Bill McRea

Online marketers know that it is vital for Search Engine Optimization to build as many backlinks to your website as possible, and article Marketing is an effective way to do that. Let’s take a look at five tips that you can use to get a ton of backlinks for your website using the power of article marketing.

1. Submit your articles to the top article marketing directories.

Write your keyword optimized articles and submit them to the top article directories online. The link in your resource box will bring readers from your article on the directory site back to your website. Look for a list of article directories according to page rank and submit your articles to the top 5 sites according to their rank. You will get much more traffic from these sites than from the lower ranking directories.

2. Submit your articles to niche directories.

Find article directories in your niche and submit your articles there. This is a much more focused audience that is already searching for what you have to offer. You will get very targeted traffic and backlinks from these niche sites.

3. Link back to a keyword-relevant page on your website.

Rather than always linking to your home page, direct link from your article to the exact page on your website that concerns that keyword phrase. This will distribute the incoming traffic on your site rather than it always going to your home page.

4. Re-purpose your article content.

Use the content from your articles to create slide-show videos and submit them to video sharing websites with a link back to your website. This is yet another powerful way to create targeted backlinks and it also maximizes the exposure of your content and your links.

5. Submit the RSS feeds for your articles and videos to RSS directories.

Grab the RSS feeds for your articles and videos, combine them into a single feed and submit it to the top RSS directories. This will exponentially expand the number of backlinks you get from your articles.

An important SEO factor that you must focus on is developing authority. Search engines see websites with lots of relevant links pointing at it as having greater authority. Writing and submitting articles to high ranking article directories is an effective way to build those targeted, one way links that will help boost your authority and make you look more important to the search engines.

Writing and publishing articles also has the benefit of establishing you as an authority in your niche. The more articles you write and publish the more you look like a knowledgeable expert in your field.

Just remember that they keys to article marketing success are quality of your articles, the quantity of articles you submit and the consistency with which you submit them. Focus on cranking out lots of quality articles on a consistent basis and before you know it you will begin to see the results in the form of increased traffic and search engine rankings.

What if there was a way that you could automate your article marketing? Find out how when you visit, http://mcreasite.com/ArtMarkRobot, today and discover how to generate a ton of traffic and backlinks at the push of a button.

A buddy of mine who knows that I get a ton of traffic from article Marketing pulled me aside and asked me to share some tips for how he could make his article marketing suck a bit less. So, I figured I’ll share with you what I told him.

1. Do keyword research to find the best long tail keywords

Use the free Google keyword tool and find those long tail keyword phrases to use as your primary keywords. Then find two or three more secondary keywords to add some variety to your articles. It makes no sense to bore the crap out of our readers by repeating the same phrase over and over and it looks to the search engines like stuffing—because it is.

2. Write clear, concise valuable content

If you want good conversion for your articles you’ve got to give people the information they are searching for. Write a compelling title that forces them to read the article. The title should make an appealing promise that the content of the article clearly delivers. How to articles with step by step instructions should not have any useless junk added. Tell them what they need to do and then stop.

3. Format your articles

OK, so this one is more for the human readers than for the search engines, but here’s the thing. If the people who are reading it like it enough they will share it which will give you more links, which will nudge you up in the search engines.

• Keep your sentences short.
• Use bullets and numbered lists.
• Make sure there is enough white space to make it easy on the eyes.

When people read online they scan with their eyes until something catches their attention stopping them to grab that tidbit and then back to scanning they go. Format your article so they find useful nuggets when they scan.

4. Distribute the keywords throughout the article.

Use the primary keyword in the title, and in the first and last paragraph. Sprinkle in those secondary keywords throughout the body of the article where they make the most sense.

5. Use a keyword for the anchor text in the resource box.

The resource box is a golden piece of real estate in your article. Its mission is to grab the reader’s attention and get them to click on the link back to your website. Using the keyword for the anchor text link is a great little SEO strategy.

What? Five tips wasn’t enough? How about this bonus tip: Write a ton of articles. If you think that you’re going to get fast results from just a few articles here and there you’re wrong. You’ve got to get up of that couch, roll up those sleeves, and start cranking out a bunch of articles on your topic. Put it on your calendar and write article and submit them to directories every day or at least every week. Before you know it your results will start racking up and you’ll see your search engine rankings improve and you may even begin to see your articles appearing near the top of the SERPS.

Here’s another free tip: Automate your article marketing. Visit, http://mcreasite.com/ArtMarkRobot, today and discover how to generate a ton of traffic and backlinks at the push of a button.

Copyright (c) 2009 Ianson Internet Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical to the success of many Internet businesses because SEO helps drive traffic to your Internet site. SEO is the process of making your Internet site appear higher in the search engine rankings for particular keywords or key phrases. A keyword or key phrase is a word or combination of words that people use to find information on a particular subject. For example, if a person wanted to find information on repairing a calculator, a person may search the Internet using the key phrase “how to repair a calculator.” There may well be many results but the person would probably only review the first page advertisers rather than scroll through several pages.

SEO is difficult because it constantly evolves and because it is not an exact science. As more Internet sites come online, as current Internet sites add links, lose links, add keywords and/or key phrases, and as the importance of keywords and/or key phrases increases or decreases, your SEO efforts will be affected. Additionally, depending on how a search engine calculates “relevance,” your Internet site may appear higher in the search results for certain search engines but appear lower on others. As such, you have to constantly be aware of the latest trends and content. Thus, if you are not constantly monitoring the ever changing environment of SEO, you will lose portions of your very important search engine traffic.

Theoretically, it is possible to monitor and conduct your own SEO, but because you have to worry about updating your content, driving traffic from other sources, and obtaining sales, your efforts will not be as efficient or as effective as will be the efforts of a professional SEO company. Therefore, the best thing for your Internet business is to hire a professional SEO company.

A great way to find a good SEO company is to use the search engines. This approach makes the most sense because you are hiring a company to optimize your search engine ranking and traffic. As such, the SEO company that appears first in the search engine results is obviously great at utilizing its strategies to dominate the search engines. That being said, be weary of companies that talk big but produce little results. It does not make sense to use a company that does not follow its own advice.

If you do not feel comfortable randomly selecting an SEO company off of the search engine results, you can always seek a referral from friends or colleagues in the business. If you make your living out of your Internet site, chances are you have made many contacts in the Internet business. As such, a referral from somebody who has a relationship with a company is a great way to find a one.

These are the two best ways to find an SEO company for your Internet marketing needs. As such, use either one or both of these methods and you should be able to find a quality SEO company. Do not expect miracles. It takes time to get a good position in the rankings and will not happen overnight. You should see some improved results after a couple of months.

Louise G
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/finding-an-seo-company-756039.html

SEVEN LESSONS I LEARNT WHILST LOSING THOUSANDS INTERNET MARKETING

By Alan Cutler – alan@leadershiptalks.com

This is the story of a novice internet marketer who has spent a
miserable, frustrating and expensive twelve months learning the
lessons of selling on the internet – the hard way! However, he
believes that he has turned the corner and is now looking
forward to, at least modest, future profits. That person is me,
and I would like to share my experiences with you in the hope
that your journey will be less painful than mine. I am certainly
not suggesting that the lessons I learnt are definitive, nor
will they apply to every one else who embarks on a campaign of
internet marketing. I am merely recounting what happened to me
and the problems I encountered.

My journey started in November 2004 when I attended a conference
with a speaker who was, by his own admission, an internet
millionaire. He, like me, was a professional speaker but he had
diversified into selling his products and services to this
world-wide market. Like many of my colleagues, I had previously
heard bits and pieces about internet marketing and I was hungry
to learn more. It is true to say that I was captivated by his
story and, especially, by the rich pickings that he said were
out there on the net, for relatively little time and expense.
‘Make money in your sleep’ was a phrase he used. I was inspired
- well, who wouldn’t be by the prospect of working at home for a
few hours a day whilst watching the money flow in 24/7! I bought
his pack of tutorials, ebooks, CDs etc for $500 – my first
investment in this Brave New World.

Interestingly, I write this article the day after attending
another meeting that had a speaker again telling us how easy it
is to make serious money on the internet. Whilst I do not doubt
that such people indeed do make a very good living for
relatively little effort, believe me, it is not easy! Making
money selling products or information on the net is not a quick
fix! Like any new business (for that is what it is), it takes
time and effort to learn all its intricacies. Unless you have a
product that people want to buy; a web site that sells it
effectively; and a means of driving lots of people to it, you
will end up throwing good money after bad. Hence my first lesson

Lesson No 1. Do not believe all you hear from internet experts
who tell you how easy it is to make your fortune. It isn’t!

Let me continue my story. So, off I went on my new venture. I
eagerly read the information that I had just bought, along with
lots of other advice and guidance from internet marketers. Many
recommended additional software that would make selling on the
web more effective. I took their advice and bought some of the
products they championed, for example a programme for making
attractive website banners, and another that promised to produce
amazingly effective sales pages for the website that I was to
produce. However, the banners I made were far from attractive
and when I sought advice from the company I bought the software
from, they failed to reply. As for the sales page generator, it
did teach me some good lessons but was far too inflexible and
restrictive so I soon reverted to writing my own copy.

What I did not realise at the time was that the internet
marketers who were recommending these products were affiliates:
they received a commission from every sale resulting from their
recommendation. I now know that affiliate marketing is big
business and can produce significant income flows. In fact, let
me put my cards on the table: I am going to recommend two
products to you later in this article and I will gain a
commission if you take my advice. However, these are products
that I truly believe in and have been extremely helpful to me. I
believe that they are worth every cent to someone serious about
making money. You can, of course, take my word for that, or not.
At least I have been up-front about it!

Lesson No 2. Beware of advice from ‘experts’ who may be more
interested in making money as an affiliate than in helping you.

Of course, to make money in any business you have to have a
product that people want to buy. What was I going to sell? Well,
I have always been fascinated by quotes – words of wisdom from
those who can add so much meaning in so few words. Indeed, my
first book is entitled ‘Leadership Quote Unquote’ and contains a
host of quotes from, as my publisher added to the book cover,
‘world figures – the famous, the infamous and the downright
dastardly!’

Imagine my excitement when I researched how many people were
looking for quotes on the internet. Google estimated that over
5,000 people every day searched for an appropriate quote. I
estimated that if I sold my book for $25 and one in a hundred
people who clicked on my website bought my book, I would make
$369,014 profit a year. Wow! Even if only a modest one in three
hundred bought it I would still make $61,684. Wouldn’t you be
excited by that income earning potential?

To cut a long story short, whilst lots of people do regularly
seek out appropriate quotes, I now know that very few are
prepared to pay for them! Why should they, when they can get
them for free on other websites? I am now just about breaking
even with this particular campaign – a situation I am prepared
to accept for the time being as the website does provide me with
other spin-off benefits. However, I have subsequently
diversified and am now selling a number of other information
products, using a different website for each – some more
successful than others. Inevitably, not all sales campaigns will
be initially successful, hence you have to continually fine-tune
several aspects of the marketing process to gradually improve
their effectiveness.

Lesson No 3. It might sound obvious – but make sure that you
sell something that people want to buy.

Note: The purpose of this article is for me to share my
experiences with you. It is not designed to be an internet
marketing tutorial. I am not, therefore, going to go into detail
about technicalities such as website design, Google AdWords,
Google adsense, market testing, copy writing etc. That said if I
have whetted your appetite and you do want to learn more, email
me at alan@leadershiptalks.com and I will send you a free ebook
all about creating successful sales websites, entitled ‘The
Three Page Site Builders Manual’ ( I make no money by doing
so!). Also, if you are really serious about creating a
profitable internet marketing campaign consider checking out the
specialist guidance of Perry Marshal, especially his ebook
entitled ‘The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords’. This is one
of the two products that I really believe in and that I
mentioned previously. A link for you to learn more about him is
provided at the end of this article.

The next step on my journey, having deciding that selling quotes
was to provide the basis of my pension fund (!), was to design a
website to sell my ebook. The most well-known website design
software, and the one that was recommended to me, was Microsoft
FrontPage so that is what I bought. Unfortunately, I found it to
be extremely confusing, frustrating – not at all user-friendly.
I did make a website but it was far from professional. In fact,
a friend of mine who is a successful internet marketer politely
commented that he would certainly not buy anything from a site
like mine!

He went on to tell me that he had recently discovered a new
website design programme called XSitePro that is two thirds the
price of Front Page and infinitely easier to use. In fact, he
was in the process of redesigning all his many sites using it.
Having faith in his advice, I shelled out $197, bought the
software and was absolutely blown away by it! XsitePro is
designed specifically for people who sell on the internet. It is
so easy to use that I am now churning out professional-looking
websites in less than half a day – and they work. In fact,
having not sold one of my ebooks for weeks beforehand on my
FrontPage site, I launched my new site, using XSitePro, and sold
one within half an hour. I could hardly believe it!

Hence, my fourth piece of advice. I make no apologies for being
so direct – if you want to produce easy websites that sell,
click on the link at the end of this article and check out
XSitePro. The link takes you to a web site that I have made to
tell the world about, what I believe to be, the best web site
design software available today.

Lesson No 4. Don’t waste you time with other website design
software, buy XSitePro.

So, once you have designed your website, you will need to
ensure that your potential customers can find it. Essentially,
you have two choices: work hard at driving it up the search
engine rankings or pay for the privilege by using Google
Adwords. Perry Marshall’s ebook ‘The Definitive Guide to Google
Adwords’ goes into great depth about making the most of Adwords
but, essentially, you bid to have an advert promoting your
website featured on the right-hand side of a Google search page
as a ‘sponsored link’. However, you only pay when people click
on your ad.

Most experts will argue that using Pay Per Click (Google
Adwords) is the best way to promote websites of limited size
like the ones internet marketers use to promote their products.
And that is what I did.

Unfortunately, though, I did not pay sufficient attention to
setting up my sites. I accepted Google’s recommended daily
budget; set my pay-per-click rates too high; advertised in too
many countries and advertised in its content network as well as
its search network. Perry Marshall’s ebook explains all these
settings in fine detail. I only wish I had bought it in the
early stages because I ended paying much more than I needed to.

So, I had set up my Google AdWords campaign and was up and
running – but was not selling any products. I was, however,
getting hundreds of clicks a day, so was ever hopeful. My wife
and I then went away on holiday and I put my internet marketing
campaign out of my mind, in the confident knowledge that when I
returned my In Box would be full of orders.

Imagine my horror when I returned to find no product orders but
a $700 Google AdWords bill. It doesn’t take much time to
accumulate those costs when you are getting hundreds of clicks a
day; you are selling no products; and your daily Google budget
is set at $50!

The lesson here is crucial. In the early stages at least, you
MUST keep a close, daily eye on your Google Adwords account. As
time goes on and you have fine-tuned your account you can leave
it for a day, or two, but initially you must not let it get out
of control.

Lesson No 5. Keep very close control of your Google AdWords
account in its early stages

I mentioned previously that you must fine-tune your ad campaign
if you want to maximise its sales potential. The critical factor
here is the Click Through Rate (CTR) – how often people click on
your ad when it is displayed on a page of Google search results.
If your ad features 100 times when people enter, for example,
‘inspirational quote’ as a Google search term and two of them
actually click on your ad the CTR would be 2%. Improving the CTR
is important to maximising your sales potential.

This is a very detailed process where specific changes, for
example trying out different ad formats or even using capital
letters in certain areas of your ad, can make a real difference
to your CTR. Perry Marshall is an accomplished expert on using
Google Adwords and I have, personally, learnt a great deal from
his ebook.

Lesson No 6. Work hard at fine-tuning your Google Adwords
campaigns to maximise their CTR and, if your website and your
product are attractive, your revenue will gradually increase

And so to the last lesson that I have learnt. Going back to
where I started, I have realised that making money on the
internet is not, as I told my wife, ‘the pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow’. However, I do believe that there is serious
money to be made by people like me who are prepared to work hard
at ensuring the three essential elements are in place, namely:

* A product that people are looking for and are prepared to buy
* A website that is effective in selling that product * A sales
campaign that directs people towards your website

Personally, over the last twelve months, I have struggled on all
three counts, and have thus paid the price. However, I have
learnt my lessons and am confident that I will now begin to reap
at least some of the riches that definitely are out there on the
World Wide Web.

I have been told that my experiences are not unusual. Surprise,
surprise: contrary to what some internet experts tell us, very
few people strike gold immediately. It takes time and a lot of
hard work and determination. It does not surprise me, therefore,
that many people who embark on the journey as I did, fell at the
early hurdles. My final lesson, and piece of advice, is
therefore to ensure that your internet strategy is sound and
then work hard at making it successful.

Lesson No 8. Don’t give up – make it work.

Here are the links for the two products that I am happy to
recommend. To see the website I made to promote XSitePro, please
go to www.diy-websitedesign.org. To check out what Perry
Marshall can teach you, please see
http://perrymarshall.com/cmd.php?pg=305720 .

Being a professional speaker, should you wish me to deliver a
presentation developing the content of this article to your
colleagues or company, please contact me on
alan@leadershiptalks.com

Copyright Alan Cutler 2005

This article is written by Alan Cutler. Permission is granted to
copy and use it for any purpose as long as it is not amended in
any way.

Let us take a quick look at how PPC Search Engines work.

These engines create listings and rate them based on a bid amount the website owner is willing to pay for each click from that search engine. advertisers bid against each other to receive higher ranking for a specific keyword or phrase.

The highest bidder for a certain keyword or phrase will then have the site ranked as number 1 in the PPC Search Engines followed by the second and third highest bidder, up to the last number that have placed a bid on the same keyword or phrase. Your ads then will appear prominently on the results pages based on the dollar amount bid you will agree to pay per click.

How do you make money by using PPC into your affiliate marketing business?

Most affiliate programs only pay when a sale is made or a lead delivered after a visitor has clickthrough your site. Your earnings will not always be the same as they will be dependent on the web site content and the traffic market.

The reason why you should incorporate PPC into your affiliate marketing program is that earnings are easier to make than in any other kind of affiliate program not using PPC. This way, you will be making profit based from the clickthroughs that your visitor will make on the advertiser’s site. Unlike some programs, you are not paid per sale or action.

PPC can be very resourceful of your website. With PPC Search Engines incorporated into your affiliate program, you will be able to profit from the visitor’s who are not interested in your products or services. The same ones who leave your site and never comes back.

You will not only get commissions not only from those who are just searching the web and finding the products and services that they wanted but you will be able to build your site’s recognition as a valuable resource. The visitors who have found what they needed from you site are likely to come back and review what you are offering more closely. Then they will eventually come back to search the web for other products.

This kind of affiliate program is also an easy way for you to generate some more additional revenues. For example, when a visitor on your site does a search in the PPC Search Engine and clicks on the advertiser bided listings, the advertisers’ account will then be deducted because of that click. With this, you will be compensated 30% to 80% of the advertisers’ bid amount.

PPC is not only a source of generating easy profits; it can also help you promote your own site. Most of the programs allow the commissions received to be spent for advertising with them instantly and with no minimum earning requirement. This is one of the more effective ways to exchange your raw visitors for targeted surfers who has more tendencies to purchase your products and services.

What will happen if you when you integrate PPC into your affiliate program?

PPC usually have ready-to-use affiliate tools that can be easily integrated into your website. The most common tools are search boxes, banners, text links and some 404-error pages. Most search engines utilize custom solutions and can provide you with a white-label affiliate program. This enables you, using only a few lines of code, to integrate remotely-hosted co-branded search engine into your website.

The key benefits? Not only more money generated but also some extra money on the side. Plus a lifetime commissions once you have referred some webmaster friends to the engine.

Think about it. Where can you get all these benefits while already generating some income for your site? Knowing some of the more useful tools you can use for your affiliate program is not a waste of time. They are rather a means of earning within an earning.

Best know more about how you can use PPC search engines into your affiliate program than miss out on a great opportunity to earn more profits.