Internet and Businesses Articles

It used to be that simply having a website meant that your organization was ahead of the curve. Those days are long gone. Today more that ever, organizations need to fuel business and their bottom lines through savvy internet tactics.

What separates the savvy from the just getting by? If any of these symptoms are true of your organization or your website, you may need to rethink your strategy, or better put, start using a strategy in the first place.

Symptoms:

1. You cannot quantify your website’s traffic statistics even in general terms. This should be as common knowledge as your last year’s revenues or your mission statement. How can you make smart decisions about internet marketing dollars if you don’t know how much traffic you are getting?

2. Your website has not changed in any way in 6 months. If this is the case, it probably indicates that your site is not an active part of your marketing plan. Be careful not to neglect your site to the point that potential customers will be turned off by a lack of attention to detail.

3. Your site is not generating leads of any kind. Does your site provide an easy way for customers to contact you? Can they submit questions online? Are you in the habit of asking walk-ins “how did you hear about us?”

4. Your site is rarely, if ever, mentioned in meetings and planning sessions. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Is your site the big white elephant in the living room that nobody talks about?

If your organization displays any of the above symptoms, don’t despair. But do commit to doing something about it. Many times the best way to begin is to find sites that you do like and incorporate the best qualities of those sites into your own. Now get surfing!

Tony Valle is owner of Promethius Consulting, LLC, a website design and marketing firm. Learn more at http://www.promethius.com

Do not pay anyone or any service to submit your website to major search engines.

They will just enter your site using software designed to do this, which is something you can do for yourself. This type of software is rather inexpensive; in fact many hosting services include this service.

Better yet, exchange links with other websites. Search engines 'rank' your site according to the number of hits it gets. You can improve your ranking by having your website URL posted on others.

When another website that has your URL on it is 'spidered' by a search engine, it will pick-up your site as well. If this other site has a high ranking, so will yours.

There are many methods to do this. One is reciprocal linking;

Go to a search engine and find websites that are similar to yours. Locate the email for the site's webmaster and send them an email, asking them if they would be willing to exchange links.

Set-up a separate page on your website to post the links of those who have given you their permission to do so. Make a link from your front page to this page so visitors have the option of viewing these other links. You can do this on your front page, of course, but there might not be room and it might be a bit distracting.

You may also want to set-up a page with a link that will allow visitors to submit links to your site.

You may wish to check these other sites, from time to time, to be sure the link exchange is truly reciprocal.

Before you do any of this, be sure your website is 'optimized' for search engines.

Again, do not pay anyone to do this for you. There are plenty of places where you can get this information for free!

Brian Beshore
http://www.howtobecomeamillionaire.us

Traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.

You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic.

I speak from experience because in the early days of developing my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned.

Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go.

For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more complicated than just marching to the tune Google played.

Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that links pointing to your website can help your search engine ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper than that.

In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that comes to your website from people using search engines. This is where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with your theme.

Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra, online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc) the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your website itself is offering.

Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic by having good content on your website and exchanging links with highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Remember, traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything.

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This article is freely available for reprint provided that the resource box at the end of the article is left intact and the article is published complete and unaltered. If you are using this article on a website or e-book, please make sure that the link in the resource box is live or clickable.

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Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.

Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details. http://www.business-at-home.us/

This old saying which addresses the variability of the weather in Montana is also applicable to the market dynamics for an online business. If there is one thing that is certain about the future of online marketing, it is that it will continue to change.

A generation in Internet marketing seems to last 12 months or less and therefore it is very important for online marketers to reassess their marketing plan frequently. It wasn't too long ago that popups and banner ads were all the rage and now they're about as welcome as a telemarketer or a lawyer.

In earlier times, just getting traffic to your website could spell success. That just is not the case today. In the current environment, Internet marketers have many tasks before them including increasing traffic, maximizing traffic quality, and improving conversion ratios. Much simpler said than done, but the key element is to understand that we are dealing with a dynamic marketing landscape where change is almost a continuous process. A successful Internet marketing campaign will always be a work in progress.

A dynamic internet marketing campaign will be a continuous process of monitoring & analyzing, followed by tweaking & experimenting, followed by measuring the impact (more monitoring & analyzing) of the changes made.

The first step in analyzing your marketing campaign is pinpointing precisely where the prospects are coming from. Whether it's search engines, email, or from other sources. All of this data can be found in your server logs and there are some very good traffic analysis tools (many of them free) that will provide you with the information without requiring you to become technically proficient at deciphering raw server logs.

By analyzing the information taken from the traffic analysis tools you can track keywords and other parameters which will tell you how visitors are getting to your site which, in turn, will help you improve and target traffic.

The goals for your particular site will depend upon the nature of your online business or endeavor. A good way to determine how well your site attracts and converts visitors is to analyze your traffic and then experiment or tweak some of the different elements of your site such as sales letter copy, special price promotions, limited time offers, free offers, headlines, color schemes, testimonials, etc., etc.

After making changes in your program, once again analyze your traffic to obtain a measure of the impact (good, bad, or none) that your tweaking has produced. And then start the process all over again, retaining the changes that yielded a positive result and, of course, rejecting those that did not.

Remember folks, it is up to us to stay in touch with the fact that there is one certainty about the future of online marketing, and that is that it will continue to change.

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This article is freely available for reprint provided that the resource box at the end of the article is left intact and the article is published complete and unaltered. If you are using this article on a website or e-book, please make sure that the link in the resource box is live or clickable.

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Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.

Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details. http://www.business-at-home.us/

Sometimes you need a kick start to get of the ground when promoting your new business website. Use these 11 tips to get started. A combination of several tips will most likely guarantee return visitors on your website. Return visitors most likely mean more sales.

1. Build a solid business foundation before starting. Create a business plan (this should be document revisited every quarter), marketing plan, client profile, and a site map for your web site.

2. Be very consistent. Brand your company and stick to it.

3. Create acceptable and easy to understand policies the build trust: Customer Service, Code of Ethics and a Privacy Policy.

4. Network locally to bring people to your site. Start with the local chamber of commerce as an example.

5. Place your website's URL address on all your printed business literature -- business cards, brochures, newsletters, letterhead, invoices, ads, etc.!

6. Offer added values that are related to your business and the ideal client (target group). A solid resource database helping clients getting most out of your services could be a good start. Maybe offer products. A FTP software for a web hosting client makes perfect sense as they can use it to conveniently upload their files to the hosting web server.

7. Add a "Recommend This Site to a friend" script on your site. If someone visits your site and knows someone else who may appreciate it, this feature will email the page's link to the recipient. Easy access to a tool like this could increase 'word of mouth' advertising.

8. Setup monthly chats about related topics or install bulletin boards (forums) to build a relationships and community. This will attach customers to your business. Invite industry specific folks to a chat so that they can answer customer questions. This is a perk nobody can resist.

9. Teach classes in colleges or schools or speak to groups about subjects relating to your products and services. Students suddenly turn into customers and/or spread the word ....

10. Conduct periodic contests and announce the winners on your site. As a web host you could have contest for who has the best web design on your servers. People like to show off. Use this behavior to attract new clients.

11. Participate in online forums as an expert. Do not SPAM the forums with your advertising messages. Use the signature to quietly promote your services. Once people see you as a valuable member with lots of information and start trusting you, they will start trusting you their business.

This article can be published by anyone as long as a live back link to http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com is provided. (this note can be removed as long as a link from the author's resource box is provided)

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

Guides, Tutorials, and Articles for small businesses - http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com

Trying to get traffic to your new website or to your gateway pages for an affiliate program can be difficult if you are just starting out and have little or no advertising budget.

This article will explain how you can use traffic exchanges to get a steady stream of visitors to your website, without having break your budget or spend hours on end clicking away to get credits.

In simple terms, a traffic exchange is a place that you can join and view other members web pages in exchange for having your own web page viewed. Every time you view another member’s web page for a period of time (e.g. 20 seconds) your balance of credits increases. Every time a member views your web page for the same period of time your credit balance decreases.

There are two main types of traffic exchanges – manual exchanges and auto exchanges. A manual exchange requires a real human being to view the web page and click on a link to proceed to the next web page, whereas an auto exchange can be left running in your web browser and will automatically refresh to a new web page.

Although both of these methods will bring hits to your website, the use of a manual exchange is far more likely to bring a visitor who will actually read what is on your web page. The auto exchange user who leaves their computer on all night, surfing web pages while they sleep is unlikely to buy your product! It is for this reason that I have not ventured down the path of using auto exchanges.

So how do you go about choosing which traffic exchange(s) to use? First let’s take a look at the most common features of a traffic exchange, so you can differentiate between the competition.

* Credit Surfing – all traffic exchanges allow you to earn credit in return for viewing other member’s web pages. Also look out for bonus credits. Many exchanges will give you bonus credits for signing up, for surfing a certain number of pages, or for winning competitions or sweepstakes.

* Minimum Time Limit – when surfing for credits, most traffic exchanges require you to view a site for a minimum amount of time before you earn a credit. This is normally somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds.

* Anti Cheat Mechanisms – to ensure that a real person is viewing your web site most traffic exchanges employ anti cheating mechanisms. This usually means that instead of clicking a “Next Site” button you have to click on a specific graphic such as a number, letter, picture or coloured icon from a selection of a few, to proceed to the next site. Repeated failure to do this correctly means suspension or termination of your account.

* Referring Others – this is the fastest way to build up your credits. Most traffic exchanges provide you with referral pages and banners. You can use these to recruit yourself a downline. When someone signs up from your promotional web page or banner they are placed in your downline. This can earn you an immediate bonus plus a percentage of your downline’s credits e.g. 1 credit for every 10 sites surfed.

* Paid/Pro Memberships – most traffic exchanges offer paid memberships as well as free memberships. Normally a paid membership earns you privileges such as an allocation of credits per month plus an increased number of credits for your own surfing and the surfing of your downline. Most exchanges also allow you to purchase extra credits. I don’t recommend going for a paid membership or buying credits until you have tried out the traffic exchange for free first.

A quick search on Google, using the keywords “traffic exchange” will reveal almost 200,000 results, including hundreds of differently themed traffic exchange websites. Within minutes you can sign up for an account, submit your URL and start surfing for credits. Easy? Yes, but how do you know if this traffic exchange will give you results? How do you choose between the hundreds of different traffic exchanges?

I use a report from a company called Traffic Hoopla to decide which traffic exchanges to sign up with. This report is updated weekly with the top 50 traffic exchanges and the top 10 new traffic exchanges. You can find out from this report who delivers the highest unique percentage of visitors and who will deliver traffic to your website in a timely manner. Armed with this information you can sign up for only the best traffic exchanges and get the biggest reward for your efforts.

Once you have signed up for some of the top traffic exchanges, you now need to earn some credits. There are three ways to do this:

(1)Personally surf for credits

(2)Purchase Credits

(3)Build a downline

In the beginning you may want to set aside a few hours each week to personally surf for some credits – in fact some traffic exchanges require you to surf a certain number of sites to activate your account.

However, the best way to be successful with traffic exchanges is to build your own downline. This way you can keep the credits flowing in by letting your downline do all the clicking for you.

You can do this by using the referral web pages of each of the traffic exchanges that you have signed up with or you can sign up with a downline builder such as Traffic Hoopla or Profit Rally and build downlines for all the best traffic exchanges by advertising a single link.

I chose the latter method and after signing up for the top 10 traffic exchanges I had over 60 people signed up under me in the various programs after the first week. I can’t quite put my feet up and stop surfing yet, but every week I can spend less time clicking on traffic exchanges and more time deciding how to use all my credits.

Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of http://www.homebiz-direct.com Visit her website to learn more about Building your Downlines

Reciprocal linking is an effective, free way to get more visitors to your website.

Exchanging links with other webmasters can help you in two ways.

Firstly, by getting your link displayed on other websites you are increasing the number of paths leading back to your your own site. This in turn will increase the number of visitors.

Secondly, exchanging links will increase the chances of getting your web page ranked more highly in the results returned by search engines.

The reason for this is that for most search engines, the number of links pointing to a site plays a huge part in determining where that site ranks. Why? Well, wouldn't you be more likely to visit a place that had been recommended to you by a friend? The same reasoning applies to search engine positioning.

A link from site A to site B is like a vote for site B. The more votes that site B gets, the higher it is regarded by search engines.

However, quantity is not everything! A link carries more weight if it is from a high quality site - in the same way that a recommendation from a trusted friend would be taken more seriously than a recommendation from a casual acquaintance.

If you have been reading up on the subject of search engine positioning, you may be familiar with the term "PR", or "Page Rank". Page Rank is Google's way of measuring the "importance" of a web page. In simple terms PR is a number between 1 and 10 and can be viewed by downloading the Google toolbar.

It is easy to become hung up on or obsessed by page rank, but my advice is to try to take your focus away from that PageRank icon on the Google toolbar and focus your efforts instead on building up a good set of reciprocal links. If you do this well, the PR and search engine rankings will come.

So, how do you start reciprocal linking?

The first step is to find other sites that you want to link to. Use search engines and links from other websites to find sites that complement your own and try to request links from sites that you think would interest your visitors.

You may have been recommended to avoid linking with your direct competitors. Whether you do this or not is entirely up to you - the main disadvantage of doing this is the chance of losing business, whereas the advantage is the extra traffic that you will gain by doing so.

Personally I feel that the additional traffic gained from linking to competitors outweighs the potential chance of losing business to them.

Before you start your linking campaign here are a few tips to help you:

(1)Ensure that there is a visible link to the "Links" directory on the index page of the site you are requesting the link from and that the links directory is organised. It's unlikely that your link will be found by visitors if it is one of the 100 links on an unorganised links page.

(2) Follow the above rules for your own website - it's only fair.

(3) Once you have found a page it is good manners to add a link to your own site before requesting a link from another. This way the webmaster of that site will know that you are serious and will be more likely to link back to your site.

(4) Being highly organised whilst requesting links is also important. Using link management software to keep track of all your link requests and automatically add them to your web page literally halves the time taken to request and manage links.

(5) Keep track of all the links you have requested, either through link management software or in a spreadsheet. Add the URL, date requested and contact information for all the links you have requested and update this everytime a link is approved or declined. This will help you to keep track of your reciprocal linking campaign and prevent you from looking stupid by requesting a link from the same site multiple times.

(6) Use tools to help you decide which sites to link to and to help monitor your own progress. Tools

Finally, set yourself a goal to request a specific number of links per week or per month. Keep going until you meet this target. It may be boring, but once you get into the way of doing this, it will seem like second nature and you will start to reap the benefits in the form of increased traffic to your website!

Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of http://www.homebiz-direct.com To learn more about how to promote your website visit her Beginner's Guide to Internet Marketing

If you don't know by now one the best ways to attract free traffic to your site is with articles. You find them in your email. You find them on any website that provides useful content. Take a look and you will see they are all formatted the same way.

Attention-getting headline

Body of article ( usually offers tips or how to information)

Resource box - That is at the end and involves a blurb to plug your site or product and your link(s)

I'm sure if you think about it you can come up with some ideas of your own for great articles. A good place to start:

What is it that you would really like to know? Find the answer online with Google or go to your local library and write away!

Aside from creating helpful content your purpose is to promote yourself. Thus, the resource box. Do not include affiliate links, leave your selling for when the reader clicks through to your site.

Okay, you've written an article- what now?

Submit your article to the article banks. Article banks are depositories for articles. Like a real bank you can make a deposit or a withdrawal. There are several articles on my site that I did not write. I made several "withdrawals" from some of the banks. It's a great way to get free content for your site.

When you are re-publishing another author's article you must remember one very important thing: Never ever cut-off the resource box! They worked hard to create something useful for you. Repay their generosity by keeping the links intact.

And guess what? if you take your article and make a "deposit" it's free for others to download and post on their site or newsletter! You could find it scattered all over the net in no time.

Why is that good? Because of your link in the resource box. That link is going to bring you curious visitors which means more traffic for you!

I know from personal experience when I find some useful info in an article I want to find more useful stuff from the same author so I follow the link.

And because you wrote so well about your topic I will get the impression you are an expert. We both know that may not be the case, but if people see you as an authority in some area they will seek you out for tips, advice and product recommendations. That means more traffic and ultimately more money in your pocket.

There are dozens of article banks you can submit your writing to for free. Just do a search on the net. And submit, submit, submit! If you write it - the traffic will come.

-David Parton

Copyright 2005

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Now You can Expand your Opportunities & Increase your Cash Flow with FREE Tips & Resources about Affiliate Marketing, Making Money from Home, Running your Own Website, Ezine and List building & Self-improvement for Both Sides of Your Brain!

Discover... http://ExpandingMind.com

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NOTE: Feel free to “reprint” this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including my "resource box" at the end). Please send me a copy of your reprint to david@expandingmind.com

It's pretty well-known that one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website is to post in various forums and leave your signature that includes a link to your site. While its true that this is a very good way to generate web traffic, how do you focus on the forums that yield the highest amount of qualified traffic?

With so many new sites coming online everyday, there is even greater opportunity for driving web traffic and increasing revenue. But how can you continue to target the ones that bring YOU the most success?

There are hundreds of webmasters out there who are desperate for people to post in their forums... especially those who are particularly knowledgeable in specialized "niche" topics. The competition is fierce so the last thing a webmaster needs is a plethera of completely useless postings on their forums.

Readers are looking for legitimate and accurate information that they can benefit from... and so the webmasters intent is get those high-quality postings in order to generate traffic and create a valuable community.

Most webmasters are very willing to trade forum postings (or other suitable content) with other webmasters. However, a growing number of webmasters are now paying for quality postings. It's one of the more effective methods of obtaining the targeted material that their readers are looking for.

So in the vast expanse of the internet, we have these desperate webmasters and these determined content writers all chasing that same (often elusive) web traffic. The solution to this frustrating dilemma is to bring these two groups of people together in order to successfully accommodate the needs of both in a fast and efficient manner.

The Forum Seeders Network (FSN) is designed to do just that.

FSN is arranged to showcase two types of internet gurus:

1. Content writers and their list of specialty topics

2. Webmasters whose sites and forums are in need of quality content.

All you have to do is register as a member, and then create either a webmaster profile or a publisher profile (or BOTH if you are one of those multi-talented individuals).

After that, you are free to browse the profile listings and forums, and introduce yourself to other members whom you feel are a good match for you.

As a publisher, you can select the websites and forums that are of interest to you and then message the webmaster directly to let him or her know that you are available to provide targeted content for their website or forums.

As a webmaster, you can select content providers whose specialty topics are what you need for your website and/or forums and contact those individuals whom you would like to work with and form your agreement.

Any kind of agreement can be made from trading forum posts to purchasing fresh content or forum posting services. FSN does not take any commissions or participate in any way. We just provide the meeting place.

Membership is currently free for the first 100 members. The sooner you sign-up, the quicker you'll start to find suitable matches.

So what are you waiting for? Surf out to The Forum Seeders Network now!

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The Forum Seeders Network - http://www.forumseeders.net

Stacey Brooks is a Software Developer and Web Consultant with over 15 years of programming experience in corporate industries such as timeshare vacation rentals, parks and recreations, manufacturing and distribution, securities trading, and medical practice systems in addition to her web development projects for communities, clubs, organizations and small businesses.

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Whether you are an affiliate marketer, a website designer or you make your living creating and marketing infoproducts such as ebooks, discovering profitable niche markets to exploit is probably at the top of your "to-do" list. The following is a four-step system you can apply anytime you need to find a new niche audience to target and profit from.

1. Initial Brainstorming

This first step is best approached with a very open mind and a notebook and pen handy. The idea is to seek topics that are outside your current realm of knowledge. One of the best ways to do this is by reading blogs.

Bloggers come from every walk of life, and you will find blogs with information on almost any niche topic imaginable. Best of all, bloggers provide fresh, timely information.

Start spending some time reading some random blogs. A good starting place would be at blog directories such as Blogdex - http://www.blogdex.net . As you are reading, you'll discover many different topics being discussed. Many of these you may have never heard of before. Start writing these down.

Example: You found yourself reading a blog post that described the blogger's recent experience at a demolition derby. Maybe you don't know much yourself about this niche, so you add "demolition derby" to your list.

2. Keyword Research

Once you have a list of several possible niches, the next step is to find out what keywords and keyword phrases people are using to search for this and related information via the major search engines. Good Keywords -http://www.goodkeywords.com for example, is a free Windows software you can download that will help you do just this. With this program, you can type-in a topic from your list and the software will begin to uncover many related keyword phrases being actively searched for.

It takes time to get the hang of this software, but once you master it you will be able to generate large and valuable keyword lists. After you uncover at least a few dozen related keyword phrases, save your list and move onto the next step. If you are not able to uncover many related keyword phrases, chances are there is not much potential here and you should start over with another topic from step one.

Example: Using Good Keywords or a similar tool, you enter the term "demolition derby". You soon have a large list of related keyword phrases people have been using to search for information on this topic, such as "demolition derby video" and "demolition derby car for sale".

3. Secondary Idea Creation

Read through the keyword list you generated. Some of your keyword phrases are going to give you ideas for other target audiences you may want to explore in the future. Take some time now to write these new ideas down while they are still fresh in your mind. Save this information for later reference. You can never have enough fresh ideas to explore when trying to uncover under-exploited niche markets.

Example: One of the keyword phrases in your "demolition derby" list was "demolition derby game online" - you note that later you should explore what other types of online games people are searching for.

4. Niche Potential Analysis

If you used Good Keywords to mine for keyword phrases, you will have also been provided with an approximate number of times each of these terms was searched for during the past month. The next thing you need to do is compare this number, representing potential search engine traffic, with the number of websites already catering directly to these searches.

To do this, start by taking your keyword phrases and do an exact phrases search on each of them at Google, making certain to surround your keyword phrase in quotes. Write down the number of results google brings back for your search. Next, compare the number of monthly searches for each phrase to the number of Google results.

If you are lucky, you will discover that some of your keyword phrases with good monthly traffic don't have many results in the search engines yet. If you find that you have uncovered a niche that has several keyword phrases with a high number of monthly searches and at least a few of them have a low number of results in Google, chances are you have found a very good niche to exploit with your next online project. If not, go back to the list you created in step one and repeat the process.

Example: You discover that the phrase "demolition derby car for sale" is searched for around 700 times monthly, but brings back only 486 results in Google and the term "demoliton derby pic" receives several hundred searches a month but only returns 258 results in Google. You are very happy to have discovered a potentially hot niche with good under-exploited keyword phrases to target.

Although there are several costly and difficult to master programs available that can help you discover unique target markets, the system above has proven to be an effective free method for uncovering niches to profit from. Apply it today and be on your way to niche marketing success.

James Allen is a niche market researcher who provides his private high-end internet marketing clients with valuable information on untapped niche audiences. He has just released a brand new compilation of his latest niche market research that you can use to profit from right now at:

http://www.NichesExposed.com

I am not a web designer or search engine optimizer, nor do I play one on TV. However, I do know that the driving force in bringing qualified traffic to your web site is dynamic high value content. That means compelling, interesting, approachable, and immediately useful information, especially when you also directly sell products or services at your site. Increasing and maintaining traffic also demands both offline and online mechanisms to attract those visitors.

One of the easiest and most versatile forms of the content described above is a ‘how-to’ tips booklet. With the right writing style, not only can you use the booklet in its entirety as a downloadable bonus file on your site, it can also be sliced, diced, and reformatted to get the most mileage possible from the single document.

Imagine a booklet called “110 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Health Club Membership.” Your site features health and wellness products. Look at some of the ways to use one tips booklet:

1. Downloadable bonus - full booklet download for visiting the site, a new title bi-monthly

2. Radio/television advertising campaign - “This fitness moment brought to you by (your company’s name) …Visit www.xyz.com for 109 more great tips like this one.”

3. Print advertising campaign – a few tips, directing people to your site for more tips.

4. Autoresponder service - send a tip a day or week, inviting people to your site for more.

5. Trade show coupon – offering free downloadable booklet at your web site

6. Product packaging or printed catalog - single tips, directing people to your site.

7. Email - a tip within any email from your Customer Service Department or in any electronic invoice, encouraging people to receive more tips when visiting your site.
Doing this with a different booklet every other month easily broadens your campaign to an entire year, keeping the content fresh, interesting, flowing, and attractive to more traffic.

Your next booklets could be:

• You Can Do It - Walk A Marathon

• 77 Ways to Prevent and Improve Back Problems

• 117 Tips for Relieving Arthritis & Muscular Pain

• Keep Smiling! 75 Tips for Great Dental Health

• 108 Ideas for Getting Your Family to Eat Better

Picture what happens when you translate the same booklet into a different language to reach a non-English speaking population. You can do the same things mentioned here to bring traffic to your site.

Simplify your life and the life of your customers by giving them useful information that will keep them wanting more from you – more information and more of your products.

Paulette Ensign is Founder and Chief Visionary of http://www.tipsbooklets.com. All the booklet titles mentioned in this article, plus hundreds more on a wide range of topics, are readily available for licensing rather than using your valuable staff’s time and salary.

Sending out link requests is a time-consuming business. So wouldn't it be wonderful if other sites linked to you without being asked?

Sound impossible? Well, it can be done and here are ten strategies to prove it. Why not start 2005 by making sure you use them?

In a link building campaign, you have to find target websites in the first place, review them to decide if asking for a link is worthwhile, identify the contact person and send them a customized link request. If you can do all that in 15 minutes per request, you'll be doing very well. On that timing, you'll be able to send out 160 requests in a 40 hour week and with a success rate of say 10%, you'll get 16 links for your efforts.

Perhaps there is a better way to spend those 40 hours.

Sometimes the best way to get links is not to ask for them. That doesn't mean you should sit back, do nothing and wait for links to appear. Spend time creating content and making your site as attractive and easy to link to as possible. There are lots of things you can do to build your link popularity without sending out link requests.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Make it clear on your own website that you want links - ask for them directly and make it easy for people to link by writing the linking code for them (using keyword phrases in linking text of course). Explain why it will help: "If you've found this site useful, please link to us so that others can benefit".

2. Play an active part in online discussion groups and forums. Not only will you learn, but you'll become known and will spot the movers and shakers - and if your people post good opinions and helpful advice, people will link to you.

3. Publish a regular newsletter and republish the content on your website. Encourage people to link by asking, "if you've enjoyed this newsletter, you can link to the permanent version at (insert URL)".

4. Publish articles on other websites - ezines, information sites, media sites, even article banks. This works well. You can find site to submit articles to by doing a Google search, e.g. - intitle:"submit an article" business - this produces over 1,000 results. Spend time looking for niche ezines and newsletters that serve your market, scan the type of content they publish and adapt your writing to their style.

5. Create an interactive tool. My favourite of old was 'The longevity text'. You answered about 20 questions and the tool predicted at what age you would be likely to die. Irresistible - I still remember that my prediction was 83. The test was designed and published by an insurance company - could they have been trying to sell me a pension? A little bit of creativity in thinking about such tools will be time well spent and a good programmer will be able to create a tool in just a few hours.

6. Create great content. (OK, it's an old trick, but it still works) Just keep publishing great stuff. One of the best at this is search engine marketer and prolific writer Jill Whalen. Her weekly newsletter from http://www.high rankings.com is a model of consistency and genuine value to her many thousands of readers.

7. Submit your website to legitimate award sites. Mike Corso's Cool Site of the Day, http://www .coolsiteoftheday.com is a must together with any others you can find. You'd be surprised at how high your chances of success are.

8. Praise and link. When you find genuinely useful resources, write a short, complementary review together with a link. Then publish on your website and click on it just to make sure it ends up in your target's referrer logs. Larry Chase of Web Digest for Marketers publishers a monthly newsletter that reviews about 10 web resources - you'll find it at http://www.wdfm.com . A few days later he writes to each reviewed site and allows them to quote his comments in return for a link.

9. Become a source of quotes. Provide sharp, useful, timely quotes for the media. You can get yourself known and you'll find journalists will seek you out. Sign up for services such as http://www.prleads.c om ($99 per month) or the premium priced http://www.sourc ewire.com (£1,200 per annum).

10. Volunteer to become an editor for several directories. You'll be able to submit reviews of your own sites and you'll have opportunities to get to know your market better - that inevitably leads to more linking opportunities. Go beyond the obvious - as well as http://www.dmoz.org, try http://www.joeant.com, http://www.skaffe.com and http://www.web-beacon.com.

Sometimes we can get too wrapped up in sending out link requests. Steeping back and thinking of some creative ways to get people to link without being asked will be time well spent.

Ken McGaffin is author of The Linking Matters Report and publishes a regular newsletter on linking strategy. He provides training and consultancy - http://www.linkingmatters.com/.

There are literally billions of Web sites online now offering all types of products and services. Some succeed brilliantly, while others fail miserably.

There can be many reasons for the failure of some Web sites: poor marketing, poor planning, a weak knowledge of the target market, or just an overall lack of knowledge of business principles by the Web site owner.

One shared trait of successful Web sites, however, is the ability and drive to provide good resources to its visitors. This is a tactic that increases traffic, keeps visitors engaged and coming back, and lends authenticity and reliability to a site. Yet many new (and sometimes "not so new") Web masters neglect this very important facet of Web site development and Internet marketing.

Why? There are many reasons, however, here are the "most" common:

1. A Web master may be unaware that resources when added to a Web site can add value and increase sales. Adding resources, especially those that are Affiliate links to other products or services, is a great way to "backend" sales, by offering visitors more than the main product or service to buy.

2. A Web master may feel (wrongly) that offering other products or services, or including great informational resources may "compete" with their own product or service. They may be reluctant to expose others to resources or products and services that are the "same" as theirs, feeling that the competitor will end up with the sale. This may be true to some extent.

However, the benefits of providing other resources and products or services besides the main product or service greatly outweigh the negatives. Studies have shown that Web sites containing great resources have more return visitors, and greater sales numbers overall.

3. A Web master may not feel comfortable assuming the liability for other products and services, or other resources that are added to a site. Of course, the more that a site contains, the greater the maintenance and cost associated with a site. However, again, the benefits of a resource-laden site far outweigh the liabilities.

4. A Web master may have no idea how to find good resources or make a judgment about what to add and what to omit.

All of the above seems to account for the reluctance of some to add additional products and services or resources to their sites. Since adding additional products and services are beneficial to almost all Web sites, here are a few guidelines when choosing which resources to add, which to omit, and the approximate amount of resources to add.

1. Resources should always reflect the main theme of a Web site and be complimentary to the main Web site, as well as the other products, services, and resources that already exist. E. G. An Internet Marketing site should, in all probability, only contain links to products, services, and resources that reflect Internet Marketing.

2. Resources should always be "content rich" and interesting to the visitor. A smattering of lackluster, "same old, same old" type resources does the Web master little good, and may even hurt the Web site, by reducing its sales effectiveness.

3. Resources should be updated at least monthly, to keep the site "fresh and lively" for return visitors. Visitors quickly lose interest if a site seems stagnant.

4. Resources should be plentiful enough to fill out a site, however, they should never overshadow the main theme of a site nor should they take away from the main purpose. They should be placed in an orderly fashion, and laid out for easy accessibility and readability. Clutter should be avoided at all costs, and a clean look maintained. There is a fine line here between "just enough" and "way too much".

5. Avoid gimmicky, poorly written, ethically substandard resources. A Web master must use judgment when choosing resources that are truly an asset to the site. "If in doubt, don't" is a good rule of thumb here.

Resources not only add quality and backend sales on a Web site, they enhance Search Engine placement by providing content and incoming links. They give visitors a good feeling about the site, and they set the Web master up as an "expert" in any given field.

However, quality must always rule over quantity, when placing resources and additional products and services on a site. If prudence is used, resources will enhance sales and traffic, and keep the site "alive and well" long after other competitive sites have disappeared!

-----------
Vishal P. Rao is the owner of Work at http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/, an online community of people who work from home.
-----------

I just had to get into the fray! I’m new to this cyberworld you see and I was surfing the web this morning in search of ways to drum up some traffic for my website. I came across a site called freeviral.com which said it was free! And would work to drive lots of traffic to your site. So I followed the instructions on the page and Lo and Behold I discovered it was just a front for a site called marketit.com owned by one of the so called maketing gurus.

When I decided to contact them to let them know I was on to them Lo and Behold I discovered that they were a front for an even bigger operator. It seems these fellas have learned a lot from Da Boys! It was interesting to note how they waxed eloquent about their integrity and commitment to high standards of business practice.

Now I don’t mind a scoundrel as long as he doesn’t pretend to be something else but I abhorr an operator who makes himself out to be something other than he is. Personally I,d like to see people like that brought low. In time I’m sure they will be. It is an inescapable truth that sooner or later you reap what you sow,unless of course you see the error of your ways and depart from them.

It is difficult though when Integrity has become such a relative term. I’ve never understood why,when there’s plenty to go around that some people want it all for themselves and will resort to whatever means is expediant to get it all for themselves. Initially it angers me, a natural response I’m sure but in the long haul it saddens me and I can’t help but wonder what happens in a persons life to cause such behavior.

Even more troubling than that is what happens when that behavior becomes the norm. I’ve done a lot of surfing around this great big net and found it sorely lacking in the areas of honesty and integrity. Now I’m not saying there isn’t any and to those who do practice these virtues my hat is off to you! And to those who are in search of outfits that do may I suggest several companies that embrace these principles.

These are companies that I have found who are truly interested in creating a better life and a better world for all of us. You can find them on my website: http://islandoutlaw.tripod.com Have a happy and prosperous day!

To your success
Island Outlaw

Search engines have become so intimidating lately - most people think that search engines are just out to get them - everyone's becoming afraid... They also think that getting #1 rankings is near impossible.

Yes, if you're trying to trick search engines, THEN - they're out to get you - BIG TIME.

BUT, if you're willing to work with them and help them, then they can seriously be your business's best friend.

Here's how:

----------------------------------------

Writing Articles for Search Engines

----------------------------------------

Actually, you're writing articles for TWO people.

1. Search Engines

2. Your Potential Customers

. Why for Search Engines?

Because search engines love content, and it's that very content that let's you invite traffic from search engines.

These articles help you optimize your website for search engine rankings (more on this in a bit).

. Why for Potential Customers?

Because these articles are what your prospects are looking for on search engines - they land on that page, find the information they need and then see your "recommendation" - aka affiliate link and they click, click BUY.

So, your articles eventually lead to sales and commission for you.

So once again, the purpose of articles:

. Provide content/information for:

. Search Engines

. Potential customers

. Promoting traffic to your affiliate program

----------------------------------------

Optimizing your Articles with Keywords

----------------------------------------

We don't want to make your head spin here, so we'll try to keep this AS simple as possible.

There are certain places you want to insert your keywords when building an article webpage.

Here they are:

. The title of the page

. The Description META Tag

. The Keyword META Tag

. In your Headline, use HTML Tag < h1 >< /h1 >

. Your first line of text

. Once or twice per paragraph

. Once/Twice in bold

. In the text of a link

Some other tips:

. In your graphics - use keyword in HTML ALT tag

. Use a secondary keyword also - a few times

Some Cautions:

. Don't Overkill - repeating your keyword an obsense number of times will not help you at all - it will hurt you.

. Never hide keywords - never.

. Nothing tricky - if it's tricky, don't do it.

. Don't have a LONG keyword META tag

The above is how most search engines determine how relevant your webpage is to a specific keyword.

This is NOT the only element involved in search engine optimization, however, it's one the most important. The next strategy we're going to discuss is also critical - for Google, especially.

You can learn a lot more about How to Dominate Search Engines and also get Step by Step Instructions to turn that traffic into $300.00, $600.00 or $900.00/month in residual income at DominateSearchEngines.

-----------------------------------

A Linking Strategy

-----------------------------------

Alright, now, we're going to discuss the one, quite possibly most important element to ranking well in Google - the # of incoming links.

Google has been giving more and more importance to what they call their "PR" - short for Page Rank. The PR is based on a scale of 1-10 and the higher it is, the more incoming links you have.

The PR is determined by the number of INCOMING and OUTGOING links you have. You should have the maximum number of incoming links.

See, Google's theory is that by having a site link to you, that website is basically "voting" for you - that site is telling Google

"Hey, I like that website, it has good content, I feel comfortable sending MY visitors there, so should you..."

The more sites that tell Google that, the more willing Google is to send it's traffic.

So, bottom line, recruit incoming links.

----- How?-----

How did we know you're going to ask that million dollar question?

Our answer is not that "great" -

"Just ask..."

Contact websites in your niche and ask them for a link exchange.

How to find these websites?

* Check the sites linking to your competition on Alexa.com
* Do a search on Google.com for your keyword and contact all the relevant websites.

Send them an e-mail, call them, etc...and let them know what's in it for them - a reciprocal link to help THEM with search engine optimization as well.

NOTE: A linking strategy is VERY important if you want any chance at making it to the Top 10 page on Google and then staying there...

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Less Than 3 Hours With the New System that Guarantee FRE*E
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Kusuma Widjaja is President of Yahoo Cyber Technology, CV., based in Surabaya. He has over 2 years experience in Internet Marketing Arena, Custom Web Site Design and Graphic Design Services. For more information go to http://www.whycity.net or you can reach us at +62-8315-838474.

I try to use as many free traffic programs as I can to increase traffic to my web sites. But does this traffic actually make sales for me? Probably not directly but indirectly they can.

So what are the benefits of free traffic programs? Well the number 1 benefit is that it will boost your traffic. This is the most obvious benefit. But the biggest benefit of free traffic programs is that the more traffic you send to your site the more popular it looks to some search engines.

http://alexa.com actually ranks your site depending on how much traffic it receives. You can actually go to alexa and download traffic and stats buttons or logos to put on your site. This will show you and your users how much traffic you are getting and how many people link to you.

Other search engines such as Ask jeeves , Lycos , MSN , and others use the alexa traffic ranking from your site to help determine how high in their search results your site will be placed. It is also assumed that Go ogle also uses the alexa traffic ranking in its ranking algorithm.

The bottom line is that the more exposure you give to your site from free traffic programs the better your search engine rankings will be. And the higher your rankings in the search engines the more good quality targeted traffic you will get resulting in more sale’s and commissions.

There are literally 1,000s of free traffic programs you can join. And surfing all of them for traffic can be a bit of a chore. The Avant browser can help you surf multiple free traffic sites at the same time. It is a valuable tool and a must if you want to join and surf several traffic programs at the same time.

You can download the Avent browser and sign up for several of the free traffic programs that I use by clicking on the following link.

http://bigmoolla.com/traffic-programs.html

Another great use for free traffic programs is for inflating your rankings on top sites if you use them. Top sites are basically big advertising pages. You list your site with them then they give you a link code to put on your site somewhere. The more traffic you send through that link the higher your advertisement will be placed on the top site.

In the end FREE traffic programs may or my not work out for you. But they are free to join so give them a try. What do you have to loose except the time it takes you to join and surf for credits.

Tom Worsley is a successful work from home Internet marketer and independent representative for SFI. Owner and Webmaster for http://www.bigmoolla.com & http://kawarthapublishing.com This article may be re-published on your site or in your newsletter as long as this resource box is included.

You want to start your own online business. You want the financial independence from corporate America. You want to pursue your dreams. You need help. Who do you call?

Unfortunately, as the web has grown so have the undesirable elements too. The web is a microcosm of the real world. There are honest merchants and trainers. But there are also those looking to prey on inexperienced people. Before you get sucked into a bad situation and spend hundreds of dollars, read this article. As you read this article, do not accept what I say blindly. Test it against your own experience.

Every day, I’m certain you receive many emails promising you everything from cheap Canadian drugs to making big money fast at eBay. The first way to identify an online scam artist is by his SPAM. The spam emails you receive should trigger the same signals in your brain as the spore left by predators around the chicken coop. A reputable online business will not send SPAM (unsolicited email). A reputable company or individual will work hard to earn your business by publishing articles online, working on their website’s search engine results, and providing you with a content rich website. So, the first sign of the online scam artist is his SPAM email. Just delete any you receive. But, how do you find the right company or individual to support you?

Start with a search engine, like google.com or teoma.com. Search for terms like “small business forum”, “small business advice”, “small business newsletters”, and “home based business resources”. Looking at the resulting search results, avoid those search results that start with phrases like “business opportunity” or “work from home and make $50,000”. Come on! You know that just doesn’t sound right. If they knew how to make a fortune with very little effort, do you think they’d be teaching others how to do it? So what do you look for? Sites that offer articles from true professionals in the field of online business.

Read the articles that interest you. Listen carefully to what the writer is saying. If they are painting a reasonable expectation and answering your unasked questions, check out their website. Reputable people will work very hard placing articles on reputable sites where you can find them. They will work for your business.

Now that you’re on their site, what do you look for to determine if this company or individual is right for you? First, read the contents of their site. Is it focused on you, the potential customer? Does it give you relevant information, or just a sales pitch? Is it trying to get you to a free seminar without any other option of contacting the company? Does it give you a clear roadmap of how it intends to deliver on the promises it’s making? If they aren’t attempting to inform you so you can make a decision that’s best for you, RUN! (In other words, skip their site and go to the next).

As a side note: Stay away from academic organizations. They tend to know the theory of creating a successful online business. You want someone who has created a successful online business and knows what to do based upon experience, not theory. Read the biographies of the people heading the company. Are the biographies focused upon real world accomplishments? Read how they operate. After you sign with them, will you be handed off to some hourly employee or will you work with someone who has actually created an online business?

Once you find one or two options that look good for you, sign up for their free seminar. Every reputable company has an online free seminar. Unfortunately, so does every online scam artist, so before the seminar, do some research. Start by contacting the Better Business Bureau where the company is located to research any prior complaints. Go to google.com or teoma.com, or any other search engine, and put the company’s name in the search box. If anyone is really mad at them, results will come back. This is a case where “no news is good news”. Now that you know the company doesn’t have an already documented bad reputation, it’s time to attend the seminar.

Now that it’s time for the free seminar, what should you listen for?

· Do they emphasize the money to be made, and downplay or ignore the effort required to accomplish that task?

· Do they promise you to do the work for you?

· Do they promise a lot of “free” things?

· Do they offer a money-back guarantee? Though this may sound good as a sales pitch, few of them deliver on that promise.

· Do they allow you to ask questions at some point in the seminar or do they keep themselves insulated from you and your concerns?

· When the seminar is over, do you get to talk with the person who will be your coach/mentor, or do you only get to talk to a salesman only?

Let’s say everything is sounding good and you think you want to sign up. What now?

Follow these simple guidelines and you can avoid a costly mistake:
· Don’t talk to a salesman! ALWAYS ask to talk to the person who will be coaching you.

· Ask them about their experience and make certain you will feel comfortable working with them for the long term.

· Be sure they are asking you tough questions to make certain you are a good candidate to be successful in their program. No reputable company wants to sell you a program you will fail at. Reputable companies count on happy customers telling other people about their company.

· Make certain you understand the program and what you will be required to do to be successful.

· Don’t fall for any “early bird registration discounts”. If you need time to think about this decision, a reputable company will understand that. Have as many conversations as it takes to feel comfortable. If they want to sign you fast, what kind of service do you expect once they have your money?

Is it easy to spot a scam artist online? It is if you follow the simple guidelines laid out in this article and if you listen to that small voice in your head that keeps repeating “this sounds too good to be true”.

Michele Schermerhorn has over 30 years experience in the business world and over 12 years running her own successful online businesses. She is President of Online Business Institute Inc. (http://www.obinstitute.com). Online Business Institute Inc. exists to “Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time”.

Is website traffic convertible to cash? The answer is yes. But that is not the right question every webmaster might want to dwell into, the right question is "How can my site get targeted traffic without me spending too much?"

The answer to most webmasters, ezine operators question is very simple. There is a simple yet effective way of marketing your products and best thing is that it's cheap if not free!

Are you asking me what? My answer is also a question; do you know how to write an article?

Yes! Articles, these are simple yet very effective way of marketing your products, allowing you to be confident enough that your site will get a low cost targeted traffic

Write the most interesting articles about what you are selling. Do not advertise it in your article but make an informative article about it. You add your advertisements within your by lines.

Why is it low cost yet effective? It's because you're not only doing some informative marketing about your products but you're also making a good method of SEO on your site.

Giving keyword density methods of SEO on your article and blasting it to hundreds of sites is really cost effective. But it's not only that! You might as well see that it's one way of increasing link popularity! Most article submission sites allow links within your article. One example is isnare.com a free articles directory site.

Your blasting doesn't stop there at all...

After submitting your articles to these article repository sites your articles will have a chance to be reprinted by many webmasters who gets their content out from these article repository sites, doubling all chances of getting targeted traffic for your site.

You're not only advertising smartly but you're also saving money!

Glenn is a Publisher and an online Entrepreneur, he would like to invite you to visit his http://www.isnare.com/ website and his service http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php

There are lots of ways to get traffic to your
website however most people are interested in getting
the most traffic for the least amount of money,
preferably for free.

While it's difficult to get anything for free nowadays
there are still a few good ways to help build your web
traffic and still pay nothing.

1. Build a second content-rich website.

Because content is king on the internet many have
adopted the idea of building a content-rich site in
addition to their original sales site.

If you set up your title, description and keyword
tags carefully and find a good balance for your keyword
saturation, you may be better able to achieve high search
engine rankings with a site that contains only good content
and information.

Once you have built your content-rich site you can then use
the content to point your viewers to your sales site.

2. Add an article page to your existing site.

By adding article pages to your web site you can
once again point your readers to your sales page.

For example, let's say you have a website that sells
vitamins. Set up a few article pages that reference
vitamins such as a page on the benefits of vitamins,
how to take vitamins, the effects of vitamins, etc.
Allow each of the articles to reference links to your
sales page.

This can be a very effective sales tactic because you've
attracted the attention of someone interested in your
topic. If they read your article and like what they've
read they're more apt to check out your links and you've
increased your chances of making a sale.

Also, with proper meta tags and keyword usage, an article
page is much more likely to make it to the top of a search
engine listing than a sales page.

3. Submit your articles

Any articles that you write should be submitted to as
many sites that accept articles as possible. This is
important because sites that accept and include your
articles in their article banks establish links for
you and you are not obligated to reciprocate.

4. Build your links through reciprocal linking

By establishing reciprocal links you are verifying to the
search engines that you have credibility. If high ranking
sites link to your site then the search engines
will find you worthy of high ranking as well.

Find sites that rank well and request a link exchange.
This can be done manually or you can purchase linking
programs that will automate this for you. Either way
spend a few weeks focusing on creating quality links
and you will soon see your link ratings go up as well.

5. Join and participate in online forums.

The internet is full of discussion forums that cover
hundreds of business and non-business topics.

Find a forum in your topic and look over the discussions.
Ask questions, contribute your expertise and get to
know some of the forum members. This is an excellent
opportunity for you to meet others and introduct your
website. It also helps build trust while helping you
learn how others have found success.

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web specializing in affiliate sales. Elizabeth remains dedicated to helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can visit Elizabeth's sites at: http://www.pro-marketing-online.com http://www.homenotion.com

This is the first article of a three-part series. I decided to try
something a little different and illustrate the marketing
challenges of a small business. I'm using one of my clients,
PrescottWeddings.com (you can read more about PWC,
including a testimonial from the owner of PWC, on my Web
site, http://www.writingusa.com)

PWC is an online resource guide for couples planning their
weddings. Along with a ton of information for brides and
grooms, the site includes a resource guide where local
businesses can advertise their products and services.

We launched PWC in November 2001. Like many start-up
businesses, PWC didn't have much money for marketing.
Yet we had two major challenges (three counting the limited
budget):

1. PWC had to attract two kinds of target markets to the site
-- advertisers and couples -- essentially at the same time.
And if that wasn't bad enough, we had to appeal to each
group even though one was dependent on the other --
advertisers wanted brides and grooms logging onto the
site, and brides and grooms wanted a complete resource
center.

2. Several bridal print publications had come and gone in
Prescott -- and had burned their advertisers while racing out
of town. Businesses were understandably hesitant about
sinking their money into another bridal venture.

Armed with those challenges, we went to work. Now, just
over two years later, PWC enjoys well over 40,000 hits a
month and has increased its advertising base by over
600%. On top of that, PWC is well on its way to establishing
a reliable brand in not just Prescott but throughout Yavapai
County.

So how did we do it? A great Web site with great content (but
more on that in a later article) plus three main marketing
strategies:
1) Using print to drive traffic online
2) Thinking small
3) Frequency, frequency, frequency

I'll cover number two and three in the next two articles. Today
we'll talk about number one: Using print to drive traffic
online.

The cornerstone of PWC's marketing program has been
print advertising, more specifically monthly advertising in the
local newspaper. Print advertising is an excellent choice for
many businesses -- from small to large. In fact, it's not
uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses to
build their advertising program around print.

The strength of print advertising is its flexibility. Print
publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They
can appeal to a broad readership or a narrow one. They can
be published every day or once a year. This variety gives you
a lot of flexibility in fitting print advertising into your
campaigns.

You can also track print to a certain extent (coupons in
newspapers for example). Print is physical, allowing your
customers to carry something around with them.

However, print's weakness is also its strength. It's a visual
medium only, so it requires more effort and interaction from
your audience to make an impact (they need to stop and
read it).

In the case of PWC, we chose monthly advertising in the
local paper as the foundation of our marketing program. We
decided upon the local newspaper because it has the
broadest reach. Prescott isn't big enough to have its own
evening television news, so the newspaper is the best
vehicle for local news.

If you live in a big city, the local newspaper may not be
practical because of cost. In that case, you may want to try a
niche newspaper or magazine, like a business or lifestyle
journal, or maybe a regionalized newspaper. In Phoenix for
instance, the Arizona Republic is the main newspaper, but
all the cities around Phoenix, like Scottsdale and Tempe,
also have their own papers.

Because PWC is a Web site, there's an assumption we
should be using only online methods to advertise. Online
methods are good, and PWC does use them, but they only
take you so far. Print is a part of the "real world" -- something
you can touch and pick up, not virtual like a Web site. Print
has also been around a lot longer, and carries more trust
with it. We found by using print, some of that trust and "real
world" essence rubbed off, making PWC seem less
anonymous and more like a "bricks and mortar" business
(a business with a store front).

Also, since we were trying to drive local traffic to the site, it
made sense to advertise locally rather than attracting
people from all over the world. But even with our local
advertising, we still have a substantial number of visitors
from around the state, including Phoenix and Tucson, as
well as all over the globe.

The point of our marketing program was to advertise
regularly so we could both build the PWC brand and drive
traffic to the Web site. Yet it was essential to keep our costs
down. So we leveraged our monthly newspaper advertising
to stretch our marketing dollar as far as we could. More on
that and how we "thought small" in Part 2.

Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com