Website Marketing Resource

Blogging is a term that means different things to different people. To some people it means keeping an online journal. To others blogging is about creating a community of people who can contribute to a growing discussion on a specific topic. To me, however, blogging is about creating and running an entire web site. That’s because blogging can actually be used as a complete content management system for almost any web site.

There are several reasons why you should consider using blog pages to run your entire web site. These include:

* You can make changes to your web site content without the need for specialist software

* You can make changes to your content from anywhere you can access the web; you don’t need to be at your PC.

* You can make changes to content quickly ? more quickly than with software.

* You can make changes to content without incurring cost ? unlike using a web design agency.

* You can use blogs to create content with colleagues, working as a team ? something that’s more difficult and more costly with software.

Most people in a new year make resolutions to make more money and attempt to make money online. However it is also true that a vast majority of people fail to actually make money online. Why is this? Most people in their haste and enthusiasm to make money online go all out and attempt to "try their luck" and go around purchasing advertising to promote and try to sell whatever affiliate program or home based business opportunity that they have with no results to show for it. So not only are they not making money, they are losing money online.

How then can you make money online with any business? While many people tend to try to complicate our lives, this article shows you two steps that you can take today to increase the success of your online business and make you money online.

If you’ve been involved in SEO (search engine optimization) for a while, you may remember the time when you could create a web page and get it ranked at the top of any search engine with little effort.

All you had to do was load up the page with the keywords you wanted to rank high for, make sure your meta tags were stuffed with those same keywords, submit the page and within a few days or weeks you’ve captured a top 20 or even top 10 result.

The major search engines were pretty easy to figure out. Some focused on the first 90 characters on a page, others gave more weight to the title tag in your HTML, another paid more attention to the overall content and finally some used a combination of factors to determine a page’s rank. And if you were a search engine expert, you knew which engine looked for what information.

Back then, you didn’t get penalized much for keyword stuffing, hidden text, and some of the other tactics that can get you into trouble in today’s world.

The bottom line is search engine optimization for the average webmaster was almost like a cakewalk years ago.

Articles, What Can They Do For Me?
 by: James Trivolette

Google’s Jagger

The Google update “Jagger” completed it’s 3rd and hopefully final update. The 3rd update has been live for a couple of days at Google’s data center IP 66.102.9.104. Like I said in my last bit of “Jagger” news, this update did not hit all data centers at the same time, instead they are doing one data center at a time. So hopefully in a week or two, life will get back to normal. The following list is how we believe Google has handled these issues in the Jagger update:

1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy?

2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links) Relevancy?

3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to 1) & 2)?

4) More weight thrown back to PR at top domain?

5) Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy?

6) Possible introduction of CSS Spam filtering?

7) Overall Blog demotions?

8) New and unresolved “canonical” issues?

Make sure you have all your P’s and Q’s straight.

Blackwood Productions Article

Google tells us there are 4 billion websites- almost one for everyone on the planet. And today you have decided to make it 4 billion and 1. So, do you think- "If I build it, they will come?" seriously? It ain’t going to happen, unless you stand out. So do you think your 10 year old nephew who can code html (which I believe they now learn in pre-school, just after they have done the alphabet) is going to make your site the next eBay? Let me give you a few questions to ask yourself before you double his pocket money.

1. What is the purpose of your website?
In business, there are three main types of websites:
? the brochure site
? the lead generator site
? the online shop

The brochure site is an online support to your offline marketing. You will refer to it in your ads, because you pay for ads by the square inch, and acres are cheap on the internet. You will refer to it in your Yellow Pages ads, your business cards and your brochures. An online presence will give you a credibility that your competitors without a website (getting fewer every day) don’t have. But in the end it is just an online version of a tri-fold a printer might do for you. There is nothing wrong with a brochure site, if this is all you want in your marketing plan.

There are no hidden secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines. All that is needed is a basic understanding of how search engines work and a bit of know hown Perhaps the biggest contributing factor to a successful web site is incoming links. Without links, your website will more than likely go unnoticed. So how should you accumulate these links? Below are a few basic methods to accumulate quality back links

Before you get started

You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines. You could have the greatest deals in the entire world, but if no one knows about them then your efforts are wasted. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also countless numbers of companies and freelancers out there who offer SEO services. Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first. Remember, NO ONE can guarantee top placement in major search engines, no matter what they say.

Good overall optimization, the right keyword phrases and quality content play the key roles in the success of any web design project. Link Popularity and Google PageRank are almost secondary for the overall success of a website.

Here is an example. I recently took advantage of a free service offered by a competing SEO firm. It was for a Free Keyword Analysis. Sounds like a great deal, we charge $129 for the service and it’s almost a give-away. I wanted to see what they were offering for free so I inserted the URL of one of our clients, fkpfishing.net in the form, added my personal e-mail address and hit enter.

When I received the e-mail results a couple days later (quick by any standard) I was told that the site’s link popularity is very low and that it is not optimized for the keyword "float tube" as well as it should be. They also informed me that the site’s Google PageRank is only 4/10.

Link popularity of course refers to the amount of links that are around the web that point back to your site. I was told "there are only 192 sites that link to yours, according to Google’s database" and they searched for "float tube" and it did not bring any top 10 results on Google search or Yahoo Search. Actually it is #16 on Google for that keyword.

Promotional Tips and Methods For Your Site
 by: Aaron Wilmont

When the time has come to begin sending hits to your website the first thing you will want to do is submit it to the primary directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, Web World Index and Joeant. You have a choice of submiting your site yourself or instead using a paid service to do it on your behalf. Once you are completed with the submissions you have the option of using pay per click advertising like Overture. If you are a work at home business you could be on a tight budget, however. In this event their are other methods to drive much needed visitors to your website which are either free or very low cost. The downside is that these methods normally take more time than the paid ones but in my opinion are usually worth the effort, especially if you are a home business which needs to do many tasks in -house anyway.

Just about every successful Internet Marketer will tell you that, “The money is in the list”. But, how do you go about building a good-sized email list? Here are several wise ways that you can use to start building your own large list of email addresses.

Wise Way #1 - OFFER A FREEBIE

You have to give in order to get. If you want people tooffer up their email address, you`re going to have to offer up an incentive. Nothing works better than something that`s complimentary (you spell that f-r-e-e). You can give away no-cost reports, books, software, or even sample pages of a book.

Wise Way #2 - USE POP-UPS

Pop-ups are one of the most common methods you can use to capture email addresses and build your email list quickly and with ease. Simply construct a web page containing code for a form and set the page to open (pop up) when visitors enter or exit your site.

Make sure the pop-up offer is something that`s valuable enough to motivate visitors to take time to give you their contact information. Your offer can be a complimentary report, download, or ebook that arrives instantly through your autoresponder to their email inbox when they give you their email.

It is difficult to for a real estate agent to be successful today without a Website. First, your customers and prospective clients expect you to have a Website, simply as a matter of credibility. Second, a Website is where you have an opportunity to promote yourself, your listings and your services to your local marketplace.

Websites offer several advantages for real estate agents because they:

• Are available 24 hours daily, 7 days per week on a year-round basis
• Give you the same marketing clout as agents with more resources
• Generate sales leads
• Provide credibility
• Offer a means of making information available to customers, prospects and the public
• Provide a platform for running special promotions, especially when used in conjunction with an email newsletter

If your competitors have a Website and you do not, then you suffer from a competitive disadvantage. Let’s face it, people would rather surf the Web to get information than pick up a phone to call their local Realtor.

Another good reason to have a Website is to acquire non-local business. Suppose someone is thinking about moving to your area, or is an absentee landowner who has a property in your area that he wishes to sell. How will they even know you exist if they can’t find you when they do an Internet search?