internet marketing optimization

5 Biggest Legitimate Internet Home Business Lies

You have heard from people saying legitimate Internet home business is a waste of time, you will not make any money online, there is no real money to be made online, it will never work and so many others negative words coming from people who do not really understand in this legitimate Internet home business industry.

The thing is, it does work. Why some people make a fortune and some do not even make money online at all? Simply because the people who make thousands or millions of cash knew all the lies in this legitimate Internet home business and they will not trust these lies.

So what is this big Internet lies? Below here are the 5 biggest legitimate Internet home business lies that you should know:

1. Starting and running a legitimate Internet home business Is expensive.

Do you know that you can start your legitimate Internet home business with zero cost? You can actually earn your income by joining a very high quality internet based affiliate program. Usually, as an Internet based affiliate marketer, your job is concentrating on marketing only. All the follow up, delivery of the product, answering questions from customers and so on are done by the owner of the program.

Usually the ‘expensive’ statement often comes from people who are living in non-U.S. countries, especially if the country’s local currency is smaller than that of the U.S. Dollar. If it is not a currency issue, it is a vision issue. See and think small to get small. See and think big and your results will have a tendency to match your thoughts.

2. You can make easy and real money online.

Most people believe you can make money easy and real money overnight and by not doing anything at all. If it is what you have in mind right now, this myth is what sets the realistic apart from the unrealistic. You have probably heard of stories of how people make 5 to 6 figure incomes in the shortest period of time imaginable.

These stories might be true but did you know most of them have failed so miserably several times before they can really make easy and real money online? They have learned from their mistakes and move on. It may seem as if some gurus are overnight successes with the wild numbers some people have brought in during a day or a week selling information or products online.

Some interesting facts about overnight success – it normally takes months if not years to realize. In other words, they prepare, they create a joint ventures, they get ready and then build up anticipation for a launch – then BOOM it explodes!

3. You must know hypertext markup language(HTML), programming and graphic designing in order to start your legitimate Internet home business.

You do not need to know all of these at all. Period. In fact, one of the biggest shockers was the discovery that most of the biggest on the Internet gurus today do not have the first clue as to how to build a web page.

These Internet gurus earned more money online because they knew how to reach people. They either outsource for professional help or establish Joint Ventures with other individuals who can compensate their lack of knowledge in any one of these areas.

As a matter of fact, most successful people are true successes because they only focus their time on what brings them successes.

If you want to create your web pages without having to learn programming, HTML and designing skills, just find someone else that can do it for you. There are many professional web designer you can find on the Internet which you can hire them to design your web pages exactly like you wanted.

4. On The Net, There Is No Need To Know How To Sell.

This statement has made people who hate selling are attracted to ads that read “no selling required”. Think for a moment, is there any logic at all you can make easy and real money online without doing anything at all? Usually these programs are usually unworkable and some are run by fly-by-night operators.

In this legitimate Internet home business , do not try to sell to other people. Instead, you inform your potential customers. Show people what their lives would be like with what you offer and you will have a sale without selling anything at all!

5. You do not have to build a mailing list at all.

Laughing out loud – that is like saying, “I do not want to be in legitimate Internet home business”. Put this in your head, your mailing list is as important to you as the “Yellow Pages” is to a conventional B2B business.

“The money is in the list”. You probably heard this from most Internet gurus out there. But you should also have this word in your mind, “The money is in the relationship”. The idea of networking with people is unattractive to most who hate to sell.

Remember though, you are not selling anything. You are just showing people their life and how it can easily be enhanced by what you have to offer.

All the above are just some of the biggest Internet home business lies. Actually there are a lot more Internet lies you should stay away from. You have to be smart in order to really achieve success that you could possibly imagine. Success is like enlightenment. It is a path and not a destination.

How to Make Money on the Internet in 24 Hours or Less

If you want to make money on the internet there are a few things that you can do. You can make money with an investment or without an investment.

money on the internet there are a few things that you can do. You can make money with an investment or without an investment. These are the only ways to make money. To understand that statement, let me detail how and what the difference is with and without investing money. If you want to make money online without an investment, you are going to have to do it by working for someone online like an online company. This way you will be making money online, but you will be working yet another job. This type of income will not be residual nor will it be passive. If you are wanting to make money online in 24 hours or less by doing work, then you can do this with a number of online companies. The amount of money that you will make will probably not be that substantial either.

If you want to make a good amount of money online, you will need to know how to market something. This takes time, training and knowledge and last but not least, effort and work. If you do not know what you are doing, you have to start from the ground up like any business, to make passive or residual income. You can train yourself or get someone else to help you, but the results will take time to manifest.

The next thing you need to know to make money online in the next 24 hours is you need to know what you want to do. This is actually the biggest thing to understand. If you do not know what you want to sell or what service to provide someone, you probably wont make much headway. If you do not know what kind of operation you want to run and you just want to make money, then cash gifting or MLM is probably something you want to try out because it just deals with money. There is an investment required in these programs, but with the investment you will get a website, membership, training as well as advertising all included in one place. This is the best way to make money online in 24 hours or less. Even though there is an investment, you will be sure to make it back plus much more.

How to Make Money Quick on the Internet the Fastest

Greetings to all internet wanna be money makers out there. If you are looking for a wake to make money quick, then this article is for you to pay attention to, as I will detail what you need to know about making money online.

There are a number of ways to make money online, some work, some don't. The truth is that what it all comes down to is the system and your ability to make it work. Anything online, you can profit from. It doesn't matter what it is, if you have enough traffic, you are going to make money from whatever you are advertising or selling. If it is an ebook or just ads for people to click on, with the right amount of traffic, you eventually will start to see conversions. It is just a matter of numbers and statistics. Anyone with any amount of common sense understands this.

If you are looking to make money quick online, but do not have any idea how to do so, or what to sell, then this is what you need to do. You need to get involved with cash gifting. The reason for this is that there is no products and you deal with cash only. If you want to make money online, then why not go straight to the source, right? Obviously there is no better way to go about it.

Cash gifting will help you make money quick on the internet the fastest because of the high amount of cash that you will be receiving. The best reason why cash gifting works is because your page and advertising is always included, which makes such a program 100 percent automatic. All you have to do is send your gift out to your inviter, your website goes online and then your ads go out - then you just collect cash and other peoples money who want to get involved with gifting. There really is nothing easier.

Top 10 Tips and Advice on How to Start and Run an Online Business

Top 10 Tips and advice on how to start and run an online business

1) Choose a keyword related domain name for your new website.

It is probably one of the most important parts of starting your new online business.
You must choose a good quality domain name for your business and preferable a .com or a .co.uk if you are UK based.

For example you may have a company name already, like “A & B Marketing Ltd” specialising in allsorts of marketing media and you are thinking of starting a business directory.
You would be tempted to buy www.aandbmarketing.com but this is only useful in general advertising purposes, there is no harm in buying it to point to the main domain name, but if you want to get visitors to your site you must buy something a little bit more search engine friendly, a keyword related domain.

Here is an example, imagine A & B Marketing are based in Manchester in the North of the UK and their target base for the new directory is Manchester and surrounding areas the ideal keyword related domain would be www.manchesterbusinessdirectory.co.uk because that is what someone would probably type in to the search engines who are looking for businesses in Manchester area, so if your domain is www.manchesterbusinessdirectory.co.uk you will be on the first page within a few weeks of listing your domain name to the search engines.

2) Choose good reliable hosting.

Another very useful tip is to make sure you get good quality flexible hosting. Do not be tempted by free hosting packages because in most cases there is a catch. You will probably find that most free hosting are very limited to what they can offer your business website, like low web space and data transfer, so as your site grows and more people visit then that’s where you start to get problems. Within no time you run out of web space or your visitors have drained your data transfer allowance. So what happens then ? well your provider will email you and tell you its some ridiculous amount of money to upgrade, that’s the catch. Buy good quality hosting from a reputable and popular provider.

3) Website design

This can be a frustrating part of getting your website off the ground. Do you go for these free “easy design it yourself” packages or get someone to do it for you? My advice is, if you want the best results from your website, go to a professional, don’t do it yourself or get an Internet savvy friend who claims they can do it for you. It’s an art, there’s a knack, there is a lot of things that go in to designing and developing websites that most people don’t know about and these are the important bits that make your site perform to its max. Done incorrectly and your website will be pointless, dumped on the cyberspace scrap heap by the search engines and that will do nothing for your business what so ever.
You have to invest some money at this point on your website, this is your online tool that can boost your businesses online presence to extremes.
You don’t need to spend a fortune, a few hundred pound in most cases to get you started and most web developers, including my company will say you can come back anytime and add new features as your business grows.

4) Marketing and promoting your website

This is an important part once your website is up and running and there are lots of ways to do most of this yourself. You may be tempted to try and SEO specialist, this can be a good option to fast track your website up the ranks but be careful!, there are a lot of these SEO companies that promise they can get your site to the top of google within days for something like £50 per month or more in some cases, but can be a waste of your money. If you are on a tight budget and want do most of this yourself then try Google Adwords, PPC (Pay Per Click), blogs, free ads and directories, article website like this one. A popular way is to get link backs, that’s basically your link on someone else’s website that directly links back to your website. Normally these are reciprocal link so you will have to put there like on your site to, so you will need a link page you can administer yourself. Speak to your web developer about how you can market and promote your website because they will probably have some realistic packages to suit your budget.

5) Keeping your site active

Some good advice to moving up the search engine ranks is to make sure your websites text content is constantly changing by adding a news page or a blog this can be easily achieved and simple for you to add information on your products or give advice to your potential customers before they buy. Visitors just love informative sites, they need to know that the company they are going to buy from actual knows what they are talking about and this gives them confidence in making a purchase from your website. Lay off the fancy flashing images and flash content, keep them minimal because the search engines can only read text, not images, so they may look good be won’t do anything for your ranking or relevance. Nicely on to relevance, when adding text content to your site keep it relevant to what your selling or advertising on your website, these no point babbling on about how the weather is today if you’re a plumber, stick to plumbing related topics. Tell your visitors what you do and how you do it, add testimonials from previous customers or clients, contact them and ask them to write a testimonial for you and put it on your website, nothing better than word of mouth.

6) Providing good customer service

Once your sites up and running always be attentive to your customers, make sure you answer all your emails regularly, don’t leave it for days to get back to people, its annoying and ignorant not to reply and you are losing potential business. Once you have a sale keep that customer informed every step of the way. I know you cannot always be online 24/7 but at least make it clear that they will receive an answer to their email within a certain time, put your online opening hours on your site in your enquiry area so they know you are close on a Sunday and won’t expect a reply until Monday.

As I said above, nothing is better than word of mouth so ask your previous customers to use your feedback form on your site to give their opinion of their experience buying from your website.
Speak to your web developer they can provide a simple feedback form and page which will display your customer feedback on your website automatically, on approval by yourself of course.

7) Don’t neglect your website

There are quite number of businesses out there that either forget or cannot be bothered to keep their website up to date. These people don’t realise the damage they are doing to their business, just because you cannot see the visitors to your site doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say. One disappointed visitor could be a lost sale. You must make sure your site is correct, informative and most importantly up to date and working correctly. Visit your site daily to check it’s functioning properly, if not get on to your developer and ask them to fix it. You wouldn’t leave the front door to your shop locked or broken to the point the customer can’t open it, they would walk away. This has the same effect online if your site is not working properly, like the navigation of links to pages don’t work they will simply go to your competitors website. You could potentially lose hundreds of possible sales a day through neglecting your site. Pay your web developer a maintenance fee to make sure your site has support just in case it breaks down or needs immediate attention its worth it.

8) Patience & Consistency

These are two major requirements of running your website. You must be patient when it comes to marketing nothing happens over night no matter what you hear, you must allow time for your site to mature on the internet, search engines prioritise older more established sites so it make take some time before you see any movement up the ranks. Consistency, well you must keep up with any marketing and SEO work to keep boosting your website up those ranks, if you stop you are dead in the water, and you will start to sink. You must keep a regular check on your sites progress and keep pushing those link backs, blogs, articles and advertising wherever you can, being patient and consistent will eventually pay off. I have used all the methods mentioned in this article for some years now and I adopted the patience and consistency philosophy and its been a great success for me and yes it is hard work but this is your business we are talking about and nobody with their own business will have it easy, until they’ve made it.

9) Monitoring your progress

You must keep tracks on your progress in the ranks and to do this you can either sign up to a stats monitoring website and add some code the page your want to monitor or ask your web developer to add some kind of stats page on your site.

Most of these facilities can monitor your page daily, weekly, month, yearly visits, hits, page views and so on. Its important to understand what all these mean and you can get information on all of these figures from the Internet. You can see the progress and increased in visit to your site, where they are being referred from so you know which sites you’re advertised on are doing the most for you.
10) Success or failure

This all depends on your drive and ambition to succeed in business, not all of us have this drive to work for ourselves and some will never know, but you have to try and take a risk to become successful. All business people are risk takers, some win some lose, and those who lose get back up and try again, now there’s the drive and ambition. Those who succeed don’t stop there, they want a new challenge so they start a new project another chance to increase their success.

Once you have your website up and running and you see its working for you, while not go for global domination? Or at least local domination, start up another website selling similar or related products or services. Imagine a plumbing services website and then a Plumbing supplies website with your plumbing services advertised on it and vice versa. There is no limits to what websites can do, so now is time to get planning how you are going to start your online business.

Clicks and Earn: Click Per Sale Ratio Affiliate Program Decisions

Have you gone through the grueling task of deciding whether or not to try your luck with affiliate marketing? Choosing the products you would be promoting, and establishing your affiliate marketing sites. The first few dollars have managed to come marching in, and you think it is enough. I know you are fed up with decision making and would rather just wait for the money to flow, but in order for you to succeed more, you have to make more decisions: that is what businesses are all about.

One of the best tools you can use to aid you in your affiliate program decisions is the clicks per sale ratio. What is click per sale ratio? Everyday, a number of unique individuals visit your site. Each unique individual is called a "click." However, out of the hundreds, nay, thousands who visit your site, only a handful end up purchasing your product. This handful of people is called your "sales." A click per sale ratio is the number of clicks you must get in order to get one sale. To calculate, simply divide all of the clicks you get in a day by the number of sales you get in a day, and voila! You have the click per sale ratio of your affiliate marketing sites!

A Positive Attitude is Critical to Your Success

Whenever you are faced with something that seems negative, try adopting a more positive attitude...it will help you achieve your desired results.

Throughout the ages, virtually everyone has agreed that in order to succeed, we need a positive attitude.

There are however 2 things about attitudes that few people discuss. .

Your Attitude Is Variable

Positive and negative attitudes are not mutually exclusive....just because you have one, it does not mean that you do not or cannot have the other.

Your attitude is like the bass and treble elements on a sound system.

You can adjust the overall sound by increasing the bass and decreasing the treble...or vice versa.

Similarly, you can adjust your overall attitude by making it more positive...or for reasons I fail to understand...making it more negative.

Further, few people...even the most optimistic...are always positive. And even the most pessimistic of people are not negative all the time. . And sometimes even the most positive among us feels more negative than normal.

The bottom line on attitudes...they are variable...sometimes more positive...sometimes less positive and more negative.

You Can Change Whatever Is Variable

While it is definitely possible to shift from a totally negative attitude to a totally positive one, a better approach is to make the change one step at a time. Think of how jarring it is when you adjust the sound system from all bass to all treble, or vice versa...it takes some getting used to.

Just as you would adjust your sound system by gradually adding treble...or bass.. you change your attitude by gradually adding more positiveness. As you continue to do this, you will gradually have an increasingly positive attitude.

Regardless of the nature of your business your market shifts and changes. Don't allow these changes to drag you down and drain your time and energy. By adopting a more positive attitude, you can survive whatever changes are occurring...and continue to thrive.

To help develop a more positive attitude, focus on completing work that you know can successfully finish.

It's also a good idea to connect with your network contacts, including clients. Discuss new economic developments and how these factors influence local market conditions.

It's always productive to keep in touch with clients and contacts...this helps you maintain and improve your relationship and helps generate more repeat and referral business.

Taking positive, proactive action helps develop a more positive attitude.

On the other hand not doing anything strengthens a negative attitude and makes things seem worse than they really are.

Achieving the results you seek challenging enough without making it harder for yourself.

3 Reasons Your Business Needs a Sidewalk Sign

Every business, no matter what kind it is needs a sidewalk sign. Not only are sidewalk signs cost effective but they are also the best way for you to reach potential customers who are walking and driving by your business every single day.

Here are 3 reasons it is a must that you invest in a sidewalk sign for your business.

1. It lets people know you are there – Do you know how many people pass by your business on any given day? And do you know how many of those people have no idea what kind of business you have or what you offer? This is where an outdoor sign such as a sidewalk sign comes in. An outdoor sign lets people know you are there. It will help you get the attention of passer byers who might not otherwise notice you.

2. It’s always working for you – A sign can be advertising for you all day everyday helping you attract new customers and bring new business in. Put your deals on a sign outside of your business and you are sure to get some walk in’s that you otherwise would not have gotten.

3. "A business without a sign is a sign of no business." – That is a quote that an industry professional said and boy is it true. Just by placing one sign in front of your business you can increase your transactions by a considerable amount. Ignore the importance of an outdoor sign and you could miss out on a lot of sales.

Here I have listed just 3 of the many reason your business needs a sidewalk sign. The bottom line is if you want to increase your sales then you need a sidewalk sign.

PR blogger II

Wadugh ada seri Ke II ne.. PR yang pertama da lama tak kerjakan, sekarang dapat PR lagi dari rekanku Z4ro08,kemarin lagi agak boring jadi PRnya tak kerjakan sekarang ni.. So lets go...

1. SEBUTKAN PENYANYI POP FAVORITMU?
Penyayi pop favoritku Mariah Carey dan Christina Aguilera

2. APA ARTI DARI EMO MENURUTMU?
EMO? apa ya kayaknya sih kependekan dari EMOtional yang berarti luapan emosi yang diaplikasikan baik dalam musik or life 5tyle,, emo sendiri gax terlepas dari pribadi orang tersebut,,,

3. SETUJUKAH JIKA DANGDUT GO-INTERNATIONAL?
Ya tergantung... Apakah Penyanyi Dangdut sudah punya mental Go international blm.. memang.. musik dangdut itu sangat universal selain itu juga memiliki keunikan tersendiri jadi mari kita tanamkan mental Go International agar Dangdut bisa Go International.

4. KOLEKSI ALBUM YANG KAMU MILIKI ADA BERAPA?
Wah ga banyak sih, kebanyakan koleksi album saya dah pindah kepemilikannya dan banyak yang hilang n rusak, paling yang ada cuman koleksi album adik saya doang..

5. MENGAPA MUSIK METAL SELALU TERIAK-TERIAK(SCREAM)?
Dari sononya kali hehe...

6. SEBARKAN AWARD INI KE 7 ORANG, DAN SEBARKAN LINK kill24 KE 3 ORANG!
Selanjutnya award dan PR seri II ini saya teruskan untuk teman-teman blogger lainnya yang merupakan dari pengunjung pertama blogku diantaranya :
The Dexter|Best PTC|A2i3s|Wahyu|Brewoks|Rohman|Atca|

Top 3 SEO Tips of 2009

Since 1998 I've spent the first several months of each year looking for the very best search engine optimization (SEO) tips of the previous year's end. This year I've come across the best SEO tips yet.

SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's biggest search engine be your personal online spy. This takes search engine optimization insider info to whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google....

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic".

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams"

As you probably guessed, it's the second one we care about most, "keeping current on a competitor or industry."

Here's how it works... Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online spy to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's the easiest way in the world to stop competitors' dirty tricks and identify trends that you can take instant advantage of.

It's fast, free and works every minute of every day. Let Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) do your most time consuming legwork while you reap the rewards!

SEO Tip #2: Optimize Your 404 Page and Always Be Found

"Error 404: Page Not Found" is a blessing that most Webmasters curse. Why? Getting a visitor on any page of your site is fantastic! Don't blow the opportunity. Not only can you make your "404" page a valuable sales tool, you can use the following search engine optimization techniques to attract customers in droves.

A.) Use your main keyword in your title, add a "pipe" (usually above the Enter key) and then use your secondary keyword. Here's as example for an SEO site "SEO - Search Engine Optimization Tips"

B.) Add some keyword rich content using one to two keywords for the page. If you have less than 250 words on the page, just use one keyword and use it no more than three times total. Bold the first use and italicize the second or third use. Keep in mind this is an "inactive" page so simply tell the visitor what your site is about and whet their appetite with a good description. Something like this works well... "Thank you for visiting SEO (bold) Group, Inc. We are sorry you landed on a missing page but don't worry, if you're looking for the very best search engine optimizations tips (bold), you're at the right place..." This will go on for a couple paragraphs or as long as you'd like then end it with something to the effect of "Please Click Here (link) to visit our site map or click any link to the left."

C.) Add your site's standard navigation system (bar, column, etc.) as mentioned above.

D.) Make the look and feel of the customized 404 page match your main site as closely as possible with a template, matched palette, cascading style sheets, etc.

E.) Create a link to the site map page if available, and make the link easy to find. You want your visitor off the 404 page and into your main content as quickly as possible.

Setting up a custom 404 page link usually takes less than five minutes on most major Web hosting companies like Godaddy.com. But whatever it takes, it's worth the effort.

SEO Tip #3: Get (Even More) Serious About Linking

I saved the most important for last. If you want to do well on any search engine, especially Google, linking is THE single MOST important thing you can do. It's that simple.

Here are the five things you MUST do to make your site #1 on Google:
A.) Find the highest page rank sites linking to your site AND your competitors' sites.

B.) Run monthly link campaigns and snatch up the best of the above identified Web sites.

C.) Run regular checks on what pages are still linking back to your site. Alsomake sure they did not move you from a high page rank page to a lower one (don't get cheated!)

D.) Eliminate any penalized sites you link to; ASAP!

E.) Check your search engine ranking AND your competitor's for each of your keywords every week. Do this, at the minimum, for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista.

One last thing to know is that Google was originally a college student's project created for the sole purpose of defining a Web site's value by the sites that link to it. Twelve years later this is still it's main job. Linking is EVERYTHING to Google.

another SEO Post:

seo marketinghow torank higher in google using
keyword research key to seo success
8 quick steps to seo success
how to create powerful headlines
how to test efficiency of your value
ethics and SEO SEM

These few SEO tips are the very best of the best so use them wisely. Best of luck!

another SEO Post:

20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and is a website which provides information on traffic levels for websites. The Alexa rank is measured according to the amount of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.

In this article, I’ll examine the importance of the Alexa Rank as it relates to site monetization while briefly discussing some of the weaknesses involved in using Alexa ranking as a reliable traffic measure for any website.

Lastly, I’ve also included an extensive list of twenty methods and strategies you can use to increase your Alexa Rank dramatically in the short and long run.

What is the Alexa Rank?

Put simply, the Alexa Rank is a ranking system which bases its ranking schema on the level of traffic each website receives from the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.

See Alexa’s definition of the Alexa Traffic Rank:

The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site's current rank with its rank from three months ago. For example, on July 1, the three-month change would show the difference between the rank based on traffic during the first quarter of the year and the rank based on traffic during the second quarter.

Why would you want to increase your Alexa rank?

Webmasters, advertisers and ad networks use your blog’s Alexa rank as a gauge to determine the worth of a link on your website. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing.

ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews are just three of the networks which base your ad selling strength on Alexa Ranks.

Problems with the Alexa Rank

Alexa ranking is heavily skewed towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience. This is because webmasters or web savvy audiences are much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed than websites whose visitors are unaware of Alexa.

As such, many have indicated that Alexa is a vastly inaccurate method of measuring a website’s reach, traffic and potential. I don’t disagree.

Alexa is a silly way to measure web traffic but unfortunately, in an imperfect world Alexa is still heavily used by webmasters and ad networks when measuring the value of advertising on your website.

I understand the defects of Alexa’s ranking system and I’m not going to go into more detail about it here. What’s primarily important to me is that the Alexa Rank has become a central element in site monetization strategies.

I’m not concerned with the utility and value of Alexa but it’s perceived importance in the eyes of potential advertisers.

How do I get started with Alexa?

There are two easy ways to start using Alexa. If you are using Internet Explorer, visit this page and download the Alexa Toolbar. If you’re using Firefox, download the SearchStatus extension which displays the Alexa Rank, Google PageRank as well as other useful features.

I highly recommend that you use Firefox and SearchStatus instead of Alexa toolbar, which I find to be more bulky and less useful.

Can one actually game or manipulate the Alexa Ranking?

I believe that there are methods which will allow you to easily bring an Alexa ranking in the millions down to the 100,000 level. However, bringing it past the 10,000 or 1,000 mark is a considerably more difficult process, because of the stiff competition among websites.

Some have adamantly stated that there are no proven ways to game Alexa, while others have claimed that auto-surfs and scripts do work to some degree.

I’m not going to take any sides because I can’t guarantee that auto-surfs or other artificial methods will have similar effects for every blog.

The easiest way to know to know if any of the tips mentioned below really work is to actually try them for yourselves and monitor the results.
20 Ways to Increase your Alexa Rank
Here is a collection of methods you can use to boost your Alexa Rank. Most of these tips are derived from several fellow webmasters I know who claimed to have derived positive results through their experiments with the Alexa Rankings.

Some of the other tips were derived articles and sources, which I have duly referenced at the end of this post.

Do these tips work? According to some, yes they definitely do work. But do note that most of them require active effort of some sort and hence, they will work as long as long as you are consistently performing specific actions.

To increase your Alexa rank in the long run, I would highly recommended that one focus on developing quality content which attracts and maintains a large audience instead of purely focusing on artificially increasing your Alexa Rank.

Great link-worthy content will leads to an natural increase in site traffic and is an excellent way to passively increase your Alexa rank.
It is important to emphasize that you should devote most of your efforts in growing your site audience alongside integrated implementation of any of the following tips below.

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step.

2. Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. I did this a few days ago and receive a fair amount of clicks every day. According to some, each click counts as a visit even if the toolbar is not used by the visitor.

3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. Be sure to link to Alexa’s full explanation of their toolbar and tracking system so your readers know what installing the toolbar or extension entails.

4. Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. Perhaps it will be useful to note that this may work only when dynamic or different IPs are used.

5. Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. Not entirely sure of its impact on rankings but it might help in some way.

6. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.

7. Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. You’ll get webmasters to visit your website and offer useful feedback. It’s also a good way to give back to the community if you have useful articles to share with others.

8. Write content that is related to webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. Promote your content on social networking websites and webmaster forums.

9. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.your domain.com . Replace your domain.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help. There is no official proof that redirects positively benefit your Alexa Rank, so use with caution.

10. Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. I suggest trying this only if you have the time or capacity to do so.

11. Create a webmaster tools section on your website. This is a magnet for webmasters who will often revisit your website to gain access to the tools. Aaron Wall’s webpage on SEOTools is a very good example.

12. Get Dugg or Stumbled. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer amount will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.

13. Use PayperClick Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in Traffic. Doubly useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters.

14. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa. This acts as an easily accessible resource for webmasters or casual search visitors while helping you rank in the search engines.

15. Optimize your popular posts. Got a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines? Include a widget/graph at the bottom of the post, link to your Alexa post or use Alexa redirection on your internal URLs.

16. Buy banners and links for traffic from webmaster forums and websites. A prominent and well displayed ad will drive lots of webmaster traffic to your website, which can significantly boost your rank.

17. Hire forum posters to pimp your website. Either buy signatures in webmaster forums or promote specific articles or material in your website on a regular basis. You can easily find posters for hire in Digital Point and other webmaster forums.

18. Pay Cybercafe owners to install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as the homepage for all their computers. This might be difficult to arrange and isn’t really a viable solution for most. I’m keeping this one in because some have suggested that it does work.

19. Use MySpace . This is a little shady so I don’t recommended it unless you’re really interested in artificially inflating your Alexa Rank. Use visually attractive pictures or banners and link them to your redirected Alexa URL. This will be most effective if your website has content that is actually relevant to the MySpace Crowd.

20. Try Alexa auto-surfs. Do they work? Maybe for brand new sites. I think they are mostly suitable for new websites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. They aren’t also long term solutions to improving your Alexa Rank so I suggest using with caution.

Resources on Alexa Rank

Several of the tips listed above were taken from Aaron Wall’s article on Alexa Ranking. This post by Aaron will also give you some insight on Alexa’s webmaster bias.
A lower Alexa number means a greater level of traffic, and the traffic drops off logarithmically. You can fake a good Alexa score using various techniques, but if it shows your rankings in the millions then your site likely has next to no traffic.

Alexa by itself does not mean that much, but it simply provides a rough snapshot of what is going on. It can be spammed, but if a site has a ranking in the millions then it likely has little traffic.

Peter Norvig writes about Alexa Toolbar and the Problem of Experiment Design. He examines some problems with Alexa as a traffic measuring tool:
But one bias they don’t really comment on is the selection bias: the data would be good if it truly represented a random sample of internet users, but in fact it only represents those who have installed the Alexa toolbar, and that sample is not random.

The samplees must be sophisticated enough to know how to install the toolbar, and they must have some reason to want it. It turns out that the toolbar tells you things about web sites, so it is useful to people in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry, so it overrepresents those people.

Google’s Matt Cutts compares his website against Ask.com and explains why his website enjoys such an impressive Alexa ranking:
One possible source of skewing in Alexa data is a bias toward webmaster-y sites. Alexa shows how popular web sites are, so it's natural that webmasters install the Alexa toolbar.

Some do it just so that their normal day-to-day visits around the web (including their own site) are added to Alexa's stats. The net effect is that webmaster-related sites are going to look more important to Alexa

A very long thread on Digital Point which sees webmasters having a discussion on how Alexa Ranks can be gamed or manipulated through scripts and auto-surfs. Worth a read.

There you have it… twenty ways to boost your Alexa Rank and increase your site’s monetization potential.

What do you think of Alexa? Have you tried increasing your Alexa Rank by any of these methods?

The Number One Thing Your Website Needs and It’s not What You Think

I have a confession to make. I’ve made some mistakes over the past couple of years with a few of my clients.

This is what would happen. Every now and then a client would hire me to write copy for their Web site. I would do so. A few months later, they’d contact me.

The site isn’t working. We haven’t gotten any sales or leads from it, they’d say.

I’d get on the phone with them and we’d talk about it. And invariably, I would hit upon the problem.

Traffic. Or, more specifically, lack of traffic. (Traffic is defined as visitors coming to your site.)

Now, I KNOW how to drive traffic to a Web site. However, even though I would tell these clients exactly what they needed to do to drive traffic to their site, they wouldn’t do it. Either they didn’t have the time or they didn’t have the money to pay someone or (more likely) both.

I would end up walking away from those encounters feeling like I did a disservice to the clients.

What I should have done (and what I do now) is make sure my copywriting clients have a marketing strategy in place to drive traffic to their site BEFORE I start working on copy.

Copy or traffic. It’s the whole chicken and the egg thing. You need strong copy (the words) on your Web site to convert people - get your prospects to purchase your products or services or even give you their email address. And if you have weak copy, that isn’t going to happen.

However, if you have little to no traffic going to your site, then it doesn’t matter how persuasive the copy is, you still aren’t going to make a lot of money from your site.

(A caveat here, if you have other things in place, such as strong joint venture partners or a very responsive list of people who subscribe to your newsletter, you can make money with little traffic coming to your site from the Internet. But just imagine how much MORE money you could be making if you also had good Web traffic?)

So, after not only being in my business myself but watching my clients’ businesses over the years, I’ve decided that for most people, the best place to start is NOT by rewriting the Web site with strong direct response copy but by putting a plan together to make sure there’s traffic going to that site.

(Bet you didn’t think I was going to say that, did you? After all, I AM a direct response copywriter so you’d think I’d put copy over everything. Alas, if it was only that easy. The best direct response copy in the world won’t do you a lick of good if you aren’t getting eyeballs to look at it.)

So why did I pick traffic over copy? Here’s why:

If you have no traffic to your site, and we redo your site so it converts, there’s no way to fully test and tweak what we’ve done. Depending on your traffic, we could be waiting months before enough people have visited to know if your site does or does not convert. Then, if we have to do more tweaking, we’re stuck waiting months again to test those tweaks.

Now, compare that scenario to this one. You have a lot of traffic coming to your site. Your site isn’t converting, but that’s okay because we can put up new copy and design and know in as little as a week or two if it’s working or not. Still isn’t working? We’ll do some more tweaks and wait another week or two. Before long, you have site that’s making you money effortlessly.

The other reason why I like to focus on traffic is this: Let’s say you have a site that DOES convert, even though you don’t have much traffic. We increase the traffic and your business grows. It’s that easy.

So, if you’re a business owner or entrepreneur whose Web site isn’t doing as well as they would like, I’d suggest the first thing you do is sit down and put together a marketing plan to drive traffic to your site.

Make sure you tune in next time where I’ll discuss the basics of putting together a marketing strategy to drive tons of warm traffic and leads to your site.

Social Networking What it is and Why Your Business Needs it

You may have heard these terms bandied about and wondered what exactly they are and (more importantly) what they mean for your business.

So let’s dig right in and get some answers. First, some definitions.

Social networking is actually a pretty broad term. It basically means any time of relationship-building amongst a group of people with a common interest (business or personal). However, that term has taken on a whole new dimension online, where social networking sites (MySpace, Linked In, Facebook) are popping up faster then you can say “Will you be my friend?”

These Web sites are designed around helping people network and build relationships via online, instead of the more traditional face-to-face networking meetings.

Which leads us to Web 2.0. No, it’s not a technical upgrade of the Web (I can hear all the sighs of relief as people everywhere realize they don’t need to be downloading or learning new software). Rather, it’s a new way to use the technical aspects of the Web to build better relationships with people. So it includes blogging, podcasts, social networking sites, video, webinars, etc.

Actually, what it really is is a shift in mindset. Rather than using these tools because they’re cool new tech gadgets, we’re using them to bring a more human element to the Web.

Now social marketing is used interchangeably as social networking, but that’s actually a misnomer (according to Wikopedia). Social marketing is an old term, which refers to marketing for the good of society or for social causes and has nothing to do with any of this.

So, back to social networking. This is wonderful news for business owners out there because it fits right in with how customers buy. Namely, people buy from people they know, like and trust. So building relationships using Web 2.0 techniques is a fabulous marketing strategy.

And many Web 2.0 techniques are either free or very low cost. All the social networking sites have free accounts (some have paid upgrades, but it’s still low). Podcasting can be free (or you can pay a very low fee to do the recording via the phone.) Blogging can be free (Wordpress is the best blogging software out there and it’s free). Uploading a video to YouTube is free.

You get the picture.

Now there is a downside. The downside is it does take time. So if you’re already feeling overwhelmed and frazzled, yes this could feel like another huge to-do on your list.

Which is why I’m going to tell you right now not to go there. There is help. Virtual assistants (also known as VAs) can assist you with these social networking tasks. Also, some marketing professionals (such as myself) offer social networking packages to do it all for you, so you don’t have to manage it or even learn much about it.

In other words, you don’t have to go at it alone!

And you also don’t have to spend hours and hours on these tasks either. Pick ONE thing to do, then spend 1-2 hours a week on it. Once that’s mastered, than add a second task. (Or get it into a system so you can outsource it and then bring on a second task.)

Obviously the more time you (or someone on your team) can devote to social networking, the faster you’ll see results. But I don’t want you to beat yourself up if you don’t have a lot of time to do it or money to outsource. Do what you can and let the rest go.

The other thing to keep in mind is it also takes time to start seeing results. None of these techniques is for immediate results or a quick infusion of cash. These techniques are long-term strategies. They’re very effective, but they’ll take some time.

As for what to start on first, that’s up to you and what appeals to you (and what you think will appeal to your target market) but I’ll give you a quick summary of a couple of the major ones along with pros and cons:

1. Blogging.

Pros - This is a terrific way to build traffic to your site. My blog gets a tremendous amount of traffic and much of that spills over to the rest of my site. Plus, I have a Wordpress blog, so it’s built into my Web site and it comes with RSS and pinging and everything else a good blog should. (Did I mention it was free?)

Cons - You need to do some writing. And it does take time. (Either yours or someone on your team.) You should plan to post at least a couple of times a month - more is better.

2. Podcasting. (Podcasting is like having your own little radio show, except the audio is downloaded into an iPod rather than broadcasted.)

Pros - This is a terrific way to add credibility and build trust with your customers. Audio, especially when listened to on a podcast, is very intimate. You end up building a tighter bond with your customers than through reading alone. Adding audio to Web sites has been shown to increase conversion rates. (I.e. more people will buy when
there’s audio involved.)

Cons - Time (you got to make time to do your podcast, and once you start, you need to do it regularly). This is also a bit more technical than blogging - you need to upload it to your site, to podcast directories, etc. Unless technology comes really easy for you, I would suggest finding someone to help you out (at least to get you started). And if you have a really dreadful voice I would think twice about doing a podcast.

3. Video.

Pros - Like audio, adding video to your site is great for increasing conversion rates. It adds a level of intimacy and helps your customers feel like they really know you.

Cons â€” Technical and time. For audio, all you need is a phone. Video you need a camera, a video editor, etc. Of course, once it’s done, you can use it in a lot of places, but getting it done may feel overwhelming.

4. Social networking sites. This is fast becoming a great way to find customers, form relationships and drive traffic to your site. However, before you dive into this, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, there are some 200 social networking sites out there and I’m sure that number continues to grow. But, MySpace enjoys a whopping 80 percent of that traffic. So it only makes sense that 80 percent of the time you’re devoting to social networking sites should be devoted to MySpace. And don’t think MySpace is just for kids! I’ve only been playing around with it for a couple of weeks and I’ve already made some pretty good connections, plus I’ve noticed a spike in my traffic and sign ups for my newsletter. My friend Nancy has as great primer on how to use MySpace for business purposes.

The other two social networking sites I’m on are LinkedIn.com and Ryze.com. What I like about those two is they’re more focused on business, plus they don’t take a lot of time (so they fit nicely in the 20 percent of my time for the other sites). MySpace can be a time sucker, so just be aware of that.

Pros - Great for building relationships and appears to be good at driving Web traffic.

Cons - Takes time (Sensing a pattern here?) Also it’s very easy to waste a lot of time on MySpace as well.

My suggestion is to pick one of these techniques to start with, do it for awhile and see what happens. If you start seeing leads and results, stick with it and maybe add another one. If it looks like it’s not worth it (takes too much time and you’re seeing too few results) try another.

How Do I Promote A Local Blog?

How would you promote a website/blog that focuses on local events. I know there is Facebook. Any other outposts that should be used?

Interesting question. The first thing that you can try, as you pointed out, is to find social networking sites and web 2.0 services that allow you to filter users by region or city.

Facebook is one of them, but you could also try Craigslist, for example. Why not post an ad saying that you are looking for readers, and in exchange you offer some engaging and interesting content?

Other services that you could try include LinkedIn, Squidoo, HubPages and so on.

If you have a marketing budget, PPC advertising would be a great way to get highly targeted traffic. With Google AdWords you would be able to specify not only the keywords that you wanted to bid for, but also to what geographical regions your ads should be showed.

Another channel that you could explore is the local Internet. That is, all the blogs, websites and online companies that focus exclusively on your region. Once you have identified those websites (Google is your friend here), it is just a matter of approaching them to see in what ways you can collaborate to increase everyone’s traffic and exposure. Banner exchanges, link exchanges, cross reviews, you just need to get creative.

As a computer consultant in a small to medium size town, I found that having a large list of local residents to email the blog info really helped. I had about 300 client’s emails and dropped a mass email encouraging them to check it out. Within a few days I had hundreds of local hits and a decent ‘buzz’ going around town about the site.

The key with this scenario, though, is having those you are emailing, trust the sender. Otherwise they will assume it’s spam. So if there was anyway for you to get a hold of local emails and present to them in such a way that feels like it’s worth the time to read the email, you might be able to get a head start. Because without that initial push, you’ll find it hard to get much of a useful ranking in Google for local searches. At least that was my own personal experience.

Finally, offline marketing can be a good investment for very local websites. Suppose you have a blog about the news of a really small city (say 20,000 people). Getting an ad on the Sunday edition of the local newspaper could yield good results, and it shouldn’t cost that much.

t=v1+v2 ,Cara meningkatkan traffic dan popularity dengan cepat dan alami

Ketika anda baca judul postingan ini mungkin anda bingung,apa sih rumus t=vi+v2, dan apa hubungannya sama traffic link, hal ini yang saya alami juga ketika pertama kali baca postingan salah satu teman saya tito tetapi ketika saya baca postingannya baru saya mengerti dan ternyata rumus t=v1+v2 memang masuk diakal juga,,silakan baca lanjutan postingan ini supaya lebih mengerti

Sebuah filosofi mengatakan "Honesty is The Best Policy (Kejujuran adalah politik/strategi terbaik)" , inilah yang akan kita buktikan....apakah konsep kejujuran bisa kita olah menghasilkan traffic dan popularity yang lebih hebat dari konsep rumit para expert webmaster atau pakar SEO..?...

---------------- Copy mulai disini------------------

Mohon baca baik-baik lalu terapkan dengan benar....

Saya yakin bisa asal konsep ini di jalankan dengan benar...,bila ini di terapkan pada web anda sesuai ketentuan maka:

-Web anda akan kebanjiran traffic pengunjung secara luar biasa hari demi hari, tanpa perlu repot-repot memikirkan SEO atau capek-capek promosi keberbagai tempat di dunia internet.

-Web anda akan kebanjiran backlink secara luarbiasa hari demi hari, tanpa perlu repot-repot berburu link keberbagai tempat di dunia internet.

Jika Albert Einstein memakai persamaan e=mc2 untuk menggabungkan potensi masa dan kecepatan cahaya untuk menghasilkan energi nuklir yang luar biasa itu ,maka kita akan memakai persamaan t=v1+v2 untuk mnggabungkan potensi web saya dan web anda untuk menghasilkan traffic dan popularity yang luar biasa pula.

Jika Einstein menggunakan atom plutonium dan uranium untuk membuat bom nuklir, maka kita menggunakan Kejujuran dan ketepatan untuk membuat bom traffic dan popularity ini.

Yang perlu anda lakukan adalah ikuti langkah-langkah berikut :

1.Buat posting artikel seperti posting saya ini, atau copy-paste posting ini dari kalimat Copy mulai disini sampai kalimat Selesai

dan juga diberi berjudul : t=v1+v2 ,Cara meningkatkan traffic dan popularity dengan cepat dan alami

2-Selanjutnya Copy atau buat KALIMAT SAKTI yang ada di bawah nomor 3 ini lalu pasang di web anda pada bagian yang paling mudah dilihat pengunjung, misalnya di bagian atas sidebar

3-Pindahkan atau ganti link atau alamat url posting (disini-1) dengan alamat url anda dan (disini-2) dengan alamat postingan URL saya

-untuk mengetahui alamat url posting saya dan posting yang anda buat adalah bisa dengan meng-klik judul/title posting yang kita buat ini lalu copy address bar nya

Berikut tulisan "KALIMAT SAKTI" yang perlu anda pasang di bagian web anda (setelah di ganti link url-nya sesuai ketentuan di atas)

"Ingin meningkatkan traffic pengunjung dan popularity web anda secara cepat dan tak terbatas...?...

Serahkan pada saya..., Saya akan melakukannya untuk anda GRATIS...!..Klik disini-1 dan disini-2"

-Jadi setelah KALIMAT SAKTI ini di letakan di web anda maka: jika pengunjung meng-klik link disini-1 akan menuju link posting anda, dan jika meng-klik disini-2 akan menuju link posting saya...dan seterusnya kan terus terjadi mata rantai yang tak terputus seperti itu...

4-Selesai, siapkan counter tracker dan pengecek link misalnya sitemeter dan technorati untuk melihat hasil banjir traffic dan linkback web anda.

Apa itu t=v1+t2...?
t : Jumlah traffic yang akan di peroleh web anda dalam suatu hari
v1 : Jumlah pengunjung web anda dalam suatu hari
v2: Jumlah pengunjung yang dimiliki v1 (pengunjung dari pengunjung web anda) dalam suatu hari.

Traffic:

Misalnya, web saya ini atau web anda dalam sehari memiliki rata-rata pengunjung 50 orang.., dan semuanya menerapkan konsep kita ini (KALIMAT SAKTI) dengan benar, dan dari 50 orang itu masing-masing memiliki 50 orang pula pengunjung dari blog-nya , maka web kita akan berpeluang di kunjungi 50 ditambah 50 x 50 orang pada hari itu = 2550 orang , dan akan berpeluang terus meningkat pula hari demi hari ,karena setiap hari selalu ada pengunjung baru di dunia internet, setiap hari juga ada blogger atau web baru di dunia internet...BUKTIKAN

Popularity:

Misalnya, web kita memiliki pengunjung 50 orang dalam suatu hari, dan semuannya menerapkan konsep ini , maka dalam hari itu web anda akan mendapatkan 100 linkback ke web anda, yaitu sebuah link pada KALIMAT SAKTI dan sebuah link pada link saya di kalikan 50. dan akan berpeluang meningkat terus hari demi hari....

Kenapa perlu di buat link link anda dan link saya pada posting...?
...hal ini untuk menjaga keabadian link kita, karena seperti kita tau link pada posting lebih kecil kemungkinannya terhapus....

Bisakah kita berbuat tidak fair atau tidak jujur menyabotase konsep ini, misalnya "menghilangkan semua link asal" lalu di isi dengan web/blog kita sendiri...? ....Bisa, dan konsep ini tidak akan menjadi maksimal untuk membuktikan Kejujuran adalah strategi/politik terbaik.....Tapi saya yakin bahwa kita semua tak ingin menjatuhkan kredibilitas diri sendiri dengan melakukan tindakan murahan seperti itu...

-------------Selesai-------------

Nah gimana rumusnya? silakan mau mempraktekkan di blog anda dan semoga strategi ini berhasil ya,, :z