<![CDATA[How to Create Anchor Text Links]]></h1> <article> <h1>How to Create Anchor Text Links</h1> <p>2010-05-21T22:43:29Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsearch-engines-and-seo%2Fhow-to-create-anchor-text-links%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>The text that is used in the links that point to your website has a major effect on the position of your website in Google’s search results.</p> <p>For example, if many people use the text “buy blue widgets” to link to your website, then it is very likely that the linked web page will get high rankings for the keyphrase “buy blue widgets” in Google’s search results.</p> <p>The link text (also called anchor text) is the text that is used in text links. Example:</p> <p><em>< a href="http://www.example.com">this is the link text</em></p> <p>Unfortunately, not all anchor texts will be used by Google. Check the following things to make sure that the links to your website pass the correct anchor tag:</p> <p><strong>1. The nofollow attribute</strong></p> <p>This is a no-brainer. Links to your website that use the rel=”nofollow” attribute don’t pass the link text to Google. Example:</p> <p><em>< a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.example.com">great keyword</em></p> <p>You can use IBP to <a href="http://news.axandra.com/r.html?uid=1.32.cp1p.40z.d992vbd5bs" target="_blank">find out if the websites that link to you use the nofollow attribute</a>: start IBP, click the “Links” button and click “Check links”.</p> <p><strong>2. Invalid characters in the URL</strong></p> <p>If an URL contains invalid extra characters then chances are that search engines won’t be able to index the link correctly. Example:</p> <p><em>< a href="http://www.example.com ">great keyword</em></p> <p>In this example, there’s a space at the end of the URL. Some webmasters found out that anchor text is not passed to Google if the link contains an extra space character.</p> <p>Note that most browsers are able to correct this link and they will display the web page correctly. Unfortunately, search engine spiders seem to have more difficulty with malformed links (or they take them as a signal of low quality).</p> <p><strong>3. The links use 301 redirects</strong></p> <p>Google’s Matt Cutts recently confirmed that Google won’t consider all anchor texts that are used in 301 redirected links. Example:</p> <p><em>< a href="http://www.example.com/page.htm">great keyword</em></p> <p>The web server redirects “<em>http://www.example.com/page.htm</em>” to “<em>http://www.example.com</em>” with a 301 redirect. In that case, it’s likely that Google won’t use the link text.</p> <p><strong>4. The first link passes the link text</strong></p> <p>If a page links twice to the same page then Google will use the first link text and discard the other link texts. Example:</p> <p><em>< a href="http://www.example.com">This is an example. The link text < a href="http://www.example.com">great keyword will be ignored by Google.</em></p> <p>The first and the second link go to the same URL. In this example, Google will use the link text of the first link, which is “This”. The link text of the second link will be ignored by Google.</p> <p>If the second link points to another page of the linked website, then both link texts will be used by Google:</p> <p><em>< a href="http://www.example.com/page1.htm">This is an example. The link text < a href="http://www.example.com/page2.htm">great keyword will be ignored by Google.</em></p> <p>Links are the most important factor when it comes to getting top 10 rankings on Google and other major search engines.</p> <p>Copyright by Axandra.com. <a href="http://www.axandra.com">Web site promotion software</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>What is Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)</h1> <p>2010-04-24T22:36:35Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsmall-business-internet-marketing%2Fwhat-is-latent-semantic-indexing%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a technique that is used by all major search engines nowadays. Does your website take this into account? How does it influence the position of your web pages in Google’s search results?</p> <p><strong>What is latent semantic indexing?</strong></p> <p>LSI means that a search engine tries to associate certain terms with concepts when indexing web pages. For example, Paris and Hilton are associated with a woman instead of a city and a hotel, Tiger and Woods are associated with golf.</p> <p>To find out which other keywords Google finds related to a keyword, search for a keyword and add a tilde in front of it. Google will mark the related keywords in bold on the result page. It seems that Google finds the word “Nokia” related to “<a href="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%7Ephone" target="_blank">phone</a>“.</p> <p><strong>How can Google match keywords with certain concepts?</strong></p> <p>Google has billions of web pages in its index. If Google finds that many web pages contain both the word Paris and the word Hilton then Google might assume that these keywords are related. The other words on these pages could give Google a hint that this special word combination is about a woman.</p> <p>Words that frequently appear very close to each other could get a tighter connection. Google has a lot of data that allows them to calculate the relation between different words.</p> <p><strong>What does this mean for the position of your web pages in Google’s search results?</strong></p> <p>If you want to be listed for certain keywords, you must show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. There are several things that you can do to increase the relevancy of your website for a topic:<em> </em></p> <p><em>1. Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords</em></p> <p>If you’re targeting the search term “used cars” you should also create pages that are relevant to the keywords “auto”, “suv”, etc.</p> <p>The more pages of your website are relevant to a certain topic, the more likely it is that your web pages will be listed for keywords that are related to that topic. Make sure that your keywords <a href="http://news.axandra.com/r.html?uid=1.2y.cp1p.3vo.dt5x9fdh6o" target="_blank">appear in the right elements</a> on your web pages.<em></em></p> <p><em>2. Get links from semantically relevant pages</em></p> <p>If you’re selling cars then the “Cars” web page that links to your site should not be about the movie. Links from topically related pages will be semantically beneficial to your site.</p> <p>A link to your website that comes from a page that contains links to other web pages that deal with the same topic has a greater effect on the rankings of your website then a link from a page that links to totally different pages and your site.</p> <p>For that reason, it is important that you try to <a href="http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/linkbuilding/link-builder.htm" target="_blank">get links from related websites</a>. It is also very important that you <a href="http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/submission/site-submission-tools.htm" target="_blank">submit your website to the right category in Internet directories</a>. If your website is listed in the wrong category, this can have a negative effect on your rankings.<em></em></p> <p><em>3. Use a meaningful site architecture</em></p> <p>Use a logical system to organize your website content. Create content sections that deal with different parts of your main topic and make sure that everything that is related to your topic is mentioned on your web pages.</p> <p>Make sure that your web pages are put in the right categories on your website and that it’s easy to find the different categories.<em></em></p> <p><em>4. Find out why other pages rank higher than yours</em></p> <p>If you ever asked yourself why another page has been ranked higher than yours although you perfectly optimized your pages for your search terms then you should <a href="http://news.axandra.com/r.html?uid=1.2y.cp1p.3vo.dt5x9fdh6o" target="_blank">analyze the inbound links of the top ranked pages</a>.</p> <p>The number and the authority of inbound links are important. However, it’s also important that the links come from semantically and topically related pages.</p> <p>Don’t focus on a single keyword when optimizing your pages. If you want to prepare your website for advanced search engine algorithms then you have to create a website that has been optimized for many different but related search terms.</p> <p>In addition, it’s important that the links to your website come from topically related pages so that search engines put your website in the right context</p> <p>Copyright Axandra.com – <a href="http://www.axandra.com/" target="_blank"><span>Web site promotion software</span></a></p> <p>Here is what Google’s Matt Cutts has to say about the Semantic matter. The key point occurs at about 2 minutes 50 seconds. Enjoy….</p> <p><center><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/200OVIZb1YI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param></object></center></p> </article> <article> <h1>Black Hat SEO – Keyword Stuffing</h1> <p>2010-04-14T01:07:41Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsearch-engines-and-seo%2Fblack-hat-seo-keyword-stuffing%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>The SEO business is becoming more and more competitive by the day. There is no shortage of small business owners wanting to achieve top search engine rankings and there is no shortage of individuals and companies offering SEO services. As a result of the growing demand for SEO services and the low barrier to entry to set yourself up as an SEOer, there are problems emerging.</p> <p>If I can draw a quick comparison. Cast your mind back when the Government announced the water tank rebates during 2008 and 2009. An instant demand was created in the market place for not only suppliers and manufacturers of water tanks but also the supplementary services such as installation, cleaning and servicing. There where existing players in all these market sectors and I would suggest that they were chiseling away at earning a decent and honest living servicing what “was” a fairly niche market.</p> <p>Enter the rebate scheme and the proliferation of water tank businesses skyrocketed. It would appear that every man and his dog wanted to get in on the action and make a quick buck. Who knew how long the drought would last and how long we would be on ever tightening water restrictions?</p> <p>Competition was fierce, prices where slashed, and so began the battle for business. There is generally one aspect of a product or service that you can guarantee is going to suffer when the market is driven by high demand and cheap supply…. and that is quality. In an effort to reap some sort of margin (insert Profit), short cuts have to be made. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every operator in the water tank business was “shonky”, cut corners or delivered less than standard work. The point is simply that low barriers to entry into a market inevitably fosters (on average) a less than optimal result. Marry that with a lack of accreditation and you’ve got a free for all. Imagine the quality of medicine if you didn’t have to train to be a doctor. We’ve even see the demand problem effect this market!!!</p> <p>If you want recent proof of these types of market forces in action, you’ve only got to look no further than the government’s recent home insulation scheme. Another perfect case of an instant demand needed to be met by instant supply. The result, less than spectacular. Enough from me – your turn.</p> <p><center><a href="#comment"></a></center></p> <p><strong>So how does this apply to SEO?</strong></p> <p>There is a growing demand from for small business wanting to snare the coveted number #1 search engine result and there is an ever growing number of SEOers prepared to do what ever it takes to fulfill their client’s wishes. As a result of this often frenzied scramble to the top of the search engines, unscrupulous or “Black Hat” SEO techniques are applied. Now black hat SEO techniques are best described as those activities that are designed to trick or fool the search engines. There are very clear guidelines set out by the major search engines as to how best to optimise your site for top results. They even go as far as to outline what “not to do” so as to avoid any type of penalty. Check out the <strong><a title="Google Webmaster Tools" href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/" target="_blank">Google Webmaster Tools</a>,</strong> you can’t get much clearer than that. For those of you that want to dig a little bit deeper, you only have to read Google’s official blog and you’ll find many articles about SEO best practice.</p> <p>Simply put – SEO is an ongoing process, it is not an event. To get lasting results it takes time. And here in lies the problem. The instant gratification sought by the business owner and the pressure on the SEOer to deliver on something they have over promised in a bid to win the work. Sound familiar?</p> <p>It would appear that “black hatters” need to stoop to applying trickery and deceit to deliver results. For business owners who are looking for a solution and place their faith in the smooth and fast talking SEOer, their business is treading a very fine line between instant gratification and disaster.</p> <p>Here is a blatant example of keyword stuffing. Click on the image to enlarge</p> <p><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/keywordstuffing.png"></a><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/keywordstuffing.png"></a></p> <p>Now this example appears at the very bottom of the web page. It is clearly a list of keywords that they are either wanting to rank highly for or are bidding on through pay-per-click platforms such as Adwords. I simply ask myself why??? This site is ranking well for a range of keywords and it would appear that they are ranking well not as a result of stuffing keywords on the page but rather <strong><a title="Start at the top with SEO" href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/small-business-internet-marketing/start-at-the-top-with-seo/" target="_blank">good on-page SEO</a></strong> and a healthy network of incoming links. There is simply no need to run the gauntlet.</p> <p><center><a href="#comment"></a></center></p> <p>I have no idea who is responsible for the above indiscretion and frankly I don’t care. Keyword stuffing like this is usually a clear sign of a DIY approach to SEO or a “Black Hat” SEOer at work. It is often a lack of knowledge mixed with a combination of inexperience usually fueled by a misguided article or two written by people who really don’t know what they are talking about.</p> <p>The right approach to keyword SEO is first stick to the rules as laid out by the search engines and in doing so you will be doing your readers a favour by delivering quality content and making the copy on the page easier to read as it won’t be stuffed unnecessarily with keywords. Good content leads to more inbound links, which ultimately leads to greater authority and higher rankings.</p> <p>Lets take a wider view and look at the effects of “Black Hat” SEO. We have grown to expect that the search engines are going to deliver us the best matched results for our search queries. If the search engines are being fooled into displaying less than optimal results then we are all being cheated. Black hat SEO effects us all. There is no winner.</p> <p>Here is the Google SPAM report link. They take this sort of thing very seriously. If you are aware of any sites that are “breaking the rules”, this is how you can take action. Use it wisely and for the good of the internet. Don’t be tempted to use it in a vindictive way.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en">https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en</a></strong></p> <p>Sites that are found to be in breach of the rules can find themselves heading towards the back of the que or even worse de-indexed (removed from Google’s Index all together).</p> <p>If you are a business owner looking for a SEO company to take on your optimisation, do your due diligence. SEO is not voodoo, magic or a secret only known to a few, it is a logical process and any reputable SEO company will be more than happy to show you their results and tell you how they went about doing it. If they are not comfortable telling you want they did, then chances are they use black hat techniques and you should continue your search.</p> <p>Visit our <strong><a title="Brisbane SEO Services" href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/search-engine-optimisation-brisbane/seo-services/" target="_blank">Search Engine Optimisaton page</a></strong> to view the range of services we offer.</p> <p>If you have an example of poor SEO form or have an example or cross to bare, leave a comment.</p> <p>The final word, If you are going to play the game, stick to the rules, or…. be prepared to pay the penalty.</p> <p>Good luck</p> <p><a name="comment">Leave a comment</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>Links – Buyer Beware!</h1> <p>2010-05-22T09:41:42Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsearch-engines-and-seo%2Flinks-buyer-beware%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Google’s Matt Cutts recently made a new announcement about paid links. Buying links is a very hot and controversial topic among webmasters. Should you buy links to increase the position of your website on Google? Do paid links help your rankings? Are there any risks?</p> <p><strong>Can you increase your website rankings by buying links?</strong></p> <p>Yes, you can. Links that point to your website are the most important factor that influences the position of your website in Google’s search results.</p> <p>If you buy backlinks, you can quickly get high rankings for your website on Google. However, that’s only one side of the medal.</p> <p><strong>If buying links works, why shouldn’t you use it for your website?</strong></p> <p>Buying links is against Google’s terms of service: <em>“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”</em></p> <p>Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts recently announced that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to detect paid links.</p> <p>Google has a report form for paid links. If one of your competitors finds a paid link that points to your website, he might report it to Google.</p> <p>Google actively searches for paid links and it’s likely that they will detect all paid links sooner or later. While you can get away with them for some time (that’s why paid links work for some time), your website will be penalized as soon as Google finds out that you tried to game the system.</p> <p><strong>Buying links leads to quick results and strong penalties</strong></p> <p>If you use spammy SEO methods such as buying links, you will quickly get high rankings on search engines. Unfortunately, Google will completely remove your website from the search results as soon as they find out that you use these methods:</p> <p>If you use ethical SEO methods, it will take longer until you get high search engine rankings. However, your rankings will grow steadily and you’ll get a much better performance in the long run</p> <p>Do not use spammy SEO methods to increase your rankings on Google. It will backfire on you.</p> <p><strong>There are better ways to get inbound links</strong></p> <p>As mentioned above, the links to your website are the most important factor that influences the position of your website in Google’s search results.</p> <p>For that reason, it is very important to get as many good backlinks as possible to your website. The quality of the backlinks is more important than the quantity.</p> <p><a href="http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/linkbuilding/link-builder.htm" target="_blank"><br /> </a></p> <div id="TixyyLink" style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;"><a href="http://www.free-seo-news.com/newsletter415.htm#facts#ixzz0obiyfDrP"><br /> </a></div> </article> <article> <h1>Where to Start when doing Keyword Research</h1> <p>2010-05-21T22:47:50Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Funderstanding-keywords%2Fwhere-to-start-when-doing-keyword-research%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Most people use a keyword suggestion tool when they try to find new keywords for their campaigns. While keyword suggestion tools are good, they should not be the first step in your keyword research activities.</p> <p>Before you use a keyword suggestion tool, ask yourself the following questions:</p> <ol> <li>What problems can your product or your service solve?</li> <li>Which questions do potential customers ask?</li> <li>Can you offer unusual solutions?</li> <li>Which products and services do you offer?</li> </ol> <p>As you can see, the products and services that you offer are the least important. A person with a headache might not know that the Shiatsu that you offer will help them. They even might now know what Shiatsu is and if they know it, they might not be able to spell it properly. The same applies to all other services and industries.</p> <p>For that reason, it is important that you focus on the first three points before using your products or services in the keywords.</p> <p><strong>1. What problems can your product or service solve?<br /> </strong><br /> In this example, the problem that your product or service can solve is a headache. Create a list of words that describe the problem:</p> <p>headache, racking headache, migraine, vicious headache, splitting headache, megrim, constant headache, etc.</p> <p><strong>2. Which questions do potential customers ask?</strong></p> <p>People type different things in Google’s search box when they try to find a solution to their problem. Here are some real queries that have been done on Google:</p> <ul> <li> why does my head hurt</li> <li>why does my head hurt when I cough</li> <li>how to get rid of migraines without medication</li> <li>how to get rid of migraines when pregnant</li> <li>why can’t i concentrate on anything</li> <li>why am i so tired</li> <li>etc.</li> </ul> <p>The problem that your product solves creates certain circumstances (fatigue, temper, concentration problems). Address these circumstances in your keyword phrases.</p> <p>The problem can also be connected to another factor (for example migraine and pregnancy). Create keyword phrases that are related to these factors.</p> <p><strong>3. Can you offer unusual solutions?</strong></p> <p>Most people will take a pill when they have a headache. In this example, you offer a solution that many people don’t know about (Shiatsu). The following phrases would work for you:</p> <ul> <li>get rid of migraines without medication</li> <li>get rid of headache without pills</li> </ul> <p>The unusual solutions that you offer can also be used in your AdWords ad copy and on your web pages. For example, you might create web pages around the following topics:</p> <ul> <li>How to get rid of headaches without using Aspirin</li> <li>An unusual way of healing migraine without medication</li> <li>etc.</li> </ul> <p><strong>4. Which products or services do you offer?</strong></p> <p>Of course, you should also use the names of the products and services that you offer in your ads and SEO campaigns. In this example, this would be:</p> <p>shiatsu, shiatsu massage, etc.</p> <p>When you try to find new keywords, tell a short story that describes the problem and the solution: “A person has a racking headache. The person cannot concentrate because of that headache and the person is tired. Instead of taking a pill, there can be other solutions. That solution is my Shiatsu service.”</p> <p>By doing this, you’ll find many keywords around which you can create new web pages and PPC ads. Of course, you can also combine this method with keyword suggestion tools.</p> <p>Copyright by Axandra.com. <a href="http://www.axandra.com">Web site promotion software</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>Undisclosed affiliate selling – how to spot it</h1> <p>2010-01-08T00:21:50Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsmall-business-internet-marketing%2Fdo-you-disclose-an-affiliate-program-or-not%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Hi Marshall and Gary here</p> <p>Life is pretty hectic here at <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong>. It is amazing the number of <strong>small businesse</strong>s that we come into help who do not have a website, or have a very poorly optimised website, or are having the most cost inefficient Adwords campaign run that you have ever seen. These are generally a symptom of not having an <strong>internet strategy </strong>and doing things piecemeal.</p> <p>Anyway, today it is about <strong>affiliate selling online</strong>. As you are probably aware, affiliate selling would be one of the biggest drivers in the growth of the internet. The fact that so many products today are available digitally mean that the owners of the products are happy to pay away large commissions to sell their product. This is because once produced, the cost to provide the product is quite often only the bandwidth to download it. In fact, most internet courses (you know – make $5,000 a week from home for 4 hours work) recommend that you do not deal with products that pay less than 60% commission. Many internet marketing based offerings pay at 75% – have a look at <a href="http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm" target="_blank">http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm</a> and search the internet category.</p> <p><span id="more-820"></span></p> <p>Yes – when someone buys a $67 product online, generally the affiliate will get $45 and the product owner $22. The product owner is happy because there may be 100 affiliates selling the product, the affiliates are happy because they are making good money. No problems – the affiliate is normally not disclosed here. And because the purchaser is not paying any more to buy through the affiliate than if they bought direct, no-one loses (although you could mount an argument that all affiliate products are overpriced to allow for affiliate commission).</p> <p>When you market as an affiliate to a list, the question of disclosure becomes a bit trickier. If you have created your own list through your own marketing activities, you have every right to affiliate sell to them and undisclosed. Provided the product price is not loaded, the people on the list who buy the product are not disadvantaged.</p> <p>When you are a member of a body (professional, industry, network, etc), the answer, to us at <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> at least, becomes much clearer. To offer affiliate products to this list without disclosing the fact that you may make money from it is pretty unethical. Just because you have a commonality to other people through a professional or other association does not make them fair game to profit from!</p> <p>Without exception, the message through the list from the affiliate seller is about how great the product is and how you have to use it. Whilst the product indeed may be as good as promoted, the question mark is inevitably – “do they really think it is a great product, or do they really like earning the commission?”. Unfortunately, you never know because you do not even know that they are affiliate selling – unless they disclose it.</p> <p>So, if they choose not to disclose it, how can you tell if it is an affiliate sale? It can be tricky, but here are a few hints to look for:</p> <ol> <li> Half the time the nature of the communication gives it away. If it talks about internet opportunities, great value, limited time offer, I have searched and found this great product, etc – it is a fair chance that this is affiliate selling.</li> <li> The affiliate has to put a URL link in the communication. The not so internet savvy affiliate may just use the link that the affiliate program provides. We saw one of these recently like www.thewelloffhaffiliate.com/?A_BID=Qq8PCpaD. The code after the forward slash is their affiliate code. Pretty obvious when you know what to look for.</li> <li> The next level up is where a masking URL is used like TinyURL. TinyURL and similar products are great, we use it ourselves all the time. It turns a long and ugly URL into a neat short and unique URL to click on. However, if you look at <a href="http://www.tinyurl.com" target="_blank">www.tinyurl.com</a> you will see a suggested use is that “your affiliate link will be hidden from the visitor..”. This is harder to spot, but keep a close eye on the bottom left of your internet browser and see if when the destination site is found, does a list of numbers or letters like in “/ADQ1342KZ” flick pass. If so, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is an affiliate link.</li> <li> When the URL in the communication takes you to an innocuous looking site and there is no forward slash at the end of the URL, chances are it is a sales page. These are designed to get your name and email address to push market to. Hover your mouse over the “click here to sign up” banner. Then look down to the bottom left of your browser – again you may see a URL. If it has the giveaway “/promo/gj123″ or similar, it is an affiliate sale – again. Or at worse, just click on the link and watch the bottom left hand corner.</li> <li> While we are looking at the bottom left hand corner – anything that flashes pass like Clickbank, Clixgalore, CommissionJunction or the like – definitely an affiliate sales as these sites are basically a clearing house for affiliate programs and sales</li> <li> Lastly – repetition of similar email messages. A lot of internet marketing based affiliate programs have a launch date and a close date. Communication tends to ramp up to the launch date and the message becomes a little more assertive like “don’t miss this one in a lifetime opportunity”, “how amazing the opportunity is”, “no brainer”, etc.</li> </ol> <p>A final point on all this. Many internet marketing affiliate sales process have the ubiqitious “free offer” up front. You can accept sign up for this without having to pay anything. You will undoubtedly then be led to another sales page offering the best deal ever where you only pay $67 but get $4,946 of value. Buy this, the affiliate gets their 50/60/70% commission. Alternatively it is a free 30 day subscription and then $27 a month thereafter. If you don’t buy it, you will be on another mailing list until you unsubscribe.</p> <p>We have seen a recent offer where although the free offer was significant, if you read the affiliate program blurb, it had 14 ways to earn income (or monetise in internet speak) the free offering. This again leads to the question – are they helping you via the free offer or are they profiting from you by using the free offer as the hook to get you in to then monetise you 14 different ways?</p> <p>When should someone disclose that they are an affiliate – <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> will leave you to be the judge of this but at least you now have a few tools to spot it.</p> <p>Your business buddies</p> <p>Marshall and Gary</p> <p>PS We do have affiliate sales offers, those on the side of this page are exactly this like BlueHost and Aweber. But they have no loaded cost and we do not sell to any professional network, just those who take our recommendations for what they are – the best value we can find online.</p> </article> <article> <h1>The free offers that cost you</h1> <p>2010-01-08T00:22:45Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsmall-business-internet-marketing%2Fthe-free-offers-that-cost-you%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p> </p> <p>Hi, Marshall and Gary here</p> <p>One of the reasons we run the <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> blog is that there are many people in the <strong>internet marketing</strong> space that want to make you an offer too good to refuse. But as the saying goes “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!”. One example we look at here is whether a high search engine ranking for an article with the rarely searched keyword combination of <strong>Marketing for Online Business A Marketing Business Secret</strong> will really assist your business.</p> <p>We believe that our blog offers unbiased and sensible information and advice that can really benefit <strong>small business owners</strong>, <strong>business consultants</strong> and anyone wanting to use the internet for commercial purposes. Have a read though our older posts – you will hopefully learn a few useful internet concepts.</p> <p>By far the most common “great” offers we see revolve around 2 themes:</p> <ol> <li>Get your website built for free; and</li> <li>Let me drive huge amounts of traffic to your website by achieving high Google search engine rankings.</li> </ol> <p>We have no problem with these offers – when all is as it seems and clearly laid out – but it rarely is.</p> <p><strong>Offer # 1: Get a free website built <br /> </strong></p> <p><span id="more-805"></span></p> <p>Let’s have a look at the first one – one recent offer we have seen offers to build you a free 10 page website. Built in an SEO friendly CMS we are told. Who is driving the strategies of keyword research, titles, meta descriptions, URL naming, product segmentation based on keyword strategy, etc which will get good search engines rankings is not mentioned. But we probably agree for many businesses, a website with poor SEO & strategy is better than none – as long as people understand what they are getting.</p> <p>There is no such thing as a free lunch. The sting comes with the hosting of the website. This particular offer had a range of hosting options, the cheapest being around US$500 a year with 2 email accounts (not sure what business nowadays runs on only 2 email accounts) for a 2 year deal. That is a commitment of just shy of US$1,000 for a “free” website – interesting economics. To get the princely number of 5 email accounts, the cost almost doubles.</p> <p>We like BlueHost in the US for hosting where possible (like .com, .net, etc). They charge US$6.95 a month or around US$85 a year, give you the first domain registration free, allow 2,500 email accounts, have unlimited transfers and best of all let you have unlimited domain names (and websites) hanging off the one hosting package. And have a free website building tool if you feel that way inclined. In short – this is awesome value. This is why we are affiliate sellers of BlueHost and we use them as well. We have about 8 websites hanging off our US$85 a year hosting package (you do have to pay to register other domains – which are very cheap).</p> <p>According to our <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> maths, over 2 years this leaves around US$800 to build a website for the same cost as the free website offer. We have many associates who will knock up a SEO friendly 4 to 6 page site for around US$300 (we are talking about your basic “have an online presence” type site – nothing fancy). Using an outsourced service like Odesk is even cheaper.</p> <p>We think we know where the better value lies – but value is always in the eye of the beholder. We just worry that the beholder does not know what to look for when assessing value.</p> <p>Make sure that you have a look around at what hosting packages really cost for your preferred domain before committing to the “free” website offer.</p> <p><strong>Offer #2: We will get you lots of Google #1 (plus #2, #3, etc) rankings for you</strong></p> <p>At <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> we have banged on about this quite a bit. But it always seems that there is someone else around the corner ready to make outrageous Google ranking claims.</p> <p>One ridiculous claim we have seen from a supposed expert is “look how I dominate the Google rankings for my name!” – presented as evidence of capacity to get rankings. Well search Google for “Marshall Vann” and you will see lots of listings for me as well, particularly for Australian based searches. Have I optimised myself? No, just had a sufficiently public life to gather lots of references on the web.</p> <p>The next one is getting a fistful of rankings in Google for really obscure keywords. Our favourite is the #1 ranking for – wait for it – “<strong>Marketing for Online Business A Marketing Business Secret</strong>“. And the ranking is for an article, not a website. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, when you do a quick Google Keyword Tool analysis for this long. long tail keyword – the result is “not enough data”. For those who have used GKT, you will know that this is Google’s polite way of saying “there are no searches being done around the world for this keyword or phrase”. So great, it ranks #1 for something absolutely no-one is searching for (other than maybe the author) – even better, it also ranks #4 (woo hoo!).</p> <p>So are we getting our knickers in a knot over this. Yes. They want people to pay for this service! It is rubbish. A #1 ranking for unsearched keywords does not help your business, does not drive traffic to your site, in fact, does nothing of any note other than make someone else a bit richer and you a bit poorer. </p> <p>We have seen these strategies offered as a free service as well. The trick here is to take some obscure keyword (again) and get it ranking #1 for you (well, normally an article that may have some passing relevance to your business). Then having proven the supposed knowledge of SEO, proceed to charge for a raft of subsequent (and useless) #1 ranking keyword articles.</p> <p><strong>However</strong>, don’t get us wrong. Article submission strategies are great for building strong and plentiful backlinks to a website. If the article ranks highly for well searched keywords, even better. So when people search for the keyword (and you know they are because you have done the research on GKT or elsewhere), find your article, click through, read it and then click on the hyperlink in the article to your website – great and proven strategy. Get the link in the article, not just at the end – these are called contextual links and really help with your own web page PageRank.</p> <p><strong>So what to do?</strong></p> <p>So what is the lesson here? Please don’t rely on claims made by others peddling something that may or may not be of value to you but is of value to them. Do your homework. Use blogs and sites like Small Business Internet Marketing or the hundreds of other really good and informative ones to make informed decisions.</p> <p>Once you have the knowledge, make the decision. The apparently quick and easy way may cost you a lot more than you think.</p> <p>Your business buddies</p> <p>Marshall and Gary</p> </article> <article> <h1>Beware of the reciprocal link merry-go-around</h1> <p>2010-01-08T00:25:08Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsmall-business-internet-marketing%2Fbeware-of-the-reciprocal-link-merry-go-around%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Hi, Marshall and Gary here</p> <p>Here at <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong>, we are members or associates of quite a few different professional and accreditation bodies. So we get to see a lot of communications and offers that flow around.</p> <p>One that seems to be getting a lot of airtime in many organisations is the pushing of <strong>reciprocal links</strong>. Inevitably, the message starts off with something like “Improve your Google ranking” and then goes onto to offer an exchange of reciprocal links. Whilst we have nothing against reciprocal links as part of a well thought out <strong>internet strategy</strong>, we have a sneaking suspicion that most people do not quite understand how they work.</p> <p>One of our earlier posts had a long and detailed explanation about the <strong>Google PageRank</strong> formula – see <a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/search-engines-and-seo/how-googles-pagerank-fits-in/">How Googles PageRank fits in</a>. If you follow the maths, it is obvious that links from higher PageRank pages will definitely help with your web pages PageRank. </p> <p>But a couple of very important things seem to get overlooked in the rush for reciprocal links:</p> <p><span id="more-801"></span></p> <ol> <li>Google gives a PageRank to every web page. So make sure that you get all your <strong>backlinks </strong>pointing at the page that you want to increase its ranking. This may or may not be the Home page. Often, you may want it to be a product or services or sales page. You should know this before offering any reciprocal links.</li> <li>Backlinks from web pages with a PageRank of 0 are nigh on useless in helping your PageRank. Be careful, many times the Home page of the site backlinking to your site may have the good PageRank, but the backlink comes from another “Links” page with a PageRank of 0.</li> <li>If you own a web page that has a decent PageRank, you only have so much “link juice” to use. Use it wisely and don’t just use backlinks as a simple strategy – you will be giving away far more than you get most likely. The more links out to other sites, the less worth your PageRank is to those sites.</li> <li>The placement of a backlink is very important as well. One link in a veritable sea of random links is not of much value – I am certain we have all seen the Links page with an amazingly eclectic range of links. Google values “contextual” links far more highly, particualrly if the anchor text over the hyperlink is relevant to the page that it is on.</li> </ol> <p>So, to paraphrase a well known saying, please beware of Greeks bearing links.</p> <p>You need to have a clearly thought out <strong>link strategy</strong> that incorporates all these matters rather than a random asking of everyone to do reciprocal link with your website. We use our useful links section sparingly here at <strong>Small Business Internet Marketing</strong> – and so should you.</p> <p>Your business buddies</p> <p>Marshall and Gary</p> </article> <article> <h1>Who’s Joined LinkedIn</h1> <p>2010-03-29T23:30:32Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fsocial-networking%2Fwhos-joined-linkedin%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p>Hi, Gary and Marshall here,</p> <p>With the growing popularity of the business and professional social networking site <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com"><u>LinkedIn</u></a>, it was only a matter of time before another powerhouse of the web2.0 world joined forces and integrated their services.</p> <p>We’re talking about the <a title="WordPress LinkedIn Application" href="http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=2200"><u>WordPress application</u></a> for LinkedIn. With the WordPress App, you can now sync your latest WordPress blog post and all its content with your LinkedIn profile. This means you can keep everyone linked to your profile up to date with your latest business ventures.</p> <p>Once you’ve loaded this WordPress App. you can filter your posts with a special LinkedIn tag and even display your personal WordPress Gravatar (global avatar) with updates sent automatically to your entire LinkedIn network.</p> <p><span id="more-779"></span></p> <p>It is a quick and easy process to install this application. Simply log in to your LinkedIn account and look for the menu options box on the left hand side. </p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/applications.png"></a></p> <p>Click on Applications to expand the selection. The Featured Applications page will load and you need to look around for the WordPress Logo. </p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/wordpress.png"></a></p> <p>Click on the WordPress link and you will be directed to the WordPress Applications page. Simply click on Add application and enter your blog URL and you are away.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/install.png"></a></p> <p>As easy as that. Now when you publish to your WordPress blog, your posts will appear as excerpts on your LinkedIn profile.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/wordpresslist.png"></a></p> <p>Now if you don’t have a WordPress blog already set up then it’s your lucky day. All you need to do to get started is enter your name and email address in the box at the top right hand side of this page and gain instant access to our easy step by step blog building guide <em><strong>eProfit Formula</strong></em>. It’s absolutely FREE and will have you up and blogging in no time.</p> <p>If you don’t have a profile set up yet, join the millions of professionals networking online and join <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com"><u>LinkedIn</u></a> today.</p> <p>Gary and Marshall</p> </article> <article> <h1>How to Get Free Traffic</h1> <p>2010-01-08T00:27:07Z</p> <div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smallbusinessinternetmarketing.com.au%2Fincrease-your-web-traffic%2Fhow-to-get-free-traffic%2F"><br /> <br /> </a> </div> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"> </a></p> <h2 style="text-align: center;">“IT CAN’T BE TRUE?”</h2> <h2 style="text-align: center;">Read on and find out!</h2> <p>I’m still shaking my head in disbelief. As we’ve said many times before here at Small Business Internet Marketing, we constantly use our own sites as crash test dummies for many of the latest online marketing techniques. We also put ourselves through hours, weeks and sometimes months testing the barrage of new products that hit the market. More often than not we trash most of them as quickly as we initiate them and put it down to good ole testing for the cause.</p> <p>However, we’re glad to report to you a web traffic technique that is working an absolute treat. As usual we’re fairly sceptical of any product or service that can claim they will send you 1 million (yes that’s 1,000,000) FREE visitors to your site in as little as 30 days…. Yeah RIGHT we thought. </p> <p>I was almost ready to hit the delete button when I thought…. Ah what the heck…. give it a go….. I’ve got a spare five minutes. Well…. I’m here to tell you, I’m glad I decided to push on a give this program a go because its kicking butt.</p> <p>Now before we all get overly excited, we have not yet received our GUARANTEED 1,000,000 visitors and nor have we increased our sales by 4000%. What I can tell you though is we are not only experiencing significantly increased visitor numbers to one of our sites, but a rather pleasant spin off.</p> <p><span id="more-763"></span></p> <p>Let me give you the low down. Instead of drving the traffic directly to the homepage of one of our existing websites or blogs, we decided to isolate the traffic and set up a squeeze page consisting of a free offer. This not only isolated the traffic stats from just this source, it also allowed us to test the conversions on our offer. This is where the pleasant little surprise turned up…… the free offer is converting at 11.67%. </p> <p>Now I’m not sure what sort of conversion percentage you are used to for your own offers, but this is out of the ball park for us. Now remember, the traffic that is coming to the squeeze page from this system is not targeted in any way – it is not the result of a Google search or link traffic from a related page. All sorts of products and markets are represented so the offer has to be strong to get this sort of result.</p> <p>What is the special offer I hear you ask. It is simply a no strings attached FREE lifetime membership to our <a href="http://www.e-profitformula.com" title="eProfit Formula"><u>eProfit Formula</u></a> online training site. What we are obviously getting in return is a list of people who are taking up our free offer that will be open to receiving further correspondence and product offers from us in the future. In short we are building our list free of charge…. and quite quickly I might add. Anyone who knows their marketing will tell you that you have to build your list. </p> <p>So how does this all work? We’ll give you a quick overview: </p> <p>The system is absolutely free to join. The <a href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"><u>FWebtraffic</u></a> site promotes 6 different text adverts at a time. When you sign up to use the system, you’ll be given a link to a customized page that contains your own text advert on it in the top position (#1 of 6).</p> <p class="text2">Now, when other people want to sign up for the 6Links system and place their own advert on the site, they will first have to click on your advert (plus the other 5) and view your website for at least 15 seconds to get a special code that they need in order to use the system. They then add their advert in the top position, and yours will be moved down to the #2 spot.</p> <p class="text2">And this is where the viral nature takes over, and how your traffic and visitors grow in numbers.</p> <p class="text2">Every time someone else wants to use the system, they first have to click on each of the 6 text adverts, and visit your site. And then your advert gets moved down to the next position, all the way to position 6. Every time your advert gets pushed down to the next position, you will have thousands of extra people all promoting your advert, without you having to do a thing.</p> <p class="text2">It is so simple and better still its free traffic. </p> <p class="text2">The secret to making this system work is two fold. </p> <p class="text2">First you have to get out there and promote it. The easiest way to do this is simply do as we have, either send out an email to your own list or write a blog post about it and you’re away. You don’t need a huge list to start off with, you only need to get 10 people to sign up and you’re off an running. 10 is a good start but what you really want to do is keep promoting so your traffic numbers keep growing.</p> <p class="text2">To make things even easier for you to promote your site, <a title="FWebtraffic" href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"><u>FWebtraffic</u></a> has created all the tools…. banners, text links and emails all at your disposal.</p> <p class="text2">Secondly, traffic on its own is useless, you need to make the visitor to your site take action…. and in this case quickly. What we would suggest is once again setting up a squeeze page with a special limited offer, capture your visitor’s data via an opt-in form and use the exercise to build your list. Build a relationship with your new visitor over time and convert them into a customer. By all means try and sell them right there and then, but we think you will get better results by building value into your offer over time through regular correspondence to your list.</p> <p class="text2">For an example of our squeeze page visit <a title="eProfit Formula" href="http://www.e-profitformula.com"><u>www.e-profitformula.com</u></a> Feel free to sign up for the offer – it is open to one and all.</p> <p class="text2">Now for the best bit…. here is the link to <a title="FWebtraffic" href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"><u>FWebtraffic</u></a> and an example of one of the supplied banners.</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"> </a></p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fwebtraffic.com/?rid=1256820"> <br /> </a></p> <p class="text2">Still skeptical? Well we don’t blame you. All we can tell you is that it is working a treat for us and most of our clients are seeing similar results as well. If you’ve got a spare five minutes check it out – you won’t be disappointed.</p> <p class="text2">We’ll keep you up to date with our results.</p> <p class="text2">Until next time</p> <p class="text2">Your Business Buddies</p> <p class="text2">Marshall and Gary</p> <p class="text2"> </p> </article> </main></body></html>