Monday, September 21, 2009

Diffrence Between Social Networking and Social Bookmarking

The social media websites both networking and bookmarking have found a place in the world of internet marketing. I have heard theories from top experts in SEO and general internet marketing that Google and other major search engines are headed in the direction of using these as resources to figure out what is popular on the web and give the sites a bump up in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Of course these are only theories and Google right now is still using mainly older ways of figuring out who should be on top of SERPs mainly through determining authority through links coming into a website. Now even though social media websites both networking and bookmarking offer backlinks (most nofollow) they also offer referral traffic and enough referral traffic to provide a reasonable income.

Before beginning a social marketing campaign you must have an understanding of the different social websites. First and usually the most helpful to a webmaster or blogger is social bookmarking. These websites include digg.com, stumbleupon.com, and others. A brief description of a social bookmarking website is a community of people usually in the millions which votes on the websites which are submitted. If a website submitted to the community is well liked then the votes for the website if the quantity is enough will reach the front page of the social bookmarking site which will lead to a tremendous amount of traffic and for a while the website will receive a nice backlink from a very authoritative source. Social bookmarking is good for anything new, personally I use it for all of my new blog posts and if I create a new page on squidoo, hub pages, or a knol I will submit it to a few social bookmarking websites.

The second type of social media website I would like to discuss is social networking and probably websites which you are a little more familiar with. These websites include myspace.com, facebook.com, and twitter.com. Where many internet marketers go wrong is misusing these websites and rather than network with others they spam the hell out of them. This is not the correct way to market on social networking. The reason social networking is a great resource for internet marketers, webmasters, and bloggers is they allow us to really connect with people which can be potentially rewarding. I have found it very useful setting up guest posts, link exchanges, and other marketing endeavors using social networking. The number one rule of social networking is to connect with others not to promote your website. Now myspace, facebook, and twitter, all have different places to place your URL to your home page and this of course is fine, but if the only thing you tell people which follow you is to visit your blogs and website more than likely they will not follow you for long.

The third and last type of social media is blogging and cover pages. These websites include blogger.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com, squidoo.com, hubpages.com, Googles knol, and many others. This type of social media can truly make you quite wealthy just ask Darren over at Pro Blogger. These websites made starting, running, and making money off a web presence very simple and provided it all for free. I tell everyone even when they already have a website to start a blog in there niche. I just read on technorati that there are over 100 million blogs so if you do not have one it is time to start.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post if so be sure to sign up and become a reader (top right) I hope to see you again.

Content is the King of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing has truly become an art form which millions upon millions compete to become the most unique and individualistic trying to drive just a few more hits to their web presence. The major discussion behind internet marketing has to do with which is more important in a marketing campaign backlinks or content. I can truly say that content is the most important aspect of internet marketing and not only through articles directories, but also link bait. The goal of an internet marketer should always include being published by all the major article directories on the web such as ezinearticles.com, buzzle.com, articlesbase.com, ehow.com, and isnare.com. All of these have a page rank of 5 or better and ezinearticles.com is one of the top 500 most visited websites in the world. Now when it comes to your own web presence having a constant stream of fresh unique content is also very important and should be done on a daily basis.

First let’s discuss the concept of using content as a way to market your web presence whether it is a blog or website on third party websites such as article directories. Usually when you write an article and submit it there will be some type of compensation. Some websites such as associatedcontent.com is a website that pays you a certain sum for the content which you create. Other websites such as the ones which I listed in the previous paragraph pay in backlinks and getting paid in backlinks is usually the most common form of payment among article directories and in most cases the most prosperous form since the traffic driven will usually lead to a higher financial income then a website such as associated content. Also when you write articles for these websites if they prove the expertise which you have then you will slowly become an expert in your field. This is one of the easiest ways which to gain backlinks, money, fame, what we all attempt to acquire while running an online business.

The second way which content can be quite helpful is when you become good at creating link bait. Link bait is a form of content whether text, audio, video, or pic which through its incredible uniqueness, boldness, information shared, or ability to help that building links is not required the info gains links on its own. There are several ways which to do this and in the online business world usually creating link bait comes with becoming an expert. I have created link bait quite a few times and have found one of the easiest ways in which to do so is through large lists. These lists can be whatever you like in your niche. Personally I run a couple internet marketing blogs and list the best places which to gain backlinks. If for example you are running a business website or blog then I recommend creating a list of the best business websites or a list of the best marketing websites either one would work. You could also create a list of the top 100 things you should do when running a business online.

Google Is Not Mean but Fair

While looking through the webmaster forums I see constantly titles that ask why Google has de-indexed a website or why Google has dropped a website deep into the SERP’s (search engine results pages). Usually when reading the post I notice that the webmaster or blogger takes what Google does to their website or blog very personally. Remember when this happens do not take it personally Google deals with millions upon millions of websites and a few months ago in their blog explained the true growth and size of the internet. They say the internet has reached over 1 billion unique URL’s. That is a massive number so next time something happens in Google remember that you are only one among a billion.

Now after thinking about the size of Google it is important to understand that you can reach the top of Google and not be de-indexed if you follow certain simple theories which will keep you on the up and up of Google. The first I would like to discuss is not doing anything shady and what this means is if you are trying to “trick” the Google Bot then usually you will be struck down and either taken out of Google entirely or dropped way way down into the SERPs. So do not do anything which seems like it is sneaky or anything that is spoke of as black hat SEO or expect to do poorly.

The next thing a webmaster or blogger should do is begin learning about SEO. This is the fundamental and basic process of building a website around being indexed appropriately into Google. Let say you build a website which sales hats and would like to rank for the term “buy hats”. Well on your homepage it is necessary to have the word hats and good practice placing the term hats and buy hats into a heading on your home page. This way as Google goes over your website they will see in big letters buy hats and know that your website has to do with selling hats. Now something which would be considered black hat SEO is if you put the term buy hats 100 times throughout your website this would be seen by the Google bot as you do not care if people can read your web page and you are trying to trick the Google bot into placing your web page above other web pages within your niche not by being a better web page or website, but by having a word repeat a ridiculous amount.

One other aspect a new website owner should think about is acquiring links which is the driving force behind the web. Gain links that are in your niche (category of website such as business or marketing) and gain links from websites that are authoritative which you can find if you download the Page Rank bar onto your Google toolbar so you can see the page rank. This will help you decide the best places to aquire backlinks and rank well in Google as well as other search engines.

I hope you guys like the post and remember if you are interested in making money visit make money online free.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

SEO ~ Determine The Importance Of A Page

Perhaps reading the title you may be thinking I am going to discuss the Page Rank issue which still holds some importance, but very little. This is actually not what the article is going to discuss, but rather which pages you feel are the most important for your visitor to see and some of the actions which you should be taking to make sure that these pages are what your visitors land on. Usually the home page is one of the most important pages which you should be worried about and from there your first sub pages (the pages one click away from your home page should be your next consideration.) The home page as most of you know is the overall description of your website and offers navigation to the rest of your website.

Let's discuss your home page first since the majority of your internal hyperlinks as well as external hyperlinks will be pointing to it. Usually the first page you work on it will need to be the best looking, most informational, and easiest to navigate around. If you have a low bounce rate usually this means the visitor clicking onto your home page has found exactly what they are looking for. If you have a bounce rate of over 50% and your visitors are not leaving to your affiliate sites or other web pages/blogs then you should think about re working your home page so it is clear and easy to understand why you have the presence on the web. Now after your home page is set up and holding a bounce rate which you feel is right the next important thing to do is set up the sub pages for correct internal linking and optimized to become an entrance page.

Before we get to much further it is important to understand that no one knows exactly how Google determines their serps pages, but millions of us have our own theory and mine is still the older theory which is Google places a website in the SERPs ranked on basic SEO (word density, title, anchor text, ect.) and backlinks from external websites. So I am placing a high importance not only on links coming in from external sources, but also the internal linking of the web page which you have in place.

So the sub pages have been created there are a couple things I would like you to think about. The first is the title in the head tag. This should show exactly what your sub page is offering rather than just leaving it blank. Placing a title tag in with the title of your sub page making sure it is diffrent from your home page is key to gaining an increase of visitors from search engines since they will list that sub page in the SERPs (search engine results pages) with the title which you give it. For example I have a website and the title to the home page is Make Money Free. Now my main sub pages right off the root all have titles catered to what they offer. For example I have a sub page named Make Money With Surveys and another Make Money Reading Email. It all depends on what the sub page does.

The sub pages are now all named correctly (right?). The next thing I would like you to consider doing is a little more advanced in terms of SEO and it is thinking about the internal link structure of your website. You will want all your sub pages to link back to your home page and rather than placing home in the link or main I highly recommend placing the title of your site or keywords you would like your main page to rank well for. This will give you free links back to your home page. Also make sure to place your meta keywords (still important for yahoo and other search engines less advanced than google), meta description, and it is a good idea to have an h1 at the top of your sub page with the title/keywords you would like the page to be ranked well for.

Well I hope you enjoyed my little spill on SEO if used correctly you should see an increase in your search engine traffic. I will be going over some of the diffrent concepts in later posts. If you are interested in making money I do have a website which helps and gives plenty of resources to make money you can find it at make money online free.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Don't Give Up Ever

Well on my well earned break;) I thought about how easy it is to slip away from your blog then when you come back after a couple of weeks you notice your readers are gone and your search position is suffering. This really sucks, but I feel is one of the biggest reasons most people give up. When their blog or website does not go the way they planned it seems to me that this is when you find if you are a true blogger or not.

Now the key to finding out whether you are a true blogger is ask yourself why did I start this blog? What is the actual reason not the BS you give your friends, but the truth to why you spend each night writing a post and commenting on other posts. If the reason is not because you love the subject material at hand and lover expressing yourself then more than likely you will not make it very long. If you start a blog for money in this day and age don't expect to get far or if you start a blog to become as famous as Mr. Chow or well known as Pro Blogger then don't expect to make it very far.

This is something I may have hounded a little on in the past, but passion is one of the greatest attributes of a blogger and when their chips are down guess what they don't close the lap top and go find a real job they keep plugging away. Guess what you are not going to get to the top of the SERPs for a big keyword (one with over 50,000 monthly views) unless you have it set in stone and truly believe that if you stay at the bottom you will keep blogging. I have been at the top for some pretty competitive terms with this blog and my website. I did not expect to be there, which I think was one of the main reasons I reached such high standings. This aspect of blogging is the unwritten law no one gets anywhere quickly and those who don't think of where they are at usually will end up much farther ahead than those who are constantly checking and worrying about the SERPs.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post if so be sure to become a reader. Also if you are interested in making money I have searched and listed the best places which do not charge at my website make money free.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Understanding Link Bait

One of the most powerful marketing/blogging aspects is acquiring link bait. First let us discuss the basic definition of link bait. Link bait is a media whether text video or other that is of a caliber that other web presences automatically link to it without any type of interaction between the webmasters. It is truly the driving force of the internet and separates websites and blogs that make it from those that do not. Now if your in the market for an internet marketing professional something that I strive when marketing for clients and I hope any internet marketer strives for is making sure that the client understands that paying for linkbuilding or backlinks in general is only a quick fix and will not keep the presence up in the SERPs. I have found it much better to spend time on first making sure the website I am working on is well optimized and second the webmaster is constantly striving to create link bait.

There are a few ways in which you can make something link bait. My favorite way to create link bait is to create a list which is not easily replicable. This means that the list must be a size that would take other webmaster quite a while to replicate I would say make your list of whatever it is at least 25 or longer. One good example of link bait that I have created link list format would be my Top 55 Social Bookmarking Websites this took be about 15 hours or so to create and whenever I write a really good blog post I use this list to market it.

Making a list is not the only way in which link bait is created. If you become a phenom such as Darren over at Pro Blogger or John over at John Chow.com then every post you write becomes link bait though this happens only to the very few great bloggers. Now I have made a little money online and the money I have made comes from the links which I have created on my own. This blog makes very little and the only reason I continue to post here is I absolutley love Internet Marketing. So the second way to create link bait is to become a well respected blogger read by thousands. By the way before I forget I am published on ehow.com and the article was on linkbait. If you would like to read it go to How to Create Link Bait. I have found ehow very helpful in internet marketing and I hope you like the article.

The third way to create link bait is to write an article, post, or create a video so unique and informative that others link to it. Rather than spending so much time buliding links to your website search your niche and find something that is missing whether an idea or perhaps a presence such as a forum or other type of site and build it. I have noticed a lack of niche video sites perhaps this is an unproductive endeavor or perhaps you could make millions only time will tell. Anyways make an effort to find what is missing throughout your niche and fill the gap. You may want to call this niche marketing, but rather than finding a niche an only creating a website try to figure out what that niche is really missing and rather than doing a bland old website put forth the effort to find what that niche is really missing.

The last thing I would like to discuss with you is it is ok to let others know you have just finished creating a new presence post or whatever you just built. This is why it is good to build relationships with bloggers in your niche so they can blog about whatever you built. There are those on twitter who have thousands of followers these are excellent people to get on your side. Most social bookmarking sites have a community aspect that allow you to communicate with others. What this does is give you as a webmaster/blogmaster/forumaster the ability to make friends on a platform that thrives on voting you have a new post on digg + a bunch of friends on digg you will have a steady stream of votes pushing you above the rest. Now it is not easy and this can not be done quickly, but if you put in the time to realy build virtual relationships it will pay off.

A big thanks to Free Reviews on Scams for featureing my blog on their website.

Marketing on Internet Forums

The title is a bit misleading, but if you understand the proper etiquette of forums they can lead to thousands of targeted visitors, leads, and sales. One of the most important thing about marketing with a forum whether in your niche or not is to make sure that you do not spam. If you sign up to a forum and the first post you make is a huge copy and pasted ad then 9 times out of 10 you will be thrown out of the forum banned and pretty much forgotten about. Now if you enter the forum with your first month or so attempting to make friends and learn/teach about the subject of the forum then you should do alright. When on the forum the number one rule is to be friendly, courteous, and helpful.

Now your first month on the forum should be kind of like the first month in a new school. Take your time finding all the clicks and doing your best to not screw up. In this school the preppy good kids who make friends with the teachers (forum admin) will be the ones who will have the most leeway when advertising. If a moderator or well respected member of the community leaves a link to their site usually the forum admin will let it slide as long as the link pertains to the subject material. This is key to getting direct traffic from a forum and is a very good reason to be in forums that have pertain to your web presence. Personally I own a website marketing blog and because of this I spend countless hours within v7n and DP looking through all the new posts answering and asking questions and trying my best to give the best content possible.

Now this will help get visitors, but it is not the only way. Most forums allow you to add a signature where you will be allowed to leave links to your web presences and this can help both get visitors through clicks as well as help your placement in the Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs. Links are definitely the only factor to consider when trying to rank well in Google or others, but should be taken into considerations since they are the deciding placing factor of websites that represent the same content. Now you need to learn BB code and to do this all you need to type into Google is either learn BB code or BB code tag list both of these will bring up websites very useful in giving you the tools necessary to learn how to take full advantage of your forum usage.

One thing I want to make clear is never use a forum to spam this is all too common and the reason there are so many moderators on forums is to ban people who spam. Keep the conversation active on the same topic and try to spend time each and every day in your niches forum learning about all the new things happening. Anyway I hope you found this article active.

I'm Back

Hey guys sorry about being away for so long. I moved into my apartment and had to wait a week for my internet to be set up then once the internet was set up it still did not work. They said I would have to wait another week until they would be able to get out to my new apartment so I decided to rip apart and rewire my phone jack which worked. Anyway I will be back to posting much more regularly.

There is a new site well not really new, but I think that it has some real potential. This website lets you set up your own social network with forums chat whatever you want and it is all for free. The website is Ning I highly recommend you think about setting up an account I am slowly working on my social network for internet marketers. Really though you can set it up for anything the sky is the limit I hope you like it.