The best type of traffic you can get from blogs

When you?re blogging, you love getting incoming links. It makes you feel good, helps you search engine rankings, and is a source of crisp and directed traffic. But not all traffic you get to your blog is created equal. The best traffic, IMHO, is the traffic you get from directly related blogs. And the main, and maybe only way, to get this type is to earn it.

When other bloggers in your field link to you, it?s an endorsement to their readers, telling them to check you out. Most people won?t risk losing their audience unless they think the resource they?re linking to is well worth it.

What are ways to attract related blogger to link to you?

1) Write informative pieces that they know are pertinent to their field - they?ll link in order to help their readers

2) Make friends with them - that?s right, people help the people they like

3) Come up with something creative - do a viral promotion

Whatever methods you come up with, the traffic will be the best you can find. The people who show up are already subscribed somewhere else, and are in the market for more of the same information. If you can win them over with expert status, you?re bound to convert at least some of them to your side.

Hip hop artists beat the rock?n'rollers in marketing because they cross-promote to each other?s fan bases. The same thing works in the blogging world.

This is an article from http://www.blog-republic.com/

Readers are People Too

Just wanted to let you know of a great post from Darren over at problogger this morning regarding your readers as people.

I often write like there's no one reading and I think this helps in people being able to relate somehow.

I guess they've also got to get what your writing about.

Keyword Prices Continue To Fall: Down 8.6 Percent

Fathom Online released a keyword price index update that shows keyword prices fell again quarter over quarter by 8.6 percent. Prices on average fell from $1.39 on March 31 to $1.27 on June 30. Last report also showed keyword prices dropping $1.43 at the end of 2005 to $1.39 in the first quarter of 2006, but folks blamed seasonality for the price drop. The reason for this drop? Marketers are bidding smarter says Matt McMahon, VP Marketing Services at Fathom.

Rehab centre for video gaming addicts opens in Amsterdam

(sorry but I couldn't resist putting this in here)
Courtesy of Engadget

Posted Jul 15th 2006 10:01PM by Stan Horaczek


If you're worried your World of Warcraft habit might be getting a little out of hand, you might think about checking yourself into the Wild Horses Center in Amsterdam. Their video game rehab program, which was started by addiction specialists Smith and Jones, is designed to help you replace the excitement of the fantasy world with real world experiences such as therapy sessions and group interaction. The 16th century town house, in which the patients reside, has no access to gaming of any kind, making it the perfect place to take in the non-polygonal sights the real world has to offer. Unlike the novelty cellphone addiction program being implemented at a Chicago Hotel, Wild Horses is staffed with certified psychologists and addiction specialists that can offer legitimate help to those unwilling to leave their games to have a social life or even use the bathroom. With impressive next-generation consoles like the Wii and the PS3 promising an even more engrossing gaming experience in the near future, we can't help but think this kind of facility might start popping up in other parts of the world as well. Since there probably isn't one in your area yet, we suggest you follow these instructions for making your own game addiction patch. First, tear off two pieces of duct tape. Second, place one piece of the duct tape over the A/V inputs on your TV and the other over the ASDW keys on your keyboard. Then go outside already, would you?

Blog Design and What We Want Out of Them

There are a number of new styles of blogs around at the moment and the most common thing that I've seen is the way they are being set up.
There is a real drift away from the older style blog similar to this one and thousands of others from a generic blog, to a very sleek style blog that you can tell just oozes money being poured into it!

That's not a bad thing at all but for most of us to try and compete for any sort of 'market share' then we must figure out what it is exactly that we want out of our blog and what we are willing to put in to it.

If I think of what it is exactly that I want out of blogging then it would simply be to have my say and earn the respect of fellow bloggers. No amount of money that I put into the look of my blog will alter what they think of me.

There is always the thought that my blog might take off and start making some descent money but I know that with the amount of time and money that I put into it, that it's pretty unlikely to happen.

I guess the most important thing that I'm trying to say as best I can is that if your looking at making quiet alot of money out of your blog then be prepared to put a fair bit of time and money into it.

You may want to do heaps of research on different types and styles of blogs and be one of the growing many who subscribe to a sleek looking blog designs.

If not, then maybe blogger is the one for you.

Matt

TV Show Niche

I've been thinking lately about starting a new web site about a TV show. I happen to like the TV show and I would really enjoy writing articles about it and putting the site together so I think it would be fairly easy for me.

However, the only thing I'm not sure of is how profitable it would end up being. Does it have to be profitable to be worth starting at all? I don't think so.

I've seen a few celebrity and TV show sites around and I think that they've been done quite well. I've been researching some keywords for this particular show and the figures have come back pretty good. I think with a little bit of work and the right concepts in there it should come up ok.

I think I have spoken about Ken Evoys SBI before and about the 10 day Affiliate Marketing course and I am quite excited about the prospects of using these tools to help me build my site and maybe even a blog about the TV show as well. The 10 day course was an awesome piece of reading and I think I've learnt a lot from it. The details and the research techniques you can get from just this is alone worth so much.

Any way, I will post on how it's going and when I'm starting the new site.

Matt

Our Different Styles of Blogging

Yes, we all do have different styles of blogging. There is not 1 style that would be exactly the same as another and also not 1 style that would be the correct way to blog.

We already know this, so why do we continually feel the need to update and tweak our blogs?

Yes, your right, to earn even more money! It's as simple as that.

Why do we want to read more blogs and learn more about blogging techniques?

Same, to earn more money.

You wouldn't be reading this otherwise!

For example. If you were a farmer and you decided to research and put into practice a new way of planting your crops then you would be hoping to either minimize expenses or maximize the crops' potential.

Same as blogging.

Why not get out there and try to earn more. The different types and styles of our blogs enable us to try as many ways as possible to earn more money. If we changed something or went a different way and our income dropped then we simply go back to the original style.

Makes sense huh! You bet.

There are so many blogs being written now that I sometimes feel that the audience is just not there. Maybe it's not.
But we keep on going because we either want to or we have to.

I think we fall into a certain category when thinking like this and then we automatically develop our blogs' style. The more unusual the style the more people would want to read your blog. ( This is how I think anyway )

My style is very direct and sometimes I keep my cards pretty close to my chest. You might not think this is the best way to go but I happen to enjoy writing like this.

Maybe I just need to stick to the subject matter a bit better.

Break from Blogging

Well, I haven't been here for a couple of weeks now so it is good to be back and able to post again.

I have been getting quite busy at my full time job and have been looking at moving into a different industry altogether.
Ideally I would like to be moving into Blogging and/or Marketing full time but unfortunately I don't have the funds to be able to sustain such a move at the moment.

I wonder how others who make the transition do it?

Maybe you could give me your insights and stories on how you finally moved into full time blogging or affiliate marketing and at what level your blogging income was at at that particular time.

Did you wait until you had built up a reasonable part time income ( enough to live on? ) or did you just dive in head first and hope that what you were doing was going to pay off before you ran out of enough funds to pay the bills?

I guess why I'm asking is that this is what I want to do but am not certain that I'm ready yet.

More research and trialling of ways to monetize. Thinking of valuable niche sites to start etc.

Getting back to what I originally am posting about, it's good to have a small break from what you're doing from time to time. We all take holidays from our 9 to 5 jobs so why not take a break from blogging for a bit.

I must say that as a result I'm feeling more optimistic about my upcoming blogging. As you can see I haven't made much money from it yet but as I'm just hitting the 6 month mark I have a renewed vigor.

The break has allowed me some time to further look at what it is that I eventually want out of blogging and also given me some inspiration after researching fellow bloggers and affiliates alike.

This break may be just what we all need from time to time.

Matt

Niche Topics

I have been thinking quite a lot lately about some subjects for niches with which to start an affiliate website. I've found this not as easy as I thought it would be.

There are so many subjects out there that it's pretty hard to actually pinpoint one that I feel I could eventually call myself the expert at.

I was wondering what the thought process must be behind some of the people that come up with all the big ideas. What do they spend there time doing. Do they really lock themselves in a room for hours on end & just think stuff up.

I think I might give it a try & let you know what I come up with!!

I have however come up with a few topics that I feel would be reasonably lucrative and have done some promising keyword searches. I am pretty excited about the results and feel that within a few weeks I will have my first affiliate site up & running.

I am looking at joining Ken Evoys SITE BUILD IT (SBI) network and using this program to build all of my sites from this point on. I haven't seen any other program or network that provides such a full range of details for building sites and I think for affiliates just starting out like myself that the investment would be worth it. At $350AUD it is quite a large sum so I'm taking it very seriously indeed.

Ideally within 12 months I would like to have at least 6 niche affiliate sites on the go so joining this network should pay for itself hopefully within a short time ( If I do things correctly).

SBI has so many features all wrapped up in 1 package that the ease of just having it all together is a big plus straight away. It also has heaps of information on finding and picking a niche that suits you and is SEO'd so that hopefully with a bit of hard work the money will start rolling in before to long.

Why not have a look at this program for yourself.
I'm not an affiliate of it so I'm not getting anything out of it for promoting it at all.

I'll update you all soon and let you know how it's going.

In the meantime I will keep searching for that ultimate niche subject. I might even be locked in a room for a few hours!!!

Good blogging.

Affiliates Course or Niche Course?

Still doing the 10 day Master Affiliates course and getting quite a bit out of it.

There is 1 thing that is slowing me down and that is finding a niche. I have done some research on a few niches but have yet to come up with anything that seems like it would be overly profitable.

You would think that this would be the easy part but I seem to be having a hard time with it.

I'm interested in so many things but to actually become the expert in that field, well that's a different story.

My list contains certain books, authors and characters. Also gadgets and technologies of which would be very hard to pass as an expert but also so much competition.

Also sports of which motorcycles are high on my list. Moto gp for example = competition.

I work in hospitality so was looking for something in there but nothing yet. I'm sure there is a need for a high end hospitality site who refers different top class hotels but then there is so many to choose from, how to narrow that niche down?

If you have any ideas for me then pass a comment on to me and I'll do some research to see how it looks.

I really think that being an affiliate is the way to go and just this small step is seeming like it will never reveal itself to me.

Take care

Wow, Thailand

Just thought I'd pop this in. This is one of the nicest places that I've been to in a while.

The water is so clear and it gets even clearer at other times of the year.

This was taken on the beach at Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi's main island. The place was completely wiped out from the tsunami.

Enjoy.

Will it ever take off???

Do you ever think......

"when is my site going to take off"

"when am I going to start getting the traffic that I deserve"

Well, soon hopefully you would say.

I am partway through the affiliate masters 10 day course and am having some good feelings about it.

I can't say that I've really followed any formulas or methods in starting my blog but I am willing to concede that this may have been a mistake.

In any case, I am determined and will persist.

Sooner or hopefully not too much later, things will start happening.

I think this would be a tip for everyone out there in the same boat is to hang in there and keep on going. Things will eventually happen for you.

I am well aware that I may need to make some drastic changes but I will be here to the end.

Take that blogosphere!!!

On the other hand, I have been willing to give it a go & it's now that I can see I need to learn so much more before I can claim to be good at what I do.

Still trying

I didn't think it would be this hard to get back into blogging when I returned.

I was keen and eager to start straight back into it but have just had no motivation at all.

I am, however starting to do the affiliate masters course at the moment in the hope of learning as much as I can about being a highly paid affiliate.

Hopefully, I will be able to pass on my experiences putting this course into practice and with any luck I will be able to earn some pretty descent dollars. Well, isn't that what we're here for.

This course is a free 10 day course which takes you through setting up an affiliate business from day dot. I haven't ventured far enough into it as yet but will keep you all posted on how it's going. Am looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

As for everything else, I am still trying to get myself back into a routine of night shift agian. It usually take a couple of weeks to start feeling normal.

I would normally catch up on the news while I am at work and then go home to write any articles but i havn't really been able to get right back into it as yet.

Soon, I hope....

Back to Blogging

Hi There!!


I'm just home from my holiday overseas and have just been checking emails. It's great to hear everything and catch up with what I've been missing.


I haven't checked any stats yet but will get on to it asap.


I'm just happy to be back in the world of blog and I thought I would just let you all know.


I'll be posting again very soon....

How Much Money Can Be Made From Affiliates??

I guess the answer to this could be unlimited really.


There are so many affiliate programs out there selling the most varied of products imaginable that how can we possibly keep up with them all.


I have been doing quite a lot of research on affiliates lately and have discovered some awesome programs available to us all. I haven?t done the testing yet on which are the most profitable but am looking at testing some different sites soon.


I guess as part of that test though is this article and if you wish to participate then feel quite free. I am heading of for a couple of weeks holiday next week and while I?m away I?m going to keep this article on my home page with a few links for different affiliates on it.


Most of these affiliates offers banners! are concurrent with this blogs theme. However I have thrown in1 or 2 psp downloads! extras just for good measure.


Please don?t feel that this I just a marketing article that may make me some money. I am very interested in researching the findings (if any) on what these affiliate links may bring to my website and as a result I will publish exactly how much I make from this article. I will paste an exact screen shot from clickbank on this blog when I have finished analyzing the findings.


I will also put all of the money back into building a quality website that will give you exactly what you want out of this topic. I don?t think that there would be 1 complete blog or site on the net that would have all the answers and I would like to make a site that hopefully I could boast this.


Well here are some quality links that I think if you check them out you might like to buy. I know that I will be downloading some of these when I return from my holiday.



Google Money Pro!
Secret Affiliate Weapon!
Blogging to the Bank!
Adsense Gold!
PC TV!

Enjoy checking out these products and stay tuned for the results in part 2 of this article. I'm sure it will be very interesting.

Content really is the King? Really?

Can content really be that important?


I have always thought that if you provided good fresh articles on your site then that would have been just as important as building multiple pages of pre-written content.


Who?s correct I hear you ask? Well both actually!


Let?s lay it all on the line. No one person has all the answers. Sure, most marketers may claim to have, but are you really going to trust them and have them involved with all your hard work? I didn?t think so.


By writing articles that are fresh and in line with the websites main topic you are always going to have something that will appeal to most people when they are searching the net. I personally would be more likely to keep returning to a website or blog when the content is fresh and being posted daily, and particularly if it was relavant in the first place.


If I was building a blog and I wanted to build up my sites content quickly then there are always article submission sites where you can get your content from. It may be harder to find your specific content but the hard work is virtually all done for you.


If your blog topic or niche is quite rare then you may have trouble finding a lot of on topic articles so my advice would be to stick with it and do as much research as you can. There could end up being an endless source of articles for you to reproduce.


For example, when I am doing research for my site I like to read older, more ?how to? articles and I tend to spend more time going over them and I may even cut & paste the most important parts of them to a word base document so that I can go back to them later.

However, I also like to read brand new articles or posts? that relate to my needs on the net.

It totally depends on the individual and what you are trying to achieve or learn.
What might work for me may not work for others and vice versa.


I guess what I?m really trying to say is that you can do what is right for you and for your own site without sticking with one particular thing.


Sure ?content is king? but there is no one type of content that is the best. If you find something that suits you and you are getting enough traffic then stick to it. You might want to think about throwing in the odd fresh article to your blog but if it work for you, then you will be king.

My Favorites Bloggs

Do we all have our own favorite blogs that we read every day or does everyone just search different things all the time?

This is a question I have thought about quite often and have often wondered how all those top bloggers get all there great fresh content. How many blogs do they actually read every day?

One of the blogs that I find myself reading nearly every day is PROBLOGGER by Darren Rowse. He is a very successful blogger who never fails to post up to date and informative work. If your into fresh content and like to hear news on blogging then this is one blog that you should be looking out for. He is Australian also which to me important.

Another great blogger that I?m into is a guy called Yaro Starock. His blog, ENTREPENUERS JOURNEY is quite amazing. Another local guy who, while just an informative as Darren, is quite a technical blogger. He has some great articles, which he allows you to reproduce, about all the best types of internet marketing and great ways to make money online. Yaro is only a young guy but he certainly knows where he?s going and I?m sure that it?s not going to take him long to get there.
Yaro doesn?t update every day, more like a couple of times a week but when he does it?s well worth checking out his blog.

ENSIGHT.ORG is another of my faves which I?d like to say would have to be one of the best blogs I?ve ever read. Jeremy Wright has a habit of writing some awesome posts on his blog and if you?re in the market for some real life then check out ensight, it?s awesome.

If you?re into catching up on the latest news then you should subscribe to a news network. There are heaps of them on the web and although I don?t actually subscribe to any particular one, I do like to browse through a few of them just to catch up.

If you like seeing the newest tech gadgets and phones then there are some great sites which are constantly being updated. My faves are ENGADGET and GIZMODO which are from the US and these guys have all the latest tech stuff that is hitting the market or has been announced. Great blogs particularly if you are blogging about these things too.

I also do a lot of straight surfing and reading various articles from different blogs. Older articles can be informative too and don?t discount them just cause they have a bit of age on them. They can be quite relevant depending on what your into and I tend to get as much information from these as I do from brand new articles.

Watch out for anything that is fresh and is being updated on a regular basis. These blogs can usually be written by someone who knows their stuff. They will usually be well informed and very professional. You can get a lot from these guys and I would normally add someone like this to my favorites.

Well there?s a few of my faves so if you get a chance, check them out.

Link Building - Easy?

I want to build major links for this blog but not quite sure where to start.

Should I leave comments on the blogs that I want to link to or should I be emailing the bloggers to ask to link to them?

I have found some great blogs out there and think that my blog may help them so would really like to start swapping links. Ideas??

I feel that for this blog to take off this would be the main consideration.

Would bloggers be willing to link to just about anyone who had a half descent blog?

I feel that my blog is not great but hopefully with a bit of time, patience and know how then I could be up there very soon.

If I could get just 10 links by the end of this week then I would be most appreciative. This would, as most of you know, help to put this blog on the road to greatness!!!

I am also looking at starting a new blog and am currently thinking on what theme or niche I could blog about.
There seems to be a lot of blogs about celebrities in which I am quite interested, but would not think that my information would be as current a some. Would this matter all to much?

I am also thinking about something to do with the hospitality industry in which I am quite knowledgeable.

Would I be able to get linked easily in these fields?

Your help would be most welcomed.

Blogging Blank

What happens to a blog if you have nothing to write about?

Does it just disappear?

Does it take up valuable space?

Does it die a horrible death?

I've often thought about all the dead blogs out there in no mans land and what happens to them once people just give up on blogging.

Do they just sit there and gather dust?

There must literally be millions of posts, articles or just vacant blogs out there.

What is a good name for these blogs HMMMmmm

NOGS, BLERGS????

I just can't seem to get it out of my head that the space being taken up by these old blogs must be immense.

Is the space infinite or am I just being paranoid about something I needn't worry?

Why do I feel that I need these answers?

Addicted To Blogging

Says it all really. Seriously, I think I am.

I find myself waking up at night and going over things that I feel I could be blogging about or sites that I need to have a look at or even searches that I could make, keywords to add in searches etc.
So far I've stopped myself from getting out of bed in the middle of the night and jumping on the computer, mainly because I work nights as well, and spending hours in the dark but will the time come for me soon enough.

I'm sure that some of you do this and probably come up with some of your best work at these times. Is it because it's the best time to concentrate or maybe cause you've been lying in bed for a while thinking about what you're going to write about. Could you call this research or desearch?????

You have to make a decision as to what works the best for you as an individual. I find that I can put off what I've been thinking about until the next morning but most poeple may not be able to do this.

Getting back to being addicted, well I don't think that it's completely a bad thing in this case, It's not a drug, or is it???
Is waking at all hours and getting up really going to be good for you. Who knows, I'm not going to argue about this.
It could end up being a good thing for the bank balance if thats what your after.

Ask yourself are you addicted to blogging? If you answered yes, does it really matter?

Responding Fairly

Are we responding fairly to criticism these days?

I have read quite a few posts on this topic lately and have been really surprised by what I've seen.

I think the best idea if someone is giving you a heap of flack is to try and converse reasonably and try to resolve the problem, particularly if it's a personal attack.

On the other hand (and something that no one has really spoken on), maybe they're just saying they don't like your articles? If that's the case then you really don't need to go any further with it. You can only offer your opinion and if they don't like it then hey, there's heaps of other places they can go, if you get my drift.

You don't even need to reply, let it go... see what happens. If you think you're losing face over someone else's opinion then it's totally up to you how you handle it.

The one thing you should never do is have an all out war with them. Listen and be rational and you will eventually win them over. Sometimes being too nice can work in your favour.

Good luck

The Shockingly Simple Secret that Changed My Life!

by Stone Evans


Send Feedback to Stone Evans


Note: This isn't an article by me. This is a marketing piece I wrote for my friend to demonstrate what some people are experiencing with the Plug-In Profit Site. Let me know what you think of it...
This is amazing. I just stumbled upon a shockingly simple secret that stuffs 5 commission checks into your mailbox every month on autopilot.

Warning:

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REASON 2: Most people are incredibly lazy and prefer not to do anything themselves. The creator of this service already understands this and does everything needed to get a person's Internet business up and running within 24 hours. The customer doesn't have to do anything other than submit a simple form. What would normally take someone months to accomplish on their own can be done for them (for less than $100) in as little as 24 hours... It's brilliant!

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This simple system is the easiest way to earn multiple streams of income I've ever seen.

I'm pulling in 5 huge commission checks every month now simply because I added one new link to my website. It's actually frightening to think about how much money I lost by not knowing about this earlier!

What I would do if I were you...

If I were you I would add this link to your website as fast as you can. In fact, I would add this link to every website you own. And if you have a blog, newsletter, ebook or anything else I would add it to all of those too.

By tapping into the largest online market of all and linking to a service that feeds on most people's tendency toward laziness, you can make an absolute fortune for doing almost nothing.

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Keywords: residual income, home business, automatic profits, change your life, secret

About the Author
Stone Evans, Dallas, TX, USA
articles@home-business.com
More Details about the secret that changed my life here. Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy is an Internet home business authority who has helped thousands of people launch a successful Internet home business. To learn more about Stone Evans and find an Internet home business that is right for you visit http://www.Home-Business.com

How To Study Your Websites Competition And Steal Their Spot

by Mark Flavin



Many things can be said about the benefits of having an online business. Inexpensive marketing platforms, a global audience, automation and the likes are just some of the top answers whenever online businessmen are asked why they decided to establish their enterprises in the World Wide Web.

But there?s one factor that is often left undisclosed. The online field would also require you to compete with hundreds, if not thousands, of other businesses jockeying for the same market. It?s a virtual race for sales, or for clicks if you?re engaged in a PPC venture. And since any given market is finite, the number and strength of your competition plays an important role in determining your success in the internet marketing industry.

Competition is said to be at its highest level in the search engine game. As you may very well know, 80% of the traffic that can be generated from any website would come from the search engines. If you are competing with 100 other enterprises, this means that you should try your very best to beat all 100 of them for the top spot in the search engine results page for every relevant query. This is the best way to ensure that you?ll get first dibs on a prospect before they could grab a hold of him.

As is usually the case, search engine optimization (SEO) techniques abound to help you gain good position in search engine results. Mastering these techniques would give you a greater chance of succeeding in the online industry.

At least in theory.

In practice, however, things aren?t that easy. What remains unsaid is the fact that most of your competitors would be doing the same thing. You?d still have to compete with the tactics that they themselves would employ. And if all of you would be implementing the same strategies, then it?s back to square one. If you can?t get ahead of them in the search engine positions before, there?s no reason why you?d get ahead of them after employing the same tricks that they likewise employ.

So what should you do?

Here?s an unorthodox strategy. Instead of competing against your rivals, you could actually learn from them. And in the process, you could steal their spots.

Competition is always about figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. The keys to victory lie in replicating what your opponents are doing correctly and correcting what your opponents are doing wrong.

And these can only be achieved by studying their performance.

Let?s give it a shot through an example.

Supposing your online business has something to do with dog grooming. A cursory look at Google would reveal that you have around 10,000,000 pages servicing the same subject. An approximation based on averages would tell us that around 2.5 million webmasters are engaged in the same field.

On the number one spot in the search engine results would be petgroomer.com. This website?s spot is your aim. Your goal is to dislodge this website from its number one position.

How are you supposed to do that?

Let?s try to study the website. On your Internet browser, go to VIEW then select SOURCE. You?ll be taken to a text file that would reveal the source code of the said website. Now study this source code and answer the following questions:

* Are you doing the SEO techniques the website is employing?
* What is the website implementing that you?re not doing?
* What are you doing that the website is not implementing?

For example, the said website is employing META tags. Are you using the same META tags? Does he have more META tags than you do? The website also hosts a variety of content pieces. Are its content pieces better than yours? Are there any keywords in such pieces that you have failed to capitalize on? The said website is also using ALT tags. Are you using ALT tags for your pages with same level of proficiency?

Again, just as a reminder, the trick is to determine what your competitor is doing right so that you?d know what to imitate, and to determine what your competitor is doing wrong so that you?d know where to beat him.

Now go to www.linkpopularity.com and run a check on that website?s URL. You?d know that the said website has 1,927 MSN back links and 2,760 Yahoo back links. The next step is to acquire more back links than what this website has. This is where you should employ off page SEO tactics so that you?d be able to beat the aforementioned number one website. If you will manage to get more back links, then chances are, Google will consider assigning your website a higher page rank.

These are the secrets to studying ? and beating ? your competition, even if the playing field is fairly built. As Arie De Geus did say, ?the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage.?

Mark Flavin is an online marketing expert. Mark specialises in website traffic generation, affiliate program promotion & email marketing. You can find out his secrets for free at http://www.markflavin.com

Mark recommends The Business Professional for increasing your profits online - http://www.markflavin.com/business.html

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People Getting Rich Online - Viral Marketing

By Matt DeAngelis




As I mentioned in the last entry, I?ve been speaking with people who are making $5000 - $10,000 or more a month online, and I?m beginning to see some common factors.

You have to understand how difficult it is to get people to talk to you about their successes. They remind me of the inventors I?ve spoken to about financing their products ? they are deathly afraid that someone will steal their ideas, not realizing that their talent is part of the success of that idea. Sometimes it took several emails, an IM and a lot of promises, but I got people to talk.

One of the factors that struck me very early is the fact that most of the successful people I spoke with use some form of viral marketing in their advertising and marketing plan.

Viral Marketing is a marketing strategy that encourages other people to spread your marketing message, which grows your exposure exponentially. Link exchanges are a good example of viral marketing, because people take the link to your site and put it on theirs. When people link to their sites, they see yours. Then they may take your link and add it to their site. Just for fun I ran the SEOElite backlink checker on a successful web entrepreneur?s site. There were 1498 different sites that had his URL in them. Not bad. Affiiate programs are also viral in nature.

The guru of viral marketing has to be Dr. Ralph Wilson. You should definitely visit his WilsonWeb site. There are many terrific articles there.

These are Dr. Wilson?s six elements of a viral marketing strategy:

1. Give away products or services
2. Provide for effortless transfer to others
3. Scale easily from small to very large
4. Exploit common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilize existing communication networks
6. Leverage the resources of others

Viral Marketing seems to be an integral part of making a lot of money online. It could be as simple as trading a small banner or button for a directory listing (Income: $8000 a month), or offering webmasters a cut of your earnings to get them to your website to view your content and then buy (Income: $4000 a month). In fact, doesn?t that second business model describe Chitika, the ill-fated PPC network?

Multiple tier affiliate programs, where you get a cut of the income from people you get to sign up, are other examples of viral marketing.

You don?t have to do anything quite as dramatic, but I think it would be a smart idea to come up with some viral marketing elements for your own web site. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Write articles and get them posted on free article sites. Make the content compelling and the title provocative and interesting. Make sure at least one link appears in the article.

2. Install a ?email this page to a friend? script or plugin. There are plenty of them out there on the Internet.

3. Come up with a free product, utility or service that will promote your business, and encourage people to distribute it. Even if you have to pay for one to be made, it will be worth it.

4. Write for free on a well-known site in your area of expertise, especially one with a newsletter or free article distribution. This is a terrific way to perpetuate your site virally.

5. Put together an affiliate program that gets your banner on websites. If you have a unique utility, service or information source, you can get webmasters to put up a small box, banner or chicklet that has a link to your site.

Viral marketing can make you rich?I?ve seen the examples. The reason is simple?you are giving people something for free that they perceive as valuable, and they are telling other people how smart they are for getting something for free. In order to tell other people they have to mention you. It?s brilliant.

6. Share and Enjoy: You can place some simple icons on your pages or in your posts, and allow users to bookmark your content on social bookmarking sites where other readers can share and discover the content.

Matt DeAngelis runs AffiliateBlog.com. Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind many of the most successful ad campaigns of the time.

AffiliateBlog is his latest venture, and was started as a resource to help site owners and bloggers get more revenue from their sites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_DeAngelis

How I Made a Million in Three Months

By Matt DeAngelis



There?s a headline that gets anyone?s attention.

There is actually a post on WebMasterWorld from a forum user who calls himself markus007 that makes that claim. I think the few initial suggestions he makes bear repeating:

1. Get a database of IP?s so you know where your traffic is coming from. Then create channels for each country. Its not uncommon to see US traffic with a CPM of $5.00 and a CDN traffic at 20 cents and vice versa. If you have access to the hints option, give different hints based on IP. ie if your page is about 401k plans, that won?t get you anything outside of the USA.

2. You have to create sites that will bring in repeat traffic. If you think you will get rich off SEO think again. If you create a Free jobs site you could net 30 million + a year if you got big. Club listings site, free religious personals etc would all be big money makers. Look for established markets and offer a service for free and support it with adsense.

3. Have your users create content and lots of it. User reviews of night clubs, Resorts, golf courses etc. Build your site around your users and make them part of your site, don?t build your site for consumption.

4. Do not enter markets with a lot of competition monitized via adsense. Try and undercut paid content markets by offering a free service, or better yet create your own market.

5. Keep your site dead simple, it has to load fast and have no more then 2 ads and 1 or 2 pictures other then your logo. Do not confuse your user, give them what they want and give it to them fast.

6. Troll around various forums and if people are not talking about your market, there is a good chance you will make money.

Here are some other interesting tidbits from the thread (it spans 25 pages):

Traffic is step #1, conversion is step #2, then for #3 we have to play with psychology

I like this one because it follows the process I have been preaching for years: impression -> conversion -> action

So, in summary, users can find in his sites free services that are usually paid elsewhere, and they get them in a simple and fast way, and targeted to their locations, with lots of user feedback.

This seems to confirm the often quoted #1 Google?s advice:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

Well said.

Markus again:

I found that you should just ignor monetization issues. I focus most of my time on trying to increase my dailly visitor count. [Emphasis added] If i don?t increase my users/pageviews by 10% a month there is something wrong. If you focus all your time on trying to make money, your site tends to not grow.

With trends in advertising currently, it is best you build for the long term anyways. Google is coming out with rich media ads which would increase my CPM to $4+ and other ad platforms are working at tracking the users intentions. Ie if you searched for a new car on google a week ago, a random site may display car ads when you visit it. I think in 5 to 10 years, the internet will monitize at the same level as offline. Now is the time to get ahold of as much traffic as you can.

The beauty about what i?ve done is that my site constantly grows 10% a month, and I build long term value and actually help millions of people and my time spent working on the site stays at about a hour a day.

Read the thread. It?s long but interesting.

Matt DeAngelis runs AffiliateBlog.com Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind many of the most successful ad campaigns of the time.

AffiliateBlog is his latest venture, and was started as a resource to help site owners and bloggers get more revenue from their sites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_DeAngelis