I have come to realize that many of my clients had no clue when it came to purchasing these services… which has been verified over and over by their own admission.

This article will hopefully help you identify the best route to follow when choosing  your Domain Name and Hosting services. It is not designed to promote, compare, or recommend, any particular company or companies.

Domain Names

Your Domain Name is your internet address, and how people are going to find you and identify with your site or business. Get one. You need it.

Free Domain Names that come with services like Blogger are useless because all you are doing is promoting traffic to Google (they own Blogger).

Example: www.computertactics/blogspot.com may look like a identifiable web address for my site if it was hosted on Blogger (it isn’t). Sure, my name is there but the problem is, all the traffic generated to this URL benefits blogspot.com, NOT me. The search engines recognize blogspot.com, not computertactics.

Bottom line… if your site URL does not end in yoursite.com, you will not see much success.

Top level Domain Names (.com, .net, .org) are cheap to own; usually around $10 per year. Many other Domain extensions are available like – .info, .biz, .us, .eu, .gov, etc., some are cheaper, some are more expensive, and some are not available to the general public.

Wikipedia maintains a great list of Top Level Domains, including availability requirements.

Your best bet is to get a .com as this is what most people think of when it comes to looking for an internet site. It is the most popular, and most widely recognized Domain extension.

If you can afford it, purchase multiple years up front. The overall cost will usually be reduced and you will gain more credibility with the search engines, specifically Google.

Google does have a weight factor in place that favors “long term” Domain Names over “single year,” or those that are soon to expire. They know that most “scam” and “affiliate only” promotion sites use multiple “single year” domains (throwaway domains), and tend to judge everyone this way.

This does not have a major effect on SEO and is almost insignificant in it’s weight factor but, nonetheless, it is still in place and something to consider.

Choosing a Domain Name is important and should be taken seriously. Try to use a name that is relative to the content (niche) of your site. Remember, this is how people will initially identify with your site and the search engines read this as well, so it is most beneficial to use keywords wherever possible.

Short one word names are the best because they are… short, and easy to remember. Unfortunately they are all pretty much taken.

Don’t use initials unless you are a recognized, major company. They are meaningless, provide no insight into what your site is about, and offer no SEO benefits.

Hyphens can be used and do not affect SEO but the problem is, most people forget to use them when typing in a URL and it is difficult to communicate your URL verbally. If someone types in your hyphenated URL without the hyphens, they may go to a different site, or no site at all. This could confuse or frustrate a first time visitor which could send them elsewhere.

The best advice is to use a short phrase – bestcoupondealsandoffers.com, writingforsuccess.com, joeslawnservice.com, or whatever. Just keep in mind that it should make sense when read and spoken.

Where to buy your Domain Name. Domain Names are traditionally sold through companies called “registrars” who will register, manage, and protect your Domain Name.

A good Registrar will provide you with a control panel of sorts where you can manage your own Domain(s).

For most of you,  setting the Domain Name Servers (DNS) and renewing Domains is about all you would do here.

DNS is a set of Hosting addresses that tell the Domain service where to “point” your Domain Name.

Let’s say that you bought hosting at ABC Hosting and created your site – joeslawnservice.com. Well, your Domain service has no way of knowing this unless you tell them.

ABC Hosting will provide you with their unique DNS. It would look something like this:

ns1.abchost.net

ns2.abchost.net

You would login to your Domain service control panel, find the DNS management tool for your Domain Name – joeslawnservice.com – then type in the two DNS addresses provided by your hosting company.

Your Domain service will then connect your Domain Name to your site by “pointing” it to the DNS you provided.

Most Domain services will tell you that it may take up to 72 hours for the Domain Name to propagate (connect) to the site. Some will connect quickly and some may take a day or more, depending on the quality of your Domain service.

There are many Domain Name services to choose from -  GoDaddy, Name.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com. These are a few of the more dependable and respected names out there and any of them would be recommended to do business with. I suggest you comparison shop as there may be special deals available.

My Domains have always been managed by GoDaddy. I have been very happy with their service and have had no issues for over 10 years.

Hosting your Domain Name. I strongly recommend that you DO NOT combine your Domain Name and Hosting with the same service.

GoDaddy for instance, does an excellent job at managing your Domain Names but are one of the worst Hosting providers I have ever had to use. Quite a few of my clients have fallen into the trap of buying their Domain Name at GoDaddy and then get sucked in to using their Hosting Service. Big Mistake.

GoDaddy Hosting is way behind the times. Their Hosting Control Panel is archaic, difficult to use, and somewhat limited. Troubleshooting MySQL or MyPHP is a nightmare and their overall interface is terrible.

iPage is another terrible Hosting service that will offer to sell and manage your Domain Name. Their Servers are horribly slow and the Domain Name service they offer purchases from an outside source. You are forced to manage your Domain Name within the iPage portal which  is very confusing. Decide to leave with your Domain Name and you will be required to pay an additional fee.

Note: When choosing a Hosting service, make sure they offer cPanel or Vistapanel for your control panel.

There are also many Hosting companies that will include a free Domain Name in their package. If you go this route, read the fine print and make sure that you own the Domain Name and have complete control over it… even if you cancel your hosting account.

Otherwise, you may find out their Hosting service is not good and want to move to a better Host, then find out that you cannot move your Domain Name, or may  be required to pay a fee.

Should you get upset and move anyway, you will soon find out that you cannot re-purchase the same Domain Name through a registrar because your previous hosting company has it tied up.

Please keep these services separate. You will have total, independent, control over each service and be much better off in the long run.

What services do I use?

GoDaddy for Domain Name management – 10+ years

ByetHost for free web hosting – 10+ years

HostGator for paid hosting – 5+ years

So just what do you know about SEO? When it comes to SEO are you a Novice, Intermediate or Expert? Regardless of your level, this article from a 10 year SEO war veteran may prove helpful.

One of my biggest problems in trying to help other webmasters – I naturally and wrongly assume they know all about SEO. I forget these webmasters have not spent the last 10 years battling it out with other online webmasters and marketers for some very popular and lucrative keywords, in the process, honing their SEO skills with other like-minded individuals.

I forget that many beginning webmasters may not be familiar with all the SEO lingo and SEO techniques which I mention in my articles.

There’s nothing wrong with that. If I were to take up a new hobby or explore a new subject, I am sure I would be just as clueless. Mainly because every subject, sport or hobby comes with a lot of terms/phrases which are unique to that subject. SEO is the same way so maybe a little background or warm-up is needed in regards to understanding the basics of SEO.

Tip: If you’re a complete novice, a complete list of the SEO terms might prove helpful. You can find a complete list here: http://www.submitexpress.com/seodictionary.html

First, you must understand that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization… which means you optimize your website and content so that it ranks high in the major search engines such as Google and Bing/Yahoo. This optimization can take the form of following a strict formula or layout of your website content with the proper meta tags, keyword density, linking structures and so on. It can also mean off-site optimization with link building, right anchor text, keyword positioning and so on.

SEO has become a major industry simply because getting top rankings for lucrative keywords can mean big bucks for companies or individuals. We are talking about billions, if not trillions of dollars, exchanging hands with the sale of products, services and business transactions. Get a top ranking for your chosen keyword phrase and it means a flood of targeted prospects/buyers coming to your website or company, ready to do business.

Now, because there is so much money involved, a whole SEO industry has sprung up with consultants, experts and companies offering their services to get you or your company into those top rankings in the search engines. These SEO services could include link building, link buying, social media positioning, onpage optimization, pay-per-click management… all with the goal of bringing targeted traffic/customers to your site or business.

White Hat vs Black Hat SEO

You may also have heard other webmasters talking about White Hat SEO as opposed to Black Hat SEO. And as the names suggest, White Hat is strictly above board proper site optimization, while Black hat is using underhand devious cloaking methods and systems to raise your rankings. For obvious reasons, always go the White Hat route and you won’t be disappointed and you will feel better knowing you’re doing the right thing in regards to your site.

Perhaps the next concept or term you should know is Algorithm. Search engines create complicated algorithms or lists of rules which determine not only how web pages are listed but also which web pages are listed first in their index or SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). These rules or ranking factors are used by SEO experts and webmasters to help move their keyword rankings up in the search engines. You open a web browser, go to a search engine such as Google, type in a search query for “top corporate lawyers” and the search engine returns a list of organic results along with a list of paid listings. Now, getting to that top spot means a lot of potential traffic/clients would be coming your way.

This is just one example, but most people quickly realize how lucrative getting to those top spots is for any individual or company. They also realize that understanding how the search engine algorithms work and how to manipulate them is a valuable skill which many clients will pay big bucks to have on their side. This SEO industry also consists of SEO software which helps webmasters/marketers get their sites into the top positions in the search engines.

Most SEO experts break up your search engine optimization into TWO TYPES:

On-Page and Off-Page Optimization

On-Page Optimization means getting right all the factors which influence your rankings in the search engines. Keep in mind, the whole web is “keyword based and keyword driven” which means you must optimize your domain and site for your chosen keywords. Your main keyword should be in your Domain Name, in the title of the page, in the main heading for that page, in the URL and it should appear (with variations) throughout the page. Try to keep the keyword density to around 2%-5%, although like many things to do with SEO… there are varying opinions on the exact percentage. But what most experts agree on: the layout or structure of your web site or pages must be easily reached not only by your visitors but also by the search engine spiders which crawl your site. Keep it simple – have no links more than three clicks away from your homepage. Many webmasters include a link back to their homepage on EVERY page of their sites.

Off-Page Optimization means building backlinks flowing back to your web site or web pages. Regardless of what anyone will tell you, getting quality keyworded links from other high quality keyword related sites is the most important factor in achieving top rankings in the search engines. So link building should be a major part of your SEO efforts and something which will bring the fastest results. These links must appear natural and organic
so varying the anchor text (underlined part) in your links is important. Also, the web is quickly changing, links from social media sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter are becoming more helpful to getting top rankings. So too, are links from blogs especially those from Blogger and Wordpress because these are optimized for keywords. Don’t forget other media forms such as videos since links from sites such as YouTube can also boost your rankings.

Tip: SEO experts sometimes like to complicate matters. One easy and simple way to get hundreds, if not thousands, of links from the different social media sites is to add the Free Addthis.com bookmark to all your pages/content. Let your visitors bookmark your content for you. Simple, yet an effective SEO technique that doesn’t cost you anything. Other webmasters simply place bookmark logos for Twitter, FaceBook, Google Buzz… on their sites. If a page goes viral in one of those networks, you can get hundreds/thousands of backlinks flowing traffic and SEO link juice back to your site.

Along those same lines, the key to SEO has been and always will be quality content. Never forget the web is a very smart place. Remember it holds all our collective knowledge. Users will find your quality content and promote it. Produce quality articles and webmasters will place them on their sites with backlinks to your site. Produce quality blog posts and bloggers will link back to your posts. Produce quality videos and viewers will
recommend them to their friends.

Now that’s not to say you shouldn’t do any SEO promotion or work. One of the best ways to succeed is to constantly promote your site or links: do press releases, write articles, make videos, create quality blog posts… get involved in online forums related to your topic and leave your sig links at the end of your comments. Do the same for all your email messages by including your signature tag.

Many webmasters make the assumption that just because they have created a well optimized site – it will automatically rank high in the search engines and will receive plenty of quality traffic. Now if you’re extremely, extremely, extremely lucky and by word of mouth your site catches on and becomes popular you will get that traffic. However, in my experience, you can build an excellent site and have it indexed in all the search engines and it will go nowhere unless you do some SEO promotion.

With one of my nine or ten sites, I have done very little in regards to SEO and as a consequence it gets very little traffic and is nowhere to be seen in the rankings. This is a site which I have not worked on mainly because of a lack of time and it’s not closely related in theme to my other sites. Now if I wanted to promote this site and build up my rankings… I would do all of the above… write articles, do press releases, do viral videos, join related forums and get involved, do blog posts, and so on. Now, from past experience, I know if I work/promote this site for two or three months consistently, the rankings would go up and the SEO would improve. Give it six months to a year and this site would be highly ranked in the search engines and bringing in a lot of quality traffic.

SEO is not some mysterious process that only a few skilled individuals know how to do, rather it is a simple process of consistently promoting your site and content by building quality backlinks from related sites on the web. It is the simple process of connecting your content with the steady flow of traffic on the web by becoming involved in forums, blogs, social networks and like-minded communities. SEO is simply placing your site/content into the whole mix of things so that the search engines can’t ignore your site. By consistently using SEO you will make your site an authority on your chosen subject and you won’t look back.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How Much Do You Know About SEO?

What is an autoresponder? As the name suggests it is an automatic response email which is a very important internet tool.

You may have heard many people recommend them to you, but why use an autoresponder? To be honest the question really should be why? But rather how can you not use an autoresponder? In fact it is difficult to see in this day and age how you could build an active list without one.

Basically an autoresponder is a system for sending out emails on a regular pre-determined basis to people who have opted in to receiving your information. Sure you could type out an individual email every time someone contacted you but, hey, would you have the time or more importantly the inclination to do that?

By writing an email once you are able to send it automatically to numerous enquirers quickly and efficiently.

The disadvantage, of course, is that it is a general information email rather than a personal one. However in most cases this does not matter as most people require the same type of information initially.

You should of course word the email to sound as friendly and personal as possible. Your potential customer will hopefully contact you if they have further questions and you can then send them the requested answer via a personal email, phone or whatever.

So what should you put in your autoresponder email? Obviously pertinent information regarding the offer you are making and why they should buy from YOU but more importantly a “call to action”. You are building a business after all and you need to build up trust and a good relationship but you also need your potential customer to take ACTION.

Always remember that people buy from others whom they trust. Other things to put in your emails should be:

• A thank you for requesting information
• A brief explanation about using the internet for sales
• How you can help them
• How to contact you
• Testimonials Etc.

The art is to spread out your information over several emails stressing different advantages in each one.

So how many emails should you send? It is a rough “rule of thumb” that, in general, people do not buy until approached around seven times. There is of course no limit to the number of emails you can send assuming that your reader does not request to be removed from your mailing list. This is an important point. If they do request removal then ensure that you carry this out immediately. There is automatic software available to take care of this situation.

The frequency of your autoresponder campaign is another important consideration. Personally I do not like receiving emails too often. To me this is counterproductive in as much as you can “over egg the custard” and put people off. However I know that other internet marketers disagree with me on this point and some even inundate their potential clients. So the choice is yours. Why not experiment with different timing of submissions?

My recommendation would be to send your emails at 2/3 day intervals initially. Long term you could also send reminders after 3/6 months and maybe again after a year. Often people’s circumstances change and whilst your offer may not be appreciated initially after a while it may become more of interest to them especially if their financial situation changes.

Bear in mind also that if you have several products you can automatically make different offers through your autoresponders. If they are not interested in product A then you can offer product B in the same niche. This might be just what they are looking for. Also you can use a few of the autoresponder emails to give free pertinent information to your contacts thus building up trust. Not every email needs to be promoting your offer(s) of course.

So where do you get your vital autoresponder? There are a number of companies offering their services on the internet so the choice is yours.

I like more Internet Marketers have found my preferred autoresponder through a matter of trial and error. The Most important thing is to find the autoresponder that works for you. So do a search and with due diligence, you’ll soon find yours.

To YOUR success

John Beaumont Internet Marketer

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Use Autoresponders to Build your Internet Business

The new behavioral ad icon will begin to appear on website ads soon. Whether or not it satisfies the concerns of online consumers and governmental regulators should matter a great deal to all webmasters.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), acting with several other organizations, recently announced the release of an icon to appear in online ads and Web pages. The new icon – a blue square with a lowercase “i” in a circle – is intended to be placed within ads employing behavioral data and targeting (so-called behavioral ads), as well as on websites running behavioral ads. The icon will also have accompanying text that will read “Why did I get this ad”, Interest Based Ad”, and/or “Ad Choice”.

The ostensible purpose is to notify consumers regarding the use of behavioral ads. The real purpose is to satisfy government regulators and lawmakers that the additional, potentially harmful governmental regulation is unnecessary. But will it work? A lot is riding on the outcome.

Behavioral Ads and Proposed Legislation

Behavioral ads use technology that tracks a user’s surfing behavior on the Internet. Key data includes clickstream data such as searches made, content read, site-visit times, and websites visited. With this key data about a specific user, advertisers can create a behavioral pattern that can be linked to a specific online demographic, which becomes the basis for ads that target the specific demographic.

Behavioral ad proponents argue that behavioral ads pose no privacy threat because the key data collected is “anonymous”. They argue that it’s not tied to “personally identifiable information” (such as name, address, email address, etc.) so that privacy is maintained.

Consumers continue to be wary of websites that track their every move on the Web. They, along with their consumer advocates, argue that distinguishing between “anonymous” data and “personally identifiable information” is meaningless because some people have been identified by allegedly “anonymous” information. In addition, consumers argue that even if a person’s name is not compromised, the level of information that may be compiled about a specific person is downright creepy. For example, a frequent traveler can be tracked to different locations through geographically different IP addresses, and then by combining this information with cookie data, an advertiser can draw a clear picture of the person’s travel habits – destinations, length of stay, travel frequency, preferred airlines – plus much more.

Behavioral ads are now in the cross hairs of Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Technology and the Internet. In early May, Boucher co-sponsored proposed legislation that would place significant restrictions on behavioral ad marketers. If passed, advertising websites would be burdened with new regulations, and users would be inundated with disclosure notices, opt-in requests, and user information licenses when they visit websites that use behavioral ads.

Will The Behavioral Ad Icon Stop the Drumbeat for New Governmental Regs?

Under current practice, websites use privacy policies to notify visitors about the site’s collection, use, and sharing of online information, including both clickstream and personally identifiable information.

The growing consensus among government regulators and lawmakers is that current privacy policies are failing to inform online consumers. Privacy policies are viewed as too lengthy and confusing to effectively communicate key information.

The growing consensus among leading Web marketers is that consumer fears about behavioral ads – heightened by the prospect of new government regulation – is holding back significant economic investment and use of behavioral ads. A new study of ninety online marketers released in May, 2010 by the Ponemon Institute indicated that despite an acknowledged return on investment from behavioral ads, hundreds of millions of dollars are being held back from online behavioral ads due to privacy concerns.

The objective of IAB and Internet advertisers is to convince government regulators and lawmakers – and ultimately online consumers – that industry self-regulation through the use of the new icon is sufficient to adequately inform consumers regarding behavioral ads without the necessity of intervention by new governmental regulations.

Conclusion

Resolving the current distrust and uncertainty regarding behavioral ads is critical to the future growth of responsible use of behavioral ads and their potential benefit to both advertisers and consumers. And ditto for the yet untapped substantial investment in behavioral ad technology and use.

How to resolve the current distrust and uncertainty is the real question facing the online advertising industry. Should the government step in, or should the industry self-regulate?

Online advertisers overwhelmingly fear that new government regulations will only exacerbate the problem. That’s why the new behavioral ad icon should matter to all webmasters.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Why The New Behavioral Ad Icon Matters to Webmasters

The only thing better than one search result in the top 3 positions in Google is two search results from a double ranking. This SEO tip works by pushing a competitor off the first page, broadening your websites keyword funnel and thereby doubling traffic and conversions.

Two Results are Better than One

I read somewhere that 87% of search engine traffic for a given keyword is allocated from occupying the Number 1 position in the search engine results page. If you understand SEO, then this post will share a quick method to double your SERP positions and to improve the likelihood of keyword conversions – once you have reached the Mecca for a specific search term.

SEO is predicated on one simple premise, rankings; in order for SEO to be effective, it must produce ranking on the first page in search engines.

Not only is this the crowning achievement of search engine optimization, but once you achieve a top 10 position, then you can pull other keywords into the spotlight as a result of strategic linking. We often refer to this as the buddy system for lateral linking.

Search engine algorithms pay particular attention to individual pages capable of offsetting all of the other inconsistencies of a competitor’s web pages and deem one page worthy above all others for any given search term.

Obviously the metrics are unique for each market, keyword or niche, but the reality is the same, once a top 3 or more importantly Number 1 or Number 1, 2 and 3 positions are present in Google. I have mentioned before, the fastest way to get a top 10 position in Google is to get a link from a website already ranking in the top 10 for that keyword.

It does not matter if that link is provided from your own website or another website, rankings are by the page and there is a daisy-chain effect of linking pages together that fuses the pages through a dynamic give and take relationship (based on citation). This citation can provide the algorithmic equivalents of trust needed for the newly linked page to jump in line past others duking it out for that keyword.

Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword or key phrase and the thresholds inherent to the barrier to entry; the time required to initiate a campaign, create all of the necessary content, inbound links and citation from other web 2.0 properties, RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites divided by the amount of time you invest managing or outsourcing the various components involved determine your profitability and return on investment.

With this in mind, from a tactical perspective, it’s better to leverage the SERP positioning you already have than to look outside of your own website for off page ranking factors. If you understand the power of a Number 1 position, then you can replicate this next simple SEO tip.

Identify all current Number 1 positions in Google for keywords.

Validate they still exist.

Use Keyword Research to find “related keywords” based on the Number 1 ranking Link from the page that ranks to a new page (using similar anchor text or overlapping keywords to promote the new page).

Let the new page get indexed, then check the SERPs.

Identify: My favorite tool for this is SEMRush, but if you don’t want to use this, there are other programs out there, or even Google webmaster tools can show you your website’s top ranking SERP positions when you log in.

Either way, this is your base, so, identify the keywords which could represent hub status for your SEO campaign and pass along the power of ranking to other pages in your website.

Validate: Check to see if you still hold the Number 1 position, even a top 3 will do, but this tactic works better if you are at the helm of a particular search phrase.

Keyword Research: You should be able to gauge whether or not the keyword is profitable for you based on the frequency of hits and the type of traffic you garner as a result. You can always look through Google Analytics or whichever analytics package you have to assess the keywords that represent the highest percentage of traffic to your website.

Once you know what those keywords are, then use keyword research to find stemmed semantic variations that also fall under the same category or keyword cluster. Those related keywords will become the new focal point for step 4 – linking.

Linking: The closer the shingles (groups of keywords) the more effective this technique is. You can call this padding the search results (if you use similar exact match titles, tags or content), or you can pass this ranking factor along to help synonymous terms.

Simply go back and edit the page ranking in the Number 1 position and add a link to the new target page (with the keyword you intend the target page to rank for as the anchor text). Then, the authority from the page in the Number 1 position will group the new page under its umbrella and pull that page into the spotlight.

When the new page gets crawled and the old page reveals the connectivity between the two, typically a double SERP position occurs or a double position accompanied by jump links, breadcrumbs or the [+] with additional search results for that keyword appear in Google to showcase the degree of relevance your website has for the said term.

You can then build additional deep links from other sites or addition internal links to the newly dubbed page. As a result, you should see buoyancy for other pages for multiple keyword variations related to the parent keyword cluster.

With this simple tip you can double your conversions by increasing your website’s semantic array of keywords. Obviously you will know which keywords and traffic is most lucrative for your business model, but this technique is priceless for creating controlled keyword stemming if you understand the implications underlying its premise.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

SEO Tips to Double Rankings, Traffic and Conversion

Need a Web Video campaign but can’t afford to pay for it? We get approached all the time by small businesses that would love to have a Web Video campaign but their budget is just not enough. Well if that’s a problem, Lady Gaga has the answer.

In a recent article “Product Placement Grows in Music Videos” by Joseph Plambeck in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/business/media/06adco.html?_r=2&ref=business), Plambeck describes how record labels use product placement to defray costs and create new revenue streams. Check out the Lady Gaga video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U and see how many product placements you can spot.

Additionally, one of the first things you’ll notice is that it resembles a movie which takes the production beyond a mere performance video and places it in the category of branded entertainment (see “Web Advertising’s Future Format: Branded Entertainment” http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/06/27/web-advertisings-future-format-branded-entertainment/). Even in times of tight budgets, there are always ways to get what you need. It just takes thinking out side the box.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How To Get A Web Video Campaign and Have Someone Else Pay For It

What is a resource box? Only the most important part of any article you may be writing! That is if you wish to make any money of course. If you are just happy to see your name in print then you can ignore this aspect.

Seriously though I’m sure that you are writing articles in the hope that you will get targeted traffic to your website in order to eventually sell some products.

So why is the resource box so important? Basically this is where you promote yourself, your product and your website/ blog . The aim of a good resource box is to do all three where possible.

It is better if you do not promote your site in the main body of the article. This is frowned upon as the purpose of an article is to provide good information NOT to try selling your product(s).

This is where the resource box comes in. However bear in mind that there are likely to be restrictions place upon the length of the box by the article directory you use. Normally we are talking from 3 to 6 lines to get your message across.

What are the important points to bear in mind when designing your resource box?

A Home Page Link You should always ensure that your resource box links to your Home Page. Why is this important? Because building backlinks is one of the main benefits of article marketing.

A backlink is basically where another site “links back” to your site thus driving traffic there as well as potentially establishing it as an area of authority on the particular subject.

So every time your article is published whether it is in a newsletter or another person’s site a backlink is established to YOUR site. This has the potential to build up traffic very quickly so IF you have an excellent site business should follow. Another important thing to remember is that backlinks will also raise your site higher in organic (free) search engine rankings.

Other Links I mentioned above about a home page link. Some article directories do not allow you to use links in your article but if they do then the number is severely limited. However most allow from one to three links in your resource box so make good use of all those that are available where you can.

Search Engine Optimisation Bit of a mouthful that!! Normally abbreviated to SEO. Remember that search engine spiders (see separate report) crawl the web to index information found on the pages of blogs or websites.

As the whole idea of your article writing is to generate traffic and make sales the links in your resource box and article (if allowed….see above) help do precisely that. The words that make up the link tell the search engine what the article is about and therefore help get the article indexed. So ensure that the words in the link are pertinent to your article!

I hope this little report helps you understand the basic requirements of Resource Boxes but if you would like more in depth details then I suggest you search the web although this should not be necessary for getting your website profitable

Go for it! John Beaumont. Internet Marketer

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

What is a Resource Box? How is it Used in Article Writing?

Question: What’s the best way to lose potential customers?

Answer: Make them mad!

Yet, that’s exactly what many Internet marketers are doing… upsetting customers. How? By using disrespectful marketing methods. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pervasion of intrusive and disrespectful marketing on websites across the Internet.

So, why is this happening? Well, mainly because we’re letting it happen. By not protesting loudly or often enough. And also because, as much as I hate to admit it, intrusive marketing works. After all, if it didn’t work, Internet marketers would have long ago abandoned this controversial and disrespectful method of marketing.

Okay, so intrusive marketing works…so what? What about the moral aspect? Don’t we as Internet marketers have a moral obligation to always be respectful to website visitors? I mean, just because something works doesn’t mean that we should use it, right? After all, steel-jaw animal traps are also very effective, but they’ve not very humane. Sometimes the end result doesn’t justify the means.

I Was in the Mood to Buy, But…

Studies have shown, the majority of U.S. households have some sort of pop-up blocker on their computer. Do you understand the full import of that statement? Do you know what it means? No? Let me explain it to you.

Since 204.3 million people in the U.S. have access to the Internet, according to a Nielsen/NetRatings survey. That means tens of millions of people don’t like intrusive marketing. And can you really blame them? Just imagine for a moment that you’re alone with your spouse, and you’re both in the mood for some long overdue intimacy…and so the sensual foreplay begins…

Suddenly the telephone rings…or the baby starts crying. Kinda kills the mood, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s exactly what intrusive marketing does. It pours cold water on your prospects buying mood. It kills their desire to buy from you. Here’s what marketing expert Joseph Carrabis wrote in his article, Intrusive Little Windows or “DeBranding Made Easy”:

“Imagine yourself in that buying mood. You’ve made up your mind you want something, you’ve done your research, you’ve found it, you want it, you want it right now, you want to spend money and there it is right in front of you and one click from now you can rest assured you’ll have it…

…and then an intrusive little window shows up, right between you and what you want.”

That intrusive little window is the equivalent of a telephone ringing, or a baby crying. Either way, you just lost a potential customer.

Let me ask you a question: Knowing there are tens of millions of consumers out there who don’t like intrusive marketing, why on earth would you ever utilize it on your site? Why risk upsetting and losing even one prospect, if you can avoid doing so?

People Don’t Hate Advertising; They Hate Bad, Intrusive And Annoying Advertising

Here’s what blogger and marketing expert Mike Masnick wrote on his Techdirt blog, in a post titled, People Don’t Hate Advertising; They Hate Bad, Intrusive And Annoying Advertising:

“More than half of U.S. households use some kind of ad-blocking technology, such as a spam filter or a pop-up blocker. However, that hardly means that people hate advertising. It just means they hate totally annoying, intrusive and unwanted advertising.”

Is Intrusive Marketing Disrespectful?

Look…don’t get me wrong, I’m all for aggressively marketing your products and services, as long as you do so legally. That’s called free enterprise, and aggressive marketing is perfectly acceptable.

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with using various marketing tricks and techniques to try to get visitors to stay on your site a little longer. After all, research has shown, the longer you can get visitors to stay on your site, the greater your chances of converting them into customers.

That being said, at what point do aggressive marketing methods cross the line? At what point does it become disrespectful?

By now, it should be obvious to anyone reading this article, I don’t like intrusive marketing. And I would never consider using it on any of my sites. Morally speaking, I consider intrusive marketing to be disrespectful, and I would never dream of disrespecting my visitors in that manner.

Conversely, if I choose to visit your site, I don’t want some intrusive floating window requesting my subscription to your newsletter, the moment I land on your site. At least give me the opportunity to look around your site a little first to see what you have to offer.

Perhaps, after I’ve done that, I’ll subscribe to your newsletter, or request your free report, if I like what your website has to offer. But don’t get in my face!

Hey, Advertisers! How Do You Close This Darn Thing?

And it’s not just Internet marketers who are guilty of disrespecting their visitors in this fashion. Corporate websites are equally culpable.

For example, the other day I was reading an article on The Huffington Post website, when suddenly, a giant advertisement opened up like an accordion and literally started pushing the article I was reading further and further down the page. I couldn’t believe it.

Now here’s the diabolical part. The way the ad was designed, I couldn’t figure out how to close the darn thing. As a result, the ad just kept getting larger and larger and larger, until it finally closed itself. But only after it was done playing.

Think about that for a second. The ad was intentionally designed to be difficult to close. That’s what made it so diabolical. True, it was only a 30 second ad, but that’s not the point. The point is the ad was forced upon me. It was intrusive. It interrupted my reading enjoyment. I have a problem with that.

About.com received so many complaints from it’s customers about intrusive advertising, they were forced to reduce the number of intrusive advertising on its sites. That should be a lesson to us as consumers, as well.

Perhaps, if more of us complained about intrusive marketing methods, other websites might follow suit and reduce or eliminate intrusive marketing on their sites. Writing this article is my way of doing just that.

In closing, I think marketing expert Frank Reed probably said it best, when he recently wrote on his Frank Thinking blog in a post titled, Hey Advertisers! I Can’t Find the Close Button Fast Enough!:

“I don’t care enough to look at your ad, especially because you are trying to trick me into seeing it. That’s pathetic. Get creative and make me care about your brand. Steamrolling your way through my web experience will not get you a customer. Instead, you’ll get “reviews” like this one.”

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Pervasion of Disrespectful Marketing

Submitting articles by hand is the most time consuming method of doing article submissions, and it produces the most modest results. Still I know there are some people who prefer to submit manually as they are learning the ropes of how to do article marketing.

If you are submitting articles by hand, then there are a variety of article submission sites that you will want to submit to. There are three main types of publishers:

• Article Directories
• Ezine Editors
• Article Announcement Lists

We’ll be covering here how to submit to article directories.

How Do Article Directories Work?

An article directory is a website that publishes articles that other publishers can reprint for free.

Authors will submit their articles to an article directory, and then a publisher who is looking for content on that topic will find and republish it on his website or ezine. Publishers love article directories because they provide free quality content.

As an author, what do you get out of having your content appear in an article directory?

When you submit your article, you will include a resource box. This resource box will contain a short paragraph about you and your business, an incentive to visit your website, as well as a clickable link that leads back to your website.

Whenever your article is republished, the resource box will be too.

So, when a reader sees your content on someone’s website, they will also see your resource box, and they will (hopefully!) click the link that leads back to your website.

The resource box is also the means of ‘building links’ to your website. You gain a link to your website each time your article is republished. The more times it is republished the better, because that means you are building more links to your website.

Why Is It Important To Build Links?

These links are one of the main indicators that Google and the other search engines use when deciding how highly to rank your website in the search engine results lists. By building links to your website, you can effectively improve your website-s search engine ranking over the long term. The higher your search engine ranking, the more traffic your website receives.

Why Should You Submit To Article Directories?

By placing your articles in article directories, you are giving your articles the greatest opportunity of being republished.

You may think that publishing your article on an article directory creates just one backlink, from the directory itself. Actually, if all goes well that one backlink from the directory is only the beginning. Ideally your content will be republished repeatedly, building a link to your website each time.

Also, when you submit your article to an article directory it can show up in Google’s results lists. The more ways you create for people to find your content the better. Your ultimate goal is to draw more people from your target market to your website. Article marketing helps you do this.

How Many Directories Should You Submit To?

You will greatly aid your cause if you submit to as many directories as possible.

The purpose of placing your article on an article directory is to have it republished as many times as possible. That is how you build links to your website, which has an impact on your search engine ranking over the long term.

When you submit your content to just one directory, then you have gained one backlink, but you need to wait for publishers to find your article on that directory to build more links.

However, if you submit your articles to many article directories, you are building many links right off the bat, and any links you gain from publishers who find your articles on those directories are just icing on the cake.

If you are submitting articles by hand, obviously there is a limit to how many directories you can submit to. Submit to a few of the big ones, such as Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Idea Marketers.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Article Submission Sites: Submitting To Article Directories

A question I am frequently asked goes something like this, “With all the different social networking sites out there, how do I know which which is right for me, and how do I find the time to keep up with it?”

Great question! One that I am sure we’ve all asked ourselves at some point or another, right? This much is clear: If you don’t have a purpose for utilizing social media you are going to feel much like a person who has been thrown into the water and can’t swim! You are going to panic, and try to keep your head above water however you can. Not only is this scary, but it is exhausting. I would answer the above question with this question, “What is your primary reason for wanting to use social media?” Please don’t say ‘because everyone is doing it’. That is not a good reason. You need to have a well-defined reason so that you can then determine which site, or sites, you wish to spend your time on.

Here are five questions to ask yourself to help you determine which networking site(s) you want to utilize:

1. What is your *main* purpose for utilizing social media? Be specific with this question. Don’t generalize.
2. Who is your target audience?
3. What specific results will your social media efforts have on your target audience?
4. What is your comfort level with social media? Are you new to social media? Are you an intermediate user? An advanced user?
5. How much time do you want to devote to social media per day? Per week?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can begin to explore what social networking site(s) are the best fit for you based on the answers you’ve provided.

The big three in Social Media are: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Here’s how I like to think of these:

• LinkedIn is like putting on a suit.
• Facebook is like casual Friday’s.
• Twitter is like an afterwork party or hanging out on the weekend.

Business happens on all three of these sites just as it does in the traditional workplace during the day and after hours. I use this analogy only to provide an idea of how ‘business’ or ‘casual’ the site is. I, personally, am on all three of these social networking sites. They all ‘fit’ for me. The key to finding a fit is that you will then get involved. Don’t just sign up to sign up. You *must* get involved in some fashion. Whether that is joining a group and participating, or answering questions, or tweeting about some useful information, you must be involved. Remember, people need to know, like, and trust you *before* they will consider doing business with you.

As for how much time you need to spend on these networking sites, that will really depend on your purpose and target audience (see questions 1 and 2 above). Plan on at least 30 minutes a day. Block this time off on your calendar, set a timer (here’s a really cool no-cost one: http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/index.shtml ) for 30 minutes, and get busy! Once the timer goes off, you are done for the day. Wasn’t that easy? Doesn’t that sound manageable? If you find you really enjoy this, do this exercise again at the end of the day. As with anything, it is all about what you find comfortable, because when it’s comfortable you’ll do it!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Social Networking: Is it for you?