You’ve heard of email marketing, but it isn’t what it used to be. With today’s abundance of spam and even opt-in email solicitations, your messages are competing against hundreds of incoming messages daily.
How are you ever supposed to stand out?
**There are 2 main problems with email marketing today.**
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The first problem is that your email messages are hardly even opened. Even if your headline is compelling, the chances of your email message being read are close to nil. People are becoming increasingly skeptical about the kind of message attached to what used to be the best subject lines.
The second problem is that most website visitors don’t even sign up to opt-in mailing lists anymore. Even those who are interested in your website content are just plain scared to give over their email address to a website they do not know. People are concerned that their email addresses will be sold to third parties and that their “unsubscribe” requests will never be honored.
Is there a way around these problems or is email marketing dead? The answer is simple? Desktop alerts. Desktop alerts are messages that are sent directly to Windows? Desktops instead of being delivered to email inboxes. Desktop alerts are the answer, because they solve both email-marketing problems.
First, they bypass the email inbox and appear directly on the desktop. No more competing again hundreds of incoming messages ? your messages claim the desktop all to themselves, virtually guaranteeing they are read and remembered.
Second, users do not need to give over their email or other contact information in order to subscribe. All they have to do is simply download a small application. If they ever want to “unsubscribe”, they just simply uninstall the alert application.
You can use desktop alerts for the following:
- Promotion — Promote, advertise and increase brand exposure directly on any Windows Desktop.
- Communication — Send your up-to-the-minute news directly to consumers’ desktops.
- Advertising ? Run your own ads or earn revenues by selling ad space on the Windows Desktop.
If the solution is so simple, why aren’t more websites using desktop alerts? Until now, the only way to send desktop alerts was to hire a team of software developers to develop the alerting application for you ? which is quite expensive, not to mention time consuming.
Entertainment and news companies started using desktop application for branding, communication and advertising. Take ESPN.com for example. On their website, users can download an application which gives them daily sports highlights and video commentary, with embedded commercials. So far, more then 1.6 million people have installed it and about half use it daily.
So how do you get started? Well, if you have content your site visitors or clients are interested in, you simply offer them this content in the form of a useful downloadable application. Instead of developing the application yourself, you just customize one of the existing desktop applications with all your promotional materials (such as your own logo, custom icons, banner ads and menu entries). Users will download the application because of its informative and/or entertaining content, special savings, or features like daily alarms, calendar reminders, or task lists. Now that the user has voluntarily invited you into their personal space, you can create a strong, long-lasting impression and deliver desktop alerts just as you would email messages. With desktop alerts, there are no other incoming messages to compete against, and you won’t have to worry about being accused of spam.
Promo Clock has combined all the benefits of interactive promotional products and new era advertising tools, developing a cost-effective application for reaching customers with timely information and updates. Ready-made models as well as custom models based on animated images or Flash presentations are available.
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Reach author Michael Ginzburg at promo@promoclock.com or simply go to http://www.PromoClock.com/holiday/email for more information.
Getting Link partners is vitally important to your website ranking in the search engines including Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now you can get link partners with virtually a few mouse clicks at our site at
google_ad_client="pub-8739436893081398"; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; google_ad_format = "300x250_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; google_color_border = "FFFFFF"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "CC0033"; google_color_url = "CC0033"; google_color_text = "CC0033";
link-exchangers.com” class=”hft-urls”>http://www.link-exchangers.com You will not have to cut and paste any html code, and you don’t even need to know html. You won’t have to upload your html pages to your web host nor will you have to email the other website owner to request a link exchange. These chores are all done for you automatically behind the scenes. All you have to do is browse the directory for a website that you want to trade links with and click on one link. The request is immediately sent to the other member site and their linking code is put up onto your links page instantly with the click of a mouse. You merely have to wait for them to respond to your link request.
The best aspect about our site is that is takes a lot of work out of your hands and saves you lots of time. You’re website’s linking code is stored on our server and you never have to worry about getting this code onto the other website owner’s links page. This is done automatically according to your instructions.
Recipricol linking used in conjunction with onpage and offpage site optimization techniques will have a dramatic effect on your rankings. In most cases, one can learn from the other websites that are ranked ahead of yours and you can try to do things in your page to “one up” the other site.
One of the most important offpage techniques includes the anchor text in your link. It is very important that you choose all your linking text to match what keyword you’re trying to rank high for.
I normally use the same word(s) in the anchor text as I would in the title and meta keyword tag as well. This keyword, or keyword phrase is never something I “think” should rank well, but rather something that I have researched online with a tool like good keywords, or worktracker. It’s always better to see what people have been actually typing into the search engines to see the quanity of requests for the word or phrase. If nobody is typing in this phrase then it’s a complete waste of time and you’ll get no traffic from it. Once I’ve found a good one, usually with over 100,000 requests per month, I will pepper the keywords through the text in the main body of the page. I may also include it in one or two alt tags of images. It’s important to not overdue this as you can be penalized for overduing this at some search engines. This is in a nutshell, one of the ways I’ve gotten a #1 ranking in MSN for a few of my sites.
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Have you looked at your website traffic lately? How much visitors actually visit your site everyday. One of the best ways to attract the visitor to your site is by writing informative blogs.
A blogging directory with a high page rank can do wonders to lift the traffic of your site. Thousands of people are already successfully blogging to create better relationship with their prospects, increase client loyalty and enhance their visibility and brand recognition.
If someone takes the time to get word our there about themselves and their services or products then they are serious about business. If you are one of these people then you need to get max exposure for your blogs and just writing a blog is not enough anymore. The competition is fierce so find blog directories as some of them offer a free listing. A Blogging directory is a perfect solution to people who are in search of new information online.
Most of us know what a blog directory is. Most of us have some knowledge that everyone who has an online presence needs an online blog. Most of us do not realize that blogging in the wrong way is a waste of your time!
Before getting into more information on Blog Directories it is important to know that your blog needs to be set up properly. Here are a few things to know:
Submitting your blog in an effective blogging directory can
? Boost your website traffic
? Increase the size of your email list
? Build trust with prospects and clients
? Can you earn you huge money online
Today you can search and find blogs everywhere on the net, it seems when you search the major directories that blogs show up in top positions. Is your blog appearing in these places? If not, then maybe you don`t know something that these other bloggers do know.
Before getting into more information on Blog Directories it is important to know that your blog needs to be set up properly. Here are a few things to know:
Install your blog directly on your site Make sure you are using full search engine friendly urls with these blogs Do not copy other blogs and post them on your blog as this is duplicate content and will hurt you Add at least 1 post a week if not more.
Don?t waste time on this anymore, get your blog, get listed on directories and increase your page rank. So what are you waiting for make up your own blog and start blogging.
Copyright 2006 Darren Dunner
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An important question to answer when creating or revising a Web site is “What are the goals of this site?” because the answer will drive your site design and marketing decisions.
In Part 1 (http://www.webmarketingarticles.com/CustomerDecision.htm), I took a look at understanding your site visitors’ decision making process and providing them with the right information, thus converting more visitors to purchasers.
Here in Part 2 I will present some tips for attracting the right customers to your site and ideas for profiting through information sites.
Breaking Through the Clutter
If you are like most of us, getting people to pay attention and understand how you can help them is a daunting task. Repeated exposure is one way to catch your target customers’ interest.
James Maduk has a unique system for doing just that, without becoming a pest. He has what he calls a search engine “Site Mesh” consisting of a hub and spoke family of Web sites (The hub and spoke concept is explained further in Part 1.).
By structuring the sites so they are related, but with each spoke a highly targeted, one-page site selling only a single product, he is able to achieve multiple listings on competitive key words in the search engines.
James explains, “What this means is that instead of having one chance of someone finding my site, I now have 55 chances - or as many chances as I have sales pages.”
As an example, James owns three of the top 15 sites currently listed in the Google search engine under “sell audio ebooks”, including the #1 and #2 listed sites. These same results appear in the Yahoo! engine as well, all at no cost.
Managing Sales Sites
In Part 1, Karon Thackston explained the multi-step buying decision and why many of your visitors may not yet be ready to purchase. If you own a sales site, those early in the decision process are not likely to buy from you.
There are ways, however, you can attract visitors to your site who are approaching the purchase stage. One is to have a presence on information sites that attract visitors in your target customer groups. On the information sites, visitors are gathering information and evaluating options. In other words, they are preparing to make a purchase.
Michelle Horstman, owner of Choice Promotional Products, www.choicepromotionalproducts.com, says, “I do get hits from advertising on ‘informative’ sites such as www.barmitzvahfindit.com, where they have a vendor area.”
For those on a limited budget, Michelle suggests purchasing advertising on sites that participate in pay-per-click programs like Overture or Google AdWords.
“When you list with Google and others on your own, you may have to pay more than your ROI would justify.” She explains. “However, when you advertise with an informational site, that site can afford to pay more for the clicks, since they are supported by multiple vendors/advertisers. Ask the site if they’ll offer a trial period so you can see how much traffic it is producing.”
Managing an Information Site
If you run an information site, the majority of your visitors will be too early in the decision process to purchase. So how can you both attract visitors in the early decision stages *and* earn revenue?
You can attract information seekers by structuring each page in your site so it gives information on a specific topic. This expands the list of key words through which searchers can find your site.
Other ways to earn revenue from an information site:
- Initiate the two step selling process James recommends in Part 1.
- Participate in a few select affiliate programs, which you can promote on topic-specific pages in your Web site.
- Join a targeted advertising network such as Google’s AdSense.
- Sell your own advertising space.
In any case, coordinating your Web site marketing to attract visitors in the “right” decision making stage creates a win-win situation. Your visitors find the information they need and you profit - through sales, advertising, or affiliate revenue - by meeting those needs.
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Bobette Kyle draws upon 10+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Her book, “How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site Marketing for Small-Budget Businesses”, shows how to better find, target, and attract Web customers. Read about it at WebSiteMarketingPlan.com - http://WebSiteMarketingPlan.com.
Every one whether it is the client(SEO Service Seeker) or the SEO company (SEO Service Provider ) wants to get good ranking in the search engine’s result.
There are many factors which contributes to the good ranking of a website in the search engine.SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process of arranging a web site’s content to obtain high rankings in various search engines (both the site and individual pages), and includes tailoring on-page text (such as headlines and subtitles) as well as choosing the proper keywords for a page’s meta tags.
Top ten factors of getting Good Ranking In Search Engines are as Under -
1. Title Tag - Presence of important keywords in the title tag greatly improves the ranking in the search engines.
2. Anchor Text Of Lines - Presence of keywords in anchor text helps alot to get good ranking in the search engine results.
3. Keywords Used In Documents Text - There should be good amount of keywords in the document written on the webpage. The more the number of keywords on the webpage the maore better it is.
4. Accesiblity of document - If the webpage is easily accessible from the index page then it is given good ranking by the search engines. the hierarchy for the accessibility of the webpage should not go more than 3.
5. Links to document from website’s internal pages - Good amount of linking to the particular webpage from other internal pages of the website increases its importance and hence increases its image in the eye of the search engines.
6. Primary Subject matter of the site - Primary subject matter of the webpage should be written in a well manner using lists and headings. When web pages are written using headings and lists then it is well read by the search engines. Presence of keywords in the H1 heading also improves the ranking of the webpage.
7. External links to the linking pages - try to increase the number of external links to the webpage that you want to optimize by doing article submission, press releases, directory submissions.
8. Meta Tag - Presence of important keywords in the meta keywords and meta description tag greatly influences the ranking of the webpage in the search engine’s result.
9. Keyword spamming - The more the number of leywords on the webpage the more better it is. But don’t over spam it. if the over spamming of keywords get detected by the search engines robots then the websites may be blocked by the search engines.
10.Uniqeness of documents - If the document is unique then it gets more importance in the eye of search engines.
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Many website owners have cottoned on to the idea of writing SEO (search engine optimised) articles to get one way back links to their website.
If the article is of high quality you are more likely to get 3rd party websites picking up your article and use the content on their site. In doing so this provides a one-way link to your website and significantly improves your own websites search engine position results.
The trick however is to write a quality article that is optimised for search engine keywords AND your readers.
The biggest mistake I see with authors is that they write for the search engines and not their visitors. The result is a short term focus on your website development (and income) because there are minimal return visitors.
Colin McDougall of VEO (visitor enhanced optimisation) in combination with Matt Cutts of Google fame talks about optimising your sites and articles for what people want and not what the search engines rank. I believe in a combination of both - as long as it is subtly optimised for the search engines.
SEO rules and algorythms change continuously as the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) become more sophisticated, but there are a few basics that remain the same.
Meaningful niche keywords and niche keyword phrases that identify what the article is about must be carefully selected. Find out the terms that are used within the niche that you are writing about and list all of these. Create a list of related terms and then organize according to relevance.
Usually, three keywords are used in a single article. The primary keyword should be contained in the title of the article as well as somewhere in the first sentence of the text, as close to the front of the sentence as possible. The secondary keyword must be contained in subsequent paragraphs of the text, as must the tertiary keyword or keyword phrase.
Throughout the article’s text, variants of the keyword or keyword phrase can be used. For example, if you primary keyword happens to be “health” you might use the words well-being, healthiness, healthy, unhealthy, sick, ill and even healthcare are variants of the main keyword phrase. The smarter search engines will pick this up as the search engines at looking at related keywords and the use within a site.
Keyword placement is also important when learning how to write SEO and VEO articles. By using the exact keyword phrase once and then using the words of the keyword phrase separated by a few other words can increase your SEO ranking. For example, “healthcare practitioner” as a keyword phrases could also appear in the text as “healthcare providers and practitioners” and still count toward keyword density.
Optimal SEO articles usually have a keyword density of about 2-3% for the main keyword and 1.5% for the other keywords. Articles with too high in keyword density will score lower on the search engine rankings than those that meet the density optimization rules.
As your articles are ranked by search engines, you’ll find that what is known as keyword spamming, packing an article full of keywords creating an abnormally high density, will result in your article failing to show up in the search results. This is to prevent people from creating nonsense articles that are just strings of keywords. This is bad for your business and bad for website users in general. It is a trend I’m seeing less and less as poorly designed websites are filtered out of the search engine listings.
By learning how to write SEO articles with a focus on your providing high quality information and value for your visitors will encourage repeat website visitors to your site, achieve higher seo rankings and ultimately a greater income.
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Google’s premier of desktop search proves that the desktop is an extremely valuable marketing real estate. Google, which holds about 75% of the Internet search market, just introduced “Deskbar” ? a small desktop application that allows users to search Google directly from their desktops.
Google currently rules the Internet, but positioning themselves on the desktop gives them the power to rule not only the Internet, but also the entire personal computer.
Unlike other interactive marketing avenues, such as website and email, the desktop is virtually free of advertisements and promotional materials. The desktop is competitor free and just waiting to be claimed.
The advantages of desktop search are not limited to Google and their major search engine competitors though. Any website with search technology can take advantage of this new marketing channel including e-commerce and shopping websites, reference sites, online magazines and news sites, and more.
So, if you have content on your site that visitors or clients are interested in searching through on a regular basis, what better way to keep them coming back for more than offering them a desktop search tool? If you could offer them a useful downloadable desktop search application, you could ensure that they will remember you and search your site before your competitors.
Developing a desktop search tool yourself would be quite costly. Luckily, there is a ready-made desktop search tool that can be customized to work with any website’s search.
PromoClock has developed a new desktop search technology that turns your one-time visitors into steady traffic by allowing them to search your site directly from their desktops. To search your site, users simply type their search terms in the desktop search box and click on the “search” button. Users keep the search box running in the background at all times ? giving them constant reminders and opportunities to search and patronize your site.
PromoClock’s desktop search box is not just a simple search tool. It is a full marketing application that brands and promotes your website directly on desktops. Each Search Box can be custom designed based on your logo, website images or even Flash presentations. Further enhance your desktop search box with custom menu entries, banner ads and even your own desktop icons. You may also send time-sensitive alerts for added usefulness and advertising exposure. Alerts can include site related tips, product coupons, company news, event notifications and more. For sites looking to entice users with more than just a desktop search, PromoClock is also a useful desktop alarm clock that tells time and activates personal alarms.
So has Google claimed the desktop search? Maybe for now, but with PromoClock’s easy and inexpensive desktop search box, other sites will be soon to follow.
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Reach author Michael Ginzburg at mailto:promo@promoclock.com or simply go to http://www.promoclock.com/campaign/search_clock for more information.
promo@promoclock.com
It is a very good thing to have internet directories. Why? Because, they are very different to Search Engines. How are they different? Search Engines use little programs called ?bots? that scour the entire internet for updates to millions of millions of web pages right across the world.
Therefore, if your web site is listed in a Search Engine and the ?bot? does not reach your web page or site then your web page or web site is not listed in the Search Engine directory.
Directories are either fully automated, semi automated or manually operated for the content found in them. So, if you can get your web site or web page listed in a directory then you get both bites of the cherry! How?
A directory with good page rank will draw traffic, hopefully finding the link to your site.
?Bots? will regularly crawl web sites or web pages with high page rank. Which means the ?bots? will see your link on a high page rank directory.
This is a much better idea than relying on Search Engines! So, what are the high page rank directories? There is a great deal of them. However, the web directory highlighted in this article is
http://www.baluchor.com/.
Baluchor Web Directory has a page rank 5 out of a possible 10. To have a web directory that has this level of page rank means it has a lot to offer. The ?bots? crawl the directory deeply and regularly. It has an ?easy on the eye? colour scheme and is very easy to navigate around the site. You can three options for link submission, Paid, Regular and Reciprocal. Why not submit your links today!
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SEO Tools have sprouted up from engineers, hackers, wanna-be SEO’s and legimate Search Engine Optimization companies. Many are free, and very good.
But, the fact is - you don’t have to be an engineer to run them. Our compiled list below is used daily by professionals and newer users alike.
Start putting these tools to use and see how they impact your own online business.
#1 - Ranking Analysis
This tool can unveil extremely valuable information on how you can break into the top 10 search engine positions. Check it out at this url
http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/
#2 - Sitemaps
xml-sitemaps.com, they have created a sitemap generator that enables you to create a xml sitemap for Google and a text-based sitemap for Yahoo. In addition, the generator can also create an optional HTML sitemap for human visitors. Go to
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com for step-by-step instructions on how to get started.
http://www.highwebsiterankings.com/site-map/ is an extension to the tool above.
We also like www.sitemapdoc.com - a little buggy though. Make sure to create an account in Google and Yahoo, and get the Sitemap into those administration control systems.
#3 - Keywords Analysis
For a keyword tool that has it all, go to
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
#4 - Keyword Rankings
This tool allows you to track numerous keyword rankings like # backlinks, #pagerank and #daily, weekly and monthly changes in your rankings. Take control of your search engine rankings at
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/
#5 - Link Harvesting
Link Harvester is open source, so web masters are free to share it and developers are free to improve upon it. Do your own link analysis at
http://www.linkhounds.com/link-harvester/
#6 - PPC, Reports, Link Partners & More
* perform keyword mining * use Web site analysis to improve your rankings
* create link popularity reports * quickly and easily find potential link partners
* use automated, semi automated, and guided submission to search engines and directories * manage your PPC campaigns * analyze your search engine rankings.
This is the grand-daddy of all tools: webceo.com. Free SEO Tool download, desktop edition.
#7 - Page Strength
Relative importance of pagestrength
http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php
#8 - Link Popularity
We like www.urltrends.com for beginners.
#9 - Alexa Rank
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/alexa-rank-comparison/ and make sure you download the alexa toolbar.
#10 - Keywords Density Analysis
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php
#11 (bonus) - SEO tool or not?
Not. But, it is very useful in determining the geographic location of an IP address using a bit of AJAX and Google Maps.
http://www.seomoz.org/ip2loc/ip2loc.php
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Let’s face it: There are googols of information about getting high ranking in Google. As a loyal student of Brad Callen’s, I believe he is one of the few who have a solid grasp on what works and what doesn’t in SEO and site ranking.
I’ll try to keep this short and sweet as I boil down the 10 vital steps to boost your SE ranking by hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages:
1. Your title should only be your main keyword. Not too long; the shorter the better, and easier for indexing.
2. The first copy on your page, or the header, should be in h1 header tags.
3. Add h1 header tags. This can be a sub heading for your webpage. You should place your 2nd most important keyword in the h2 header tag. The h2 tag should be placed somewhere in the top half of your webpage.
4. Bold, underline, or italicize some of the keywords one time each, maximum. Only 1 per keyword or it will hurt more than help. Not a crucial step, but creating a little "style" here and there will help.
5. Write your keywords to flow in a natural way throughout your copy, but be sure to include at least one of the keywords per 1-2 paragraphs, depending on how large your page is.
6. Use <alt> tags for images. Something I never did, but will now! Again, be careful on how you name them as not to appear too spammy. Example: For the keyword garden, your first image could be garden image 1, and for your second image, use your next keyword: raised garden graphic 2…etc. - just a little different but keeping your main keywords.
7. Name your images after the main keywords: garden_image1.jpg, garden_image2.jpg, etc.
8. Strategically place your main keyword once at the very beginning, and once at the very end. At the bottom, it could appear like:
© 2005 copyright www.domain.com a site about gardening
9. Make sure Google reads your keywords first - Very important! Many, many people make this mistake: Putting their navigation links in the left hand column. Google indexes your page top left to right, which means the nav links will be indexed before your keywords! To get around this, here’s what you do: You can still create your nav links on the lefthand side, but - create a column JUST ABOVE the nav column, with your keyword(s). Google will read the top first, then that top left column with your keyword, then will move laterally to the right to read the main copy.
10. Do Offsite Marketing
What this means is:
Which websites link to you
The number of websites linking to you
The Google page rank of the website linking to you
The page title of the website linking to you
The anchor text used in the link linking to you
The number and type of links linking to the website that’s linking to you.
The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an authority website.
To learn more about offsite marketing, I recommend Brad Callen’s Article, How To Skyrocket Your Website To The Top Of Google With Properly Planned Offpage Optimization
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