SEO Facility Blog

The TRUTH about Google Dublicate Content Penalty

2008-09-26T14:20:00.001-07:00

Webmasters worry a lot about duplicate content, the fear of Google penalties seems to be a never ending discussion and all kinds of techniques are used to avoid this. Google recently published an article about this hoping to clarify their policy and put and end to the discussion.

The article "Demystifying the duplicate content penalty" by Susan Moskwa, states that Google don't penalize duplicate content the way people think they are. The article actually confirms what most of us already know from the Webmaster Guidelines; Google fancy uniqueness and its unwise to scrape content and republish it on your web site. But, if you add some value like rewriting it, or add something "new and valuable" to the text content - then its accepted. Below are a few more "rules" you should keep in mind:

Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with similar or duplicate content - guess this is pretty obvious to everyone.

Avoid cookie cutter approaches like affiliate programs with little or no original content Meaning. the same web site is found "all over" the net and your site don't represent any value to the users -watch out for turn key solutions.

Make sure your web site provides relevant and valuable content if you participate in an affiliate program. There is nothing wrong with affiliate links on your web pages as long as the content is unique and adds value.

Generally Google tolerates pretty much before penalizing a site or web page as long as its not designed to mislead users or manipulate the search engines. But be aware of that duplication might weaken the strength of an URL or Web site.

When Google discover duplicate content generated by default by CMS, Google put these pages in a cluster and pick out the URL they find most relevant and consolidate this URL using for instance Pagerank. This "cluster URL" will be shown in the Search Engine results page (SERP).

Susan Moskwas distinct article clarifies many of the frequent questions Webmasters have about duplicate content. We encourage you to read it carefully and follow the links in the article for more in depth info - you find it at Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Source: Google Webmaster Central - kindly provided by Article Promotion Journal

Turn your Free E-book Publication into a Money Machine

2008-09-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Creating an E-book is just like creating a web site, you make pages using a MS Word or a HTML Editor and usually converts the "site" to a PDF document. The more substance and proficient the E-book is, the more popular and trusted will it become - just like a web site. E-books can be made completely interactive and contain links, graphics, forms, JavaScript, embedded video, be protected via passwords, search capabilities and more.

The content for your E-book may originate from a web site of yours, a special report, an article series, or any publication that you’ve specifically prepared to be compiled into a downloadable file. Commonly E-books can be downloaded from the Internet, but you may distribute it via E-mail, CD disc and similar.

Don’t fool around

Basically everyone that downloads your free E-book expects it to be helpful and to improve their online business or skills. They seldom care about who the author is unless they find a “what’s in it for me” factor that makes the difference. Don’t write an E-book or report that has nothing valuable to offer apart from loads of affiliate links. Don't expect to win with “click-me-rich” tactics, nobody will bother to read your E-book or recommend it to anyone else. Forget the “get rich quick” approach, people will think you are an overselling amateur and won’t buy a thing from you.

Do your homework – Outline a strategy and Research

The first thing you should do is to outline a strategy for the report, include at least the main subjects, how comprehensive it shall be, and distribution of the E-book. Next is preparing for research. Internet is an invaluable source of information and everything you need is out there somewhere, the challenge is to know where to find it. My approach is to visit Wikipedia.org for basic knowledge and references, I use EzineArticles.com as an idea resource, and finally I visit forums to find out what's hot right now. However you can both expand or limit your sources. For example, if I’m going to write about online marketing I use Article Promotion Journal (APJ) – because of their useful articles and tutorials on the topic.

When the research is completed it is time to write according to the outline you made initially. Use a catchy language that engages the reader, give the reader a valuable moment that makes the difference and a good reason for him or her to trust you.

How to make money with your Affiliate links

Always consider carefully where and how you integrate the affiliate links in your concept and E-book, let me explain how you do this right so you make money from them:

Before people can download your free E-book require action from them. For instance, you want to build a mailing list and they have to sign up before downloading. Add your first affiliate link on the “thank you” page. Offer them a one time offer they “can’t refuse”. Next is after email confirmation in your welcome E-mail. Write a good and informative welcome E-mail including both free and paid resources, if they only pick the free offer that’s fair enough – at this stage the keyword is building trust.

In your free E-book use affiliate links so your readers don’t realize you are trying to sell them something. Review the products using pros and cons, tell them about your experiences and how it helped you to solve a problem. If you have targeted your visitor’s right they will identify and understand how useful this product is. Avoid hard selling; don’t do any selling at all - just warm up your reader’s interest. Right now you want to prepare them for action, which is to click threw to the landing page. The real selling starts as soon as they arrive at the landing page, well prepared and with your recommendation in mind.

When you do this way, make sure the product you offer targets your prospects and are valuable to them. Choose the product range carefully; let them correspond with the image you have build – meaning, stick to the quality and strategy you have outlined.

The main objective is that the readers believe in you - then, and ONLY then, will people trust you enough to follow your suggestions and become a buyer.

Source/Author: About APJ

Increase Website Traffic with Viral Marketing

2008-09-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

Many site owners have an on going challenge with increasing website traffic flow to their web pages. There are many tactics developed to solve this dilemma, many of them work excellent others don’t even make a small impact to your Website traffic.

One of the methods that have been successful in driving traffic into websites is viral marketing. Viral marketing takes advantage of the tendency a person has to share something he or she find informative, entertaining or amazing.

Many companies use this behavior to spread their products and improve the popularity of their online business, endeavoring to increase Website traffic. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behavior. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video or other things that catch a person’s interests.

This nifty form of website marketing is typically low cost and is a wonderful tool for any online business to utilize. The benefit overshadows the cost or efforts to initialize this marketing scheme. Any online business has the potential to benefit from viral marketing and Increase Website Traffic significant.

One of the simplest methods in viral marketing is using Tell a Friend script. This is a simple web script that you can attach to the code of your website. Generally, tell a friend script is installed on pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or family members.

The basic concept of Tell a friend script is that a person may input his name, e-mail address, and the recipient’s e-mail address, then send the media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail. As the recipient receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam because he recognizes the sender’s name as someone he or she knows and trust.

Tell a friend script eliminates greatly the risks of being blocked because the visitor use the information inputted by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of this marketing method. It is pretty sneaky but incredibly effective to increase Website traffic.

With the e-mail sent and opened, the media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or website that sponsors the media sent.

The tell a friend process recurs itself as visitors uses this feature, more and more people will be aware of the existence of the sponsoring web site. People who read the ads inside the mail, who likes what they see, would click threw on the link and visit the site. This drives in Website traffic resulting in huge number of potential customers.

A tell a friend script is very simple and does not require any complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy and simply paste the script on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type “tell a friend script” in the search box. You will probably find both remotely hosted and scripts to install in the search results. What you prefer is entirely up to you as long as it serves its mission and increase Website traffic.

It is crucial that you have patience in using tell a friend script and Viral Marketing. If your chosen media doesn’t get the Website traffic that was expected, it may take some time before it gets spread or shared. But surely many people will see your ads and there is great possibility that they will visit your website and become a potential customer.

PS: Visit SEO Facility Marketing Directory for more info and resources

Search Marketing Strategy – Affordable Do It Yourself Link building

2008-09-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

Many Search Marketing experts agree in that the relevance of back links are more important now than earlier. This is an interesting signal because it seems to have an impact on your sites Pagerank (PR) as well. Previously, the back link strategy was linking in from sites with high PR no matter its substance. After the Google Pagerank massacre in 2007/2008 this view has shifted, now it is vital to get back links from web sites with relevance. In this article I will discuss some tactical assessment that can improve the site's SERP significant and ensure that you receive more relevant visitors using.

-- Blogs
-- Web site Directories
-- Articles
-- Theme sites

above are the most common ways used in link building. In addition, I will pre-condition minimal cost and using the DIY (do it yourself) link building method.

Blogs
Within this segment there are almost unlimited possibilities, you can create your own blogs, or you can build links commenting in other's blogs. This means that if you have a Web site devoted to Search Marketing you want back links, or create blogs within this theme. If you go for obtaining links by blog commenting, make sure that the Blogs offer Do Follow links. Write intelligent Search Marketing blog comments and contribute in a positive way. As long as you comment about something you are familiar with this is surprisingly easy. If you prefer to create your own blogs, you can use Google's Blogspot or similar services unless you want buy domains and create blogs on them.

Web Site Directories
Look for niche directories that suits your site, select Web site directories about Search Marketing or synonymous in this case. This could be SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing etc. The most significant aspect is that you are aiming up on the relevance of the Marketing Directory and not necessarily the PR. Often it is free to submit links to niche directories and very cheap to buy a featured link for better exposure.

Articles
Article marketing is great to use when you are deep linking your site. Deep linking is link building to several pages or all the sub pages for the entire Web site. As mentioned to boredom, remember relevance. Write articles about Search Marketing for the main page, for instance Search Engine Optimization for sub page 1, Niche Marketing for another sub page and so on. Use the Articles resource box to link back to the respective web pages from the relevant Articles.

Theme sites
Link Exchange? No, I’m still talking about the one-way links to your Web site. Search for relevant sites using Search Marketing, but don’t pick the most popular sites. When you've come up with an appropriate range, contact the webmasters and inquire for the price of a Search Marketing text link for one year. With a vast amount if offers to choose from, you can pick out the most affordable and relevant sites. I’m sure you will be amazed by the number of quality back links you can get for just a few bucks. This tactic also works very well with Blog Owners if you don’t fancy commenting or creating your own blogs.

Targeted Traffic
Link building according to the above tactics has a particularly positive side effect; the back links brings you relevant traffic. Visitors come because they're concerned about what your Search Marketing web site offers, everyone knows that targeted traffic converts well and is good for business. One final advice, this is not something you should do overnight - let it be a natural and continuous process in the development of your web site.

PS: Visit our Directory and check for New Links you will find lots of useful Marketing Resources.

Successful PPC Advertising Essentials

2008-08-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

Pay per click (PPC) is a term used by online Marketers and the meaning is just as the term sounds, advertisers will only pay the publisher when visitors click on the ads. The method is based on keywords, and advertisers will buy keywords they predict has the best potential to be searched for and convert to action.

Once the user types in a specific keyword the PPC ads related to this phrase will show up on top of the organic search results. The PPC advantages is that instead of waiting for months for a top position using SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you can buy a top ranking in the search results today. This marketing technique is used in both search engines and on web sites, but most commonly its referred to as Search Engine Marketing.

PPC will have keyword tactics, which is the heart of the advertising, and many organizations will provide the details of how it can be optimized. The keywords are the main aspect of pay per click advertising. This is used by the advertisers to receive targeted traffic because the PPC ads will only be shown to users searching for one of the PPC phrases

Pay per click management will help you optimize the keyword bids, monitor the bids, conversion and budgets. PPC management is time consuming and involves a lot of work - but its absolutely necessary. The chosen keywords have to be searched for in a manner that there will bring the best results.

Pay per click could either deal with content match or with keywords. This industry is very competitive, because there is the constant need to match the requirements as well as recover investments. PPC can be very expensive and the risk of a negative return on investment is high if you manage your campaigns poorly. The combination of picking the right keyword phrases at the right prices and a tight management are essential factors for a successful PPC campaign.

If the right keywords are picked, then targeted traffic flow to the site and convert the visitors to customers. One of the biggest advantages of pay per click is that results can be seen within a few days.

With pay per click, a web site gets an instant top rankings on the best search engines such as google, MSN and yahoo.

About the Author:
Jenny Stevens is involved in several online projects and has been working with Search Engine Marketing for the past 3 years. One is Website Article Content - She is also looking for Free PPC Advertising maximizing.

Article Marketing

2008-04-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

An excellent way of driving all kinds of traffic, including traffic you wouldn't expect, to your site is to write useful articles and post them to article directories, encouraging people to download and publish your article on their website for free.

Article directories are huge repositories online with thousands of articles on every conceivable niche market and large market, usually they'll accept articles from almost anyone who wants to donate one. Register, set up the byline you want to use and your URL, and your article goes up, free to the world to download.

Why you should give away articles for free?

Because with every article download your URL and your name and often a short bio as well, are required to be set up along with the article in something called a "resource box." This means that if a hundred webmasters download your article, you have just gotten a hundred free links back to your website, many of them from sources you'd never have thought to ask prior to this.

It can also means that your name has just received the status of "recognized expert" to every person who thereafter reads your article on the other website. You give away free content, but you get real recognition and status in return.

Visit the Article Directory category for an overview.

Increase online traffic with a press release

2008-03-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Press releases done correctly, can be a very effective way to generate traffic to your website. Imagine a news article about your business and yourself in the local or a national newspaper, think of the interest it will create and you dont have to pay a cent for the exposure.

Before you start there are some basics you have to prepare

1. You must have some news to write about. If not, create something newsworthy and then write a press release. Now then, what is newsworthy?

Charity event – raise funds for charity
Contest to highlight an aspect of your field
New product or service that can benefit others
problem – and you came up with a solution.

2. A press release must be written in an informative manner, avoid writing a promotional like press release. Try to write your press release without any hype. Here are a couple of examples:

Wrong: “The solution to solve all of your problems!”

Right: “After dealing with her son’s chronic asthma for years, Miller wrote a book to help other moms who feel discouraged and frustrated…”

3. Your press release must be formatted correctly if you hope to have it read by an editor. The media receives thousands of press releases each day. If yours is formatted poorly or filled with typos, it will likely be tossed aside.

Benefits of a press release?

Not only does a press release give you the opportunity to have your business (and URL) mentioned in front of a large crowd, but, when it does work, it adds legitimacy to your business as well. You aren’t viewed by the readers as someone who paid to have their ad in the paper. You are considered valuable enough to be interviewed as a resource for their readers. That adds a lot of credibility.

Press Release Resources

Here a list of online resources where you can realease your news. This is just a short list of 15 sites, try the Search Engines for more media resources.

Start a Media page

Once you have been interviewed or highlighted in any media (online or offline), start a “Media Page” on your website to showcase your exposure. This will prove to any interested press that you are worth looking into. Include links to any online interviews, pdf copies of print interviews, and audio clips of recorded interviews.
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Bjorn is an online Marketer and author. Visit Internet SEO Marketing for SEO input and resources or Website Article Content for article marketing and reprint articles.

Branding & Trademark benefits

2008-03-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

It seems like a lot of work to trademark a business or a product, doesn’t it? For many people it can be somewhat of a challenge. For others, especially large companies, the process is simply handed over to their attorneys to go through.

Even though it may take some time to develop the perfect trademark and to put it in place, the benefits of having one are quite amazing. In fact, an effective trademark can actually stand out as its own advertisement for your business!

Just think of those arches. Think about the Wendy’s girl. You can even picture your favorite Staples logo, can’t you? Just seeing those symbols triggers an instant thought about visiting those locations. You don’t have to be hungry and you definitely don’t have to need staples and pens to want to visit those locations.

In effect, you want to create this same type of trademark for your business so that you can benefit from increased advertisement and name recognition just through your trademark.

More info about this topic can be found at Website Article Content : Branding and drop by Business Promotion Blog for similar readings

Communications on the Internet

2008-03-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Internet communication is quite a challenge in today's information flow. Never the less, its one of the most important skills to govern if you want to win opinions, sell products or services, promote and have a successful website. To win this race you need a communication strategy based on the intention and goals of your Internet presence. The basic challenges are fierce competition, information volume and busy net surfers.

Net surfers are in a hurry and the time to communicate to them is limited. Normally a visitor will leave your website within 5 to 10 seconds if he or she don't find it interesting. So it's vital to catch the visitors attention and know how to get your message across. In case you are uncertain of how your website is doing, check your site stats. If many of your visitors leave quickly, it's a good chance that there is something wrong with your communication. Find out which pages the visitors are entering on your website. Its no use in having a great and catchy front page if the majority of the visitors are landing on a boring sub page.

You only have one shot to communicate the message to your Internet visitors. Keep in mind that those visitors, reading your message don't spend much time to find out what you have to say. Therefore, say it fast, say it precise and in a way the website visitors would like to hear. Learn the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) and how to address your messages direct and simple.

There are some basic rules that you should beware of when you're writing for the Web: Ask yourself the following questions:

What communication style do my visitors prefer and how do I catch their attention?
Find out what the visitors want to read and then write for them. Investigate and collect information from sources like blogs, forums, websites and similar. Don't just write something for the sake of filling up your web space.

What are my visitors looking for?
Identify and refine the message that you want to promote to your visitors. Pinpoint your focus, zoom in and communicate it to your visitors in a language that they can trust and relate to.

Is the website adapted to the group or market I am targeting?
Evaluate your information sources. Make sure that the information you're basing your website content on is creditable and precise. Does the information represent the values that you wish to communicate? Is the information based on facts, or is it a personal opinion? Many times the combination of fact and opinions go hand in hand. Meaning that strong personal or public opinions have inflated the visitors attitude long before they arrive at your website.

Consider all aspects and implications of your writing. Make sure that you end up with an appropriate conclusions that your readers will more or less agree with. Analyze the costs, benefits, and consequences of the content that you plan to publish on your website. Discuss SEO (Search Engine Optimization) versus targeted communication. The best decision off course, is to choose a strategy that lead your visitors into the desired actions.

:: Author Info ::
Tony Gregson is an experienced Internet Marketer and online Entrepreneur. Tony is educated in Marketing and Business Administration. He is a Manager and Co-owner of several online projects. Some of his latest sites are Internet SEO Marketing and, Website Article Content an Article Marketing directory and a place to get fresh reprint articles

Build your own Opt-in marketing list easily

2007-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Opt-in marketing is when people willingly subscribe to have newsletters, catalogues, reports and other online services sent to their E-mail address. This is an efficient way to promote your business, and the main rule is; the more opt-in marketing mails you submit, the better are your chances to sell and increase the revenues significant.

To send many Opt-in mails, you need a lot of subscribers. Many think that building a Opt-in marketing list is time consuming and takes a lot of hard work. In fact it only requires a bit of patience and strategic planning. Setting up a mailing list system may require some skills, but several suppliers do this for a decent price. Another solution is to purchase a online mailing list service, ready to get started in seconds.

Internet provides a variety of sources and articles on how to build your Opt-in list. Sometimes these methods appear to be quite confusing because of the different solutions. Different groups of people enquire targeted approaches in building an opt-in list. Ok, its time for some strategy talk. Luckily you have already figured out one.. or haven't you - well here are a few hints to get you going:

Make your website useful and easy to navigate through. Invest in a convincing web design , make the graphics delicate, publish articles and well written sales letter without over doing it. The website should be based in the main strategy and be used as a tactical part of your business. Let a content provider help you write articles and professional text pitches if you don't have the grip of it.

Place a sign up form directly below your content. Tell your visitors to aubscribe for updates, new releases, a gift, free reports etc. When a website visitor finds something he or she likes, make it easy for them to sign up right there.

Deliver services and products as promised. Returning customers will make your business very profitable. A satisfied customer recommends your services to others and save you for expensive advertising.

Offer a money back guarantee. If a customer for some reason isn't satisfied live up to your guarantee. Return the money without hassle and welcome the customer back to do business with you later. Customer service is a crucial for your online success.

Keep the Opt in list private, do never share or sell your list and lose the customers trust. Letting others use your Opt-in list for spamming will put you out of business pretty soon. Building a good reputation takes time, tearing it down is done over night.

Still not sure you are ready to go for Opt-in marketing on your website? Allow me to recommend a visit at SEO Facility's Marketing directory. Have a look in the E-mail marketing category for further resources and online Opt in services. For the time being E-mail marketing is the most responsive way to promote and sell on the Internet. With other words, this could be the big difference for your business.

Flash based web site - the good and bad

2007-04-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here's a simple breakdown.

The good and useful

Flash's Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

Cross browser compatibility standard

With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Interactive communication with animation

In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real "movie files" that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

The bad and ugly things

People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You'll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn't have the player installed.

Website optimization

If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn't be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time

Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.

Tony SEO Facility Web Design & Development

How to succeed with your Internet Marketing strategy

2007-04-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

Getting a top ten rank with the search engines is hard because so many of the web sites are using the same keyword phrases. This doesn't mean that your web site have to be stuck under your competitors' pages. An Internet marketing strategy using search engine optimization, advertising, and niche content can boost your search engine ranking.

Search engine marketing strategy

Start by defining your target customers. Find out who they are, what they are searching for, motivation and which web sites they visit.

Test ads on the web sites your target visitors frequent. Advertising on these sites will tell you which search phrases this segment respond to, price range, purchase patterns and so on. Test results help you to estimate potential income and expenses the Internet Marketing campaign will generate.

Assuming the test advertising is positive, define your goals. Keep the goals simple and clear like return on investment, sales target, profit margin etc. With defined goals it’s actually pretty easy to work out the strategy and resources needed to achieve them. Next is to work out a budget, schedule the activities and specify who is responsible to get things done.

Search Engine Optimization

Working your way threw this process is very useful. Why? Because now it's easier to figure out what your potential customers search for. Targeting specific search phrases could mean they are less competitive, and less competition means a better chance for succeeding with your Internet Marketing. But most important, your visitors are in a buying mood when they land on your website.

Build incoming links containing your target keywords. Having external sites linking to your pages will boost your search engine ranking. Quality links states that your site's content is so important that webmasters links to your web pages.

Pay per click – PPC advertising

Organic traffic usually takes a while to build up. In the mean time advertise your products on the search engines. Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a cost effective alternative, you only pay when someone clicks on your ads. Use the selected keywords in your PPC advertising, and to write an ad copy targeting the niche. This will mainly motivate the target audience to click on your ads. Similar to organic traffic, visitors are motivated and ready to buy when they arrive at your web pages.

Niche content strategy

Keep your promises when you invite someone for a visit. Update your website with useful content for the niche you are targeting. A good Web Design and content rich web site will gain the visitors trust. Visitors become customers much easier when hey are confident with your sales representative, in this case your website.

Follow up your strategy and estimate

Follow up that both income and investments are within the calculated estimate. Make sure you operate according to scheduled time frames. Be prepared to alter parts of the strategy to balance market demands, and remember it's never too late to stop if a strategy fails.

By analyzing the test results properly you will be able to balance your Internet marketing plan realistically. The chances for a successful marketing campaign are much better when your decisions are based on true market knowledge.

Tony SEO Facility Niche directory