Cross-Promotion Tactics To Grow Your Business

Cross-promotion is an easy, inexpensive method for generating more traffic and more revenue for your business and for the business of your promotional partners.

What could be better than a real win-win situation? With cross-promotion not only can you generate more customers and profit, usually for free, but you can help another entrepreneur do the same!

One simple example of good cross-promotion is swapping business cards with another business in your area. The idea is to find a related, yet non-competing operation, give them a stack of your cards to hand out and take a stack of their cards in exchange.

For example when I ran a local Web design company I swapped stacks of business cards with a nearby computer repair service. It made sense because both of us targeted small businesses, and nearly all small businesses today have computers in their office and a Website to promote their products and services. So often my customers would have an interest in a good computer repair service, and the repair shop's clients might be interested in somebody to build or re-design their Website.

It's easy to see how both parties stand to benefit in this arrangement. And the customers of both businesses also benefit!

Putting together a win-win cross-promotion on the Web is even easier, and here are a few examples of how you might do this:

Exchange Thank You Page Ads
Thank you or confirmation pages that prospects see after they make a purchase or register for a free mailing list are great places to post promotions. The people who see these pages are action takers, making them the ultimate target for a good advertisement.

You could place an ad for your cross-promotion partner on one or more of your thank you pages and have them do the same for you.

Unannounced Member Bonus
If you and your promotional partner run membership programs, you could place unannounced bonuses within one another's secure member areas. For instance, when members login to your site they could find a "free gift" from your partner, and be required to register at your partner's Website to receive access to their free gift; of course you would place a similar promotion in your promotion partner's member area.

Swap Auto-responder Messages
You could include an email in your automated message series promoting your partner's product or service, and they could reciprocate with an email for you. You could even promote as affiliates for one another so you both earn commissions in the process.

Cover Page Promotions
If you and your partner both produce digital information products such as e-books and special reports, you could swap promotions on the first page of your PDF products. This would provide both of you with quality exposure as your ads would be seen by the people who purchase and actually open digital products; so prospects generated by this measure are both buyers and action takers.

These four examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Once you sit down and really brainstorm about innovative ways to cross promote you might be amazed with what you come up with.

Both you and your promotional partner(s) stand to benefit, and neither of you will need to pay any advertising expense to generate new traffic and sales.

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About the Author: Tim Whiston is a professional Internet marketer who enjoys his work. He has owned numerous Websites and ezines and has created hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for his clients. Be sure to check out his free Information Marketing Course .

Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Strategies For Your Website!

Although the concept of search engine optimization can be somewhat complex, there are a number of basic search engine optimization techniques you can use to improve your organic search results. Keep the following in mind when trying to achieve top rankings for your website.

1. Meta Tags.

Meta tags are simple lines of code at the top of your web page programming that tell search engines about your page. Include the title tag, keyword stag, description tag, and robots tag on each page.

2. Create and update your site map.

Developing a site map is a simple way of giving search engines the information they need to crawl your entire website. There are plenty of free software packages on the web that can help you generate a sitemap. Once you create a site map, submit it to Google and Yahoo.
3. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML.

All too often, navigational items are in the form of java script. Even though navigation technically still works in this format, it’s not optimized. Create your navigation in HTML to enhance internal links throughout your website.
4. Check that all images include ALT text.

Your image’s alt text is spidered by search engines. If you’re not including your keywords in alt text, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for improved search engine result placements. Label all of your images properly.
5. Use Flash content sparingly.

Content generated through java script or flash is a big no-no. Some webmasters like to use flash because of the presentation. If you must, use it sparingly, but only after your site has been properly optimized with basic search engine optimization in mind.

6. Make sure that your website code is clean.

Keep in mind when optimizing a web page crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. When programming your web pages, having W3C compliant code can make all the difference. Run your code through a W3C validator before promoting.

7. Place keywords in your page content.

Search engines scan your website and web pages for keywords. Shoot for a keyword density of between two and eight percent. Google likes your page to be at the lower end of this scale and Yahoo at the upper end.
8. Submit your website to search engine directories.

It’s always a good idea to let large search engine directories know that you’re out there. Submit your website URL to directories like Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ.

9. Build links to your website.

Consider building a link exchange program or create one-way links to your site using articles or forum posts. All major search engines value the importance of your website based on how many others websites are linking to it.

10. Stay the course.

Good optimization takes time. People expect to see results immediately. You may very well see improvements in a short period, but reaching the number one position takes time. Be patient.

Learning to optimize your website for search engines takes time and patience. Start by applying basic search engine optimization principles. If you’re new to website optimization, or even a well seasoned veteran, begin by prioritizing which pages are most important to you and go from there. Soon you’ll find yourself moving up the rankings.

*Michael Fleischner is a Marketing Expert and Search Engine Optimization Specialist. He has more than 13 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media.

Meta Tags - Still Necessary?

One of the questions I get on a pretty regular basis is whether or not Met Tags are still important. To that I reply an undeniable, "Yes." For those who are not familiar with meta tags, lets start with a brief definition. Meta Tags are HTML elements used to provide information about a web page to search engines. Such elements must be placed as tags in the Head section of an HTML document.

Okay, so what's the bottom line? Meta Tags are important and should be at the very top of your web page code. Placement is important because you want search engines - like Google, to read your meta tags first. Today's search engine algorithms use the meta tags as validation tools. After reading your meta tags they're asking, "Is the content on your page related to the page description (metatags)?" "Are the meta tags telling me to perform special functions when reading this page?"

Meta Tags are your web site's instructions for defining the content and subject matter of your page. If your meta tags are inconsistent with your web page, it can hurt your search engine rankings. Here are some things to consider when developing meta tags for your web site.

1. Create relevant title, description, and keyword tags. You want to make sure that your primary meta tags are consistent with your page content. If they aren't, search engine spiders can discredit the content of your page. A great example of this would be a link farm. Because the pages are all so different (in most instances), there's no possible way that the meta tags would reflect the content of the page accurately, signaling a potential issue among search engine spiders.

2. Include the primary meta tags. Do your meta tags include the title tag, description tag, keyword tag and robots tag? These are the four primary tags. Your title tag should be no more than 7 words and description no more than 60 characters. This ensures that information is displayed correctly on search engine results. Additionally, the robots tag tells the search engine to read your entire web page.

3. Check for spelling errors. Your meta tags define what users see in search engine results listings. Take these tags seriously. If users see spelling or grammatical mistakes, they may choose to visit someone else's website.

4. Create unique meta tags for each web page. Use different meta tags for each page on your website. This is what makes each page unique. If you were to use the same meta tags on each page, search engines wouldn't know how to differentiate pages, devaluing the uniqueness of your content. Create value, and accurate information, with unique meta tags.

Meta tags are an important part of any website. Take your time in developing your meta tags and avoid common mistakes. These tags are still important to search engines, especially when it comes to defining your content and determining search engine placement.

How To Create An Effective Email Marketing Program

Email is still one of the most productive marketing tools you can use to sell your products and services. Email is extremely valuable for developing a personal relationships with existing customers, delivering valuable content, and cross-selling your services.

Those who don't believe in the power of email simply are not using email effectively. Chances are these are the same individuals who send out mass emails without segmentation or an understanding of how to move consumers through the purchase decision process.

Here are a few key factors to consider when using email to market.

1. Build your house list. Emails that receive the highest open and click-through rates are generated from the emails you collect in-house. Said another way, a house list is a database of email addresses that you've collected from individuals exchanging information with you on your website.

The easiest and most efficient way to build your house list is to offer an email sign-up (for a newsletter, promotion, or access to valuable information) on every page of your website. The more individuals who opt-in, the greater your database and chance for building profitable customer relationships.

2. Be relevant. This may seem obvious, but if you're sending the same email to everyone on you email list, you may have fallen into this trap. Relevancy is more than delivering a message that recipients find valuable, it's also timing your message according to a recent action, event, or behavior.

For example, if someone has recently singed up for a newsletter, engage them immediately. Even if you next newsletter doesn't come out for another month, provide them with the existing month's newsletter or access to your newsletter archive. If someone is taking the time to raise their hand and opt-in for your information, which is clearly relevant to their wants, don't make them wait.

3. Provide something of value. If you're not providing something of value, you'll quickly find your database of email subscribers dwindling. Users will only open your email if you provide valuable information, tools, resources, or content that they find useful. When developing your email program, be sure to think it through and solicit feedback from your audience to continually enhance value.

4. Don't ignore CAN-SPAM legislation. Be sure to post your privacy policy. If you don't have one, use a sample Click here and customize it with your site's information. Additionally, be sure to list your company's address at the bottom of your emails and provide a way for users to opt-out. When a recipient chooses to opt-out, make sure you remove their name within 10 days of the request.

5. Develop an opt-out page. It still amazes me that many marketers are still using a generic opt-out. Smart marketers are using an opt-out page with between 8 and 12 opt out options. For example, is the user opting out of "important updates regarding their account"? Or maybe just "the monthly newsletter"? The key is to offer options so that users get the information that's important to them and you retain the right to contact them.

Delivering effective email campaigns can be learned. The one thing to keep in mind is that if you want to get results from your email, than work through the consumers purchase decision process (by product, by segment). If your email program can move individuals through this process in an effective way, email will be more than electronic messaging – it will become a revenue driver!

Making Sure Your B-to-B Email Performs!

Contrary to popular belief, BtoB email marketers face deliverability hurdles every bit as challenging as their BtoC counterparts. In addition to getting through filters at major inbox providers, BtoB messages must also make it past thousands of corporate domains, anti-spam firewalls and blacklists. Here are five tips for improving your deliverability.

1. Don’t Forget the Basics

Despite the unique challenges BtoB marketers face, the basics of responsible email marketing still apply. As a marketer, you still want to adhere to basic principles that help to ensure that your email is not mistaken for spam. As with BtoC senders, BtoB marketers should take care to follow these basic rules:

• Establish a regular send schedule; most companies experience employee turnover, and bad email addresses are common, so weed them out regularly.
  
• Ensure email creative and content don’t contain spam-like features (i.e. large images, non-typical fonts, FREE! FREE! FREE!, etc.).
  
• Make use of your brand name; recipients are far more likely to open messages from a well-known and trusted source, even if it winds up in the junk folder.
  
• Regularly test your renderability; complicated designs or graphics-intensive messages can look different from email client to email client.

2. Authentication Helps with Validation

Authentication allows ISPs and network operators to verify the origin of your message. Authentication is an important step in reputation management and getting white listed. There are several authentication standards:

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF) publishes the mail servers allowed to send mail on your behalf. ISPs and administrators use this information to validate the incoming message, comparing it to your authorized list.
  
• Sender ID also verifies the origin of an incoming message, comparing its Internet domain to the IP addresses you've entered into the Domain Name System (DNS).
  
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) uses digital signatures to authenticate the sender, allowing you to add what amounts to a "digital fingerprint" to the messages you send.

3. Don’t Get Blacklisted

Blacklists contain IP addresses suspected of sending spam. These lists, some compiled by ISPs, some maintained privately, are used to create filters that help block unsolicited mail. There are three steps you can take to reduce the odds of being blacklisted.

• Make opting-out easy.
  
• Send recipients only what they asked to receive.
  
• Keep a clean list to avoid sending to a non-existent address or to someone who has opted-out.

4. Do Get White Listed

White listing provides an ISP or email provider a way to distinguish senders who strictly adhere to email best practices from those who have good, average or bad sending reputations. Marketers must meet rigorous requirements for getting white listed and have established a good history as a sender. In addition, you must apply for white listing status on an ISP-by-ISP basis. Therefore keeping that positive send history becomes crucial for maintaining your white listed status with one ISP and being considered for white listing with another. These three steps will help you get started.

• Determine which ISPs or corporations you regularly send to use white lists and what criteria they use.
  
• Build a good send reputation on your IP address before asking to be included on a white list.
  
• Convince the ISP or inbox provider that your positive send history and adherence to best practices are in line with its white listing requirements.

5. Enlist the Help of a Professional

Deliverability professionals can help ensure your messages reach your intended recipients. Most major email service providers employ deliverability experts. You can also work with companies like Pivotal Veracity or Return Path, which can audit your messages to identify specific deliverability issues and recommend appropriate solutions. Common causes for messages not reaching the inbox include:

• Renderability issues
  
• Coding errors
  
• High proportion of graphics-to-text ratios

Be sure to evaluate all of your email marketing factors before your next campaign. Focus on the basics, think aboug authentication, get white listed, avoid the backlist, and consider using a professional service provider to help your email get through. Also, keep in mind that white hat techniques play out - avoid shady practices and you will succeed!

About the Author

Silverpop is a leading provider of permission-based email marketing solutions, strategy and services. Silverpop offers sophisticated and powerful solutions tailored to each client's unique needs. Backed by the strongest commitment to client success in the industry, a dedicated client services team, unrivaled expertise in email marketing best practices, and the best people and technology, Silverpop is your partner for email marketing success.

If You're Paying For Links, You Must Read This Post

Are paid links hurting the natural search engine rankings of your website? They may very well be. For those of you who haven't kept up with all the fanfare, Google has stated their position against paid links - virtually discrediting the paid link industry and indicating that they will penalize sites that purchase inbound links. By penalize, they are essentially saying that each time they identify a paid link pointing to your website, it will count against you.

So if you cannot buy links, then how can you attract them? This change in direction initiated by Google has resulted a series of questions aimed at how to properly generate links to your website without paying for them.

One place to start is with the question, “Is Your Website Link Worthy?" The reason to focus on link worthiness is because companies, who are purchasing in-bound links to their website, are often missing the big picture. These companies should focus on the reason why purchasing links is the primary SEO option. Often times, sites have not focused on their own website and determined why other websites would want to link to them.

Here's a great exercise. Open your web browser and visit your URL. When you get to your website, write down 10 reasons why other sites would want to link to you. Chances are you'll struggle to write down ten. You'll probably have 3 or 4 at most. The point here is that you should consider creating compelling reasons for other sites to link to you.

Once you’ve identified some of the most attractive link building qualities of your website, you need to exploit them. There are a variety of tactics you can use to let others know why linking to your website is so valuable. Consider promoting your website’s most desirable characteristics on your home page. Once browsers navigation to your free tools, information, or resources, encourage them to link to you.

Sometimes the direct approach is best. Encourage others to place a link on their websites directly to your homepage where users can easily navigate to you valuable resources. Alternatively, you can provide other websites with the HTML code or link they can copy and paste onto their own website, directing individuals to the proper page on your website.

Make it easy for someone to link to you. By providing the proper code, information, and description, other websites can easily link to your website. Those sites that do not think about link generation often do not simplify or encourage the link building process and therefore never generate a significant number inbound links.

The other thing to keep in mind is that when you encourage others to link to your website, to access your tools or resources, provide them with the specific link text you need to improve your search engine rankings. Instead of using your URL only, make sure that links are given the proper text that includes your specific keywords and keyword phrases.

By coding links with your keywords, you will be building your Google link popularity and provider other with information regarding your link. This will not only generate more links to your website, but encourage individuals to click on your link.

Now that Google has announced that they are punishing websites who buy links for purposes of link building, we all need to look at our websites and ask that important question “Is my website link-worthy?” Consider this when evaluating your website and identify reasons why others would want to point to your site. Make it easy for them to do so. The result can only be more links, better search results, and more traffic!

Are Social Networks Right For You?

Social networking sites... are they all they're cracked up to be? Well, if you want to tap into a large pool of people who spend a large portion of their time online, you can't ignore social networking websites.

According to data from Hitwise, a popular website, MySpace pulled in 76 percent of US visits to social networking websites in 2007, and 95 percent of them were return visitors in December. This can be interpreted that not only is MySpace commanding the vast majority of the social networking market, but also inspires some pretty fierce loyalty.

Facebook, the nearest social network competitor, pulled in 12.57 percent of US visits, which would be impressive if MySpace didn't exist but pales in comparison. Keep in mind however that each caters to a slightly different audience. If you're targeting an older crowd, Facebook may be the right site for you.

It's not as gloomy for Facebook as it is overhyped. Year-over-year, Facebook grew by 50 percent and took market share from MySpace, which experienced an eight percent drop in share between December 2006 and December 2007. And Facebook visitors are also loyal, with a 93 percent visitor return rate.

If you're considering tapping into social networking, start with the biggest and best. There are tons of other sites out there in this arena - most trying to duplicate the success of MySpace and Facebook!

New Blog Launched: Marketing Tips For Everyone

If you're like me, you want quick hitting marketing tips to help you get results. Over the past two years, I've heard a number of requests - and received quite a number of comments - from individuals who want helpful information in a quick and easy format.

Introducing The Good Marketing Tips Blog

Today we are officially announcing the launch of the Good Marketing Tips Blog. For anyone interested in those "quick hitting" ideas that can help you improve your marketing, make money online, or increase your search engine results, the Good Marketing Tips Blog is for you.

We've launched the blog with some of the most helpful tips requested by Marketing Blog readers from how to find the right affiliate program to generating traffic to your website for free. If you have a particular marketing tip, trick, or helpful hint, the Good Marketing Tips Blog is a great resource for finding what you need to know. Check it out today at Good Marketing Tips.

I'm Looking For Good Affiliates

As may of you know, I've been promoting the products I personally use for search engine optimization for more than 3 years. When I find a product that works, I love to tell everyone about it. By sharing good information with other like minded individuals, I'm able to generate value and earn a commission at the same time. That's what I call a win-win!

Late last year I published my first ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets. Many of my colleagues, friends, and blog readers have been astounded by the quality of information and the dramatic results they are seeing with their Google search results after applying the techniques I reveal. Additionally, many of the same individuals have asked me how they can share the book with others. As a result, I thought I'd take an opportunity to let everyone know how they can benefit through my newly launched affiliate program.

Affiliate programs are great because they allow people to share products, services, or information of value in exchange for a commission. When individuals purchase a product based on your referral, you earn a commission - its that simple.

The Webmasters Book of Secrets offers its own affiliate program through the popular providers PayDotCom and ClickBank. If you've never used an affiliate program, don't worry. Signing up is easy and you can begin promoting products within minutes. If you'd like to learn more about the Webmasters Book of Secrets affiliate program, and begin generating commissions for your referral sales of the product, simply click here.

For those who have never used an affiliate program before, I recommend that you start with PayDotCom which gives you all of the promotional tools you'll need to tell others about the product or display it on your website. For the more experienced affiliate marketer, consider ClickBank.

Thanks to all those who wish to spread the word and support the American way!

Article Marketing Front and Center

If you aren't already using article marketing to accelerate your rise to the top of major search engines like Google and Yahoo!, then you need to consider the use of original content for creating links to your website.

The concept of article marketing is to take authored content that you create and distribute it to websites in need of content. When you distribute your article, you include links back to your website (usually in the About the Author section). These links help to improve your website’s link popularity and therefore search engine results.

Article marketing is most effective when you can create articles that are of value to a wide audience or targeted niche market. Keep these guidelines in mind when article marketing:

1. Use original article content. There are a variety of ways to write articles. I find the best way to generate articles that improve search engine results is to make sure its an original. There are many websites that offer PLR articles (private label rights), article wizards, and so on. Regardless of how you produce your article, make sure it is one-of-a-kind.

2. Make your articles available on your own website. As a starting point, each time you create original content, post it on you website. Google looks for and diminishes the search results of duplicate content. Therefore, it’s important that you stake a claim for your content by promoting it on your website before any distribution effort.

3. Embed your keywords and keyword phrases. When writing your articles, be sure to include your keywords and keyword phrases throughout your document. Using the proper keywords is essential for website indexing and search engine optimization.

4. Write articles with a minimum of 600 words. A number of websites that accept and distribute articles will only do so if you meet article requirements such as minimum length. Many of these websites process a large number of articles and attempt to reduce spam with a minimum word count requirement of 600 words or more.

5. Use article distribution sites. By submitting your article to the largest article distribution sites you improve the likelihood of your article being repurposed by third party websites. Sites like eZineArticles.com and GoArticles.com are popular resources for webmasters seeking quality content. You should also consider article submission software to automate the process for you like, Article Submitter Pro. If you want to automate the entire submission process, I recommend you take a look at ArticleMarketer.

6. Include an About the Author section. At the conclusion of your article, be sure to include an About the Author section. This is one of the most important things you can do to build back links to your site. When other websites publish your content they are required to include this section. Make sure that multiple links to your site are present in order to build link popularity and improve your search engine result placements.

7. Be persistent. The benefits of article marketing are seen over time. As a rule of thumb, you should begin any article marketing campaign with a commitment to produce and disseminate a minimum of 10 articles. This gives you a good footprint in your area of expertise and builds a number of backlinks to your website.

Whether you’re new to article marketing or are an experienced article marketer, each article you produce and distribute provides value to your website when executed correctly. Write valuable content, include an about the author section, and use article distribution websites. You’ll quickly discover that article marketing is a great way to promote a product, website or service!

What's Up With Your Marketing Budget?

I just read a great "2008 Checklist" from the Vertical Response Blog. Here are a number of ideas and tools to get your marketing ramped up this year...

1. Use a Calendar - iGoogle has a great one where you can use alerts to remind you to write your copy and send your communications. Bonus? You can also share it with others so that they know exactly when you're planning to launch.

2. Publish a Blog - Yes, even if you already have a website you should also host a blog. It's another way the search engines can pick you up, you establish yourself as an expert in your industry, you give a "voice" to your business and you can get your reader's insight into how they feel about you or your company through comments they make. It's not an overnight success, however when it starts to take off it can be incredibly beneficial. Make sure you flag categories on your posts or tag them for the search engines. Make sure you backlink to your own site from your most popular keywords in your posts. Check out TypePad or WordPress, two great blogging platforms that are very cost-effective and easy to set up.

3. Get 5 Testimonials - Get your best customers to give you quotes and use them everywhere you can. Include them on any outbound communications, in your email newsletters, on your site and in your store. Used often, they can be one of the most powerful forms of marketing you have. We have a store near us that prints off huge posters of their customers wearing their clothing and hangs them in the window along with their history of being a customer. Benefit? The customers tell all their friends to go check out their big picture and shop at the store. These people are your influencers, use them wisely.

4. Get People Talking - Have a "wow" factor. Give free samples, throw a free gift into the customer shipment, call your customers to see how they liked their service, send a birthday greeting. Whatever it is, get your word of mouth campaign going!

• Doctors call the night after a procedure to see how things are going.
• Retailers throw something fun into your online shipment orders or shopping bags.
• Restaurants give a few cookies at the end of the meal.
• Coffee houses announce a free 5 minutes off coffee every day at a different time.
• Consultants give your first 2 hours of time free.
• Offer coffee at your offline location

5. Shake it Up - Pick one customer-facing thing you do and change it drastically. Change your entire look of your website, repaint your store, start a monthly club, change your advertising message, change your uniforms, heck even change your "hold" music. Just do something different in the coming year that you've always wanted to do. 2008 is your year.

6. Host an Event - If you've got a retail location host an after-hours sale or an event to celebrate your best customers, the new year or your anniversary party. Make sure you do enough marketing in store and outside your location to get the number of people you want there.

If you are an expert in your field host a "lunch and learn" or a networking event. Again, make sure you do marketing to your own list as well as potentially renting a list for a postal mailing in the area to get people there. If you're work is online, host a webinar. Note: most of these have a 40-50% attendee rate.

7. Advertise - Make a list of 5 of your competitors OR 5 other businesses in your local area and look at where they advertise. Then finally answer that pesky ad sales person and choose somewhere you've never advertised before. Then roll the dice! Caveat: don't only do it once and make the call that it doesn't work work, if it's in your budget, advertise 4-6 times before you decide to stop it or better yet, continue it.

8. Do a Customer Survey - Send an email and ask 10 questions about your customer's experience with you with a 5 point rating: Excellent, Good, Neutral, Poor, Very Bad. Be ready for the good, bad and the ugly, you'll learn what your customers like and what they don't, then you can make changes. Make sure you send a statistically valid sample and get a good sampling back. You don't want to make changes based on just 1-2 remarks. Make sure you announce your changes to all of your customers in an email campaign. Everyone wins!

9. Collect Email Addresses - Put an opt-in form on every page of your site or blog or link to it on every page with a link "Newsletter Sign Up". Put an exit pop-up window with the opt in form when someone leaves your domain. Put a sign up form on your blog. Ask for your customer's information at your counter, input it daily into a spreadsheet or better yet a contact management system. However you collect email addresses send a welcome email to them with a thank-you offer. Use VerticalResponse to collect email addresses for free!

10. Analyze - Use Google Analytics to track your website visits. Get to know where your traffic is coming from and how good it is. Then make changes to your site, or your marketing materials.

Hopefully you're doing some of these already. It's tough to run a business and constantly come up with new ideas to market. Hopefully this list sparks some new ideas. Happy 2008! For more helpful marketing ideas visit the Vertical Response Blog.

Ask The Expert: Pay-Per-Click Advertising

This year, billions of dollars will be spent on pay-per-click advertising. Today, we learn from marketing expert John Prizer what common mistakes to avoid and how to generate a positive return on you PPC investment.

Vigilance, micromanaging and attention to detail can help you avoid some common and costly mistakes of PPC advertising. What are those mistakes? Here are the terrible 10 that are typical to most pay per click campaigns.

1. Too Many Keywords Per Ad Group. It's important to target your ad to be as relevant as possible. Don't group all your keywords into one or two ad groups. Break them out. Keep them tight. This gives you more control over ad variables so that you can be as relevant as possible.

2. Not Using Negative Keywords. Negative keywords reduce unwanted impressions, and more importantly, unwanted click throughs. However, with increasing priority given to "quality scores" and click through rates in the PPC engines, it's key to trim the fat from your keyword campaigns. If your company sells "widget management software" then be sure that you have keywords like "-serial" or "-free" assigned as negative keywords (unless, of course, you offer it for free in some manner). You can find good negative keywords in your log files or when you build your lists.

3. Weak Testing. Split-testing your ads is critical. Even the smallest of changes can boost results. In addition to testing your ad copy's "call to action" or value statements, every ad has multiple variables to test. The titles, the two lines of copy, and display url all can be optimized. If you don't have time for hands-on testing, a good professional pay per click management company can run daily split testing for you. You'd be surprised how well this can pay off.

Poor or Non-Existent Tracking. Of course, testing your ads and fine tuning your keyword lists only works well if you are tracking results. The search engines will tell you what your click-through rates are ... but you need bottom-line results. You need to know your return on investment or what your cost per action is. It's not enough to know that you spend $5,000 and get back $10,000. You might be able to spend only $3,000 and get that same $10,000.

4. Not Getting Keyword-Level Tracking. Proper and exact analytics or using an experienced pay per click management company is essential to get the data you need. If you have keywords that are not performing and leaking your account on a daily basis, you are throwing money away. Getting results to the keyword level allows you to adjust bids for maximum effect. If you have one keyword with a $1.34 earnings per click and another at 37 cents, this is key information that allows you to maximize profits. Lower one bid if you are above your "EPC" and raise another to eek out more profits from that sweet-spot keyword. Don't waste money on a daily basis.

5. Not Specific Enough Keywords. Some broad and generic keywords can certainly push a ton of traffic to your site. They may even be very successful. Often, however, they can also do just the opposite -- drain your funds with poor results. A user searching on one of these generic phrases is often doing research in an early part of the buying process. Knowing your keyword-level results and filtering out bad variations with negative keywords can help you get a true read on these generic keywords.

6. Not Going After Long-Tail Keywords. This follows the above item on generic keywords. Building a list and individual ads for the long-tail keywords can be a major time-sucker. It can also be profitable if the task is performed correctly. Those earnings per click will likely vary widely from a generic keyword like "mp3 player", "sony mp3 player" and "sony 2GB S610 walkman video mp3 player". One consumer is doing research, the other knows what they want and is most likely looking to purchase.

7/ Not Separating Content and Search Networks. An easy way to get scorched on poor performing traffic or even click fraud is to not separate your search network ads from your content network ads. Chances are that if you don't know what the difference is, then they are likely not separated in your account -- and bad keywords are leaking your funds daily. You are better off to build different campaigns for your keywords on the content and search networks.

8. Not Attracting Local Clients Through Geo Targeting. If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines allow you to geo-target your keywords to that area. This will bring the local market to your doorstep on non-local keyword phrases. This can be hugely profitable.

9. Not Frequently Monitoring Your Accounts. Not everyone has time to run split testing on a daily basis or frequently checking your EPCs (even though you should...because it's costing you). That said, there are still a high amount of advertisers who seem to ignore their accounts for days ... or even weeks ... or (don't tell me you're doing this!) months. The big PPC search engines are increasingly cracking down on poor performing keywords, smacking advertisers with that "Inactive for Search" status for individual keywords. When this happens, you lose traffic, you lose profits. If you are investing heavily in PPC, you can't just turn your back on your account for days at a time.

10. The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to consider, but it's vital for healthy pay per click campaigns. Whether you can actively manage your PPC accounts at this level or you need to hire a pay per click management company to do it, vigilance and precision can make a huge impact on your bottom line.

About the Author: Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and PPC expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a pay per click management company. Visit us now to learn more about how to improve your PPC advertising campaigns and performance.

The Power Of The Internet - Recognized Expert

It's amazing how quickly things can happen with the help of the Internet. Less than 10 hours ago I was on the phone with a fellow marketer and new found friend, Bob Sommers. Bob interviewed me for his website Recognized Expert, which is one of the best websites available today for accessing today's most prominent marketing experts.

If you haven't checked out this site , you're missing out. Bob has interviewed some of the top marketing professionals in the business, revealing powerful marketing secrets to help you grow your business. From one marketing expert to another, this resource is invaluable! I've included a link below so that you can hear the full interview with Bob where I reveal just a few of the secrets I offer in my SEO ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets.

8 Ways to a Number One Google Ranking - An interview with Michael Fleischner

Enjoy the interview and be sure to bookmark it. Recognized Expert makes it easy to bookmark your favorite experts on the most popular Social Bookmarking sites including Digg, Del.icio.us and more.

Strategies For Reaching the Top of Google

I recently published an article on improving Google rankings - my favorite topic. Here are the main points to consider when shooting for the top spot on the world's largest search engine.

1. Begin with properly formatted Meta Tags. The meta tags, including your title tag, description tag, and keywords tag, are important for classifying your web page and communicating to the major search engines the content of your page. Although meta tags are not as important as they once were, they are used for many purposes including how your listing appears in search engine results lists.
   
   
2. Focus on keyword density. Are you trying to optimize for a particular keyword or keyword phrase? Keyword density is the concentration (as a percentage) of your keyword phrase on a particular webpage. Keyword density should range between 2 and 8%. To determine your keyword density on a given page, divide the number of times your keyword appears by the total word count of the page.
   
   
3. Use proper page formatting. Search engines love to see emphasis. You can identify your keywords with specialized tags such as title tags and properly formatted text. Bold, italicize, and underline your keywords at least once on the page you are trying to optimize.
   
   
4. Generate links to your website through article marketing and link building activities. Submit original content to article directories and authoritative sites in order to generate back links. When a third party website links to your site, search engines take notice – improving your overall search result placements. Build as many back links as you can.
   
   
5. Obtain listings in Web directories. Large directories like the Yahoo! Directory, DMOZ and others are important to improving your overall search results. Many websites use these directories to display websites when users search on a particular term. If you’re not included in the directory, your website may never appear as a search result option.

These strategies are important for anyone interested in improving search results for their website. Begin any search engine optimization effort with a thorough review of your website’s strengths and weaknesses. Create a game plan and get to work!

How To Get Your Site Indexed by Google in Less Than 24 Hours

It seems like each year, I keep adding websites to my portfolio. On thing I always struggled with was getting my website indexed quickly by major search engines (like Google). I recently read a post by internet marketing expert Michael Jensen of SoloSEO.com where he provides advice - and real world experience on getting a site indexed in less than 24 hours. Here are the steps he uses. You can apply these to any website and see results.

1. Create a website or micro-site. Five pages will do. Examples include a home page, About Us Page, Sitemap, etc.

2. Put the pages in a simple template with a good internal linking strategy. That is to say you should like to all of these pages from each page (ie. navigation).

3. Add a link from one of your other sites. Try to make sure that the site providing the link to the new site is contextually relevant.

4. Tag your new website on 2 or 3 social book marking sites.

5. Comment in a forum and post a link back to your site. Even if you can't use link text, place your URL in the post preceded by http://.

6. Put your URL in one directory and submit to Digg.

7. Install Google analytics and consider adding Google Adwords. Google favors websites that drive revenue to them.

8. Create a sitemap and ping Google. Mr. Jensen also mentioned that he put the sitemap in his Robots.txt file. Not exactly sure about this one, but certainly a valuable strategy. Be sure to log in to Google Webmaster Central and submit your sitemap. You'll need to place a file on your main directory for Google to verify that you own the site, but its pretty easy to do.

In as little as 24 hours, your site will be indexed by Google. It's that simple says Internet marketing expert Michael Jensen. If you've tried this approach, be sure to comment on this post...

One of the best ways to succeed in your career and life is to learn from true experts - people who have already succeeded in a particular area or discipline. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Bobbi Linkemer, a well respected author and writing coach. As writing and developing content becomes more important to anyone doing business online, learning from the writing experts becomes all that much more valuable.

Hello Bobbi, how are you? Tell us about your latest project.

My latest project was rewriting my workbook, How To Write A Nonfiction Book: From Concept to Completion in 6 Months. The fourth edition is greatly expanded in content but reduced in size from 8-1/2 X 11 to 6 X 9.

Bobbi, tell my readers how and when you got started as an editor, ghostwriter, teacher, and writing coach.

My first real job as a writer, in 1972, was actually as the editor of The St. Louisan, a city magazine. I didn’t know anything about being an editor then, but I learned that if you are “in charge,” and someone sends you an article that needs help, you have three choices: reject it, rewrite it, or help the writer improve it. If you reject it, you have nothing to publish, and everybody loses; if you rewrite it, you’re an editor, but the writer hasn’t benefited; but, if you help the writer improve it, you’re a coach, you have a publishable article, and everybody wins.

How is writing for the Internet different now, as opposed to when you first got started online?

While I have been writing professionally for 40 years, I am fairly new to writing for the Internet. Several years ago, I wrote a book called Going Solo: How to Survive & Thrive as a Freelance Writer and included a section on writing for the Web. I interviewed several people who were doing it very successfully, but it was a long time before I joined their ranks. I still consider myself a relative novice.

How important has goal setting been to your overall success?

Goal setting has been hugely important. My career began with one goal — to have an article published. When my first humor piece was published in a national handball magazine, I was hooked. The second goal was to become an excellent feature writer. That took years, but I finally felt that I had achieved it. Every time I met a goal, I set another one and just kept raising the bar higher and higher. I’m still at it and suspect I always will be.

If you could recommend one book that all writers should read, what would it be?

The classic in my opinion is On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, which is now out in a completely revised and expanded edition. The book I reach for most often is the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus: For the Writer in Everyone.

In your opinion, what technology has changed Internet publishing the most over the last 5 years?

I’m not a techie, but, for me, the biggest change was in the development of user-friendly Website design software. I use DreamWeaver, and, while it has helped me immeasurably, I wouldn’t have a truly functioning site without my Web guru, Bobette Kyle, who takes out the bugs and makes it all work.

Bobbi’s Bio: Bobbi Linkemer is a ghostwriter, writing coach, and editor. She is also the author of 14 books. Bobbi has been a professional writer for 40 years, a magazine editor and journalist, and a book-writing teacher. Her clients range from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurs who want to enhance their credibility and build their businesses. Her articles on writing regularly appear on ezinearticles.com and other top online article sites. Learn more at http://writeanonfictionbook.com

Making Money With Adsense

Website owners have been making money with Adsense pay-per-click ads for years. For Google, growing its AdSense user base will help it maintain an edge against rival advertising networks. To do so, Google wants to make it as easy as possible for people to sign up for an account and begin generating revenue.

Even though Google gives a large percentage of revenues to companies in the AdSense partner network of participating sites, they still make a lot of money. AdSense partner network revenue hit $1.45 billion, a third of total annual revenue, in the third quarter of 2007.

Recently, the Adsense blog announced Google's latest approach to growing the lucrative business segment. Called "Newbie Central," the assorted step by step documents focus on the features, policies, and tools available to new webmasters joining the Adsense program.

The money people can make through AdSense figures prominently in the minds of webmasters. Newbie Central dedicates some attention to the topic in its Earnings and Expectations section.

Newbie Central also provides suggestions on ad placement and optimization, and the ability to use other potential revenue generators like AdSense for Search, and Referrals, on a site. It's good for webmasters, and if it helps with more adoption of AdSense, it's even better for Google.

If you haven't started promoting Google Adsense (pay per click ads) on your website, get started today with the help of Newbie Central.

Could It Be The Paid Links?

There's been a lot of discussion about Google's announcement regarding paid links. For those of you who haven't been aware, Google is now penalizing sites that pay for in-bound links. Personally, I don't give much notice to "new" announcements or supposed changes to the Google algorithm. That is, until it affects my business or the success of my SEO customers.

I was recently working with a customer who saw a pretty significant decline in Google rank (about 5 positions). This is a concern because nothing significant changed with regard to the website or ranking strategy except one thing - the company recently purchased links to help build link popularity.

Being on top of these things, as I need to be for my clients, I've recommended that they no longer subscribe to the particular linking service they have contracted with. Even though other forces may be at work, resulting in a decline in rank, I feel that paid linking could be hurting them. Has your Google rank recently been impacted? Are you paying for links?

The paid link debate will likely rage on. Tread carefully and continue to apply basic link strategy: one-way links from like sites, reciprocal linking, 3-way linking and so on... just don't pay for it!

Knowing What Moves You

As a marketing expert, I'm always involved in multiple projects. On any given day I might be work with multiple products, serving different markets, facing varying marketing challenges. The question one has to ask is, "Where should I focus my time." I had a chance to think about this very question when considering my plans for '08.

After considerable thought I couldn't help but ask the question, "What moves you?." "What gets you excited?" Each person has to be able to answer this question for themselves and find the one true, honest answer.

For me, I'm moved by sharing my online and off line marketing experience with others and experiencing their results. This year I'm focused on publishing my first full print publication, Seo Made Simple: Strategies for Dominating the World's Largest Search Engine. Many of you know that I've published a variety of ebooks like The Webmaster's Book of Secrets, but now I'm ready for Barnes & Noble.

This book will allow me to spread my experience more quickly to many more people. So I ask you, What moves you? What are you going to be focused on this year? Give it some thought and decide how you want to spend your days. You may discover that your focus becomes your reality sooner rather than later!

Netscape is exiting the Web Browser scene: No more support for the Browser from Feb 1 2008

Announced in the Netscape blog on December 28, 2007, there will be no more security patches for the current version of the browser, Netscape Navigator from February 1, 2008. Netscape.com will still continue to serve as a general use Internet portal. After February 1 2008, Netscape users have to go to the UFAQ, the Netscape Archive, the Netscape Community Forum for information about Netscape. Tom

Creating Site Titles and Descriptions - The Right Way!

There are many places in your HTML you can include keywords, but the titles and descriptions are arguably the most important elements of your Web site.

These places are somewhat important in terms of their ability to improve rankings in the search engines but are most important in terms of their ability to compel someone to visit your Web site. That is, after all, the ultimate goal of search engine positioning, isn't it? Not a lot of point in attaining a top ranking in a search engine if you are just going to call you site "Shop Here."

Of course, both the title and the description META tag must be compelling, but the Title tag has special relevance, because so many search engines use the title exactly as it appears on your page. Some search engines will use the site description that you give in the META tags, but others will not. For this reason, the title of the site is more important than the site description.

Longer Titles are More Effective

Longer titles build a more compelling reason to visit a Web site. Because it takes a certain number of words to persuade someone to to take action, logic dictates that longer sentences have more opportunity to create that compelling argument. It is difficult to discuss time, money, value, and the problem that the Web site solves in just two or three words.

People often scan headlines in brochures and magazines, even when they don't read all the information. Since the title is usually a hyperlink, it is a different color, and it is generally bold and easier to read than the site's description in the search engine listing. When it is longer, there are more words with which to "hook" a reader. If something catches the reader's eye as they scroll down a list of site titles, they will hopefully read the site description. If you have done your work, they will be hooked - but keep titles to less than 60 characters or the title will be cut off!

People Don't Read Text, They Recognize Words

People don't read individual letters after about the time they turn 12 years old, they recognize words. Educators know that people glance at words and recognize the words by the shapes defined by the tops of the letters. If you don't believe it, take a sentence in any newspaper or book and cover the bottom half of the words. You can still read the words with relative ease. Now, cover the top of a different sentence. You will find that words are harder to read because there is not much difference in the shape or line of the bottom of the words. Interesting, but how does this apply here?

Here's how: Since people recognize words because the tops of words vary in height and appearance, then sentences that start with just one capital letter and then lowercase letters are easier to recognize and get read faster.

Words in all caps are hard to read. People don't like to read them and don't read them as easily. Recognizing the words in the sentences is tedious, and these listings are frequently overlooked.

Every little advantage helps you.

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About the Author: Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business.

The Start of a Whole New Year: Media

An interesting factoid to start the year...Almost 40 percent (38%) of Americans are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their cell phones for entertainment and 45 percent are creating Web sites, music, videos and blogs, according to a survey from Deloitte & Touche.

In Deloitte's first edition of the survey the "State of the Media Democracy" eight months ago, 24 percent of people reported using their cell phones for entertainment purposes, since then usage has risen 50 percent.

Sixty-two percent of "millennials" (consumers 13-to-24- years-old) use their cell phones for entertainment, up from 46 percent in the last survey. For Generation X consumers (25-to-41-year-olds), the number increased to 47 percent from 29 percent in the previous survey.

Think about the impact your business this year!