Guide to make money online!

For years, it has been well known that Google’s search algorithm is driven by the number and quality of links pointing to a particular URL. And as a result, it was all the rage for some time to buy links on web pages that had a high Google PageRank (PR).

But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were over.

The Shot Heard Around The World

With Matt Cutts declaration, a world full of online marketers began to cry foul. It was said that “They can’t do that!”

But the truth was and is that the Google Search Algorithm is Google’s intellectual property, and therefore, Google can do anything they want within their algorithms - no matter who those changes might hurt or help.

By the end of the Summer of 2007, the people crying foul had quieted down a bit and got back to the business of trying to find new ways to manipulate their website’s rankings inside of the Google search results. That is the way it has always been and always will be.

The summer of 2007 was just such an oddity… For me, it has always been exciting to challenge the brains at Google to get my websites to rank well within Google’s search algorithms. But for some reason, at that moment in time, many of those who held the top rankings in Google felt as if it was their God-given right to be at the top of Google’s search results, and how dare Google oppose God’s decree in this matter.

Yep, I know I am going to catch flak for that statement - comparing a few webmasters to religious zealots - but that is how I roll sometimes.

For me, Matt Cutts was telling people to work harder to actually “earn” what they have been given. For me, it was a chance to rededicate myself to the goal of ranking well in Google for competitive keywords. For me, I did not have to change anything I was already doing, because I have never gained a single ranking in Google by paying for a link from any web page. (wink)

Google’s Search Engineers Are Not Foolish

Matt Cutts has said time and again that Google does not want to attack any problem in their search algorithms by manually deleting any participant in the Google search ranking game.

Instead, Google in every case wants to program a solution to address a particular bad practice.

I guess it might be easier for me to understand since I am also a computer programmer. It is a hobby I really enjoy, and I exercise my mind with computer programming anytime I want to improve my own websites or to build a new website. I keep my brain sharp by solving problems in computer code.

So, whenever I see Google making moves in one direction or another, I try to visualize how I would solve their algorithm problems in computer code.

In my mind, solving the paid links issue was a super-easy solution. Just look at the pages linking to a particular website, and then do a cross-comparison of the PageRank of all of those linking pages. If all of the pages linking to a particular URL have a PageRank of Four or higher, then chances are that those links were artificially created, through some kind of paid linking system.

Let me explain this in an example, where all of the sample web pages have 100 inbound links each:

• If Site A has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 4 or higher, then that is unnatural and therefore suspect.
• If Site B has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 0, then those links offer no value to the Internet community as a whole, and therefore Site B should not measured as a quality search result.
• If Site C has a mix of PageRank 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 links, then that is more natural in its structure and it also shows that some of the links are considered to have value in the Internet community as a whole. Therefore, Site C has proven itself worthy above Site A and Site B in Google’s search results.

This example should show in no uncertain terms how easy it was for Google to properly address the issue of paid links and to put a stop to people using paid links to manipulate their websites’ ranking in Google’s search algorithms.

Publication Standards

A couple years back, I wrote another article discussing this concept in relationship to article marketing. You can read that article with third-party commentary from Chris McElroy, aka NameCritic, on the Article Content Provider Blog.

In a nutshell, I was discussing the role of article directories in the article marketing industry. Again, this solution came to me from my programming mind. The simple way for Google to have dealt with all of the junk articles that have been written for the purpose of building links to a website is to look at the article in the context of where that article is published.

The article marketing carpet bombers send their articles to hundreds of article directories to get hundreds of links pointing to their website. But the role of the article directory has always been to be a repository where newsletter publishers and webmasters could go to find articles that they would like to reprint in their own newsletters and on their own websites.

Some article directory managers bring a commitment to providing publishers with only quality articles. Other article directory managers approve anything and everything sent to them.

Through computer programming, it is relatively easy to identify which websites are article directories and which ones are not.

If an article is of good quality, then niche website publishers will find the article and put it on their own website. If the article is a crap article, then the only websites that will accept it are those article directories that publish anything and everything given to them.

As a result, it is easy for Google to look at the Linking Portfolio (list of publishing websites) of a single article and to see which articles were considered worthy of reprint by human reviewers. If the article only exists on article directory websites, then the article must not provide any real value to other people. But if the article is of good quality, the article will be able to be located on article directories AND on niche websites.

This concept very elegantly feeds into Google’s overall strategy of determining which web pages people recommend to others. After all, if you look at Google’s PageRank, it is very simply a system which measures how many people have voted on the quality or value of a particular web page.

Expanding On Google’s PageRank Formula

• Google loves any system that they can conceive to measure how much value the overall Internet community gives to a particular web page.
• Google naturally treats links found in the Yahoo! Business Directory and the Open Directory as higher value links, because the search engineers at Google understand that links in these directories are all approved by a human being.
• Google also gives extra value to social bookmarking websites, because the concept behind social bookmarking is that individuals “bookmark” a web page when they find that web page to offer good value to its readers.
• Google openly dislikes paid links and can easily identify those paid links, without having to jump through too many hoops. (This should not be confused with paying for a service that will help you increase your rankings in Google. Paying a service provider to provide services to you is very different than just paying for links on high PageRank web pages.)
• Google also appreciates reprint articles that have a Linking Portfolio beyond the article directories. Once again, Google appreciates reprint articles that are shown to provide real value to individuals in the greater Internet community.

When you take a close look at the original premise of Google’s PageRank, it has always been about creating systems that measure the value of a web pages to find which web pages will best answer a searcher’s question. Rightfully so, Google believes that the best way to ensure that they are able to give their users good quality search results is to look at what web pages others have already deemed useful.

Herein rests the secret to ranking well in Google’s search results. If you can create content that people will find useful, interesting, and valuable to others, then Google’s seach algorithms will look favorably upon your website.

"I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here).”

It’s usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization - a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals for an SEO campaign, it’s usually all about improving their rankings and positions…and often nothing else. Yes, achieving first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable investment in an SEO campaign, you’d think companies in need of search engine optimization services would also be concerned with their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy.

Vastly improved (or even #1) rankings are rather easy to achieve in an SEO campaign, even by a novice search engine optimization company. I once wrote an article demonstrating that top rankings were simple - and proved it by optimizing the article for the phrase “Leprechaun Repellent.” To this day, that article, on various sites, takes up nine of the top ten spots on Google for the ridiculous phrase. The obvious question, then, is what those rankings ultimately accomplish. And so we peel back the layers of the onion until we get there.

The First Layer - Rankings

Rankings, rankings, rankings. This is by far the most popular metric for any SEO campaign. Occasionally, a search engine optimization company may not be concerned with your bottom line because it can offer guarantees and focus exclusively on achieving this goal (even though, as in the ‘Leprechaun’ example above, it’s really not getting you anywhere significant in the long run).

Rankings by themselves mean little, and the problem with companies obsessed over rankings is that it doesn’t demonstrate the usefulness of search engine optimization. For a company website, high rankings are great (and impressive for an SEO campaign), but they are just the first layer of the onion. As any good search engine optimization company will demonstrate, our goal is (and yours should be) to bring and/or improve the levels of high quality traffic to your website, meaning visitors who come to your website via a search are already reasonably interested in your products or services.

The Second Layer - Search-Engine Referred Traffic

Increasing search-referred traffic is not a perfect metric because, if visitors are not converting on your website, there’s not a big value proposition to be had. Alone, the metric relies heavily on the right keyphrase selection by your search engine optimization company during the beginning phases of your SEO campaign.

Say that a farming supply company who wanted to be number one on Google for “affordable farming equipment” decided to try a different tactic while attempting to improve its search-engine referred traffic. If the website had been optimized for ‘Britney Spears,’ for example, traffic levels would undoubtedly be high (if the site ranked well for the term - admittedly a huge challenge), but few visitors would be converting, and business, in turn, would be far from booming. Visitors will jump ship immediately and serve as an immediate reminder of the negative impact that poor phrase selection by your search engine optimization company can have on your long-term ROI.

The Third Layer - Take Rate

Essentially, the take rate refers to the number or percentage of search-referred visitors showing interest in your products or demos (your POA or Point-of-Action). The take rate merely signifies a visitor who demonstrates an interest in your POA, for example, by clicking on a “Contact Us” link. The data you’re gauging here is simply overall interest, since not all of the visitors will follow through and actually convert.

Fortunately, there are ways to improve your take rate during the SEO campaign - making the point-of-action blatant and clear on every page is usually the most effective (but overlooked) method. Collaborating with your search engine optimization company to make certain that the primary POA on your website is indeed the most desirable action that a visitor can take is of paramount importance.

The Fourth Layer - Conversion

Strictly speaking, “Conversion” is the percentage of visitors to your website that actually follow through with your POA. Once your search engine optimization company has helped you improve your take rate, you should work on getting more of those people to actually convert. Is your form too long? Do you show a prominent privacy policy promising not to use or sell personal data? Is it a quick, easy process or do people have to jump through hoops? A good search engine optimization company will be able to help you to identify the elements that are serving as barriers to conversion.

The Fifth Layer - Offsite Metrics

If a client allows it, we like to get involved in the nitty-gritty of offsite metrics as part of the SEO campaign. Though the usual search engine optimization company doesn’t go this far into the process, this area alone proves invaluable to demonstrating your ROI.

By analyzing offline metrics on a granular level, your search engine optimization company can examine and report on your average dollar sale for search-referred traffic, the average dollar value of each search-referred lead, the average lifetime value of each search-referred lead, and much, much more.

A software system is usually required to report the data acquired during your SEO campaign; we use Salesforce, a leading CRM (customer relationship management) solution that can be implemented to track these statistics for you. Though it requires diligence to analyze (as well as follow leads from cradle to grave), your company can analyze which engines attracted the most visitors, which keyphrases were the most profitable, the value of customers, and retention levels.

More than Rankings

All layers of the onion, so to speak, are important to an SEO campaign, but the closer you get to the actual dollar return, the more accurate your assessment of success or failure will be. Rankings alone are no indication of success. For that matter, neither is search-referred traffic if the visitors don’t take an action on the site that can lead to a sale. And when the lead finally comes in, there is no way to track the value unless you follow up with offline metrics to determine exactly how much leads from your website are worth.

These are all base metrics - many campaigns are much more involved and use thousands of different data points. But if you are new to the conversion/ROI game and are thinking about hiring a search engine optimization company, make sure that its goal is to be attuned to your bottom line.

When it comes to increasing your blog reader base and driving more traffic to your posts, there are few platforms more effective than Twitter. Twitter is an excellent tool for connecting with your readers and building a rapport. All businesses should use Twitter as a part of their marketing and branding strategy. For bloggers, knowing how to use Twitter effectively can lead to unbeatable exposure. Here are 5 steps any blogger can take to get his posts to go viral on Twitter.

1. Increase Your Followers

Obviously it’s going to be challenging to get your tweeted posts seen by a lot of people if there are only 20 people following you. Your first strategy should be to increase the number of people that are following you. The easiest way to do this is to follow lots of new people. Newbies tend to follow you right back. You can also look up the target keywords in your niche and follow the people who are talking about those keywords on Twitter. It’s particularly helpful to find the users who have a big following in your niche and then try to get them to follow you because they are the ones that will help your content go viral. Avoid following too many people who don’t follow you back because this can make your account look spammy and give you a bad image. Make sure the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow are about the same or at least not drastically different.

2. Become an Expert in Your Niche

Be consistent with your tweets. Regularly link to interesting articles that you think would be of interest to your followers and provide them with value every time. By regularly linking to informative articles in your niche, your followers will begin to look to you as a great source of information. This is an effective way to build your brand and it will pave the way for you to tweet your own posts. Your followers will be expecting valuable content since you have already positioned yourself as an expert in your niche.

3. Promote Your Blog

Don’t expect people to find your Twitter page and click on your link. Make the most of Twitter by tweeting your own posts! Treat your tweets as if they were your headline. Make them attention-grabbing and interesting so more people click through. Try posting the same tweet twice at different times of day to make sure you reach all your readers who didn’t see your first tweet. When you post a tweet multiple times, make sure to delete the first tweet so you don’t look like a spammer.

4. Write Interesting Articles for Your Blog

This might sound obvious but sometimes the more obsessed people get with promoting their blog and social networking, the less they pay attention to writing posts of good quality on a consistent basis. When you are just writing to fill up your blog, it shows. Make sure your posts are very informative, well-written, and that they provide unique information your readers won’t be able to find elsewhere.

5. Make It Easy for Your Followers to Re-Tweet Your Articles

After you’ve done all of the above, you have to leave it to your followers to do the rest. To make it easier for your followers to repost your tweets, add a “tweet this” link at the bottom of your tweets. How do you do it? Simply go to http://addthis.com/ and place the bookmarking plugin in your html.

If you aren’t already using Twitter, you’re missing an immense opportunity to give your website/blog good exposure. If you’re looking for a strategy to increase subscribers, traffic to your site, and a loyal reader base, Twitter is an indispensable tool that should play a prominent role in your master plan.

For those of us who are running an online business certainly know that it’s not easy to gain traffic to our websites. It requires plenty of tedious work, consistent action, and a desire to make our online business succeed.

There are many ways to get traffic to your website. Some people suggest using a plethora of traffic generating methods. I suggest to find just one way, become very good at mastering this one method and use it over and over again. Learning all the different ways is fine, but keep in mind that the learning process itself will take time in which you could be implementing a traffic generating method that you already know.

In this case it only makes sense to find one method that you think you can master and just stick with it. That way you will optimize the amount of time you have to spend on your online business towards gaining that much needed traffic. Trust me, you will not make any money if you can’t get traffic to your website.

If you want your online business to succeed long term and would like traffic to come as cheap as possible, you’ll want to utilize the power of back links. Back links are simply links on others websites that point back to your website. The more back links you have, the higher your website and websites pages will rank in the search engines.

This is a very important concept to know for any internet marketer. Your goal should be to use a method where you are constantly picking up back links on a daily basis. When you combine those back links with keyword research and search engine optimization, over time you will begin to see your traffic drastically improve. Here’s an example of how I get traffic two ways using one method…article marketing.

The first thing I do is my keyword research. Ill write down a list of about 10 or so keywords that get a decent amount of traffic and very little to moderate competition. Once I have compiled the list, Ill write an article using one of the keywords and post it on my blog. Then I will write another article and submit it Ezine Articles using the same keywords as a hyper link in the authors resource box.

Over time I’ll see that page slowly move up the rankings for those keywords. The more back links I have pointing at that page, the higher and faster it will move up the rankings. I will rinse and repeat this process for all of the selected keywords until I have reached page one for each. It may take a month or more to do. Then I will select another 10 keywords and repeat the process all over again.

You can see how powerful this method is over time. After a year of this process you can be ranked on page one for over a hundred keywords all of which will bring targeted traffic to your website.

SEM SEO Experts are finding ways of establishing higher ranking in search engine results by serving quality content to users. Over the past 10 years, SEO techniques have evolved with the demand of the search engines to serve quality search results to users requesting information. It all comes down to user experience and what online marketing professionals are doing to contribute to optimal search engine results. This evolution in demand for higher quality search results has forced SEO Consultants to develop new strategies for higher ranking. These online marketing professionals have learned from history and are achieving higher rankings for their clients by avoiding black hat marketing techniques. Whether you enjoyed history class or slept through it, you cannot afford to miss this lesson. Sleep too long and you may miss some important pointers from our marketing predecessors.

Ten years ago, the online marketing industry was comprised of traditional marketing professionals with a desire to bring their products to the online market. Most companies interested in marketing products online were marketing to consumers in ecommerce environments. A major consideration in any marketing plan included online traffic generated from search engines. In order to increase search engine traffic, black hat marketing techniques were used frequently to market products online. Keyword stuffing was a frequently used technique by SEO Consultants to achieve higher search engine ranking. Attempting to gain high rankings for a specifically targeted keyword or phrase, SEO Consultants would employ a keyword density of up to 50% to secure first page, first position listings in search engines. Needless to say, the results found by search engine users were less than optimal and the search engines were not serving the quality search engine results they were seeking for users on Yahoo, MSN, or Google.

Another tactic used by online marketers of the past was the establishment of link farms. That practice continues today. Over the past 10 years, SEO Consultants have used link farms to establish higher search engine rankings for their clients. Considered by most experts as black hat marketing techniques, link farms are a bank of links on a page which is established without a relevant theme or associated content to the link farm page. Since search engine optimization professionals realized a large factor in ranking depended upon the number of backlinks to their site, SEO Consulting firms of yesterday were allowing clients to establish links to any page online, regardless of the theme of the website. Today, search marketing experts are finding ways to establish backlinks from relevant theme associated content. By establishing relevant links within a theme or category, a website will be perceived at a higher value to the search engines for that particular category. SEO Consultants of today are finding that a higher perceived value within a category by Google, Yahoo, MSN and others, gives a website the ability to rank higher in search engine results.

Pop-up advertising and Spam are black hat marketing techniques once used by experts in online marketing to achieve higher search engine ranking. Today, search engines still use traffic as a factor in search engine ranking. However submission of identical content within comments on websites, creating identical pages linked to website content, or employing advertising companies to spam online users with pop up or pop under ads just to increase website traffic, will no longer assist websites in higher ranking. Quite the contrary, search engines are penalizing websites which employ black hat marketing. The penalty for using spam techniques can be as minor as a lower value to the search engines and associated search results ranking. The penalty of using black hat marketing techniques can be as severe as delisting with search engines for 6 months or longer.

Studying history gives us the opportunity to learn from our predecessors. The growth of the online marketing industry has established an incentivized environment for increased knowledge in the field of search engine optimization. These new consultants are including optimization of social media content, web 2.0 content and applications, article marketing, RSS feeds, podcasts, and video marketing to communicate directly with consumers at a level expected by the online market. The days of serving irrelevant content to online users and expecting to benefit from the dissemination of that content no longer exist. SEM SEO Experts of today have modified the practices of yesterday to offer techniques to their clients which are ranking higher with the search engines. These new techniques are more effective because they offer users the quality content for which they are requesting information. We are not only learning from the mistakes of our industry’s past, but the evolution of these new practices of online marketing professionals is providing a higher quality online experience.

I recently received this question from someone who had just started article marketing his brand new sites:

"If I know that a link exists to one of my sites via an article which has been published or indeed from another website, how come I don't see it when I do a backlinks check? For instance, at the moment, www.mysite.com definitely has a link from www.myothersite.com and also from articles that have been published. So how come a backward link check registers no links? Just hoping to find out how this works."

That is an excellent question–I think that's a common point of confusion, especially for people who are marketing brand new websites.

Let me help you understand how the the backlink registering works and give you some tips on building more traffic to your site with article marketing.

Here are 2 ways I would recommend doing a backlink check:

*Go to Google, and in the search box type in link:http://www.yourwebsite.com/

You would of course replace the 'yourwebsite.com' part with your real URL.

*And/or you can use Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer actually gives more detailed information, so you may enjoy using that tool.

Both of these link checking methods will tell you how many backlinks that Google or Yahoo has registered.

Now that is *not* telling you how many backlinks you actually have–it's telling you how many links are registered at Google/Yahoo.

Search engines typically take 3-4 plus months to register backlinks for a site, and it can be longer if the site is brand new.

This is just the way that search engines work–they do not reevaluate links on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis–usually it is more like every 3 or 4 months.

I remember when we were first starting our blog, it was only in the 5th month that the links started turning up in a backlink check. We had been building links for all that time, but it just took 3 months for the backlinks to be registered by Google. Then all of the sudden in the 3th month a whole bunch of links showed up.

For a brand new site, you need to give Google a chance to…

1) index your site, and

2) register your incoming links.

That can take anywhere from 3-5 months.

As the site gets more established, the backlinks tend to register sooner (like every 3 months or so), but especially for a new site it just takes Google a bit of time to recognize the site and count the new links.

So, stop looking at your watch, and start looking at the calendar

During that time, you should be busy–busy marketing your site and submitting articles.

I have a few resources that should really be helpful for you as you're starting to market your site:

5 Things To Do Before You Start Article Marketing… (this is a great resource that tells you how to gauge your progress and how soon you can expect to see results–please read it)

Use Yahoo Site Explorer

So, just to go back over things–there are 2 reasons why you might not see backlinks for your site yet:

1) Your site is brand new. Until your site is indexed by Google, no links will show up at all in a backlink check, even if you know for certain that you have links coming in. Once your site gets more established the backlinks will register more regularly, but at the beginning it takes longer.

2) Not enough time has elapsed since you have submitted your articles. After you start article marketing, it will take 3-4 months for the backlinks to register in Google and other search engines. This does not mean that the links are not there or that they are not accumulating with each article you submit–it just means that the Google spiders have not gotten around to visiting your site and checking you links. The links will show up in a few months.

Here's What To Do:

*Read over the resources I gave you above.

*Develop a submission schedule where you're submitting articles for your site(s) every single month.

*If you're very interested in keeping on top of your website's progress, follow the instructions in the post I referred you to above 5 Things To Do Before You Start Article Marketing. You can keep track of your stats every month, but know that it will likely take anywhere from 3-5 months for the backlinks to be registered. There are still other ways to measure progress even as you're waiting for the backlinks to show up. See that post for the other ways.

*Be patient, I know it's tempting to want to see results right away (we all want that immediate gratification!), but this is a marathon, rather than a sprint. The links created with Article Marketing have long lasting impact on a site's ranking and traffic, but it does take months before seeing the impact of your work. Even after you see the impact of your work you should continue to submit articles to build on the momentum, as it's just a natural part of marketing your websites and your business.

From time to time I'll get an email from a person saying, "I've submitted several articles and I'm still not seeing results."

My first questions to them are always–

• What type of results are you looking for?

• What is your means of measuring your results?

• How long have you been article marketing and how many articles a month have you been submitting?

Sometimes the person's answer is,

"I don't think I'm getting any results because I haven't had very much of an increase in sales on my website, which is why I'm doing article marketing. I submitted 5 articles the first month, then I got busy the second month and didn't submit any, and this month (my third month) I've submitted a couple."

At this point I'm wishing that I had the ability to turn back the hands of time so that I could tell this person some very helpful tips before she started that would have eased her mind, helped her measure her results more accurately, and increased her success rate.

For anyone who has just stared doing article marketing, or is on the verge of starting, or who is considering starting, I've got 5 tips for you that will make your life easier.

Oh, and even if you've been submitting articles for a while now and didn't have these tips when you started–it is never to late to do these!

1) Have a realistic time frame for results.

Although a article marketing can produce dramatic results right away for some folks (for example if your article gets picked up by a major ezine and sent out to tons of folks), it is generally a long term marketing strategy that usually does not show significant results for several months.

The reason for this is that Google and the other search enginess don't update your rankings on a daily or even a monthly basis–usually their cycles run every 3 or 4 months where they will re-establish the ranking of a website based on incoming links.

So, when you start article marketing, you may see a dramatic result right from the start if one of your articles gets picked up by a major ezine or something, but please do not expect to see immediate drastic results. Commit to doing your article marketing consistently over the long term, and know that it will likely take 4 months or so to see a noticeable impact.

2) Make a note of your traffic baseline.

Writing things down helps soooo much. It's easy to say after the fact, "Well, I think I remember my traffic being higher than this previously" but if you aren't conscientiously tracking things your memory may be a bit foggy.

There are stats programs out there to help us track traffic–use one of them! Then, create a spreadsheet where you insert your monthly traffic results. Or, if your traffic tracking program generates monthly reports, use those, but please don't look at your stats and try to go off of memory for a few months back. We want concrete data!

For the last completed month, jot down what your traffic was. This is your traffic baseline.

3) Check how many backlinks you have before you start your article marketing campaign.

Google has a cool way of checking your backlinks. Just type this into the search box: link:http://yourwebsite.com (you would substitute the URL of your website after the "link:" part).

Another great tool is Yahoo Site Explorer.

After pressing the "search" button, you should see a list of results that indicate the websites that are linking to your site. In the upper right area of the page, you can see the number of sites that are linking to your site.

In your notebook or spreadsheet, or whatever you're using to keep track of all this information, jot down the number of your website's backlinks. This is your baseline for your backlinks.

4) Check your ranking for your keywords.

This sounds like it might be technical, but it's not! It's soooo easy–just type your keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search box.

Where does your site come up in the results pages?

Are you at #5, #25, #357 or something else?

Whatever your ranking is, jot down that number. This is your keywords baseline. Repeat this process for all your keyword phrases and make a note of your rankings.

Oh, and what if you can't find your website in the results listings?

Don't fret!

Everyone has to start somewhere, and remember that even the #1 site on the search results pages at one time wasn't visible ranked at all! You are just starting out–you don't have ranking yet or perhaps you're so low on the ranking that you're not even listed.

This is fine–you're starting to market your website at least–just make a note saying that you're unranked. You're about to change that!

5) Check your PageRank (click that link if you're not sure what PageRank is).

It also isn't hard to check what your website's PageRank is–just install the free Google Tool Bar found at http://www.toolbar.google.com

When you install that tool bar, you'll be able to see what your web page's PageRank is by looking at the PageRank bar (it will turn green when your web page has PageRank). Hover your cursor over the PageRank bar and you'll see a message similar to this:

"PageRank is Google's view of the importance of this page (5/10)".

In this example, the web page has a PageRank of 5– when they say 5/10, they mean that it has a PageRank of 5 out of a possible 10. Zero is the lowest and 10 is the highest. (We are all aiming for a 10, but it will take a while to achieve that!)

So, look up your PageRank and jot that number down in your stats tracking journal. This is your PageRank baseline.

If your web page doesn't have PageRank yet the bar will be clear, and the message will say "No PageRank information available"

If that's the case, no worries. This probably means that your site is brand spankin' new, and you're doing a great thing by starting an article marketing campaign!

Diversifying Your Eggs

As you can see, there are several ways that you can measure results when you start your article marketing campaign–if you become super focused on any one aspect to the exclusion of the others you will end up with a distorted view of your results, and you'll get an "all eggs in one basket" effect.

When measuring our online marketing results we want to diversify our eggs–have several avenues for measuring results. Why?

Well, search engines are in a constant state of flux, so one area may be going great while another area is at a momentary stand still or has even taken a few steps back.

Just to give you an idea of what you can expect as you're trying to build traffic and links to your website (and this is true whether you're using article marketing or some other marketing tool):

A Day In The Life Of A Website Owner

You check your stats and notice that your PageRank has increased .

Then on the same day you notice that you've moved down a couple notches in the search results for one of your keyword terms .

But your traffic has increased.

Oh, but there is not a noticeable difference in the amount of sales you're making on your site

Now, you can see that if you were only looking at one of these stats that you wouldn't be getting the whole picture. This is why I measure several areas, because you won't necessarily be seeing results for each of these areas at the same time.

I always advise people that when you're starting your article marketing campaign to commit to it for at least 4 months. Submit your articles on a regular schedule, be consistent month after month after month.

Check your stats each month if you like, or just check them again at the end of 4 months. I do check my stats every month, but I don't expect to see results for several months when I'm starting a new article marketing campaign.

The Internet is no doubt a powerful tool to market all sorts of products and services. When you have something to market and sell, the Internet can directly put you in touch with your potential buyers. And one low cost and effective way to do this is by setting up an email marketing campaign.

With email being free and easy to setup, many companies are now using it to contact their customers directly to inform them about new products. An email marketing campaign is a great way to deliver a message directly to your consumers and not have it filtered through other mediums. This is one of the best ways to not only promote your products and services but also spread the word about your business.

Email marketing can take a great many forms as well. You will be able to send out company newsletters, invitations, and just informational emails to those that are on your email marketing list. Emails are fast and efficient for many companies to spread the word about their new products or services to those that are interested in them.

When you launch a product or a service, it is only natural for you to be greatly concerned about the way that your market is going to react. Your business’ success, after all, depends on your customers’ positive reactions to the new product that you are offering.

As you surely know, every business must allocate a significant portion of its budget for its marketing efforts. This is also a reason to cause you some worry as it may be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your various marketing campaigns.

When you are very concerned about the marketing campaign that you are using, there are more than a few marketing services that will help to alleviate some of your concerns. The email marketing service that you use can give you a head start on the campaign to start your business off on the right track. If you wish to ease some of your worries, you should consider hiring a professional service that will handle your email marketing campaign.

When you avail of an email marketing company’s services, you can rest assured that they are developing a strong plan to promote your products. You are taking advantage of their experience and expertise. With a reputable email marketing company on your side, you can be free to focus your efforts on the other aspects of your business.

Using an email marketing company can be a great way to build up relationships with your customers as well. They can help keep you in touch with your valuable customers regularly. Constant interaction with your customers will engender loyalty and help to keep them from buying products from your competitors instead of from you. Your loyal customers are the backbone of your business and you must not neglect them. This is the way that you can keep your business going strong for many years down the road.

Very experienced web site owners know, without any doubt, you have to increase traffic to web site businesses. They also know it can take months to figure out exactly how to do this. If you are new to Internet business tactics then take note of what the experienced entrepreneurs are saying. These are the people who have learnt through trial and error what does and doesn’t work. Many have also ended up wasting time and money on methods that simply don’t get positive results. Those who have succeeded owe their success to their own good products and services. But they also owe their success to a particular strategy that has worked in drawing prospective customers to their web sites.

A big part of any Internet business is in the stats. Business owners want to see positive stats when it comes to how many people are visiting their sites. This is because a certain percentage of these stats will convert into paying customers. This is the reason you set up a business and if your stats aren’t positive then it’s time to take stock of the situation. No matter how bad your stats are you can turn this situation around. If you want to do it quickly then make use an experienced Internet marketer. Find a person who understands how to make contact with Internet users. You want a person who can use language to promote your business and also convince readers to visit your site. The way to go about this is by means of interesting and relevant articles about your products or service. This is how to increase traffic to web site businesses.

Apart from using excellent language skills to write articles your chosen person must have the ability to use specific words that relate to your business and attract both visitors and search engines. These are some of the skills used in a strategy to increase traffic to website offers.

If you are not experienced at attracting visitors to your site or blog you will find it hard to get guaranteed website traffic. If you can get this it the likelihood of your business doing well is very high. We would all prefer a sure thing. However, for many people this doesn’t happen because they get bogged down by trying to monitor their websites or blogs round the clock. Once again, if you don’t know what you’re doing you aren’t going to get the results you are looking for. It really does take a long time to find a method or strategy that works for you. It will save you a lot of effort and time if turn to an expert who already has the strategy in place.

You want somebody who will provide you with guaranteed website traffic. It makes good business sense to pay an expert who has proved she knows how to get results. It is very important the person you use provides you with a report at least every month. These are the stats that will show you exactly how your website is faring in attracting visitors. To be more accurate it’s not your website that does the attracting it’s what the expert does that makes all the difference. Good website promotion depends on good communication. The only means of communicating is via text. Text is what forms the content of your website. It is the text that tells your visitors what your site or blog is all about.

Your expert Internet marketer is not only going to use text to attract visitors but she is going to create the text. Good quality text must provide relevant and meaningful information to the reader. But to an expert marketer good text must also contain specific keywords that represent the product or service being offered by your site or blog. This kind of expertise is put into a strategy in order to provide guaranteed website traffic.

There are many different ways to make money on the internet, the most obvious being, of course, selling products. If you would like to make money on the internet by being a seller, you have a few choices. You can set up your own business and sell directly from your own website, you can sign up for an affiliate program and sell on behalf of other businesses, and you can sell on eBay.

If you have your own products or services, and you want to sell and run your own small business, then the first option would probably be your best bet. You'll need to select a catchy, easy-to-remember domain name for your website. Keep it short, simple, and to the point, but at the same time, make it interesting. The more simple yet interesting you make your URL, the more money you can make on the internet.

If you don't know how to make websites, then you can have a programmer do it for you. You can sell just about anything you want from your website, and you need to set up a payment system. PayPal is the most common choice, but some online business owners prefer more professional checkout systems.

You can also sell products to as many parts of the world as you wish; however, don't forget to configure shipping and handling prices. Some of your customers will also probably want insurance added to their order, so make sure you added that as an option for them when they check out. The easier you make everything on your customers, the more money you'll make on the internet.

You can also make money on the internet by selling products for other businesses. You can do this by joining an affiliate program. Your best bet will be to promote items that you yourself would gladly pay for. There are many products and services you can help promote, and you'll receive a commission for every sale that you help make, thus making affiliate programs a great way to make money on the internet.

Once again, it's important that you have a website. Even if you're selling someone else's products, having your own website will make you seem more professional. In the highly competitive world that is E-commerce, standards need to be maintained in order to truly make money on the internet. Stay a step ahead of other affiliates out there and you will succeed!

The third aforementioned way you can make money on the internet is by selling on eBay. In case you haven't noticed, almost everything is sold on eBay these days. You can either establish a good relationship with a wholesale and dropshipping service, or you can stock up on flea market and garage sale items. Some are even making tons of money on the internet by buying foreclosed homes at cheap prices and then reselling them for twice as much on eBay.

No matter how you choose to make your money on the internet, just remember to stay focused and calm, no matter what. Don't become frustrated if you start out slow; remember: even the top entrepreneurs go through slow periods at times. You'll succeed eventually, just as long as you stick with it!

Google improves its ranking algorithm on an ongoing basis. During the last weeks, Google changed three things on the result pages that are visible to all Google users.

The changes are an improvement for searchers but they might be bad for your website.

1. Google has increased the snippet length. Less visitors for you?

Google now shows an extended snippet for queries that consist of three or more keywords. The idea behind this change is that these multi-word queries are very targeted and complex. The usual short snippet might not contain enough information.

What does this change mean for your website?

The longer snippet contains much more information. As Google tries to provide the user with the most relevant information in the snippet, the snippet might already contain the answer to the user's query. The longer snippets might result in the following:

* Fewer users might click through to your website because they get the answer to their question in the search results.

* Users might begin to use more multiple-word queries to get more detailed search result snippets.

* As the longer snippets need more space, the longer snippets move another result page below the fold and web surfers will see fewer results at first glance. That increases the importance of very high rankings.

It seems that Google ignores the meta description tag for the snippets. That means that you must include a call to action in your web page titles.

2. Google now shows more related searches at the bottom of the results

When you search for a keyword, Google will display related searches at the bottom (and sometimes at the top) of the search results.

For example, if you search for the keyword "principles of physics", Google will suggest "angular momentum," "special relativity," "big bang" and "quantum mechanic" as related terms that could help you find what you need.

What does this change mean for your website?

It's important that you optimize the different pages of your website for different keywords. Do not concentrate on a single keyword but cover a wide range of keywords so that Googly will classify your website as relevant to the complete topic.

The more related keywords and pages can be found on your website, the better.

3. Google now shows local results based on IP addresses

Search Google for the keyword "pizza" and you'll see local results in the middle of the search results. These local results are delivered based on the IP address of the searcher. That means that you will get different results than people in another city.

What does this change mean for your website?

It's now easier to rank for competitive keywords for some local searches. While it's very difficult to get a high ranking for a very competitive keyword such as "lawyer" in the regular results, it's much easier to be listed for that keyword in the local results if you're living in a small town.

You should submit your website to Google Maps so that web surfers can find you in these local searches. You can submit your website to Google Maps with IBP's semi-automatic directory submitter.

If you run a local business, you should include your business name, your category and the name of your city in the title tag of your homepage.

If you want to get on top of Google's search results then your website must have optimized content and good inbound links. If you give Google what it wants then your website will get the best possible rankings.

Have you ever considered building a website, web page or simple blog?

There is one remarkably large world out there. Naturally this means that there is a considerable amount of money to be made.

The question you’re probably asking yourself is what’s the best way for me to get my hands on all that dough?

Well, if you have a personal computer with high-speed Internet access, then you’re well on your way to earning some serious capital.

I know what you’re thinking! Who doesn’t have a computer with access to cyberspace? But this opportunity is not for everyone.

Here’s the deal; making money in this technology - driven world is quite different than it was in the past. In this reality you can earn a good living simply working for yourself, from the comfort of your home.

And, It all begins with web publishing, search engine submission, ad revenue and oodles of Internet surfers fron all over the world.

Have you ever seriously considered being your own boss?

Regardless of whether you truly pondered this notion, maybe it’s high time you gave it some thought today. Millions of others are taking full advantage of online websites and search engine submission pages.

Let me give you the rundown of how this web publishing process works. You start by building a website, web page or simple blog. This doesn’t even have to cost you anything. There are plenty of FREE ways to start out.

Anyone can use the Blogger.com or Wordpress website to construct a blog at any hour of the day or night. This will cost you nothing and you can make the blog about whatever you please, hopefully you have an interest in whatever you will be doing . . . Other folks online can then reply to your blog if they choose to.

Okay, once your blog or web page is constructed, you can add affiliate page links and ads to it. Before you sigh and get all frustrated, it’s key to keep in mind that this isn’t very difficult. There are many Newbie websites that will walk you through the entire process.

Then you can sign up for a free Google Adsense account and place relevant ads on your blog or web page. Once this is finished, you can submit your website or blog URL to a search engine submission site. This costs nothing and all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN have them at your fingertips.

If you’re wondering why you would want to build a web page or blog and take advantage of a free search engine submission site, it’s simple actually. When web surfers encounter your quality content page, they may be tempted to click on the ads you have placed there and you will earn you cash.

But, it’s essential to submit your new URL to a search engine submission site at first or you may have trouble getting your site indexed online.

We will be talking about linking partners and one way linking methods later, but search engine submission can shortcut the system for you when you first start out.

I’m always looking for ways to increase search engine traffic to my blog. As it stood my page rank on Google was pretty abysmal; I’m embarrassed to even say what it was (definitely not top 10). It’s not that I didn’t try my hand at search engine optimization; I think at one point in time or another every blog writer and webmaster has tried to capitalize on the magic of keywords in order to increase search engine traffic through a more favorable page rank.

Unfortunately for me, and I’m sure thousands of other nonprofessional blog writers and website creators, my understanding of search engine optimization was limited to say the least; and my understanding of keywords even less so.

I’m a pretty hands-on kind of guy so obviously it was frustrating to me when my search engine optimization efforts yielded little results. Finally I decided enough was enough, and as the hosting fees started to add up I realized I needed to swallow my pride and use a professional company to increase search engine traffic to my website. I used a service called Get Visitors Now for my SEO needs, and I’ve got to say the experience was pretty positive.

Obviously my blog isn’t number one on Google, or even in the top five. But I will say that I am finally in the top 10 and although my page rank fluctuates from day to day I haven’t dropped below the top 10 for quite some time now.

What’s interesting to me is that the company didn’t really do anything differently from what I was trying originally, they just did it better. They knew what keywords I should be using, and they knew how to incorporate those keywords in a natural and user friendly way. They also knew which search engines I should be targeting, and how to go about submitting my website. All in all it wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought to increase search engine traffic to my website, and my only regret is that I did not take the plunge sooner.

Ever wonder how to increase website traffic to your site? It’s a question that pretty much everyone who owns a website has asked themselves at one point or another, and it conjures up funny images of webmasters lying awake at night in the dark trying to come up with new and creative solutions. Sadly there is no one-size-fits-all solution to increase website traffic, but there is a pretty simple starting point that establishes a good baseline for increasing traffic to your website.

If you, like those imaginary webmasters, lay awake at night wondering how to increase traffic to your website there are three magic letters that you should probably know about, SEO. Search engine optimization is a process that you’ve probably heard about if you’re searching the Internet looking for advice on how to increase website traffic, but chances are you’ve been pulled into various spam sites that are interested in selling you some get rich quick e-book at an exorbitantly high-price.
The simple fact is you don’t need an e-book to learn how to increase website traffic; you just need to plunk down a few dollars to buy the services of a company that has the experience you need and can do what they say. Now before you rush out the gate wallets a blazing it is important that you have a few things in mind; namely managed expectations, and a frugal mindset.

These services should not cost an arm and a leg, especially if your website is not that large yet. Additionally you should not expect to be at Google page rank one overnight. However if you’re comfortable taking a calm and pragmatic approach to increasing website traffic then search engine optimization and article marketing is definitely something you should give serious consideration as it is the only real proven way to drive website traffic.

Whenever we hear the word marketing images of television or magazine ads mostly comes in our minds. But in present times one of the most popular ways of marketing is through internet marketing.

If you have a company that is into selling of a product or service than you would definitely be concerned about driving the targeted traffic to your website. Here the main issue is to get list of the targeted or potential customers that can convert into clients. This list of potential clients is very valuable for fixing the target in internet marketing.

Install an auto responder for building up the list of customers. It offers the facility to frame pre-write letters and keep it on pre-determined time schedule. Thus providing you the facility to keep in touch with the customer's list whether in or out of office.

After installing auto responder in your website, create a page that gives the site visitors chance to subscribe to your mailers. Put proper series of letters into your list. Keep the letters simple in language yet informative and interesting.

After you have set up internet marketing campaign, consider mailing the mailer to the customers listed in the list for higher website traffic. Articles are inexpensive and sureshot methods of attracting greater traffic and improve search engine ranking.

In order to reach to your target audience build up a strong internet marketing campaign. It operates even when you are offline thus a continuing procedure.

In the present market scenario you need to publicize your products and services which will spread its awareness among the potential clients. Some points are to be taken care of with respect to the marketing campaign.

Get a perfect public image designed by your website designer so as to exhibit your company image that is professional and classy. It should be strong enough to leave a positive first impression on the user as everyone seems to be running short of time! Therefore hire a reliable and expert website design company for creating eye-catching design. Create internet presence that is attractive and appealing to the masses.

You can do internet marketing in various ways like SEO, PPC, emails and conversion rate optimization. Develop marketing strategies that can do branding for your business right from logo designing to corporate image development. A brand speaks for itself and is considered as the backbone for any business.

From ArticlesBase!

The best Marketing Ideas For Selling Online usually come with years and years of actual marketing. I know that isnt what new marketers want to hear. But unfortunately, the older wiser marketers dont easily give up this information.And sometimes they just dont see whats so hard about coming up with ideas, thus they dont even think about sharing there own.

This article is a quick review of a product that will eliminate the question of "Who do I sell to?' or "What products should I sell online?" and all related questions.

The product is a major break through in the IM world. Its written and created by the Top Internet marketer I have ever heard about. He finally came through and followed His and every other big name marketers advice.

Find your markets biggest question, and answer it.

Like I said earlier, these long time marketers never seem to answer this one question. Everytime I hear a new marketer ask the qiestion, "Whats are some marketing ideas for selling online?" -I always know right away that the question will not be answered in a satisfactory type way.Its always, 'Well, there are quite a few ways you can do this.." or "Marketing isnt an exact science.." and all that stuff.

It drives me nuts, well it used to. Now I just face the fact that I will have to do a bunch of testing everytime I Think I have a good market or product picked out.

But now we dont have to. Now there is a list that will show the exact markets that are already proven to sell. Now, instead of spending hours and days searching through 100's and 1,000's of website and product keyword reviews, I can cut right through the bigger part of the mess known as 'Market Research".

So whats on this 'Marketeting Ideas For Selling Online' list? Good question.

To be completely honest, whats on the list is exactly what you would expect to be on the list.Obviously, the first few markets are the obvious ones. Like dog training and Internet Marketing products. And you will also see markets like real estate and credit cards.(Trust me, real estate will always be a huge market, no matter if its online or off)

But once you start getting towards the middle of this report, there are alot of markets that we just never expect to see. I seen many that I just didnt think about. But once I looked at some keyword research and some competition reports, I could definitely see that these were in fact , some of the best markets. What makes many of them great is the fact that not many of the average marketers know about them.

You know what that means?

It means that there is virtually no competition.That means that it will take very little effort to exploit these markets.I dont know about the majority of makrters out there, but I try to use SEO anytime i can.Its easier than you think, and when you find Marketing ideas for selling online, that are like the ones I found in the report, its almost a gurantee that you can get ranked very quickly. I have done it without spending a dollar. (Except for the money i spent to learn this stuff in the past)

Now when you get to the end of the report, you will see that many of the best, most profitable online markets, are real products. They are the kinds of things that people need. These are my favorites because people NEED them. If you have ever tried to sell household items and the like, than you know how easy it is to sell something to someone that already knows exactly what it is.

They are already sold.

And dont worry. The list of Marketing ideas for selling onlineisnt the only thing that you get. There is a complete list of information that explains exactly what these markets are looking for. And there is a module that helps us set up the quickest online business models for making fast profits, with minimal work. You do have to set a couple of things up first. But I have never seen a product worth having that didnt depend on my ability to follow through with some basic set up.

If you think that having this kind of information would benefit you and your online business, just follow the link below. It should be a very exciting thing to know that in a matter of minutes you will have a complete list of great marketing ideas for selling online. THE List the answers the Million Dollar question -"What kind of products should I sell online?"

The Best Online Selling Products are usually a mix between high popularity and the type of market that buys these products. But there really is no exact formula or stat that will tell you what the best online selling products are.But there is a list.....

Best Online Selling Products - Go There Now

Or Read on and find out what the list is all about.

So you want to know what the best online selling products are. I have to assume that you have recently started an interest in the Internet marketing world. No offense, but we all ask that same question, or some very similar variations of it , like:

'Which products should I sell?

'What are the best products to sell online?'

'How do I know which product to sell?'

'Which products are sold the most?'

etc. etc. etc.

These are the most common questions asked by new marketers.Well, atleast it shows that these marketers know which information is important. Find the answer to these questions, and you will eventually be a very happy marketer. Its not an impossible question to answer, it just takes experience.

And like most experienced marketers will tell you, there really is no exact method for knowing what the best online selling products are. There are too many variables.

And for some reason, in a world full of stats, there really isnt a website or statistic that will just tell us exactly waht products are sold the most. There might be some reports that tell us a general type of product that is sold and how many dollars worth of these broad type items have been sold. But nothing that says, 'this product has sold x amount of times for x amount of dollars.' or something to that effect.

And until recently, I have never seen a product that comes remotely close to listing which product are the most profitable for selling online. I mean, you would have to think that with all these 'guru's', someone would have a pretty good idea of what sells. If anything they could find out by looking at there OWN records or statements.

Finally -Someone Lets The Cat Out Of The BAG!

Recently - unbelievably, someone has decided to answer the most asked question of all time. When I received the notice, I was shocked. And to be very honest, I thought it was probably a lie. But, I had to grab a copy. If anything, I could get a refund. If its not what it says it is, thats definitely O.K. Otherwise I would not even consider it.

Thankfully, this product was just what I have been waiting for.

Its a complete list of all the best online selling products. From top to bottom, it provides so many products that I would have never even considered. But being able to see them, and the infromation about the market for these products, totally opened my eyes.

These products defnitetly have a nice profitable market. All I had to do was take a few of them and run a quick keyword research program. And it was obvious that there was a market for them. And most of the time, there was virtually no real competition. I have to assume that its because so few of us really know what is profitable when it comes to certain products.

If you check out this product, try not to get mad at yourself for not realizing that these products are profitable. As for myself, I had actually thought about setting up some campagins for a couple of the products, but i just wasnt sure if they would work. Heck, that happens alot when we have no solid eveidence as to whether or not a product will sell or not.

And thats probably what makes this information so special. It will eliminate all the hard work ,and all the doubt when we start promoting. What a relief that is!

When you are trying to make money off of the articles on your website, it is important to effectively promote your site so that you will attract customers and they can see just what a good, quality site you have. There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements.

What Banner Ads Can Do For You

Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own. Although monthly fees can be expensive to advertise on high traffic sites, in the end it may be cheaper and/or a faster way to start seeing significant revenue from your website efforts, rather than waiting for SEO techniques to bring your own site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else's site, there are also free banner exchanges to choose from. We will look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below.

Free Banner Exchanges

Free banner exchanges are when you and other sites exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your site and your banner will go one their site. Although this option is free, there are two main problems with it. First, if you want your banner on a significant number of sites, it will mean cluttering your own site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an affiliate website because, instead of clicking on your affiliate links, your visitors may be clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you have to be really careful about the types of sites that you exchange banners with. Some sites like to gather a lot of banners so that they can be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These "banner farms" or "link farms" will do nothing positive for your site and, in the meantime, you will be bringing them potential traffic.

Paid Banner Ads

As we saw above, paid banner ads cost money, but they will eventually pay off if you choose the right ones. You need to ensure that the site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they have your ad placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to choose a site that does not house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page.

All in all, banner ads can end up being profitable for you site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.

I am sure that you have heard of the term “You need money to make money“? However I prefer this term “Use little money to make LOTS of money”.

Here are the 7 steps to help you start making money online:

Step 1 - Identify Your Niche
First , you will need to identify your niche. Your niche could be related to your job, hobby or interest in certain areas. For example your website/blog could be about photography. You should only sell or provide information regarding photography and nothing else.

Step 2 - Write Your Own Ebook
The second step consist of writing your own ebook. Don’t worry if you have not written any book before. I have not either. You could always hire someone to do it for you but it will definitely cost you an arm and leg. That is one of the reasons why I would recommend that you write the ebook yourself.

Once you are done writing you ebook, it needs a cover. Bear in mind that the cover should be attractive. There’s nothing worst then a boring cover. You can always design it yourself using Adobe Photoshop or you can hire an expert to help you with the design. Most of these experts can be found online. Just try googling and make a comparison of services offered.

By now your ebook is about 95% completed. Most likely you have written your ebook using Microsoft Word. Regardless of what software that you used, you will need to convert your ebook to PDF format.

Step 3 - Choose The Right Domain Name
The third step requires you to choose your domain name. Choose your domain name wisely!! I would suggest creating a domain name that is related to your niche. For example, my website provides the reader 7 steps to make money online, therefore I create my domain name as www.7stepsincome.com.

Step 4 - Create Web Hosting Account
So you have chose the domain name. Now it’s time to register your domain and to create a hosting account. Which ever hosting company that you select , make sure that the hosting company is reliable and has excellent customer support.

Step 5 - Create Website Or Blog
The next step is to create your personal blog or website. You can use Wordpress to set your free blog. They have a lot of professional templates and there is a huge amount of support from the forums.

Step 6 - Selling The Ebook
All right, your ebook is completed. You have also created your blog/website to market your ebook.But how do you accept payment and sent your ebook automatically to your buyer?

The best way is to set up an account with PayPal. PayPal allows you to accept credit card payments instantly and is free to sign up. In order to sent your ebook automatically to your customer you can use SmartDD. The best thing with SmartDD is that it can be integrated with your PayPal account.

Step 7 - Generating Traffic
Now, repeat after me, Traffic!!! Traffic!!! Traffic!!!. The success to every online business is generating traffic to your website.

Viral marketing strategies are an important tool for any company looking to expand its presence both online and in the real world. Viral marketing strategies aim to spread a brand name or product in a rapid fashion using the concept of word of mouth advertising. Viral marketing is so named due to the fact that when it's successful the content can spread rapidly much like a virus.

One of the many effective viral marketing strategies is done through the use of articles. The idea of these in a viral marketing sense is to write an article which people will want to read. This can be done more easily than one might think. The next step is to include a resource box at the bottom of the article.

Ideally this resource box should contain a little information about yourself and a link back to your website. The final touch is to include a copyright which gives other website owners the right to post your article if they leave the copyright and resource information intact. If the article offers truly unique and entertaining content it will spread around the internet at a rather rapid pace.

One of the more technical viral marketing strategies used is to develop a piece of software which people will want to use. The idea of this is to offer the software free of charge. In most cases this type of viral marketing will aim to develop some form of free, web based game which is both entertaining and somewhat addictive. As more and more people find this simple little game they will spread the word to their friends and families and it will continue to grow. Other sites will include free one way links to your site which hosts this simple game.

One of the oldest viral marketing strategies for online viral marketing is using an email signature. It seems simple and in many ways questionable but it really does work. Every single time you send an email with your websites information at the bottom you gain the chance of someone clicking on your site. Every time you get someone to look at your site you potentially get someone who will tell their friends about you. This is not always the quickest form of viral marketing but it can be an extremely effective form.

Another one of the older viral marketing strategies which can work wonders both in gaining you the viewers you want and the reputation you need is forum posting. The goal of forum posting is to not only share useful information or help with people but to include a signature with your companies name and website.

Though this usually offers relatively little help for search engines it is a great way of gaining clicks. You can also establish yourself as an expert by answering questions relating to your field which improves your overall image.

Viral marketing can be a challenge for people who are just beginning to understand it. Learning and using the right viral marketing strategies will help you to grow your business and gain a solid reputation.

A viral marketing program is easy to create. Does this sound like you? Probably not if you are here reading these articles. It is funny, when you set out to create a viral marketing program, you think to yourself, "this isn't so bad", yet, when you sit down to make a game plan, it all falls apart. Even if you get past the game plan, implementation sometimes seems a fruitless attempt.

So how do you overcome the big viral marketing program beast? You take it one careful step at a time. It is best to break the viral marketing program down into steps where it is then easier to manage. Looking at it as a whole can be overwhelming, but following the steps below will work out just fine.

1. It is first important to know what group you are targeting. Do you know your target market? Just as in traditional marketing strategies, a viral marketing program online is just as tactful. Although there are some distinct differences among traditional and online marketing, they still have the same base.

First off, a viral marketing program is going to allow you to reach many more people than a traditional marketing campaign. Like the word of mouth concept in a traditional marketplace, a viral marketing program allows the same concept, just to a larger group of people.

2. Understand the different social niches. If you have not heard of MySpace by now, you have a lot to learn. It is one of the biggest social networking sites online. Almost everyone, including those who normally wouldn't look like they knew, knows about Myspace. This concept portrays a large group of people that get marketed to every second they login and not even know it.

When first taking on Myspace or Facebook or even Digg and Delicious, it is important to keep in mind they are a vast area. You will not be able to cover the whole area all at once nor will you ever be able to reach everyone. This is why viral is so important. Drop your brand in a few ears and watch the bug run around.

3. After you have created some buzz, follow up and keep it fresh and new. The best thing about a viral marketing program is the fact you can renew it almost instantly. Why? Because there are millions of people that have not seen it yet. Moreover, if you switch it up a little, the people who saw it before will recognize it again and this time might pay more attention or even click the link. You will continue to build a brand while creating repetition and fresh views and ads.

Do not get discouraged when you are starting your first viral marketing program. It can be challenging, unlike you might have thought at first, but in the end, you will develop a brand you will be proud of. Never rush an idea and be sure to read more information include in this post.

There are always many definitions to all words. When you think of a word and its meaning, it makes sense to figure out where the word is derived from. In the case of marketing, there are many approaches. One of the most common and popular approaches of our time is something called viral advertising. There are many ways to define viral marketing, as there are many ways to define other words.

Before you can define viral marketing, the person must consider what they want to accomplish in their viral marketing campaign. In a campaign to brand your product or company, the brander will have to identify what it is they are trying to make come across. The message you send will be carried for many people to come, so, it is best to make this first step thought out and practical.

Do not get stuck with an image your company did not want to portray. The power of viral marketing is strong and once it is let loose, it is hard to get the reins on. In other words, once it is done, it is hard or impossible to undo.

First Definition: The first way to define viral marketing is to describe it as an internet word of mouth. The concept of word of mouth was brought into the internet as an effective way to relay information. With sites such as MySpace, Digg, Facebook and Delicious, it is easy to see why viral marketing is so effective. Large social communities allow for people to exchange thoughts, feelings and information quickly and publicly.

Second Definition: The second way to define viral marketing is by the use of its mediums. Viral marketing uses mediums such as ads, pictures, videos, banners, flash animation, email and more to get their information across to a general audience. There are more effective mediums than others; however, they all help define viral marketing.

Third Definition: The third way to define viral marketing is by giving it an evolving factor. In order to be successful and define viral marketing closely, a campaign has to always be making it better. In other words, it needs to keep ideas new and exciting. This is where most viral marketing campaigns fall flat. The first attempt at a viral marketing campaign might work great. After a while, the buzz is gone. Instead of dropping another bug in someone's ear, the company lets the campaign fizzle out. This is not a good campaign nor is it effective. People, especially in social networking settings, want more. It is all about the new and updated.

Take a look at other ways you have seen viral marketing around you and I am sure you can define viral marketing on your own terms. It encompasses a lot and allows for a broader marketing range unlike a traditional marketing and advertising campaign. Look to other sources such as the ones provided to increase knowledge where few, if any, mistakes are made on your companies behalf.

Blogging is one of the most effective and popular viral marketing idea's to come into existence on the internet. The effectiveness of blogs in regards to viral marketing can be incredibly high. A blog offers a number of key opportunities for any business whether it's an online business or a traditional brick and mortar business. A blog offers you the opportunity to tell people about your company in an entertaining fashion.

It gives you the opportunity to create increase your own credibility. A well written blog will allow you to become an expert in your chosen field in the eyes of your viewers. All of these concepts are great and can lead to improved conversion rates. None of them is as important as what a blog can do in terms of viral marketing.

Like most great viral marketing ideas blogs are used extensively because they have the ability to be spread around the internet at an incredible rate if they provide useful, intuitive and even humorous content. A well written blog will provide just the right level of information and entertainment to lead people to want to share it.

One of the oldest and most popular viral marketing ideas on the internet is link exchanges. This is not only one of the oldest viral marketing ideas but also one of the most effective. Like any form of viral marketing link exchanges can spread and grow quickly.

This holds especially true if you can provide useful content on your site. As your site grows in popularity more and more people will want to swap links with your site. This is due to the fact that receiving links from sites which have a good position with the search engines counts for more than minor sites giving links.

With a bit of time but very little effort your site can gain status with the search engines making it a continuously growing target for people wanting links. As you swap links with these people your own sites popularity will grow. Eventually this can even lead to other sites linking to your site without receiving a link back simply because your site is deemed as important.

Electronic newsletters are another one of the fairly old viral marketing ideas. These newsletters are able to gain a lot of momentum extremely quickly if done correctly. Unlike your website a newsletter is presented directly to your viewers on your terms. They receive the email in their inbox and with any luck choose to read it.

A well written title and great content are the keys to making newsletters one of the functional viral marketing ideas. A poorly written or boring title won't encourage your users to read the email. A well written title will increase the odds that they open this email. If the content is well laid out and both well written and interesting there's a good chance they will pass it along to their friends.

Viral marketing idea's are out there. Some of them are inexpensive while some of them can be quite costly. The key is to understand what will make people want to share what you have to say and that is something that can be learned.