Technology Toolkit

If you have a website, you know how important it is to be found in the first or second page of search engine results for as many search terms as possible. Most people find websites by searching in search engines, so if your site isn’t ranked at the top of the pile for at least some search terms, then no one is likely to find your site. So improving your search engine placement is one of the most important goals you can have as a webmaster, especially if your website is the gateway into your online business.

Years ago, it was possible to use on-page optimization techniques to improve your search rankings. Webmasters could add keywords to meta tags, alt image tags, header tags, and so on, and the search engines would rank the sites better. However, the search engines soon learned that such techniques could be gamed easily by webmasters. So, starting with Google, the search engines switched their focus to rewarding websites that had lots of inbound links from other websites. And today it remains true that the best way to improve search engine rankings is to get inbound links from related websites.

So if inbound links are the key to top search engine rankings, how do you get them? The bad news is that getting links can be a time consuming and difficult task, the good news is that there are some techniques and associated systems that do indeed work if you put in the time and effort.

One of the very best techniques for getting links and traffic is by writing articles and getting them published as widely as possible. You simply write a 500-600 word article on a topic related to your website, and include a link to your website in the author bio box. There is a great deal of information on the web about how to write and submit articles to article directories, and in fact the process is very easy. But there is a key to successful article marketing that many people miss – you must write lots and lots of articles. If you only write 5 articles, it may well be the case that you see no results at all. Instead, plan to write 50 or 100 articles, or even more, depending on your niche.

When using articles to drive traffic, it really helps to get as wide a distribution for your article as possible. It turns out there are some systems that will get your articles published as separate pages on website related to yours, not just general article directories. Articles on related websites can really help drive traffic.

In addition to article marketing, there are some other techniques for getting backlinks. Social bookmarking is useful for getting permanent one way links. If you can collaborate with other webmasters to do social bookmarking for each other, this will greatly increase the effectiveness of your effort. Working with other webmasters to get links onto their sites is always a great idea if you can do it.

In fact, there is one particular link building system that not only leverages your article marketing efforts by distributing your article to other related websites in the network, but also provides website matching and social bookmarking components to build as many links as possible. Such a link system can help you get the most out of your backlink building efforts.

Search engine optimisation is one of the more technical aspects of online marketing requiring a large amount of specialist knowledge in terms of coding and optimisation strategy. There is also an element of copywriting involved in the optimisation process as search engines seem to be text heavy in their operation.

In terms of a definition, search engine optimisation is the process of changing aspects of web pages in order for them to rank highly in search results for particular keywords and phrases.

The majority of SEO specialists recognise the truth that following all of the advised strategies and tactics does not necessarily guarantee top rankings; however neglecting the basic rules will almost always result in poor rankings. This is why any honest optimisation specialist will be realistic in their goals; number one rankings are a rarity and take a great deal of time and effort to achieve. While practitioners who promise number one rankings should be avoided, those that are honest enough to admit that top rankings are not guaranteed are probably far more experienced in the SEO industry.

Search engine optimisation helps to drive web traffic to a site although it is not strictly a form of advertising. Paid listings are direct advertising and will achieve traffic far quicker than organic optimisation, however in the long run this can become expensive. Ideally you want your site to be listed in high positions for search terms relevant to your business or service without the need for paid advertising.

Search engine optimisation is a lengthy process that requires an extended effort over time, while some may argue it can be completed quickly this is rarely the case. The type of website being optimised will alter how effective the SEO is; for example a site that sells specific products will achieve top rankings faster and easier than a site selling a generic product.

To put this into a tangible example, a search term such as ’sparkling pink tiaras’ is going to be far easier to optimise successfully than a term such as ‘home insurance’. Part of the reason is competition although ensuring aspects of the website are up to scratch is also essential.

Search engines work by trawling the web to see what textual information is out there on any given topic. The industry term is crawl and hence the robots that perform the task are called spiders. The spiders jump from webpage to webpage using links, building up profiles of websites in terms of their relevance to a particular subject and their number of links.

The spiders index the information they find into a database. As there are so many websites, over twenty billion if recent estimates are to be believed spiders cannot visit every site on a daily basis. Subsequently your SEO efforts may not be noticed for months, or at least until a spider visits the page.

Hopefully this article has cleared up what search engine optimisation is all about and why it is such an important part of online business. With the right strategy it is possible increase traffic and hence increase the amount of sales and subsequently profit for the company. SEO is a process that requires skill and knowledge to achieve decent results, ultimately with the right SEO specialist the correct strategies can be implemented and impressive rankings can be gained.

You’re not going to believe how easy this is the first you get a #1 ranking for Google in less than 48 hours. And then you will be pleasantly surprised when you go back and see months later that you still have those great rankings. I say this just so you know that what I am about to teach you isn’t just some fly-by-night trick that will temporarily get you decent search engine rankings. Nope, this is the real thing! And really great thing with this technique is that you can easily dominate keyword phrases that aren’t even for your own products!

The first time I followed this technique for somebody else’s product I was definitely shocked. You see, I did it for a keyword phrase where I wanted people to find my website instead of my competition. Well, it worked once, and now I “steal” traffic from my competition all the time by following this one tip. Hey, business is business right? If your competition isn’t going to optimize for their keyword phrases, then I think you deserve to go ahead and snatch their own business from them!

O.K., so you want to know exactly how you can start getting #1 search engine rankings for various keyword phrases across the web. Well, surprisingly you can do this through a concept that you have already heard of, that being video marketing. But it’s what you do with your video marketing that counts. You see, people that simply do what we call a “video blitz” can find their videos on the top of the search engines even faster.

Here’s how this video blitz works: First, you pick a keyword phrase that you want to dominate. Now, when picking your keyword phrase, you want to make sure that you pick a phrase that isn’t to competitive. For example: This technique would never work for a phrase such as “internet marketing.” But it may work for a less competitive phrase like “internet marketing for beginners.” You will just need to do a little bit of research to discover a bunch of the “less competitive” keyword phrases that are out there so that you can easily dominate them.

After you have your keyword phrase in which you would like to dominate, you then need to just maybe create a couple of short videos discussing that topic. Title the video so that you use your target keyword phrase along with similar keyword phrases. Also, make sure that your tags have your target keyword phrase in them along with those other similar keyword phrases that you have discovered. Once you have your video, with the keyword rich title, and your tags, then it is time to start the “video blitz.”

The video blitz is actually really easy to do. There is software available that will allow you to easily upload your videos to multiple sites at once. The software I use allows me to send my videos to over 40 video sharing and social networking sites by following a few simple steps. After you submit your videos to these many sites, you then wait. Sometimes after a few hours you may already have decent rankings, and almost 100% of the time, within 48 hours you can find one of your videos on the front page of Google for your target keyword phrase. If your videos haven’t made it the front page of Google in 48 hours or less, then you have likely failed to target a less competitive keyword phrase.

This whole video blitz process is one that you can do over and over again for multiple keyword phrases. Once you have dominated your most coveted keyword phrases, then you’ll find more and more keywords that you will decide to dominate. By sticking with this method, you can start getting tons of free traffic to all of your websites!

A press release is a communication which is sent out not to the broad public, at least not initially but to people of the media basically giving them the heads up that there is some news that you have that you think they might be interested in writing about or worth their looking into. It is not an article giving the details about something, but invites further evaluation and potentially more outward communication from the media. They can also be called media releases, news releases or a press statement. It is a form of free advertising for the company or group that the media is writing about which has been criticized by some in the past as not giving a full picture of something but just presenting one side.

There are press releases that you can write to promote your website.

You can then submit it and it will be edited before it is released, so the better you write it and the more it fits in the true sense of a press release the easier it will be to get it published. You need to get your site promoted to be able to build your traffic and a good simple press release is one way that you can do this. It helps you increase your word of mouth traffic.

In a press release you are giving news and are not there to advertise your site or to give glowing reports about it. It should be roughly 300 to 500 words which is enough to keep your audiences attention and not loose them by being too wordy. Make sure you include your URL to your site.

They follow a certain format which should be followed. There are sites on the internet which specialize in press releases and you can look them up and follow their specific advice. Just search for press release and you will find them.

The headline of your release is very important and it needs to capture your audiences attention. It should tell who you are, what you have to offer, when it is offered, where it is offered and the purpose or reason for your site. Why is what you have to offer of particular interest and different than anything that anyone else has to offer. Make it as news related as possible. Make it straight forward and matter of fact. If you can, give examples of how your product worked for others to resolve situations that your product is meant to handle.

People are affected by what is occurring around them whether it be economic situations, environmental situations, etc. If you can align with current trends or issues that is a good idea.

You may want to create a press release every 1 or 2 months depending on how much you have in the way of news for your site. What you will get back as a result of a good press release are incoming links into your site and that means more traffic and the potential of increasing your page ranking with the search engines. Used in conjunction with articles this will assist you in building your traffic and making your site better known.

Are you trying to make money online? Well, I’m sure your familiar with the statement…It’s all about building “The List”. You simply cannot be afraid of sponsoring people or signing up people to your list if you want to make some decent money online. It’s critical that you learn how. Allow me to teach you a few basic things that will help you tremendously. Then it’s up to you to follow through.

The most important and valuable asset you have is your list. Your income will grow as your list grows. If your list is not growing your income won’t either. No list = no income. I hope that is crystal clear?

If you’ve been working or trying to make money online for 6 months or more and you do not have a list yet, you’re making a big mistake! Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone. So many people trying to make money online have made this grave mistake and I’m one of them. I started this online stuff back in 1998! Yes, more than 10 years now. If I would have started building my list from the beginning I would have in the hundreds of thousands on my list by now. It’s was a HUGE mistake on my part.

If you have a list, you don’t have to spend nearly as much on advertising. When you come across something you want to promote, you just send it out to your list. Now, a very important point to add here is to only send the programs out that you have evaluated and you truly believe is a good program. It only takes one bad recommendation to loose all credibility with your buyers.

There are many ways to build a list. But allow me to show you a couple of very simple ways you can get started right away and ad 20-50 people to your list by the end of the day!

1. If you’ve been doing this online thing for even more than a couple of months, then you at least joined one or two programs right? Well go and log in to any of your accounts and see if you still have emails from your upline or downline in those programs. Put all their names and email addresses on your list. This simple task can add a dozen or so right away. If what your promoting is really something you believe in and it’s working for you, I’ll bet they would appreciate to know about it.

2. Go through all your saved, deleted and junk emails from people advertising their business opportunity. These people have emailed you, so you have the right to add them to your list as well. When you do email them, add a disclaimer to your emails that you send them saying something like “you and I have worked online together before or you sent me some information about an opportunity recently.” No one will complain if they emailed you first.

Add someone or some people to your list everyday. Watch those emails that come in. This is the best and fastest way to get started building your list. You won’t believe how many names and emails that you already have, you just have to go and get them. You can also sign up for a couple of gmail (google email) accounts and then start requesting more information from active advertisers. That’s the key here,these are active advertisers that are willing spend money to make money. They’re already doing it or you wouldn’t be able to find them.

I use Excel to maintain my list and all you have to do is save the file to a .csv format to transfer it to most your auto responder. Most auto responders support the this format.

Whether you’re working online full time or part time, or just trying to make a little extra money. You have to make an action plan and just “do something” everyday for your business. Maybe it’s writing an article, posting on forums, placing pay per click ads or doing research to find your next product. What ever it may be, you have to stick to it! It does work, you just have to do the work. Make a pledge to do something everyday for your business.

I promise you will start to see results, and once you start making even the smallest amount of money, you will not believe what a “HUGE” motivator that will be for you.

Just try it for a month. You’ll be amazed!