of products but it is worth the effort. You want to make it as easy as possible for Google to find all your important pages. This has the added benefit of helping your visitors find a specific product page – be sure and use the product name or keyword in the link text.

URL Rewriting

There more advanced technique involves installing a script on your server that changes a dynamic URL to a static page, whereby each parameter name is translated to a folder name. This method varies by server platform and is something a more experienced webmaster should implement. For the Apache platform, it can be as simple as creating a .htaccess file that contains regular expressions. Do a search on Google and you'll find a number of ways to do URL rewriting (also called mod rewrite or server rewriting).

All search engines prefer static pages over dynamic pages. If you have a large site with lots of dynamic pages, you should consider URL rewriting, as dynamic pages can take months longer to be indexed and then ranked in Google. And once indexed, Google will not re-crawl dynamic pages as often as static pages.

Keywords in File Names

Although not an important factor, Google does look to see if keywords are used in file names for your web pages, but the overall influence on your ranking is very minute.

When naming files, separat e each word with a hyphen, otherwise Google will not be able to recognize the phrase and will think it is a single word.

As a general rule of thumb, don't use more than two hyphens, it looks spammy and Google may take a closer look at your site for other possible issues.

About Google Sitemaps

Google Sitemaps is an special file that lists all the pages on your site, whether your content has changed, and that you have added a new page. While this is a neat feature, many sites don't need to use it. Keep in mind that Google will find your site and pages by following links.

With that said, some dynamic sites and other websites that have had problems getting their pages indexed (think Flash) may find it helpful. If your website is well-designed with clean internal links and a standard sitemap page, there is no need to use Google Sitemaps.

Bear in mind that once you are signed up for the Google Sitemaps program, you are committed to updating the Sitemap XML file on a regular basis, which can be a sink on your time.

In this regard, it is somewhat of a crutch for webmasters who have a messy or search engine "unfriendly" site and don't want to change their site. It would be time better served to fix your site so that it can be crawled completely by all the search engines and to employ SEO best practices than continually update an XML file. You may be able to get Google to crawl some of your new pages quicker, but that doesn't mean it will rank your pages any faster.

Increase Your Web Traffic through Online Publications

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:33:00 +0000

What electronic magazines are
Finding online sites on which to advertise or arrange links
How to find appropriate e-zines for marketing purposes
Submitting articles to e-zines
Advertising in e-zines
E-zine resources on-line.

Appealing to Magazine Subscribers on the Net

Five years ago there were a few hundred e-zines in publication. Now there are thousands of e-zines dedicated to a wide variety of topics such as travel, business opportunities, food, child care, you name it. For any topic you are interested in, there quite likely are several e-zines dedicated to it.

What Exactly Are E-zines?

Web-Based E-zines

E-mail E-zines

E-mail e-zines tend to be several screens in length with one main or several short articles and, sometimes, classified advertising. The benchmark is that these e-zines should be able to be read in about five minutes. Most e-zines are free to subscribers.

Every subscriber to an e-mail-based e-zine has access to the Internet.

Using E-zines as Marketing Tools

Online publications are superior marketing tools for a number of reasons. They can be used in a number of ways to increase the traffic to your Web site. You can:

Advertise directly
Be a sponsor
Submit articles
Send press releases
Start your own.

Finding Appropriate E-zines for Your Marketing Effort

There are many locations on-line to find lists and links to both Web based and e-mail e-zines.

You evaluate an e-zine's marketing potential by its audience, reach, and effectiveness. E-zine ads are effective because there is a high correlation between the target customer and the magazine's subscribers.

The Multiple Advantages of E-zine Advertising

E-zines that are delivered to e-mail addresses are read by the recipient and sometimes saved for future reference. Many e-zines archive their issues with the ads intact. Advertisers have received responses to ads that are several months old!

When you place an ad in an e-zine, you see it in a relatively short period of time, perhaps the next day or the next week depending on how often the e-zine is published.

Most e-zines use viral marketing effectively, encouraging readers to send a copy to a friend. Your ad might be passed around a number of times after it first enters the mailbox of the subscriber. You are being charged for the ad based on the number of e-mail subscribers.

People subscribe to various e-zines because they have a genuine interest in the topics covered. This provides a major advantage over other advertising mediums. E-zine ads have been shown to have very high response rates due to their targeted nature. Because they are distributed via the Internet, e-zines reach a far wider audience geographically than most traditional magazines.

ConTEXT Ad Generator 2.0

ConTEXT Ad Generator 2.0 turns your content into an instant profit magnet by dynamically transforming keywords on your site into affiliate links for literally any affiliate program you choose to promote.

Why ConTEXT Ad Generator Is The Best Way To Monetize Your Web Traffic!

The generated ads are not obvious or blatant and can command a much higher click thru rate than regular PPC (pay-per-click) ads.
Can be used with any form of content such as blogs, forums, article sites, public domain material or online books.
Doesn't require any special knowledge or skill and can be live on your website within minutes.
Links open up in a new browser window, keeping your visitors on your site so they get the chance to return, click more ads and earn you more revenue.
Can be combined with any other PPC advertising programs you use (The more income streams your sites have, the better)
The links will appear exactly like any other link on your website. If you use style sheets they will follow the same format set out inside it.
Covertly converts the keywords into links without actually modifying the pages source. The links are created 'on the fly' the second a visitor lands on the page.
Protects your websites search engine position and link popularity by covertly disguising every link it creates. The search engines wont know your site has a bunch of affiliate links pointing out, so it will rank higher.
Tested to work in any browser, so you know everyone who visits your site is seeing and clicking on your new cash generating affiliate links.
Compatible with any webpage regardless of the language its coded in. Works with html, php, asp and anything else.
No complicated modifications to your website required. Just insert one snippet of code and your done.
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And best of all, "ConTEXT Ad Generator 2.0" is the best value on the market. Unlike some of our competitors, you'll never have to pay a monthly fee. Once you make your purchase, you can use it on unlimited sites forever, without ever having to spend another penny.

At this point you're probably thinking that, "a system that is going to give me such a huge advantage in my business must be out of my budget." After all, many of our competitors make you pay a monthly fee for a similar service. Not here!

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Guidelines for Your Advertising

Once you have found e-zines that reach your target market, you should consider a number of other factors before you make a final decision on placing your ad.

Check the ads displayed in the e-zine for repetition.
Respond to some of the ads and ask the advertisers what their experiences were with advertising in that particular e-zine. Be sure to tell them who you are and why you are contacting them.
Ask what other advertisers have had to say about their results. Find out what types of ads they accept and if there are any restrictions. Check to see if the publisher has a policy of never running competing ads.
Find out if the publisher provides tracking information and, if so, what specific reports you will have access to.
Find out if your ad can have a hyperlink to your Web site. If the e-zine allows hyperlinks, make sure you link to an effective page, one that is a continuation of the advertisement or a page that provides details on the item you were advertising. Provide a link to the order form from this page to assist the transaction.
In some cases e-zines have an editorial calendar available to assist you with the timing of your ad. The editorial calendar will tell you what articles will be included in upcoming issues. If an upcoming issue will have an article relating to your type of product or service, you could choose to advertise in that issue. You might contact the editor regarding a product review or submit an article relevant to the issue topics.
Make sure that the advertising rates are reasonable based on the number of subscribers, and ask yourself if you can afford it. Find out the “open” rate, or the rate charged for advertising once in the e-zine. Ask what the rate is for multiple placements. If you are not in a position to pay for the advertising now, ask if there are other arrangements that could be made. For example, the publisher might accept a link on your Web site in exchange for the ad.
Develop your ads with your target customer in mind. They should attract your best prospects. Wherever possible, you should link to your site or provide an e-mail link to the right individual within your organization.
Develop a mechanism to track advertising responses. You could use different e-mail accounts for different ads to determine which ads are bringing you the responses. You can also use different URLs to point viewers to different pages within your site. If you have a good traffic-analysis package, you can track the increase in visitors as a result of your ad.
Make sure you are versed in the publication's advertising deadlines and ad format preferences.

Providing Articles and News Releases to E-zines

Besides advertising, a number of other marketing opportunities can be explored with e-zines. Once you have found the e-zines that cater to your target market, these e-zines could be fruitful recipients for your news releases. The editors might also accept articles of interest to their readers. You might be able to incorporate information on your products and services in an interesting article that would fit the editor's guidelines.

If you can write articles for them that provide great content for their readers and at the same time provide a little exposure for you, it's a real win–win situation. Having articles published enhances your reputation as an expert, and people like to buy products and services from people who are experts in their field. You might see if you can be a contributing editor or have a regular column or feature in their e-zine.

Write Articles about your website and Submit to Press Releases: http://www.clickpress.com - http://www.webwire.com/ - http://www.emediawire.com - http://www.businesswire.com - http://www.prwebdirect.com - http://www.theopenpress.com - http://www.free-press-release.com - http://www.pressbox.co.uk - http://www.i-newswire.com/ - http://www.pr9.net - http://www.pr-inside.com - http://www.newswire.ca/ - http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com - http://www.marketwire.com - http://www.urlwire.com/ - http://www.prurgent.com - http://www.prleap.com - http://www.prnewswire.com - http://www.prfree.com/ - http://www.openpress.com/ - http://www.softpressrelease.com

Reasons You Might Start Your Own E-zine

You can start your own e-zine. Today, this is relatively easy. There are lots of resources on-line regarding e-zine development and administration. Don't make this decision without much thought, though, as you can damage your reputation if you don't deliver consistent, valuable content.

E-zines can be an extremely effective online marketing tool for the following reasons:

You become established as an “expert.” By providing your readers with valuable articles related to your area of expertise, you become, in their eyes, a valued and trusted expert.
You establish trust. The first time someone visits your Web site, he or she has no idea who you are, how capable you are, or how professional you are. Sure, visitors get an impression from the look and feel and content of your site, but are they ready to do business with you? By providing them with free, valuable content over a period of time, you earn your visitors' trust, and they are more likely to turn to you when they need the type of product or service you provide.
You generate significant traffic to your Web site. Your e-zine should always reference and provide a hyperlink to something available from your Web site. Once your visitor links through, there should be elements that encourage him to stay awhile and visit a number of pages on your site. The more often people visit your site, the more likely they are to do business with you.
You build loyalty. Relationship marketing is what it's all about on the Web. You build relationships over time, and your e-zine will help you do just that. Your subscribers receive something free from you every month. Whom are they going to do business with when they have a need for your product or service? People prefer to spend their money with businesses they know and trust.
You stay current with your customers and potential customers. When you are in front of your subscribers every month, you're not too easy to forget. You can keep them up to date on what's new with your company and your products and services, or what's new in your area of expertise.
You grow your database. See Topic 14 for tips on how to build your database.

eZine Manager Pro

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Ezy EZine Ad Formatter

New software easily and instantly formats your ezine ads to fit any publishers character length specifics saving you time and frustration...

Advertising online is hard enough...why should you having to worry about counting each and every character on each and every line in your ad copy. It's time consuming and frustrating. But, most ezine publishers and ezine co-ops have a specific character length per line that YOUR AD MUST BE SET TO.

If your ad is not formatted, they reject your ad or have you re-submit it in the correct format.

This takes up time, and can even get out of hand of you use Free ezine ads to advertise in multiple ezines at one time. Re-formatting one or two ezine ads can be time consuming but, re-formatting 5, 6 or even 10 ezine ads for different ezines...now that could take up half your day.

If you do this two or three times a week, half your week is gone and all of the other important things you need to get done haven't even been started yet. Well, you no longer have to worry about this problem any more!

After you're finished downloading your copy of 'Ezy Ezine Ad Formatter' you will no longer have to worry about your ezine ad format, counting each and every character on each and every line. The software literally does the formatting for you.

You have enough to worry about with your online advertising time, resources and effectiveness. After opening the software and trying it for the first time, you will see that the 'Ezy Ezine Ad Formatter' will definitely cut your ezine ad submission time in half leaving you tons more time to focus on other marketing methods.

INSTANTLY Formats - Once you have the software you will see that it instantly, and easily formats your ads for you just by click a few buttons.
Saves Time - The software will save you tons of time by making sure that your ads are formatted with the correct character width the first time you submit your ad so you won't have to re-submit your ads over and over again.
Provides Great Resources - When you download your copy today, you will find that there are some GREAT build in resources right in the software itself. Just click a button and you will find tons of place that you can start to place submit your ezine ads to!
User Friendly - The software makes it so it's as easy as 1, 2, 3. Just a few clicks and you're done. You ezine ads are formatted in just seconds!!
Makes Ezine Advertisings Easier - You will no longer have to worry about your ad being published or not because of the format. Your ad will be INSTANTLY formatted in just seconds making it so you only need to submit your ad once and you're done!
Formats Anything - With this simple to use software, you can literally format any text to any of the current accepted text widths in just seconds. Solo ads, articles, ezine mailings...anything!
Formats In All Current Character Lengths - You will be able to format your text to any of the current text widths PLUS, anything in between as well!
Guarantees Less Work With Free Ad Submissions - You will no longer have to submit your Free ezine ads over and over again. This easy to use software will instantly format your ads making it so you only have to submit once and your done!
Builds Credibility With Advertisers - Your advertisers will love the fact that YOU, can instantly format their ads for them in just seconds making their work load much lighter!
Great Backend Product - This is the perfect product to resell (resell rights included) to any customer as ezine ads are the web most used marketing method!

With this all benefit, you just pay for US$ 4.00, then download in 5 minutes.

Developing Your Own E-zine

The following tips will help you in your e-mail-based e-zine planning and preparation:

Provide great content. This goes without saying. If you have content that people want to read, they will remain subscribers. Don't think that shameless self-promotion is great content; your target audience certainly won't. As a rough guide, make sure your e-zine is 80 percent rich content and no more than 20 percent promotion and ads. Your e-zine should be full of what your target market considers useful information.
You should keep length a consideration because you want your e-zine to be read and not put aside for later because it is always too long to read quickly. In this case, less is more. Subscribers should be able to read your e-zine in five minutes or less. If you do have a lengthy article, you might give a synopsis in the e-zine with a hyperlink to more detail on your Web site.
Limit your content to four or five dynamite articles for an e-mail based e-zine. Provide a brief table of contents at the beginning of the e-zine. Keep the copy short and to the point.
Keep your line length under 60 characters including spaces to avoid word-wrap issues.
Encourage your readers to send a copy to others they feel might be interested in your great content. Make sure you provide subscribing instructions as well for those who receive these forwarded copies. You should also provide instructions on how to opt out, or unsubscribe.
Test your e-zine with different e-mail programs to ensure that your e-zine looks the way you designed it no matter which e-mail program your reader uses. Send test copies to friends with different e-mail readers such as Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Pegasus Mail, and Eudora. See how it looks, make sure that word-wrap is not an issue, and make sure the hyperlinks work.
Keep your subscriber addresses private and let subscribers know your privacy policy. As the word about your e-zine spreads, you will have a large community of people who fit your target market reading it.

Once you have your own e-zine, you'll have to:

Promote it to your target market through newsgroups, mail lists, your Web site, and your e-mail signature file. If you do promote your e-zine in newsgroups and mail lists, be sure it is appropriate to advertise your e-zine in a given newsgroup or mail list before you post. You do not want to be accused of spamming. However, promote your e-zine shamelessly on your site (let people subscribe to the e-zine on your site) and in your signature file.
Provide an opportunity for subscribers to let others know. In your online e-zine, have a form that allows subscribers to e-mail a copy of the e-zine to their friends and colleagues. Use a call to action statement such as “Do you know someone who might be interested in this e-zine? Click here to send them a copy.” This is a great way to pick up additional subscribers because some of the non-subscribers who read your e-zine might then become subscribers if your content is interesting to them.
Make it easy for people to subscribe to your e-zine. Provide clear subscription instructions in each e-mail version of your e-zine and on the online version. Have a form handy on your site to collect e-mail addresses from people who wish to subscribe. Always ask for the first name so that you can personalize your e-zine.
Provide an archive of past issues on your Web site so that visitors can sample your wares before subscribing. Make sure you provide an option for visitors to subscribe from that page as well.
Don't provide your list of subscribers to anyone. This protects your subscribers' privacy and keeps your list spam-free. Thus, when you mail your e-zine, use the BCC feature or use a specialized e-mail program that hides all the recipients' addresses so the entire list is not compromised. People will not be happy if they start receiving spam as a result of your e-zine.

Write some Articles about your website, and post it: http://www.amazines.com/ -http://www.articlealley.com/ - http://www.articlecity.com/ -http://articles.rolista.com/ -http://www.article-emporium.com/ -http://www.articlesfactory.com/ -http://www.articlefinders.com/ -http://www.articlesubmissions.com/ -http://www.articlewarehouse.com/ -http://www.authorconnection.com/ -http://www.businessknowhow.com/ -http://www.businesstoolchest.com/ -http://www.buzzle.com/ -http://www.commonconnections.com/ -http://www.connectionteam.com/ -http://www.constant-content.com/ -http://www.createonlinebusiness.com/ -www.digital-women.com/submitarticle.htm -http://www.ezinearticles.com/ -www.family-content.com/articles -www.certificate.net/wwio -http://www.freetraffictip.com/ -http://www.freezinesite.com/ -http://www.fresh-articles.com/ -http://www.goarticles.com/ -http://www.home-business-directory.com/ -http://www.home-based-/ -http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/ -http://www.howtoadvice.com/ -http://www.ideamarketers.com/ -http://www.isnare.com/ -http://www.jogena.com/ -http://www.jorbins.com/ -http://www.lilengine.com/ -http://www.linksnoop.com/ -http://www.mainstreetmom.com/ -http://www.marketingpitbull.com/ -http://www.netterweb.com/ -http://www.organic-rankings.com/ -http://www.promotenewz.com/ -http://www.promotionworld.com/ -http://www.sales-masters-world.com/ -http://www.searchwarp.com/ -www.smartads.info/articles -http://www.storebuilder.co.uk/ -www.tigrafix.com/articles.htm -http://www.theezine.net/ -www.top-web-marketing.com/article -www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral -http://www.upromote.com/ -www.warriorforum.com/forum -www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral -http://www.webmomz.com/ -http://www.webpronews.com/ -http://www.websitefuel.com/ -http://www.web-source.net/ -http://www.workathomearticles.net / -http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com/ -http://www.work911.com/ -http://www.xongoo.com/ -http://www.zinos.com/

References

BestEzines - Directory of e-zines organized by category. A great site to find e-zines to reach your target market.
The Book of Zines - Dynamite site with tons of links to e-zines, advice on developing your e-zine, reviews, interviews, how-to section, newly noted, and zine tips.
Ecola Newsstand - Ecola Newsstand has more than 8,400 magazines, newspapers, and publications. There are more than 100 categories of magazines from which to choose.
Ezine-Universe - Ezine-Universe is a great directory of e-mail-based e-zines.
InfoJump - Browse a huge directory of e-zines by category.
List City's Book of E-zines - A list of e-zines organized by category that accept paid advertising as well as all the details and contact information for each e-zine.
MediaFinder - A national directory of magazines with details on target audience, publisher, contact, telephone numbers, Web addresses, e-mail addresses, editorial descriptions, issue frequency, and subscription price. In many cases, an information request form is attached should you want further details. Great resource!
Ezine Directory - The Ezine Directory lists over 2,400 of the best e-mail newsletters available on the Internet today. Search, browse, or add your e-zine for free!

Beginner or Webmaster Must Know About Search Engine Friendly

noreply@blogger.com (damik) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:32:00 +0000

Search Engine Ranking Criteria

Each search engine has its own unique ranking criteria and its own unique algorithm or formula giving different weighting to each criteria in its formula.

To gain market share a search engine has to provide better results than its competition. It is for this reason that the search engines are changing and improving their formulas on an ongoing basis. The search engines use different databases for their search results. They have different algorithms or formulas for their ranking. They have different weighting for the various elements within their formula. They change their formulas over time and they change their ranking over time. Sound complicated?

Here are the most important areas on a Web page that you must address when performing organic search engine optimization:

Title tags (page titles)
Keywords meta-tags
Description meta-tags
Alt tags
Hypertext links (e.g., anchor text)
Domain names and file names
Body text (beginning, middle, and end of page copy; headers)
Between the “NOFRAMES” tag of framed Web sites.

Page titles and text-based page content are the most important of the noted placement areas. Keyword meta-tags are not as critical as they once were, but are still applicable for some engines.

Because Google is the favorite search engine for the time being, let's take a closer look at how it ranks pages. Google uses the Open Directory database for its directory listings and its internal index for its primary search listings. Google has many other features as well, some of which include:

An images search
Usenet news data database
A news search feature
Froogle (a shopping search tool)
A catalog search
Advertising services through the Google AdWords programs.

The ranking formula for Google's main search function looks for the keywords in the visible body text (not in the meta-tags), headers tags, title tags, hypertext links, Alt tags, and gives a very heavy weighting to the link popularity with extra points for quality of links and relevancy of text around the links.

The search engines are getting very sophisticated in the weighting of link popularity, with some search engines giving extra points for link relevancy. Other points are awarded based on the keywords around the link.

Keywords

A critical step in natural search engine optimization is to select the right keywords for your business, products/services (including descriptive words), and your target market.

Your keywords are used in everything you do and are the key determining factor in how you rank in the search results among many of the major search engines.

Ideally, each page of your Web site is going to focus on a different set of keywords that are specific to the content at hand. If you were to focus on the same set of keywords on every page then you would only hit one small portion of your market potential because you are only going to hit those same keywords over and over again, it is self-defeating. As a general rule, you want to target somewhere between two and five keyword phrases per page.

First, you want to gather a master list of all possible keyword phrases.

To make the data easier to manage you can create different keyword list profiles that represent individual topics as opposed to trying to cover all topics in a giant master list.

How do you create your master keywords list? Here are four solid techniques for generating a list of potential keyword phrases:

Brainstorming, surveying, and reviewing promotional material
Review competing and industry leading Web sites
Assess your Web site traffic logs
Keyword suggestion and evaluation tools.

Be sure to record the keywords you gather in a text document in your word-processing program or in a spreadsheet. As you work your way through the list of techniques you want to cycle back to some of the techniques because you will come across search terms that can expand the scope of your original efforts and open the door to new, more targeted phrases that you might have missed the first time around.

Brainstorming, Surveying, and Reviewing Promotional Material

At this stage, the idea is to gather all the keyword phrases you can, within reason.

Do not just think about what people would do to find your site, but what they would do if they didn't know your company existed and were looking for the types of products and services you sell. Here are several questions to help you with your brainstorming process:

What industry are you in (e.g., travel)?
What is the focus of your Web site (e.g., a resource, a guide, a store)? What would people search for if they were looking for a Web site like yours?
If your customer were to take a guess at your Web address, what would it be? Remember, they do not know who you are, but they know what kind of products or services they are looking for.
What products and services do you sell? What are some of the descriptive words or benefits of your products and/or services that might be familiar to your target market?
Are there any regional or geographic implications to consider?

Begin by indiscriminately highlighting any words that people might search for if they are looking for products or services your company has to offer.

To assist you in developing your keyword list consider asking your customers for their input. Ask what keywords they might use to find a site like yours. You can always turn to a thesaurus (e.g., dictionary ) for additional ideas if you get stumped.

Review Competing and Industry Leading Web Sites

Check out your online competition. Look at the sites for which you have a record and look for sites in the major search engines using some of the keyword phrases you have gathered so far.

You want to see what sites are in the top 20 positions and understand them. By reviewing top ranking Web sites you can look for themes and patterns in the sites that give you a good indication of what they are going after and how they are doing it.

When reviewing competing Web sites you should look at the same general areas you would optimize on your own Web site. As mentioned before, the most critical keyword placement areas include:

Title tags (page titles)
Keywords meta-tags
Description meta-tags
Alt tags
Hypertext links (e.g., anchor text)
Domain names and file names
Body text (beginning, middle, and end of page copy; headers)
Between the “NOFRAMES” tag of framed Web sites.

Remember that if you don't appear in the first two or three pages of search results, it is unlikely that prospective visitors will access your site through the search engine.

To check your competition's meta-tags in Microsoft Internet Explorer you simply go to their site, then click “View” on your menu bar and select “Source” from the drop-down menu. This brings up the source code for that respective page in whatever your default text browser is. Looking for the same information in Netscape is just as easy. On the menu bar click “View” and then select “Page Source” from the drop-down menu.

Pay special attention to the title tag of the top ranked Web sites. To get a little more specific you can narrow your search to keywords in a title tag. On Google you can enter in “allintitle: keyword phrase,” without the quotes, to search for all pages with the noted keywords in their title tag.

Not only can you learn from the sites that catch your eye, you can also learn from your competitors' mistakes.

Assess Your Web Site Traffic Logs

Your Web site traffic logs can be a source of pertinent keyword information. Applying new search engine optimization techniques with relevant keywords changes how people find your Web site. The Web site traffic analysis package you use gives you the power to measure the impact of your optimization efforts.

Your traffic logs can be a source of inspiration for generating your master keyword list. Note the search terms people are currently using and add them to your list. For a more complete look at the search phrases reported on your Web site, expand the date range to cover a larger spread, say, over the period of a year. When your site is optimized your Web traffic analysis tool will become your best friend in monitoring your success.

Google Site Map Maker

You know that getting any web site listed in the search engines can be a major pain in the you know what...

Google site maps let people find every page you have quickly and easily. But to make a Google site map you have to install a script onto your web site, and then try to get that script to run, right?

Let me ask you something: how much time do you spend hassling with scripts that are supposed to make Google site maps for you? Too much?

Those stupid scripts never seemed to work right, I have lots of clients contacting me to install the scripts for them. I’d go to install them on their site, then experience massive frustration trying to get them to run. It ends up costing our client tons of money to get them installed or I would come back and say that it just won't do the job you want it to do. You just wasted your money. I felt so bad having to tell them this when I know how hard it is when you are just starting out & money is tight.

Here’s what Google site maps do for you…

Help people find more of your web pages, since they give you better crawl coverage.
Make sure that when people search on your keywords they get fresher search results.
Let you provide specific information to Google concerning your web pages, like when a page was last modified or how frequently it changes.
Get your web pages crawled by Google quickly without having to know some secret back door into the search engines like many of those SEO guys will try to sell you packages for.

Picture this: you make Google site maps for all your sites quickly and easily. You submit them. Then you get huge hits—enough that you're catapulted to the top of the search engines. Now you're down at the bank cashing a big, juice check. Feels good, doesn't it?

Keyword Suggestion and Evaluation Tools

Keyword research tools can help meet your current needs, whether you're looking for a place to start, are plum out of ideas, or simply feel like you're missing something. Here are the most common tools my team uses on a daily basis:

WordTracker

WordTracker is the most popular keyword research tool and is an absolute must for doing your research. WordTracker does have a fee associated with it. You can expect to pay approximately US$25 per year or $8 for a day.

WordTracker maintains a database of over 350 million keywords gathered from several meta-search engines. The tool is easy to use and provides a valuable source of information.

WordTracker allows you to build your list of keyword phrases through a process similar to adding items to a shopping cart. The tool enables you to drill down a bit further by selecting keyword phrases of particular interest that are related to the specific phrase with which you are concerned

A nice feature of this tool is that it provides you with an indication of the popularity for your keywords as well as the predicted volume of competition for said keywords. This is a handy feature when trying to determine which keywords are worth going after and which are a waste of time.

Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool

Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool is free. The tool enables you to enter keyword phrases and search for related keywords based on the previous month's search data. Up to 100 results per query are displayed. The results are displayed in order of popularity and only search terms with a minimum of 25 queries during the previous month are displayed.

The Overture tool does have some notable ways of doing things that you need to keep in mind. For one, it always converts the word you are questioning from the plural to the singular so it is not possible to tell if someone is really searching for the plural or singular version of a word (e.g., stores versus store). Second, the Overture tool always displays the correct spelling of a word, but in some cases you may want to know what a common misspelling is along with how often it is searched for (e.g., accommodation versus accomodation). A final note is that the tool just shows results that include the exact phrase you searched for.

Google AdWords: Keyword Suggestions

Another useful free tool. You can use the Google AdWords: Keyword Suggestions tool to generate new keyword ideas and compare the results from the other tools. The Google tool also makes suggestions on related terms you should consider.

WordTracker and Overture are essential keyword suggestion tools; however, the Google tool can offer some support and it can help generate new ideas. The Google tool's primary purpose is for researching keywords for its AdWords program.

Fine-Tuning Your Keyword Phrases

Realistically, you can emphasize two to five keyword phrases on a single page, and maybe a few others as spillover. Keep in mind that each page you optimize should lean toward a different set of keywords.

When reviewing your keyword list you need to consider:

Which keywords are vital to your objectives
Which keywords are popular enough to generate reasonable, sustainable traffic
Which keywords do not have so much competition that it would be counterproductive considering the time and effort necessary to target them.

Organize your keywords according to their level of importance.

You can begin editing the list by deleting words that either are too generic (for example, business) or are not appropriate for keyword purposes. Review each word and ask yourself, “Would people search using this word if they were looking for the products and services available through my Web site?”

For each page that you are optimizing take a copy of the comprehensive master list and delete words that are not appropriate for that particular page. Reprioritize the remaining keywords based on the content of the page you are indexing. Repeat this procedure for every page you are optimizing.

This is also a great procedure when you are developing the keyword meta-tag for each page of your site.

The more knowledge with which you are armed, the better prepared you are to optimize your Web site. Here are some additional tips to keep in mind when refining your keywords master list:

Plural and singular keywords

There is some debate about whether it is better to use only the plural version of a keyword or whether it is best to use both the plural and singular form of the keyword. Is your target market looking for both? As an example, some people might search for game, and others might search for games. Google matches exactly what the user searches for, so it is important to use both where possible.

Using the names of your competitors

There is often the question as to whether to include your competitor's name in your keywords. The idea here is that if someone looks for your competitor they are going to find you as well. Never include a competitor's name in your keywords.

Common misspellings of words

There are many words that people misspell on a frequent basis. The question here is do you include those misspelled keywords in your site or not? My stance is “No.”

Case sensitivity

Some search engines are not case sensitive and others are. Once you begin finalizing your keyword list you might notice that people are actually searching for the proper spelling of a word, in which case you would reflect the changes in your keyword list.

Stop and filter words

Filter words are words search engines simply ignore during searches. Stop words are extremely common words that search engines use as triggers to stop grabbing content on a given page, such as “and,” “a,” and “the.”

It is best to try and avoid using stop words where possible in your keyword phrases. Here is a sample list of some of the more common stop words on record from a list compiled by Search Engine World :
a ii about above according
across 39 actually ad adj
ae af after afterwards ag
again against ai al all
anyone anything anywhere ao aq
ar are aren aren't around
arpa as at au aw
az b ba bb bd
....

Modifiers

A modifier is a keyword you add to your primary key word phrase to give it a boost.

Multiple-word keyword phrases

Two- or three-keyword phrases perform better than single keywords. According to OneStat people tend to use 2- and 3-word phrases when performing a search online. Here is a list of the most popular number of words used in a search phrase:

2 words—32.58%
3 words—25.61%
1 word—19.02%
4 words—12.83%
5 words—5.64%
6 words—2.32%
7 words—0.98%

Not only are multiple keyword phrases used more often by searchers, but it also enables you to be more descriptive in your keyword phrases such as the modifiers.

Specific Keywords to Specific Pages

Many sites populate all their pages with the same keywords in the hopes that one of their pages will rank high in the search results. They use the same meta-tags for every page on their site. Again, this is the same as buying 100 tickets on the lottery but selecting the same numbers for every single ticket.

Some search engines rank sites by how early the keyword appears on the site. And remember the points made earlier: though you don't want to repeat a keyword hundreds of times (some search engines are on to this), you do want to repeat keywords a number of times on each page of your site. When you have allocated your keywords to the various pages on your site, you will populate or include the keyword phrases assigned in the appropriate places for that particular page: Let's take a closer look at all those appropriate places.

Descriptive Page Titles

It is extremely important that all Web pages have titles. Title tags are viewed as the most important element of search engine optimization when it comes to keyword placement. Each of the pages in your Web site should be given a title.

The title is inserted between the title tags in the header of an HTML document. <HEAD > indicates the beginning of the header, and the ending of the header is marked by </HEAD >. A simplified version might look like:

<url1 ><HTML >
<url1 ><HEAD >
<TITLE >Document Title Here</TITLE >
<url1 ><META-NAME=“keywords” CONTENT=“keyword1, keyword2, keyword3” >
<url1 ><META-NAME=“description” CONTENT=“200-character site description goes here” >
<url1 ><META-NAME=“robots” CONTENT=“index, follow” >
<url1 ><!—Comments tag, repeat description here? >
<url1 ></HEAD >

Titles tell readers where the information contained on a page originated. More importantly, the title tag is typically what the target market sees in search results in some of the major search engines. Every page of your Web site should have a unique title tag and each title tag should accurately describe the page content. Keep your title tags brief, in the realm of 5 to 10 words.

This occurs because Google only displays up to 66 characters. Yahoo! on the other hand permits up to 120 characters for a title tag. The shorter and more accurate the title tag is, the higher the keyword density and relevancy for that title tag.

Match the keywords you use in your meta-tags with the words you use in your page titles. Search engines check page titles, meta-tags, and page content for keywords. Position your keywords near the beginning of your page titles to increase your keyword relevancy.

Many search engines use title tags as one of the elements in their algorithm to determine search engine ranking. Pages that have keywords in the title are seen as more relevant than similar pages on the same subject that don't, and may thus be ranked in a higher position by the search engines.

Meta-Tag Keywords

As we noted earlier in this articles, a common problem faced by Internet marketers is how to influence search engines to index their site appropriately and how to ensure that their site appears when people use relevant search criteria. The majority of Internet users employ search engines or directories to find Web sites, which they do by typing in a keyword or phrase that represents what they are looking for.

The Web Developer's Virtual Library defines an HTML meta-tag as follows:

“The META element is used within the HEAD element to embed document meta-information not defined by other HTML elements. The META element can be used to identify properties of a document (e.g., author, expiration date, a list of key words, etc.) and assign values to those properties.”

To summarize this lengthy definition, meta-information can be used in identifying, indexing, and cataloging. This means you can use these tags to guide the search engines in displaying your site as the result of a query. There are many meta-tags, including:

Abstract
Author
Copyright
Description
Expires
Keywords
Language
Refresh
Revisit
Robots.

Most of the above meta-tags are not useful for optimization purposes. The most recognized meta-tag is the keywords meta-tag.

<META-NAME=“keywords” CONTENT=“…” > tells search engines under which keywords to index your site. When a user types one of the words you listed here, your site should be displayed as a result. A space or comma can be used to separate the words. Do not frequently repeat the keyword, rather repeat the keyword about five times in different phrases. You do have the option of using more than 1,000 characters in your keywords meta-tag, but be wary of keyword dilution.

You should create a keywords tag for each page of your site that lists the appropriate keywords for each separate page.

Description Meta Tag

<META-NAME=“description” CONTENT=“…” > should be included on every page of your Web site. The description meta-tag is used to supply an accurate overview of the page to which it is attached.

It is best to keep the description meta-tag to somewhere in the realm of 200 to 250 characters in total.

Alt Tags

Some search engines use the information within Alt tags when forming a description and determining the ranking for your site. Alt tags are used to display a description of the graphic they are associated with if the graphic cannot be displayed, such as in text-only browsers. Alt tags appear after an image tag and contain a phrase that is associated with the image.

Ensure that your Alt tags contain the keywords assigned to the particular page wherever you can. This gives your page a better chance of being ranked higher in the search engines. For example:

You do not want your Alt tags to look something like “Game Nation” or “Company Logo” because this does not include any keywords.

Webpage-O-Matic Business Edition

This software will help you beat out your competition without a high priced ghost writer. Webpage-O-Matic is a program that is leaps and bounds above it's look a like software. It is everything you have been looking for to make your products sell like crazy or just make a attention getting page that attracts herds of visitors.

WebPage-O-Matic creates a web page for you based on proven web design principles. Every page looks clean and the resulting site is well organized and coherent. Even seasoned pros can use WebPage-O-Matic as a starting point for sophisticated designs.

Having webpage-O-Matic on your side will quickly show you how professional pages can increase your sale to visitor ratio, but it goes much further - by allowing you to do all this without ANY programing whatsoever and in half the time it would take you even if you did know! Here what you get:

Quickly create stunning webpages.
No coding involved, fill out the Webpage-O-Matic form & click 'create'.
Webpage-O-Matic instantly creates your webpages for you.
No coding involved!
No need to learn HTML or debug someone else's coding.

'Webpage-O-Matic' can turn your computer into an automatic instant page builder . . . Forget about hand coding your webpages . . . Webpage-O-Matic does it for you, and it does it right, without HTML errors. Download here !

Hypertext Links

A hypertext link consists of the description of a link placed in between anchor tags. The text inside a hyperlink, or anchor text, is increasingly important for search engine optimization.

Likewise, if links on other Web sites pointing to your Web site include the same string of keywords, your site's relevancy gets a boost. When you encourage other Web sites to link to yours, be sure to provide them with the link text they should use.

Domain Name and File names

Use of keywords within your domain name and file names can help with search engine positioning. This also applies to file names. Examples of domain names are:

www.thisisadomainname.com
www.this-is-also-a-domain-name.com

Examples of file names are:

www.thisisadomainname.com/samplepage.html
www.thisisadomainname.com/samples-page.html

It does not take much effort to give your images and file names meaningful names, so take the time to do it.

Body Text - Header Tags and Page Copy

The body text of a Web page consists of all the visible text between the <body > and </body > tag, such as headings and the page copy encased in paragraphs. Along with page titles, body text is the next important area on which to focus your search engine optimization efforts. Body text is where you want to spend the bulk of your time.

Headings - <H1 > Header Tags </H1 >

Use your HTML <H1 > header tags effectively to indicate the subject and content of a particular page. Most people use them only as a method of creating large fonts. Some search engines, including Google, use the content included within the header text in their relevancy scoring. The H1 tag is the most important followed by H2. Include your most important keywords in your header tags. If you can, work a couple of H2 tags into your page to sort content and improve the relevancy of your page.

Page Copy

You want to ensure that the keyword you have assigned to a specific page appears in the first 200 characters on that page as close to the beginning as possible.The assigned keyword should appear at the beginning of the text on the page, in the middle, and at the end. You want to build a theme on your page and to do so you have to spread your keywords throughout the page, not just focus on the first paragraph.

Always have a descriptive paragraph at the top of your Web page that describes what can be found on the page for your target market and for the major search engines. Search engines use this as their source for a site description and keywords on your site. Make sure that the keywords you use flow naturally within the content of the opening paragraph and relate to the content and purpose of your site. You don't want the search engines to think you're trying to cram in words where they don't fit.

Do not make your home page excessively lengthy. A page consisting of between 250 and 800 words provides the major search engines with the information they need.

Fresh content is good for your target market and for search engine rankings. After all, who wants to view stale content?

As a final note, before you submit your site, be sure the content on the page you are submitting is complete. Yahoo!, for one, ignores your submission if you have an “under construction” or similar sign on your page.

Do not get too muddled down in the science of search engine optimization. No two search engines are identical so if you spend all of your time tailoring your site for just one engine you may have many missed opportunities on your hand. A tool such as Web Position Gold can assist you in analyzing your pages for keyword density and relevancy.

Spamming

Some Internet marketers try various techniques to trick the search engines into positioning their sites higher in search results. These tricks do not work with every search engine, and if it is discovered that you are trying to dupe the search engines, some may not list you at all. Search engines are programmed to detect some of these techniques, and you will be penalized in some way if you are discovered. A few of the search engine tricks pertaining to Web site design are as follows:

Repeating keywords

Some Web sites repeat the same keywords over and over again, by hiding them in the visible HTML, in invisible layers such as the <NOFRAMES > tag, and in your meta-tags.

Repeating keywords over and over again by displaying them at the bottom of your document after a number of line breaks counts as well!

Jamming keywords

If you are displaying keywords in your Web pages using a very small font, then you are jamming keywords. This spam technique is called “tiny text.”

Hidden text and links

Avoid inserting hidden text and links in your Web site for the purpose of getting in more keywords.

Misleading title changes

Making frequent and regular title changes so that the bots think your site is a new site and list you again and again is misleading.

Page Swapping

This practice involves showing one page to a search engine, but a different one to the end user.

Content Duplication

Say you have one Web page and it is ranking pretty well. You decide it would be nice to improve your ranking, but hey, it would be good to keep your current position too. If you are caught duplicating Web pages you will be penalized.

Domain Spam (Mirrored Sites)

Closely related to content duplica tion, this is when an entire Web site is replicated (or slightly modified) and placed at a different URL. This is usually done to dominate search positions and to boost link popularity, but in the end all it does it hurt you when you get caught. You will get banned for practicing this technique.

Cloaking

This technique is similar to page swapping and using the refresh meta-tag in that the intent is to serve search engines one page while the end user is served another. Don't do it.

Doorway pages

Doorway pages, also known as gateway pages and bridge pages, are pages that lead to your site but are not considered part of your site. Doorway pages are focused pages that lead to your Web site but are tuned to the specific requirements of the search engines. Unfortunately, because of the need to be ranked high in search engine results and the enormous competition between sites that are trying to get such high listings, doorway pages have become increasingly more popular.Search engines frown upon the use of doorway pages because the intent is obvious—to manipulate rankings in one site's favor with no regard for quality content. Do not use them.

Cyber-squatting

Web sites. If someone were to operate a Web site called “Gooogle.com” with the extra “o” or “Yahhoo” with an extra “h,” that would be considered cyerb-squatting.

Links farms

Having thousands of irrelevant links pointing to your Web site does more damage than good if you get caught! For best results, only pursue links that relate to your Web site and are of interest to your target market.

If your Web site is mistakenly penalized for spam your best course of action is to contact the search engine and discuss remedies. Know what is considered search engine spam and avoid it before it ever becomes a problem for you.

Frames

From a marketing perspective, you should avoid building a Web site entirely based on frames when developing your Web site. This is probably the most recognized hurdle when it comes to search engine optimization.

Frames may result in some search engines being unable to index pages within your site or they can result in improper pages being indexed. What I mean by “improper pages being indexed” is that content pages will be indexed, and when the search engines direct users to these content pages, they will likely not be able to navigate your site because the navigation frame probably will not be visible.

Some search engines can only read information between the <NOFRAMES > tags within your master frame. The master frame identifies the other frames.

Frames are a headache when designing your site to be search engine friendly. To make your life easier and from a marketing perspective, it's better to avoid them altogether.

Robots.txt, Meta-Robots Tag

<META-NAME=“robots” CONTENT=“ ” > tells certain bots to follow or not follow hypertext links. The W3 Consortium white paper on spidering (spiders are defined below) offers the following definition and discussion:

<url1 ><META-NAME=“ROBOTS” CONTENT=“ALL | NONE | NOINDEX | NOFOLLOW” >
<url1 >default = empty = “ALL” “NONE” = “NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”
<url1 >The filler is a comma-separated list of terms:
<url1 >ALL, NONE, INDEX, NOINDEX, FOLLOW, NOFOLLOW.

Note: This tag is meant to provide users who cannot control the robots.txt file at their sites. It provides a last chance to keep their content out of search services. It was decided not to add syntax to allow robot-specific permissions within the META-tag. INDEX means that robots are welcome to include this page in search services.

FOLLOW means that robots are welcome to follow links from this page to find other pages. A value of NOFOLLOW allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are explored.

The values of INDEX and FOLLOW should be added to every page unless there is a specific reason that you do not want your page to be indexed.

Clean Code Is King

Clean code is essential to search engine success.

Navigation Techniques

The rollover effect on navigation links is quite common and can add visual appeal to a Web site. A problem arises when JavaScript is encased within the anchor tag which can cause problems for the search engines.

A quick and simple solution to ensure your site is indexed is to include text-based navigation along the bottom of your Web page as supportive navigation. Drop-down menus (e.g., DHTML) and pull-down menus pose similar concerns because of the coding script necessary for them to execute. If you choose to use them be sure to have an alternative means of navigation available.

Revisit Meta-Tag

You cannot tell a search engine when to visit your Web site, though the theory behind the Revisit Meta-tag is that you can define how often you want a search engine to come back to your Web site.

Cascading Style Sheets

CSS is common practice in the Web development world. Less coding means less room for error and better site performance. Like JavaScript, CCS benefits from being stored in external files as opposed to being embedded in each page's individual source code.

Dynamic Pages and Special Characters

Dynamically driven content typically has a query string in the URL such as question marks (?), an ampersand (&), or the percent sign (%).

Your challenge is to work around the needs of the search engines and include pure HTML-based information pages as a standard part of your Web site that the search engines can index. Likewise, there are methods of reducing the complexity of URLs into a form the search engines can process, Amazon.com has been very successful at this. Amazon.com has eliminated all stop symbols from its page URLs. Depending on the technology used to create your Web site, (e.g. ASP, CFP, PHP) tools exist to help you rewrite your URLs at the server level to make them more friendly for search engine indexing. This is the same logic applied behind services such as http://www.tinyurl.com/.

Splash Pages and the Use of Rich Media

A splash page is basically an opening page that leads into a site. Often splash pages consist of a Java or a Macromedia Flash intro that can be slow to load for some users and contain little meaningful content for search engines.

Splash pages are usually very attractive in appearance, but they often lack content relevant to search engines. If you do use a splash page on your site, be sure you include the proper meta-tags within your HTML header.

Include a paragraph or statement on your splash page that pertains to your site's content. This can help boost your rankings on some of the major search engines that both do and do not use meta-tags. Many splash pages exercise the Refresh meta-tag, and this should be avoided.

Use of Tables

Tables are a common feature found on many Web sites to display information and position content, but if implemented incorrectly, they can cause the search engines some confusion. Here's an interesting problem with some search engines. Assume you have a Web site, the main color of the background is white, and you have a table on the page with a dark background. If you were to use white text in the table, some of the major search engines would pick this up as using text that is the same color as the background and ignore your site's submission because it is considered spam to search engines. Using tables is okay, many people do it, just be careful with your choice.

Custom Error Pages

A custom 404 error (page not found) page should be created for your Web site. This page is displayed when a user attempts to access a page that does not exist. The custom error page allows people and search engines to easily make updates to their references.

Image Maps

Image maps are single graphics that are split into “hot spots” or sensitive areas that when clicked lead you to different pages or resources within the Web site. The problem with image maps is they basically lock search engines out and prevent them from indexing your Web site properly. Submitting your site map to the search engines is also a good idea as it can assist the search engine in making sure it indexes all the pages within your Web site.

Optimization for Search Localization

A recent study by comScore Networks discovered that 60 percent of consumers search for local content. Much of the local searches surround such topics as restaurants, travel, hotels, and car rentals.

Common modifiers include:

ZIP or postal code
Street
City or town, along with descriptive words “Northern,” “Central,” “East,” “West,” and “Southern”
State or Province, entirely spelled out as well as the abbreviation
Country, entirely spelled out as well as the abbreviation
Area code and phone number
Recognizable landmarks and destinations (e.g., right next door to…).

Naturally, any company looking to speak to a local market should be considering search localization when optimizing their Web site. Optimizing your Web site to speak to the local market is no different from regular search optimization, it just requires a bit of creativity. Here are some examples to get you started:

Include geographic keywords in page headers and footers. For example, you can insert a copyright notice at the bottom of each page of your Web site that includes your location: “© 2004, Prince George Hotel, a Centennial Hotels Property. 1725 Market Street in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3R9. Hotel Reservations 1-800-565-1567 • tel 902-425-1986 • fax 902-429-6048.”
Include geographic related keywords in your page titles. Instead of a Fine Italian Dining—il Mercato Restaurant you could have Fine Italian Dining in Downtown Halifax—il Mercato Restaurant.
Include geographic-related keywords in your page copy. For example, a paragraph can include a statement such as “Come visit us on the Halifax waterfront, right next door to Historic Properties” to capture high-profile local destinations. You could also have “Just south of Halifax in Peggy's Cove” or “Ten minutes from Halifax.” In this case you are adding a modifier to include a nearby city to capitalize on that market that might not think to look for your exact location.
Include comprehensive geographic-related information throughout your Web site, on your contact page, a maps and directions page, and in your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Pay to play or PPC is covered in another articles, but you can use the same geographic modifiers in your paid search placement campaigns to zero in on local markets and increase your ROI. Yahoo!, Google, SuperPages.com, Findwhat.com, AskJeeves, and Overture are all examples of search providers that offer some means of search localization.

Monitoring Results

As with any business endeavor you want to know how successful you are. There are a number of ways to measure your search engine placement success.

Web site traffic analysis

You can check the effectiveness of your key word placement and utilization by using Web traffic analysis reports. You can use Web traffic analysis reports to determine what sites are referring people to you and how often the search engine spiders are visiting your Web site looking for new content. Refining your keywords is one of the key elements to success—you're letting the search engines tell you what you're doing right and what you could be doing better. Early in the articles we looked at how Web traffic analysis can contribute to your master keywords list. NetIQ's WebTrends package can show you the keyword phrases the target market is using to locate a Web site.

How much business you generate on-line ultimately depends on how well constructed your Web site is. Just because you perform well in the search rankings does not mean the target market automatically does business with you.

Also look at entry pages and paths through your Web site. Because you optimized specific pages for specific keywords, people should be entering your Web site on those pages. If the page is designed to the needs of your target market it should push them deeper into the Web site or to a point where a transaction takes place, which you can monitor by looking at paths through your Web site and entry pages.

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Search engine rankings

You can check the performance of your Web site for a particular keyword phrase by hand or through the use of an application such as WebPosition Gold 2.

Checking your search rankings tells you how well your Web site is ranking for particular keyword phrases. You can use this information to keep your rankings current and target your optimization efforts toward gaining increased ratings on any particular engines you wish.

Paid inclusion accounts

Many search engines that have paid inclusion features, such as the Lycos InSite submission program, gives the customer the means to track some search information. This includes basic information such as the keywords searched for and the number of referrals the search engine sent through to the destination Web site.

Pay-to-play (PPC) accounts

At the heart of all pay-to-play campaigns is the tracking functionality. You are paying for each and every click so it is important to know which search terms are working and which are not. One of the most well known pay-to-play providers is Overture.

Resources :

Search Engine Watch : A Web site devoted to how search engines work, search engine news, search engine information, tips on using search engines, and more about search engines. Be sure to sign up for the Search Engine Report mailing list.
Search Engine World : A great resource for everything surrounding search engines. Plenty of articles, tips, and information to help you achieve online success. This site also has in-depth information on the various search engine spiders.
Traffick : Traffick covers Internet search engines such as Google; Web portals such as Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL; search engine marketing and SEO; Web browsers such as Internet Explorer; and e-mail programs such as Outlook Express, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. The site offers feature articles, a directory of portal and search engine related sites, etc.
Search Engine Guide : Search Engine Guide provides a directory of thousands of specialty search engines, daily news about search engines and the search engine industry, and information on using search engines to market your Web site.
SEO Today : SEO Today was conceived and developed to create and collect timely and informative content about search engine optimization.
Spider Food's Search Engine Optimization and Positioning : Over 200 pages of search engine optimization, search engine submission, and Web site promotion tutorials—plus a discussion forum.
Pay-Per-Click Search Engines : A guide to 621 pay-per-click search engines.
Search Engine Statistics and Listings for Submission URLs :Search Engine Trends was started to help untangle the growing web of confusion surrounding search engines. To help unravel the mess, Search Engine Trends maintains an in-depth database of search engine data. This database tracks a number of details about the world's leading and upcoming search engines.
Pandia Search Central : At Pandia you can learn how to search the Web more efficiently, read about search engines and sites devoted to searching, and gain easy access to all the best tools and SE resources on the Internet.
Li'l Engine : Li'l Engine provides you with the information and resources you need to get your organic search engine optimization, search engine placement and ranking project going right. Avoid many of the common pitfalls by doing it the right way first.
Bruce Clay—Search Engine Optimization Tools : Free search engine optimization, ranking, Web site promotion, keywords advice, and placement material for designers.
Search Engine Decoder—Search Engine Relationship Chart : A free chart that illustrates the relationships between the major search providers.
JimTools.com Webmaster's Toolkit Command Center : A number of tools are available on this site that you can use for free. There's information on search engines and meta-tags, a link checker, and a link popularity tool.
Make Your Web Site Search Engine Friendly : An article with some tips to make your site search engine friendly.
Search Engine Optimization : A resource filled with links to articles by search engine columnists.
Search-Engine-Secrets.net : An article detailing the ten steps to search engine placement.
Submit It! Search Engine Tips : The purpose of this document is to provide you with background information on search engine technology and some tips on how to get your Web site to appear on the results pages of search engines and directories.
Optimization Nation : The Optimization Nation offers search engine placement tips and secrets for the “do it yourself” Webmaster.
Submit Corner : Complete guides, Web tools, news, and techniques to optimize and improve your search rankings, meta-tags, and positioning in search engines; includes meta-tag guide, improvement tips, suggestions, and optimization techniques from industry experts.
Indicateur.com : Indicateur.com is a French Web site specializing in search engines. The rule of Indicateur is to inform and to assist you during your search. The site is divided in three independent parts: search engines news, Indicateur's files, and search guides.
SEO lab: Search engine optimization resources : SEO lab explores in full view how search engines rate and rank different elements of SEO—publicly, and irrevocably—for the benefit of everyone. SEO lab is a public information service and reference point regarding basic search engine optimization issues and techniques.
Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) : SEMPO is a nonprofit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide.
Search Guild SEO forums
JimWorld: Talk SEO forums
WebProWorld—search engine forums
Web Master World—search engine forums
High Rankings: Search engine optimization forum
Search Engine Watch forums
WordTracker : An online tool for compiling the right combination of keywords. You can run a free trial, but this is a pay service for keyword generation and suggestions.
WordSpot : Keyword marketing resources, tactics, and tips.
Overture—Search Term Suggestion Tool : Overture's search term suggestion tool to help you identify relevant keywords.
Overture—View Bid Tool : Overture's view bid tool that shows you the value per click for specified keywords.
Google AdWords: Keyword Suggestions :A free tool provided by Google, intended to help AdWord customers choose keyword phrases.
KwMap : A Keyword Map for the whole Internet.
Yahoo! Buzz Index : The most popular searches on Yahoo!
The Lycos 50—Top 50 Searches : The top 50 searches on Lycos.
Site Content Analyzer : A tool that examines HTML pages for keyword density, weight, and relevancy.
Thesauras.com : A thesaurus to help you identify terms that share a similar meaning.
iWeb Toolkit: Keyword Analyzer : A tool that analyzes the keyword density and prominence on a Web page.
Keyword Density Analyzer : A tool that will analyze the keyword density on a Web page.
Keyword Density Analyzer : A tool that will analyze the keyword density and word depth on a Web page.
Keyword Surveillance Tool: Stop Word List : A list of search engine stop words.
Robots.txt File Generator : A tool to help you generate a robots.txt file.
Meta-Tag Analyzer : This checks your meta-tags and your HTML code to help you achieve better placement in search engine results. Let their free Meta-Tag Analyzer program check your meta-tags and help analyze your HTML syntax online.
Meta-Tag Generator : This is a free downloadable tool to help you create properly formatted meta-tags.
SEO Tools : Two free tools—a Similar Page Checker and Search Engine Spider Simulator. The latter tool lets you view your Web site as a search engine would see it.
A Dictionary of HTML Meta-Tags : A helpful dictionary of meta-tags to assist you.
Meta-Tag Generator : A free meta-tag generator tool to create meta-tags for your Web pages.

Get Amazing Promotion Online

How To Stop Petty Commission Thieves And Increase Your Conversion

How to Earn the Trust of Your Subscribers, The Easy Way

How easy is it to gain the trust of your customers?

Writing your own articles.

Providing useful information.

Being who you are - yourself.

Making personal recommendations and not advertisements.

Give them what they want.

How to Build an Opt-in List as an Affiliate Marketer

Incentives.

Pop-ups.

Editor's Note.

Advertising.

How To Turn Your Customers Into A Long-Term Goldmine

It's All About PageRank

a Dynamite Link Strategy

Links Have an Impact

Links are important for several reasons.

Links Have Staying Power

A Quick Talk about Outbound Links

Strategies for Finding Appropriate Link Sites

Explore These URLs

Tools to Identify Your Competitors' Links

Excite and Other Search Engines

Other Potential Link Strategies

Winning Approval for Potential Links.

Making Your Link the Place to Click

Add Value with Affiliate Programs

Maintaining a Marketing Log

A Word of Caution with Link Trading

References

Establish Private Mailing List

Why ?

Permission-Based Marketing

The Benefits

Where ?

The Right Mail List Technology

Using Your E-mail Program

Using Mail List Software

Outsourcing

Build Your Database

Promote Your Private Mail List

Communicate with Your Mail List

Stay Under the Spam Radar

Recent Legislation

Measure

Where to Go from Here

References

Blacklists

Ultimate Relationship Program (Professional Version)

Keith Cunningham's "Keys to the Vault"

FIND YOUR TRUE GIFT: 3 PATHS TO MAXIMIZING IMPACT IN YOUR CA

Send 1 Million Web Hits to any Site!

Magic Subscriber

Bulk Email Software

Autoresponder Unlimited

AdBlaster Submission Software

1st Advanced Site Submitter

Permission Marketing

What is Permission Marketing

How to Using of Permission Marketing

Permission-Based Marketing

Respect and More Respect

Personalization

Bulk Email Software

Sell the Benefits

Data Mining

Cooperative Permission Marketing

Incentive-Based Permission Marketing

Comment on Permission Marketing

Another Best References for Permission Marketing

Bookmark this articles with bookmark tools below

Effective Promotion through Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists

Connecting with Your Target Audience

Types of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists

Moderated Discussion Lists

Unmoderated Discussion Lists

Targeting Appropriate Discussion Mailing Lists

Finding the Right Mailing List