Mass Media Exposure

Everyone knows backlinking is important, it increases you search results and Google PageRank, but there are several great ways to to get mass or national media exposure with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The idea behind this is to contact every news affiliate station in the US.  The sites you want to target are NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox affiliate news stations.You’ll want to contact  them via email either sent directly to the editor/news room or submitted though a contact form on the news stations website.

To do this, write up an email promoting your website and talking it up.  Be sure to include a catchy headline/subject that will get read.  In the body try and keep the sales pitch or content down to 300-400 words. Once you have a decent pitch email ready, just copy and paste to every email or contact form on the appropriate site.

To make things easy, here are the lists of news station affiliates nationwide.
-NBC
-CBS
-ABC
-FOX

Now, go through each list by state and start your submissions.

Just click on the station (see below)

NBC List by State

Then click on the station website (see below)

NBC Station Website Link

Just find the news room contact information or the website submit form and start sending out pitches for your website. If you do it right you’ll definitely get some kind of exposure.  At times you’ll get bounce backs or replies to purchase advertising space but you can just ignore these as it’s a numbers game and all we are looking for is free publicity.  Tweak your pitch emails and you will see great results.

How To Get .edu and .gov Links Using punnbb

Another great way to get good quality backlinks is to find websites with a .edu (education) or .gov (government) extension. Why are these so great? Well, websites with the .edu or .gov extensions are usually creditable and authoritative websites and usually have good PageRank as well as age. If you can master a few backlinks from sites like this, chances are the better off you will be and you’ll start to see your PageRank and traffic increase.

A great way to find .edu and .gov backlinks is to preform a simple search using the keyword “punbb”. Punbb is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the General Public License (GNU) and may .gov and .edu websites use this free tool, so finding them is easy.

To do this, just preform a Google search, use the paraphrase “Powered by punbb” site:.edu and hit submit. Visit a few forums, a create a several backlinks with relevant content and you should be set.

Under the Featured Listings, Latest Listings, Ending Soon, Just Sold and All Websites and Domains for Sale tabs, you will notice a blue RSS button that says “RSS Feed”. If you click on any of these boxes, you will get a customized RSS feed just for that tab!

Featured RSS Feed

So, great news, right? Well.. there’s more. If things could’t get any better, we’ve also added a custom RSS feed to our advanced search. This means if you only wan’t you receive a certain feed based on your advanced search criteria (i.e .com only), you can.

Advanced RSS Feed

To get started, just preform an advanced search, click on “Subscribe to this search” and whola, your set!

If you looking to sell your website, it’s best the site is properly optimized. If your a professional, the few basic tips we presented earlier should of been a piece of cake, but if you looking to bring your optimization to the next level, read on…

We left off 2 weeks ago on basic backlinking techniques through creating blog and directry submissions, however did you know there is even an easier and cheaper way to increase the number backlinks to your established website?

Through Google Alerts, you can set up alerts to notify you if you particular keyword or phrase is contained in one of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.). In this example, we’ll use blogs.

First, I’ll assume you have a Google account so go to http://www.google.com/alerts.

Once there, enter the keyword you want to target surrounded by quotes. Enter your keyword(s), the type (blog), how often, the volume and the email address you want the alerts delivered to. When your finished, click the “Create Alert” button.

Google Alerts

Soon emails from Google will start showing up with links to blogs that contain posts or information related to your keyword or niche.

Once you receive an email from Google, open all the links at one time. After all the links are open in one browser scroll to the bottom of each page to see if there is a spot to post a comment.

Now, take a few minutes and read throgh the post and comment on the topic that is being discussed with your with keywords and URL in mind. Most bloggers will be happy to approve a comment with a link if it is relevant and they can tell the commenter actually read the post.

Not all blogs support or allow “dofollow” links. but that’s ok. It’s better to have a “nofollow” link bringing in quality, steady traffic to your site than a “dofollow” link that brings in a couple visitors a month.

International Blogs

International links are very good way to establish additional backlinks, and getting them is easy.

Do a search on Technorati.com for your keyword or niche and add a country to it. You will get a list of blogs from other countries. The more links you have from around the world the more diverse your SEO efforts are and the more “global feel” your site will have. So go ahead and try a search like “French wineries”.

In our next article we will discuss Ninja SEO Secrets which cover even more backlinking tips and how to reach mass media contacts for increased marketing exposure.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Pay-Per-View (PPV)

PPC and PPV are two of the simplest, yet very effective monetization methods employed by millions of website owners from all over the world. As the name suggests, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the model in which you get paid every time a visitor clicks on your ad. Alternatively, Pay-Per-View (PPV) model is based on the number of views. While PPC and PPV are very popular monetization methods, you shouldn’t expect to much revenue from these two strategies in the initial stages of a website launch. There are several pay-per-click engines on the web, however Google AdSense and AdWords are undoubtedly the best and the most reputable.

Finding Advertisers and Selling Ad Space

This monetization strategy can be comparatively more profitable than PPC and PPV, but would require you to indulge in some serious research planning and analysis. First, you would need to research your competitor websites and identify their advertisers and the ad rate of their site. Once you know how much your potential advertiser is spending on your competitor’s website, your next step should be to prepare your sales budget and an impressive proposal. Contact your potential advertisers with a good proposal, and close the deal. Last but not the least; make a constant effort to keep your advertisers.

Selling Physical or Digital Products

If you are interested in selling physical products on your new or established website, then take a few cues from sites such as Amazon. You will have to create a listing of the products you want to sell on your website and ensure the transactions are secure and that the products are shipped on time. If you are selling physical products, then you have to also take care of warehousing and distribution (unless you have a dropshipper who will take care of these aspects for you).

Selling digital products can prove to be a better bet for you. As with less overhead, digital goods have comparatively lower cost per sale sale. Moreover, it does not require you to worry about aspects such as warehousing, distribution and shipping. You can simply create your own digital products or sell digital products owned by others.

Promoting Affiliate Products

To promote other people’s products, be it physical or digital, you just need to join a merchant’s affiliate network as an affiliate marketer. Every time a potential customer is referred by you to the merchant, you are eligible for a commission. However, it depends completely on your agreement with the merchant. While some merchants pay per customer referred, others prefer to pay commission on each sale. A simple search for the term “affiliate marketing” can bring up hundreds of results, we recommend you throughly reserach which affiliate group or network is best for your website.

Monetization through memberships and subscriptions

If you have a loyal and growing customer base, then this is the best monetization option for you. You can simply charge a nominal membership or subscription fee from customers and give them access to exclusive member’s area. Make sure that the member’s area has something special or valuable to offer to the members of your site, as this will ensure that more and more people are encouraged to join the member’s area.

Services

If you specialize in a particular service area, then it’s best that you offer these services on your website to make money. Some of the most common services that are offered on the Internet are data entry, copywriting, accounting and web designing. However, offering services on the website is not easy as it sounds, the hours may be long and you generally work from one project to the next. As your site grows you may be able to outsource some of work on eLance.com or Freelancer.com and pay more attention to the finer details or running the business. Generally, these types of websites are the hardest to flip as they require specific knowledge in a service area to flip. If your concerned about the reputation of the site and it’s customer, we recommend you work with a potential buyer before accepting a bid or Buy Now offer.

So what’s the best method? Well thats for you to decide, however Justin at Flip Filter has posted a great article on his take regarding the most profitable monetization techniques.

So whats next? As promised, we’re going to run a special promotion to celebrate the sites initial launch and growing customer base… From now until Dec 31st, 2010 all listings are only $1, and listing screenshots for your established website will also be FREE! In the next few months we should be rolling out a few feature updates such as an mobile optimized site and app for iPhone as well as integrating the site with flipfilter.com.

I hope your as as excited as we are! After all, we developed SecondWind Marketplace with one goal in mind, you. If you would like to see anything added or have a comment, just let us know. We’re listening…

1. Choose the Right Keywords

If you’re starting fresh and looking to flip a site, keyword research is undoubtedly the first step in your sites optimization. After you’ve picked a niche for your website, we highly recommended you research and focus on a few keywords and phrases that best describe the site. To gain a leg up, we recommend you choose several keywords and phrases that have more demand and less competition. This can be easily accomplished by using Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.

Simply concentrate on keywords and phrases that are 3-5 words in length. If you see several keywords have high local monthly searches, but low competition, then your set!



One easy trick is to also include the name of the region your site focuses on as majority of users tend to search for products or services with the name and geographical location or region in which where they located. As an example you may want to try searching for “Real Estate Property Chicago, IL” instead of “Real Estate”

2. Pick the Right Domain Name

If you haven’t picked a domain name yet, then also try to think of popular keywords that are likely to be used to describe your site. So, if you’re creating a website for Illinois Real Estate in Chicago, instead of using “illinoisproperty.com”, you might want to use “realestatechicagoproperty.com”. If that domain is taken, it’s also OK to use apostrophes in your domain name. Try using “real-estate-chicago-property.com”.

3. Keyword Density

Once you have chosen the right keywords, your next step should be to create quality content for your site that is rich with keywords. Keyword density is the ratio of the chosen keywords to the rest of your content or text on your website.  We recommend you maintain a density of 3-7% for primary keywords and 1-3% for secondary keywords on your site. However, stuffing irrelevant keywords will not help; you’ll want to make sure the keywords you choose are meaningful without compromising the quality or meaning of the content. This is especially crucial, as a majority reputable of search engines (such as Google) do not think twice before blacklisting sites that appear as spam due to the overuse of keywords.

4. Include Keywords in the Title Tag and Meta Description

If  you already own a domain that does not include any keywords in it, we suggest you include the keyword or phrase in the title tag and meta description of each page, as it plays a major role in improving your website’s visibility. Ensure the title tag of each page is unique and not very long (maximum 7-8 words) and that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page.  As an example, the About Us page on SecondWind Marketplace has a title tag of:

<title>About SecondWind Marketplace | The Place to Buy and Sell Websites or Domains</title>

Since SecondWindMaketplace.com is an auction style marketplace to buy and sell websites, but doesn’t haven’t any keywords in it, we utilize correct title tags to optimize the site. Also try your keywords as close to the front of the title tag as possible.

The meta description should also be short and descriptive and include a few keywords. Again, here is an example of the meta description for the About Us page:

<meta name=”description” content=”SecondWind Marketplace is a premier auction listing source to buy and sell new or existing websites and domains”/>

Meta descriptions don’t carry as much weight as they once did, but there’re still good to have and they should only be about 2 sentences long. Not only only should they be short and descriptive and contain keywords, but they should actually make sense when you read it.  Try putting your keyword as close to the front of the first sentence as possible and than again use a variation of your keyword in the second sentence.

5. Include Keywords in Headings

Many SEO enthusiasts ignore this part of their site optimization; however Google’s ranking algorithm clearly specifies that H1 tags can have huge impact on your search engine rankings. The golden rule is that the text in the H1 tag should be more important than the remaining content in your website.

You might think that it is pointless to include headings after every paragraph in your site, but when it comes to SEO, it is best to include as many headings as possible (with the keywords in them), as they will improve your search engine rankings considerably. Again, search engines like clean code and narration, so when creating headings, ensure that the headings are short and concise, as very long headings can affect the readability of your site.

6. Build Backlinks

Backlinks are the most significant aspect of any SEO campaign. Backlinks created on pages with high page rank have a higher impact than those with lower page rank. While backlinks from websites of high page rank are difficult to attain, quality links can play a significant role in improving your website’s credibility. Please try to avoid black hat methods such as keyword stuffing, links purchased from link farms or producing backlinks links from sites that are already blacklisted or banned by search engines.

It is important that backlinks are built slow and steadily. One of the best ways to initiate a link building campaign is to start a blog. Blogs are a great way to get noticed and produce quality backlinks. After you have created a few original articles you can submit them to article submission sites such as Article Compilation, Article Cube, ABC Article Directory, Article Rich, Addon Dashboard or EzineArticles. In out next article on advanced SEO tips, we’ll cover more on backlinking.

While the past 7 months have been a great ride, I can assure you this is just the beginning! After Nov 1st, we have major plans. Phase 2 development work and integration will be preformed off-line on a separate development site so there’s no disruption with the main sites process or functionality.  When we add new features, rest assured we’ll let you know before they happen.

So what plans do we have? Well, we don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but heres a small sample of what we have in the works…

• Integrate Alexa Rank, Google Backlink, Yahoo Backlink, Whois information into listing process and page listing
• Custom RSS feeds based on advanced search criteria
• Mobile/IPad version of SecondWind Marketplace
• Integrate Facebook Reweet Button into page listings
• Integration with FlipFilter

We are also aware that confirmation emails are a little slow getting to you if you have recently signed up, we’ve narrowed this down to a queuing issue on our current shared hosting services plan. Becuase of this, we are in the process of moving SecondWind Marketplace to it’s own dedicated server which also has more processing and memory power to serve pages up faster and reduce load times.

So, that’s it for now. We really hope you have enjoyed the changes to date and are excited for what’s yet to come. Is there anything that you would like to see integrated? If so, please feel free to leave a comment below or use our feedback system.

Here’s the rundown…

Listing Fee – $1
The seller is responsible for paying this fee when creating a listing. From now, until December 31st, 2010 all listings are only $1! This price won’t last for long so list your website or domain today!

Listing Featured on the Front Page — $5
Put your listing front and center! Your listing will be featured on the front page of SecondWind Marketplace.

Listing Featured on the Top Front Page — $0
Increase the number of views and get noticed! For the first day your listing will be featured on the top front page of SecondWind Marketplace. However, from now until December 31st, 2010 this upgrade will be a FREE!

Listing Title Bold — $2
Want to attract more attention? The title of your listing will appear in bold to make it stand out!

Listing Row Border — $2
Like to be noticed? Your listing will appear with a border around it to make it stand out!

Listing Row Highlighted — $2
It isn’t all black and white. Your listing will appear highlighted in color to make it stand out!

Listing Screenshot — $0
From now, until December 31st, 2010 screenshots of your site will appear next to your listing for FREE. So go ahead and upload, appearance is everything!

Success Fee — 5.0% (capped at $250)
The success fee is paid by the seller when the auction concludes successfully. Talk about discounts…

Success Fee Minimum — $2
The success fee charged will never be lower than this minimum fee.

Tweet Listings — $10
Your listing will appear in front of everyone following us on the SecondWind Marketplace Twitter account!

Facebook Status Updates — $10
Get noticed by our friends! Your listing will appear in front of everyone on the SecondWind Marketplace Facebook Fan Page!

So what’s the worst that could happen? Well, for one, don’t expect yourself to be favoured in any search ranking results, especially from Google. Google as well as number of search engines like Yahoo and Bing index hundreds or millions of pages daily and can easily identify duplicate content. These search providers severely frown upon copyright infringement practice and you could get your site banned. Seeing the return on this strategy is, well, rather obvious. Who wants to put the time and energy into building a fantastic site when no one can find it? This isn’t a great selling technique if you’re looking to sell your site and if found guilty you could also be liable for civil damages and face legal expenses to fight your case.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can verify the originality or authenticity of your content by using a few free tools:

Google

Google does not have a specific document checker, but confirming content is easy. Simply copy a line of text using parentheses at the beginning and end of your sentence or paragraph and paste it into the search bar. If you find a match for similar content, then consider making a revision.

You can definitely do the same with other search engines such as Yahoo or Bing, however Google indexes the most pages and you can assured if Google can’t find it Yahoo or Bing shouldn’t be able to either.

Copyscape

Copyscape is one of the most trusted sites when it comes to content checking. The site is easy to use and for easy traceability, Copyscape will display duplicate lines with respective color tags.

Copyscape is free, however they do have a premium version which only cost 5 cents per search. Copyscape premium provides more powerful plagiarism detection than their free service and hosts a number of other features including copy-paste originality checks, batch search, private index, case tracking and an API. To watch a short video to see exactly how Copyscape works, click here.

Like any application designed to do so much, Google Analytics comes with a learning curve which can be a little intimidating at first. As a seller, we suggest you familiarize yourself with the program until using the tool becomes second nature.

Before creating a listing, you should take a look at few statistics like how many hits your site has, what pages are commonly visited, how many unique visitors it has and what the conversion rate is. All of this information (and more!) can be found using Google Analytics.

Statistics like this are important for a lot of reasons. They give observed values such as the number of visitors and provide buyers with an idea of how you’re doing with your marketing strategies. This type of insight adds more value to your website, especially when it is going to be sold.

In order to use Google Analytics, you’ll need to set up an account. Once you setup an account, you will be provided with a unique identifier (UA) code to add to your site. You must insert the code into every page you want tracked. If you have a developer or technical person who takes care of your pages, you can ask them to add the code for you.

The moment you set up your account and insert Google’s JavaScript code into your pages, Google Analytics will be ready to provide you with information and charts about your site’s performance. Please be aware the service may take up to 24 hours to begin gathering data for your site. At this point, only you (and any other people you grant access too) will have access to information about your website.

If you want to find out whether your site has peaks during certain times of the day or on certain days of the week, Google Analytics can tell you. Here are a few important items we suggest you look over and include in your listing description before posting your website on SecondWind Marketplace.

Site Visits. The figure tells buyers how many people are checking on your website within a fixed duration.

Pages/Visits. This statistic tells buyers how many pages are being seen by users when they visit your site.

New Visits. This could be one of the most important details from Google Analytics. It basically tells the buyer how many new or unique people visited your website.

Bounce Rate. This metric will tell you how many people leave your website after viewing just one page.

Map Overlay. This is actually a graphical representation of the places where visitors come from. Darker colors mean there are a number of people who visit your website from one particular area or country. If you want to know more about visitors and their location, just click on the country and view the report from the Google Analytics page.

Traffic Sources. This informs a buyer how people find your website: referrals, search engines, e-mailed links, and other modes. Just click view report if you need more detailed information.

Content. The statistics tells the buyer the five pages that receive the most views from visitors based on a fixed duration.

Although setting up Google Analytics involves a few technical steps, using Google Analytics will certainly pay off. By providing basic information about your sites traffic statistics, your much more likely to catch the eye of a potential buyer and at the same time increase the sites overall value and worth. In fact, don’t be surprised if the buyer requests a few screenshots for proof of your sites performance. This transparency will instil trust with the buyer during the selling process.

The Number of Hits

There are a lot of website buyers, especially new ones, who tend to get confused between unique page hits and conversions. Unless the previous website owner has converted these unique visitors into regular customers, 1 million or more hits doesn’t amount to much if your goal is to increase a loyal customer base. We suggest discussing this with the seller before making a bid. The seller should be able to provide proof of site membership if the site requires you to register and create an account.

High Page Rank

Website owners go crazy about Page Rank (PR). The notion that the higher the page rank, the better is true, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are still many factors to think about when assessing the overall value of the website.

When a buyer is presented with a page rank of 3 to 10 (which is very hard to achieve in few months’ time), it is important to ask the following questions:

1. How old is the website?
2. How many inbound links does it have?
3. Are they quality links?

Usually, there’s a good chance scripts have been used to show a higher PR for the website so it’s important to do the proper due diligence and work with the seller before placing a bid. The old adage applies here, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

Earnings

Found a site “earning as much as $5,000 a month.” Seriously, who wouldn’t like to cash in with just few more tweaks and an established customers base?

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s easy to make an estimate or even an outrageous claim. The truth is unless someone is really good in his or her marketing, earning this much is very hard to come by.

As a buyer we recommend you ask for certified true copies of banks statements, receipts, and invoices before making a bid or Buy Now offer.

1. They’ve taken it to the limit

Not a PHP or Java expert? Don’t worry, most of us aren’t, but some sites require specific expertise and knowledge to build and maintain a site. Most sites require back-end database and custom programming knowledge. The same also holds true if a seller just doesn’t have the vision and they’ve taken it as far as they can go without additional expertise.

2. It cost more than expected

It’s easy to get carried away if you have a wild imagination or have big plans. If you’ve ever built a house, you can understand what a web developer might go through when they plan to build a site. Sometime budgets are blown and a seller if forced to sell and get what they put into it.

3. It’s too time consuming

Websites require constant maintenance and attention, especially once they’re live. Blog posts (like this one) require writing and research, and pages always need updating to keep the content fresh. This helps with the SEO of a site, but if you’re not quick to update you could lose customers or visits and your website could be left in the dust.

Many people start out with the intention of only spending a few hours a week building their site, but this can easily spiral out of control. If you’re a creative developer, your definition of done may never be completed, only requiring you to spend more of your free time maintaining it.

4. They fell out of love

Ever purchased a new car and then sold it a year later? We thought so, and you’re not alone. One great idea can often spawn lead to another and it may be on bigger and better things after a few short months or even years. Sometimes a seller may choose to sell a site if their passion just isn’t there. This happens to everyone, and someone’s loss can be your treasure!

5. It’s on to bigger and better things

As previously mentioned, one great idea can often spawn another. In some cases a certain niche or feature of a property can spin off to the next big thing. Time aside, the seller may choose to sell his previous property and concentrate on a new venture.

6. Their broke and need the money

Ok, we’ve all been there. Whether is because you just lost a job, the roof needs repairing or your son or daughter’s college tuition is due, we could all use some extra cash. In some cases a seller is just looking to cash out on all the time and energy he or she has put into the design and development of a site.

7. Flipping is it

Professional “site flippers” are out there and there are a lot of lumps of coal out there just waiting to be found and turned into shining gems in no time at all. In many cases site flippers target these sites to make a handsome profit, and it turn give you the benefit and luxury of a shiney new site to do with as you please.

It’s part of the deal
When a buyer purchases a website, they’re not only paying for a few pages but for the coding, backend databases and everything else that’s related, affiliated or connected to the site. This includes social media profiles, e-mail lists, feeds, blogs and a lot more. As a seller, you should compel a buyer and give them a reason to buy your site as well as give your listing the proper attention and detail it deserves.

It adds more value
Have a Facebook fan page with a thousand friends? Great! What about twitter following? You get the idea, but if you looking to sell a site with an established customer base, you will definitely find that by listing this additional information useful. Adding additional detail and content adds value and substance to a listing as well as shows the buyer immediate and potential revenue streams.

They allow buyers to gauge present marketing strategies
Work smarter, not harder! Buyers like it when they don’t have to work hard just to promote the website. However, they would still like to know how far you went as a seller and decide for themselves if the strategies fit their objectives or not. Showing the buyer potential monetization techniques or marketing strategies is always helpful and could potential earn your listing a final sale price.

Earn more
Do you want top dollar for all the hard work you put into your site? As a seller you should start a listing with everything the buyer may already know about the site and then list everything they may not know. Listing potential unknowns creates transparency and trust as well as adding value.

It’s the law
Have you ever bought a house and found out it had a leaky roof afterwards? As a seller, you may be bound by local, state or federal laws that require you to list all of the known features, functionality or even pitfalls of a site. Perhaps your sites URL’s are SEO unfriendly and would require a complete overhaul to be fixed? This information as well as any potential unknown issues a buyer may face would be helpful when listing your site.