วันเสาร์ที่ 27 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

SEO Permanently In The Gray Area

By Julie Johnson

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is still a mystery to people not in the industry. It is hardly a household word. But what is always fascinating is that even within the SEO industry, there is so much gray area on how it should be done and what is or isnt ethical.

There are some standard guidelines like high volume of content on the website, giving outbound links and receiving inbound links, properly formatted meta tags, and a well organized site. Most in the industry do agree that these are basic tenets for a successful SEO program, but there is no magic path to getting there. SEO is not divined from a scientific method, but remains almost like a dance, an art form. The SEO provider is constantly working and reworking their formulas while they keep a close eye on the website's movement in the rankings.

Most professional SEO providers will provide their client a level of detailed in-depth report similar to one another. But that's where much of the similarity ends. While most will not have any outright conflicting advise, their content and their approach will be different. If you polled 10 providers for reports, you'd likely get 10 different versions.

This is the challenge for the SEO organization. There is no clear laid out plan that can be picked up and read like a book. There's no secret site that one can plug into and retrieve all the right answers. As every day at work is different, every company and every website is different. The interesting factor for the SEO provider is the suspense of not knowing immediately if their work is successful. Improved ranking and traffic take time to build and a successful SEO program will achieve that for the client.

Because things are changing so quickly with search engines these days, it takes a professional SEO organization to keep up with where things are going. For an individual to jump into doing SEO work on his own site would require a lot of time, and a lot of faith, and an extensive undestanding of SEO. There's a reason that some professionals have a great track record and others don't. It takes experience that can only be gained through a large client base.

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Making Money Online - Sifting Through the Hype

By Sigh Ney

Wouldn't it be interesting to know what content of a sales page is actually true, or could be true for the average person? What I've learned is that there is no quick fix or get-rich hype that is real. I bought all kinds of products, jumping from one hyped program to the next. I tried it all, but I lacked focus! The key is to focus in a particular area and stay with it. Whether PPC (pay per click) is your thing, selling you're own products, selling affiliate products or whatever ... it's important to take action and stay the course. But whatever it is, building your own list is a top priority in determining your ultimate success.

When I began my internet marketing online experience, I made the big mistake of starting with affiliate marketing building someone else's mailing list. The training material was fantastic, very detailed and comprehensive. I soon discovered that I was really building a list for someone else the was not in my control. I am quite sure I made a great positive impact on his affiliate marketing business. Wow, what a learning experience!

You can find about any kind of product you're looking for online. If you have money available, you may find that paying for advertising for your product or service works for you. If so, by all means go for it. But if you don't have a lot of money to start with, and can't really afford to pay per click or expensive traffic strategies, then start building a mailing list. I have to admit I liked PPC advertising and kind of became addicted to it! But I was losing money by the truckloads, so I obviously did not have the skill or knowledge required to competently use it. You'll find all the "gurus" say the money is in the list and they're so right. In this competitive market, I truly believe that list building is critical, and the money really is in the list.

What do I mean by building a list? It's a process where you collect names and email addresses from people interested in how you can help them. Whether you have some great service, such as ways they can obtain free targeted traffic to their business, or other high value information or product to help them become successful, they will appreciate you and become loyal, if you are for real. Making money online is a business and should be treated like one. In other words, you need to provide something of value so you establish a long-term relationship with your customer.

Building a list and over-delivering value to that list is the path to success. By connecting with a mentor that does just that is what I have done. Alex Jeffreys is no guru, just someone that has been extremely successful, and his List Building With Alex product is what got me started on the right track to be successful online. His product was free and it provided value, not just another ebook to file away!

You can find about any kind of product you're looking for online. If you have money available, you may find that paying for advertising for your product or service works for you. If so, by all means go for it. But if you don't have a lot of money to start with, and can't really afford to pay per click or expensive traffic strategies, then start building a mailing list. I have to admit I liked PPC advertising and kind of became addicted to it! But I was losing money by the truckloads, so I obviously did not have the skill or knowledge required to competently use it. You'll find all the "gurus" say the money is in the list and they're so right. In this competitive market, I truly believe that list building is critical, and the money really is in the list.

What do I mean by building a list? It's a process where you collect names and email addresses from people interested in how you can help them. Whether you have some great service, such as ways they can obtain free targeted traffic to their business, or other high value information or product to help them become successful, they will appreciate you and become loyal, if you are for real. Making money online is a business and should be treated like one. In other words, you need to provide something of value so you establish a long-term relationship with your customer.

It is my experience that list building and helping your customer's succeed is the key to succeeding and thriving online.

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Look Before you Leap into Free Web Hosting

By Theodore Metagastar

Free web hosting is a reality that many have taken advantage of over the past several years. There are many professional looking websites that offer some flexibility in the appearance of your website, and learning to work within these hosting sites is easy.

Why do you want a website? Is it for connecting with your friends, and making new friends? Social networking is a big industry these days, with many sites such as Facebook and MySpace. You can easily invite and connect with your people.

Are you looking for good hosting for your photo you might want to check out Flicker, though the social networking sites will serve you as well in displaying many photos.

Most of the free web space hosts have additional features to enhance and customize your website, such as templates for the appearance. Add on features include features like linking, photo upload, and comment sections where others can remark on your postings.

There is yet another level to free web hosting that many of these free sites do not allow, and that is the display of ads. Sure, you can talk about something you offer, and provide links to other sites, but many have it in their sign up that commercial sites are not allowed. Some do allow Google Adsense, such as the Blogspot site now owned by Google.

One key part of having a website is the identity, and the domain name is a big part of that. When you use a free web space host your site location, the address used to find you on the web, will be a combination of your unique name and the host site. One example is a site hosted on blogspot: http://atravel-adventure.blogspot.com. , which has their own name integrated with the hosts name.

If you are set on having your own domain name, like http://afreewebspace.com, you will have more latitude as far as the type of site you will have, such as an html site or a content management system, or CMS site, which we will discuss in the next article in this series. You will have costs involved for a hosting service.

If you find that the free web space hosting you have is not going to serve you for your new ideas and creative endeavors, you can always create your next site elsewhere and put links to your new site on the free hosting site. This way your people can follow you, and the search engines will find you much easier.

One good thing about having a free web space is that you have storage off site for your photos and ideas. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone praise their online free web site for keeping their precious photos when they suffer a computer crash or otherwise lose data.

Free web space hosting is here to stay. Isnt it time you start your own website?

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