Website Marketing Resource

Email is a vital part of doing business online, but are you setting yourself up for SPAM complaints? If you are accused of spamming, whether it’s true or not, there are serious consequences that could potentially shut down your online business.

Are Your Emails CAN-SPAM Compliant?

The CAN-SPAM law has caused quite a bit of confusion about what is and is not acceptable when sending out business or commercial related emails.

Here is the link to the official Federal Trade Commission’s webpage “The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers” that explains the CAN-SPAM law and how to comply.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm

Pay particular attention to the second paragraph:

“The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site.

A “transactional or relationship message” ? email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship ? may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.”

Exchanging links can be a great way to build relations with other sites and boost your ranking at the same time. You never know how many friends you can make and what you can learn from them. So let’s get started.

First, you need to create a links page. This links page needs to look and feel the same as the rest of your site and should include instructions on how to link to your site and an example of the description you want. If you use buttons for links, make sure you include a text link somewhere so search engines can find your links page easily.

Now that you have your links page ready, it’s time to start looking for link partners. When searching for link partners, start by searching for your keywords in Google and choose 10 to 20 sites that have content that is related to or can compliment your site. Then, add a text link with a brief description of thier site on your links page.

So You Want Big Profits From Your AdWords PPC Advertising? Everyone wants to make $300 a day or more with their AdWords campaigns. You’ve started a few campaigns, spent a few dollars, and now you’re wondering - “where’s the payoff!”

There’s no secret to AdWords success. Like anything, joining the big leagues of AdWords profits means you must put in the hours. In this case, it’s hours of keyword work.

Extensive Keyword Research

There are literally thousands of keywords for every industry. By advertising a thousand or more keywords you will greatly increase your chance of getting clicks at a cheaper rate.

Consider this:

Campaign A: Your AdWords campaign has only 4 keywords. These keywords are the most popular keywords for your industry. The average CPC is $1. These keywords get 6000 searches a day. Your campaign is getting a 2% CTR which means your getting $120 clicks at a total cost of $120.

Campaign B: You research and bid on 2000 keywords. The average CPC is .10 These 2000 keywords also receive 6000 search queries a day. Again using a 2% CTR, your campaign is delivering 120 visitors. But instead of paying $120 as in Campaign A, you are only paying $12.

In a perfect world, everyone would be honest.

In a perfect world, no one would violate search engine policies to try get a better listing.

They’d respect the terms set out by the search engines. It’s not a perfect world. And especially not when it comes to the highly competitive search engine optimization industry. Prime example;

1) Here is a quote taken from a “search engine optimization” website;

“Sophisticated doorway pages (those that contain unique optimized text) are still an excellent way to rank with the search engines.”

2) Here is a quote taken from Google’s Webmaster Guide;

“Another illicit practice is to place “doorway” pages loaded with keywords on the client’s site… The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant…”

When I was in the sandbox (and I don’t mean the Google Sandbox) my mother taught me to be sure my information comes from the horse’s mouth. That’s still good advice today.

Which are lies and which are misconceptions?

Who knows? Did the SEO (search engine optimizer) actually read Google’s Guidelines? Is it old advice that hasn’t been updated for years?

When it comes to researching for niche markets, many people are confused and are never quite sure if they have found a niche that is open to additional competition and still has considerable demand, or if the niche is closed off to new entry. The answer is there is almost always demand in niche markets, and if you feel the demand is being met then there is demand for additional niches within a niche market. When researching niche markets and trying to decide what would be most profitable, you should first look at what you enjoy and would be best at doing day in and day out. The reason it is important to analyze your desires and strengths is because you want your home based business to work and be profitable, and if you do not enjoy it you will not be able to give it the attention it needs to grow, regardless of the demand within the niche. So, evaluate what you like, your skills, what services or products you can provide, and then begin figuring out the niche for your particular skills and products. If you don’t feel there is a high demand, or the market is already saturated, then consider altering your product or service a bit so there is a niche market for it. All you really need is a little creativity.

Ezine Publishers, Don’t Be Long-Sighted!
 by: Mike Beatham

Dear E-Publisher/marketer,

I want you to think about the following:

• How valuable has your email list been to you in the past year?
• What are you trying to achieve with your ezine(s)?
• Which products will REALLY help you expand your opportunities and sales?

They sound so obvious when they are highlighted like this, but many ezine publishers and marketers get caught up in areas that really aren’t helping their business - free traffic from un-targeted sources, banner submitters that may as well scrawl “clicking this link will give your PC a virus” on your ad, and other useless promises that annoy and disappoint us all.

This is all about back-to-basics thinking. There is a time to be clever, and a time to be smart.

If you have been disappointed with your ezine’s performance over the past year, it’s probably not your fault - you may have a huge list and you may have great products. But whatever your performance, I guarantee you are still spending too much time, and too much money. All you want is one resource with 10 simple products, any of which will be the 1st - 10th best investment you could possibly make out of thousands.

Quick question… do you publish ‘Articles’ on a regular basis?

I’m talking like on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

If so, then your in for a real treat.

If you haven’t heard, RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is taking the Internet by storm because of its many Benefits, especially for someone(you) who provides fresh ‘Quality’ content on a regular basis.

Not only does RSS GUARANTEE 100% delivery to whoever opt’s in to your feed(s), it can also ‘Syndicate’ your content across the Internet in an instant to thousands of websites and portals delivering an avalanche of FREE targeted traffic to your website(s) at NO Cost to you what so ever.

WoW! Was that a mouthful or what? It gets better, so hold on.

We all know that without Traffic to our website(s) we have no business.

We also know that the Internet is starving for fresh content on a Daily basis to feed its evergrowing appetite for information.

The upside to this IS if your someone(you) who publishes articles as one of your means of online promotion for your website(s) then your in for a real ride.

With 95% of all Internet businesses failing, it is important to find out what actually works and what doesn’t. Most online business failures can be attributed to one or more of the following marketing errors:

1. Free Domain Hosting. Failure to obtain and use your own domain name gives your site visitors a poor impression of you and your online business. With domain registrations under $10/yr., there is no good reason not to have your own domain name.

2. Poorly Constructed Web Sites. Your web site is an extension of you and your online business. It should be attractive, professional and easy to navigate. Using a lot of white space between paragraphs makes it easier for your visitors to read your message. Include links at the top and bottom of every page so that your visitors don’t get lost. It is a good idea to have a friend or business associate review your site and provide feedback.

3. Lack of Good Web Site Content. Offer your visitors free, valuable information and not just a sales pitch. By offering free, valuable information you will establish credibility and make your site visitors feel you genuinely care.

Link Exchanging Basics
 by: Mjmls

When it comes to Website promotion, gaining quality links is important. However, many people have a different idea of what defines a Quality link. Here I have listed the link considerations used by Mjmls.com when a suggestion is made to the Directory.

Utilize Foresight, Not Hindsight, When Link Exchanging:

Regardless of the premise behind a link exchange, webmasters are essentially sharing traffic. This is done either directly with physical clicks or indirectly through search engine recognition. While search engine recognition seems to be the major motive of most exchanges, using foresight should prominent.

There are a variety of promotional based information sources the illustrate using the Google toolbar to demonstrate how popular the Website is on the internet. While this is a good idea to get an idea of popularity, it is using hindsight. This rates past efforts the developers have implemented. However, low PR does not mean that Website is unworthy.

The Website may quickly gain recognition. This would make the link exchange valuable or equal in the future. How do use foresight? Mjmls utilizes these standards when considering an addition to the Directory:

Google Sitemaps is a new tool for website owners and publishers, released by Google themselves. It allows you to submit a sitemap (a document that contains links to every page of your site) from your own homepage in .XML or in plain .TXT format that will help Google to spider your pages. This again should result in a faster indexing process of your site and could therefore even result in better search engine placements. You can learn more about the program and sign up for a free account here.

Create A Sitemap For WordPress Blogs

If your site or weblog is published with WordPress you are very lucky because it didn’t take long until the first Google Sitemaps plugin for it was released. The tool, that you can find on the website of the creator, Arne Brachhold, does not only create your xml sitemap totally automatically and update it every time you add new content to your site but does then also ping Google directly to tell them that there are new pages to spider.

Create A Sitemap For Every Other Site