Web Moves Blog

Email Marketing
When you own a website, you can do a lot more with it besides being up and running on the Internet. One powerful website “add-on” is the ability to collect the email addresses of visitors to your site, and “stay in touch” with current and prospective customers by means of an email marketing system. Email addresses collected at your site can be combined with email addresses collected by offline means, and through an email marketing system you can communicate in one easy step with everyone on your list. The system is easy to set up, very affordable, and often yields profitable results far in excess of your investment.

Email marketing has come a long way in recent years, and now, through a managed system, you can send messages out to your list in an attractive, graphics-enhanced, email format. An email marketing system is useful for just about every business. Some uses that come to mind include newsletters, new product or services announcements, special offers and promotions, changes in your business, advice columns, and so on. It is a rare business that cannot benefit from improved communication with clients, and professional email marketing is one of the easiest communication methods available.

On your website, you need to set up a short form that collects visitors’ email addresses, and each new email address is automatically added to your email marketing list. Email addresses gathered offline can be added manually to your email marketing list. You then prepare your newsletter, or other communication, input it into your chosen template, and you’re ready to email everyone on your list, with a professional looking html-enhanced email. Each communication that goes out through the system is formatted into whatever graphic “look” has been designed for your system. Typically, it will echo the look of your website. One of the best features of the email maketing system is that it recognizes the settings of the recipient’s computer, and if they are not set up for graphic emails, it will simply arrive at their desktop as a plain text email. No longer does the sender have to worry if the recipient can “see” their email correctly.

Not only does this system let you send as many messages as you want in one step, it lets you do some tracking, also. You can track how many recipients actually opened the email, and how often. This can be of help in measuring the interest level in a particular communication. Finally, it is very easy for a recipient who does not want to be on the list to “unsubscribe.” Email marketing has gotten a bad rap in recent years, as the lines have been blurred between valid marketing and spam. But when properly used, it is a powerful marketing tool, that allows a website owner to “keep in touch” with many clients and prospects with no more effort than it takes to compose a single email.

Author Name: Neil Street

Author Bio:
Neil Street is co-founder of Small Business Online, LLC, based in Wilton, CT., a website design, management, and promotion company dedicated to the Internet needs of the small business. His website is at http://www.smallbusinessonline.net. Send email to neil@smallbusinessonline.net He can also be reached at(203)761-7992

Were You Bamboozled by Google?
It’s still happening. “Florida,” “Boston,” “Ginger,” and “Brandy” are just a few of the many Google updates that have hit within the last few months. And Google is still issuing periodic updates as we speak. No one can say for sure what’s going on or what to expect. One thing is for sure, unless you want to get bamboozled by Google (again!), you’d be wise to take action to prevent it now.

So many people were screaming (and still are) about losing tons of business due to Google’s updates. Some have reported 30%, 50%, or even total losses. What can you do? After all, you’re at the mercy of Google, right? WRONG!

Why Do Rankings Keep Changing?

Google, like many other engines, changes its algorithm (formula for calculating who ranks where) from time-to-time in an effort to filter out spammers and deliver the most relevant search results possible.

Google has had updates since its very beginning. But now, depending on which theory you choose to believe, they are making more advancements that require more updates. This means, even if you rank at #1 this week, you might not make the top 30 next week.

How Do You Protect Yourself From Updates?

Diversify! It is never a good idea to have all your income generated by one source. You wouldn’t depend on having all of your retirement savings from one source (that’s exactly why mutual funds are so popular), and you wouldn’t have all of your money in one bank. I mean, really! What if that one source went under? The same principle applies to Internet marketing.

While search engines are a phenomenal way to drive traffic to your website, they are most certainly not the only way. In order to ensure you are protected should Google (or whoever is the next “big” search engine) change their formula yet again, you need to create a diversification plan.

Think of all the outlets that reach your target audience. Investigate each one to see how feasible it would be to market your site through those channels. Then implement a plan that includes several advertising avenues (including search engines) that – as a whole – generates as much (or more) business as you originally received from Google. That way, should one of these channels go down, your business would only be slightly affected.

Don’t stop there! Twice a year you’ll want to go over your plan and be sure that everything is working, as it should. If one outlet begins to dwindle in its response, look into finding a replacement. This way you are never taken by surprise.

Once you have your diversification plan working for you, you will be in a much better position to be rest assured that the business you receive will be there for the long haul. You will also feel more comfortable that no one organization can cause the tremendous damage Google has caused and could cause again.

Author Bio:
Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com
FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! http://madmarketer.com/diane

How to See What Pages of Your Site Google Has In Its Index
There is a lag time between the indexing or updating of your site, and the time it takes to show new results in the database. Depending on your site, where it was linked from, who it was linked from, and who knows what other factors, the amount of time varies.

With the method I teach in my book it seems to take two to four days on average for the Googlebot to stop by initially, and then another two days to one week to appear in search listings for the first listing.

(You can read more about the book here: http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/book )

But even if it takes more than four to seven days for the Googlebot spider to show up at your site, or to return, if ever, there are several ways you can track the results.

First, you can use Google itself.

Go to www.google.com and type in site: then your domain name. So for yahoo.com, you’d type in ‘site:yahoo.com’. The results will show you which pages of your site are showing up in Google.

If you know you won’t have time to check on a daily basis, you can use a site called Google Alert, which you can find at http://www.googlealert.com.

The great thing about this site is that it will track up to five terms per email address and have them sent to you via email on a daily basis. Using this you can track your ranking for your most important terms, or see how often your competitor’s site comes up versus yours.

To use this to see when pages of your site come up, create an account, then in the search terms section, type in, as one word, whatever is between ‘www’ and your site’s suffix (.com, .net, .org, .biz, .uk, etc.) and you will start getting emailed results.

The only problem is that the resulting page is sometimes a day behind Google’s actual indexing. But for a free automated resource, you really couldn’t beat it. Until now.

Google’s new Web Alerts just came out on the 29th of March. You can access it here:

http://www.google.com/webalerts

You can use Google’s new Web Alerts service in much the same way. It’s currently in Beta development, so make sure you save the information sent to you. Since it’s so new, you’ll probably want to sign up to both services and compare the results.

My favorite use for this is finding out when people mention my name or re-print my article at their sites, so that I can link back, or email to thank them. A big advantage Google.com’s in-house version of the web alerts system is that they have a news version that you can subscribe to, which will help you stay on top of your niche in whatever industry you’re in.

Currently I use the Google Alert’s site for several on-going searches, and Google’s Beta Web Alert’s for my most mission-critical, time-sensitive news.

There’s yet another way to use Google to track how your site is doing in Google. It will tell you the cached version of your page, which Google stores. Sometimes the date posted next to the listing of the cached page can help give you a good estimate of when Google will be back at your site.

For example, at the moment, I seem to see the spider most predictably every day between midnight and 6 am EST since my home page began to score a PR of 5, then periodically at other points in my site during the day. I figured this out by looking at Google’s cache of my home page over a period of one week.

This search will tell you pages that Google considers similar to yours. It will also show sites that it considered linked to you, and show sites that carry your full url, hyperlinked or not. It’s not 100% accurate, but it will give you a much better idea than you’d get from guessing – and it’s free.

Go to Google’s home page – www.google.com – and type in info:yoursitenameandsuffix. So if your site was ExactSeek.com you’d type info:www.exactseek.com. You can also use site:yoursitenameandsuffix to find out which pages have been indexed by Google’s search engine spider.

Curiously, Google used to show different results for info:www.exactseek.com and info:exactseek.com ‘ instead of including results for exactseek.com in the www evaluation. I haven’t seen this much anymore, but if you see one permutation showing up in results for the other, you may want to do both.

You’re going to want to bookmark this page and visit it on a weekly basis. The best day to look would be the one week anniversary of what day Google last cached a page at your site. The date will often be shown next to the word ‘cached’ on one of your page results. If the cached page date is the same, that means Google hasn’t been back to your site.

Marry this information with your study of your web stats to get more ideas on getting the most out of your weekly or daily exercises involving search engines and links from other sites, not just Google.

Author Bio:
Subscribe to Free Traffic Secrets to find out how to get the Googlebot spider sooner at ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com or visit http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com to get more time-tested information on getting Free Quality Traffic to Your Site.

Meet the new “G” operating system
As most of you know, the Windows operating system is the most popular and the most utilized personal computer operating platform in use today, and has been for a good number of years. Windows has made Microsoft the powerhouse it is today, thanks to its user-friendly interface and a number of other features that greatly simplify your daily life.

However, there is now a new computer operating system that is taking over, and it’s not coming from inside your personal computer, and it’s not from your company’s LAN (Local Area Network) or intranet network either. What I’m referring to here is the ‘G’ operating system, better known as the Google operating platform.

If you feel that for the past couple of years Google has managed to transform many people’s lives, you are not alone. We are witnessing a trend that will probably increase and will become even more widespread in the coming months and years.

Thanks to many of its PHD’s and engineers, and using its vast research labs in Mountain View California, Google is building a gigantic information system, complete with its own computer operating system that anybody can use, 24 hours a day.

How it all began
Almost without warning, engineers at the Googleplex have designed and built an extremely sophisticated computer network. What really boggles your mind is that this whole project originally took place as a simple idea, just a research initiative at Stanford University in the late 1990’s.

Google’s original founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page came up in 1998 with an experimental search engine they had developed. Using the Page Rank’ search algorithm that Larry Page had designed, Sergey worked with Larry to give birth to what is today one of the most exciting projects that ever came out of an American university. Of course, nobody knew at that time the success this simple idea would ave until today.

To make its search engine operate smoothly, Google is utilizing more than 10,000 (probably a lot more) servers, located in many of its data centers, situated mostly in North America. You could say that Google runs its own operating system. Its search engine now looks more like a huge information platform, a large data warehouse if you prefer, than just a simple computer cluster that would have been optimized for one single application.

With Google’s monthly update ‘dances’ and cycles, Google even makes its operating system even faster and more powerful each and every month, while at the same time drastically lowering the overall cost of all its operations, through revenue-generating contextual ads programs, such as its AdWords PPC (Pay-per-Click) and its AdSense initiatives.

What makes Google even more powerful?
Through its complex computing platform, Google has access to a gigantic map of the whole Internet, and it is now fully aware of how people ‘travel’ around in the virtual world it operates in. What makes Google even more powerful at this is it’s getting better and better at analyzing this large map. Furthermore, it is finding more and improved ways at ‘data mining’ all that precious information it collects from millions of users located all over the world and living in many different time zones.

Through its Blogger.com subsidiary, on any given hour of the day, Google knows exactly what people blog about. Through its vast search engine, it knows what topic or subject people are searching for. Thanks to it’s AdWords program, Google knows who wants to advertise and what for and exactly how effective those advertisements perform in real life and, in real time. Oh, and now, thanks to its Orkut portal, now Google knows about how people communicate with friends and loved ones.

If you are beginning to think this is a lot of information, it is! Today, information is power.

The parallel with the Windows operating system
In terms of worries, Google isn’t too concerned about Yahoo or Microsoft’s research projects, although the news media’s attention on that subject could eventually be to their own advantage. Only time will tell for sure.

Of course, Microsoft’s intention is to combine a search engine, right inside its new version of Windows, dubbed Longhorn. However, that version may not be ready until late 2005, early 2006. Light years away in terms of Internet speed.

Microsoft’s idea of such a search engine is to look into your hard drive for the keyword you typed in. If it can’t find it there, it is assumed your query will ‘go out on the Web’ to find it’ somewhere. Where exactly will that somewhere be is not known at this time’

Working in favour of the Redmund company of course is the fact that it is sitting on about 54 Billion of cash, enough money to feed many developing nations for years. Microsoft’s search engine project is still uncertain and leaves some observers perplexed as to how it wants to do it and what will happen next.

Search is what Google does best
So you might ask: who needs a local search engine in Windows or on your hard drive when anybody can have free and unlimited access to information residing on some of the world’s fastest computers? Can the ‘G’ operating system be the fastest and the most powerful when it comes to the information age? At first glance, it would appear to be so. After all, search is what Google does best, and it has certainly proven its ability to innovate in that field.

And let’s not forget all those people on the move out there’ People wanting to access information on mobile devices don’t need large or cumbersome operating systems. All they need is a fast and convenient way to search for information, using tiny LCD screens which are getting better, smaller and cheaper.

Such applications will be perfect if they can run on the ‘G’ operating system. Google could start developing such small and hybrid systems, using parts of Linux for its simplicity, low-cost and ease of use. Linux is also of the open source code, meaning that a whole set of additional applications could be developed around them, giving even more power and credence to the ‘G’ operating system.

All these systems and ‘apps’ would all have one thing in common: they would all query the Google database, whether it be Google’s large pool of information directly in its own search engine, or other sources which are close to Google’s heart, namely Blogger.com or the Orkut social portal that is still in its beta version.

Have you heard lately that Google wants to implement its free email system? Gmail is Google’s answer to free email offerings similar to Microsoft’s Hotmail and Yahoo, except it will offer up to one Gig of storage space, with a few more features to be announced at a later date. Again, this initiative is indicative of more things to come and more applications running on the ‘G’ operating platform.

Conclusion
Whether Google goes public or not this year or next, one thing is certain: similar to Microsoft in the mid to late nineties, Google now has become a real powerhouse. Its main asset is of course its huge database, which constitutes the sheer computing power of its fast search engine, used by more than 200 million people everyday.

At last count, Google’s index had over 4.2 billion pages in it, and it is rapidly growing everyday. It is estimated there are anywhere from 6 to 10 million new Web pages added to the Internet on any given day, and these numbers are said to be conservative.

The ‘G’ operating system might be closer than we think. It could happen faster than some are led to believe. If anything, it is to Google’s full advantage to do all of what’s in its power to help promote it’s new “operating system”, by providing the industry and the development community with all the tools it can offer.

Cooperation, planning and concerted efforts will go a long way towards achieving these goals. In fact, for the past 2 and a half years, Google makes available a set of developer tools called the Google API’s (Application Programmable Interface), further helping the development community get up to speed on the ‘G platform’.

With all it has going for itself, I predict that Google will probably double, maybe even triple in size over the next five years.

The next twelve months will be extremely interesting, both from an observer’s point of view, as well as in the user’s perspective of still new things to come, new developments that will take place and innovative new technologies being developed everyday.

Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales

Understanding the value of inbound links to your website
Besides search engines, the next most common way people move from one website to another is through links on other sites.

The reason that the Internet is often refered to a the *Web* is because it exists so much as a web of links running from one site to another in a maze more complex than the spider web from which it is named.

Getting your links on other sites

If you submit your site to search engines, provided you get good results on the keywords being searched for, you will get good results.

If you write articles that will be published by ezine publishers and webmasters, then the externally placed links to your website through your resource box can be very profitable. The resource box is an *about the author* paragraph, that you will attach at the end of your article.

If you are willing to share a certain amount of your profits with others, you can set up an affiliate program for your offerings, and then you can rely upon your affiliates to provide your inbound links for you.

If you participate in online forums dedicated to a certain topic, then your links placed with your post can be very effective.

If you leave reviews for others to read on sites like Amazon or Cnet, then you will find a certain number of click-through’s (CTR’s) to your website.

If you sign guestbooks with your own link in place, you might be a little disappointed by your results.

If you use Free For All (FFA) pages, you will certainly be disappointed. The reason for the failure with FFA pages is two-fold. First, your link will be placed on an external site that rotates links. Your link may only be in place for ten minutes or two hours. Secondly, your link is often placed on a page that will likely never be seen by human eyes.

The Yin & The Yang of the Internet

The Internet is a prime example of the benefits of the Yin and the Yang. What goes around, comes around.

The truth is that if you help others, others will help you.

If you provide outbound links on your site to resources that are not on your site, people will flock to your site to find the resources they are looking for.

What is more, if you provide a good resource to others, then webmasters, reviewers and publishers will be lining up to tell their people about your website. Thus, giving you more inbound links.

Beware of the dead end

If on the other hand, you construct your website as a dead end, you are bound to fail.

People who do website reviews and publish ezines do not tell their followers about dead end sites. The value of a single website is drastically reduced by a lack of outbound links.

After all, no one person is so brilliant that they can deliver everything their visitors want.

By the very nature of dead end sites, they will not be linked to by others, so their success or failure is entirely reliant upon search engine and email success.

If the owner of the dead end site does not send out tons of email advertising and it does not have good placement in the search engines, then the site will not turn big profits.

Google PageRank

Besides traffic earned by inbound and outbound links to a website, one should also consider ranking schemes like the Google.com PageRank scheme.

Because Google wants to provide their users the very best in information from their search results, Google employs a program called the Google PageRank. The basic premise is to provide a rating for a given website, based in part on the value of the content on the website, and more so, based on how many external sites with a PageRank of four or higher actually link to the given website.

To review the Google PR for any one domain, one must use the Google Toolbar ( http://toolbar.google.com ) in their Internet Explorer browser.

Inbound links are crucial

In order for a site to get a good Google PageRank, the site must have inbound links from other rated sites.

Let us return for a moment to the dead end site. We have already shown that the dead end site that has no outbound links, will very likely have few inbound links, if any.

When a site can boast of no inbound links, then the webmaster can rest assured that their likelihood of getting a good Google PageRank is almost nil.

In order to build one’s inbound links, they should strongly consider employing outbound links also.

Protecting your internet assest

Most people who build dead end sites do so from a fear of sending their hard earned traffic to another domain.

Given the short attention span of many surfers, we always have to be concerned that redirected traffic may never return to our websites.

In order to protect your hard work by losing the distracted surfer, you should always place a *target=_blank* inside of the href tag for all outbound links on your websites.

This ensures that a person who clicks on an outbound link will see the new page in a new browser window. So, once the surfer has reviewed the new site, they will have to actively shut down the browser window that your website still resides in.

This is extra special good news for people who have provided a great resource for web surfers. The more valuable a website is considered to be as a resource, the more likely that the web surfer will bookmark the website for future use.

Broken links are no good

Some people have ventured to provide reviews of external sites or to publish articles that are targeted to their marketplace, but they have provided the information with broken links to the external sites.

This method serves no real protection for the webmaster, since the search engine spiders and publishers know that all of the outbound links return a *404 error, page not found.*

A phony resource is not really a resource at all.

Building your inbound links

To ensure the success of your website, you need to get to work building both your inbound and outbound links for your website.

Remember. What goes around comes around. Honor will bring you many rewards.

Author Bio:
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,000+ publishers & webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you.

Why are keywords so important?
Open Wordtracker [ http://www.wordtracker.com/ ] and you’ll see following proclamation by Brent Winters, President, FirstPlace Software, Inc., the makers of award-winning web promotion software, WebPosition Gold [ http://www.webposition.com/ ]:

“Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain.”

Why are keywords so important? And what indeed is a keyword? To an occasional web visitor, *keyword* wouldn’t mean much. But for a practicing webmaster, the term *keyword* is perhaps more dear than anything.

The way we search
The term *search* implicitly suggests that search engines will return the most relevant results corresponding to the search-term used. A search-term or keyword is basically a word or a combination of words – usually latter – surfers like you and me use to get results we’re looking for. People, hailing as they do, from diverse backgrounds, have typically individualistic ways to express search-terms, that differ from one another, yet aimed for identical search-result. Evidently therefore, a website wanting to occupy top positions in search-results, needs to *optimize* for varying combinations of keywords. For an idea on how searches are made using keywords, Philip Morris’ this page [ http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/search/search_help.asp ] provides a handy reference, albeit for their site.

In a press release Feb 2, 2004 [ http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox27.html ], OneStat reports that of all keyword searches on the web, 32.58% uses 2-word phrases, 25.61% 3-word phrases and only 19.02% uses 1-word phrase. According to OneStat [ http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox27.html ], global usage of both 2-word and 3-word phrases has increased over the last year, and that of 1-word phrase has actually declined during the same period.

To give another example, WebSearchWorkshop [ http://www.websearchworkshop.co.uk/stats.htm ] quotes an earlier NPD survey to show that out of an online sample of 30000 respondents, *45% search by using multiple keywords or key phrases, 28% use one keyword, 18% search by a pre-defined option (such as browsing through a directory category) and 9% search by typing in a question*.

Since achieving top rank is culmination of many efforts working in tandem, it is all the more necessary that keyword targeting is done in planned manner to remain in reckoning.

Importance of search engines
Notwithstanding growing complaint that search results are steadily loosing relevance, statistics tell us web surfers are increasingly opting for search engines as a main web activity. WebSideStory in a March 12, 2003 press release [ http://www.websidestory.com/pressroom/pressreleases.html?id=181 ] reports that search engines’ share in global internet usage has nearly doubled in the past 1 year from 7.1% to 13.4%. If a survey is done today, that figure will undoubtedly be much more impressive.

A birds-eye-view of importance of search engines can be had in this narration at iProspect [ http://www.iprospect.com/web_site_promotion/optimization_analysts.htm ]. Some pertinent points are given below:

1. A Georgia Institute of Technology study finds 85% of likely web customers prefer search engines to find their choices, and a study by RealNames reveal as much as 75% web surfers use search engines while journeying through the web.

2. 57% of net surfers are recurrent users of search engines — a popular web activity, next only to emailing.

3. Convenience is a major factor for many to locate the ideal information resource through search engines.

When seen with Global Reach [ http://glreach.com/globstats/ ] estimate of *online population* reaching 940 million in 2004, it’s fairly obvious there’ll be continuing surge of internet marketing efforts in order to attain search visibility. Innovative starategies coupled with intelligent marketing will be the hallmark of efforts to achieve prominent search rankings. In this connection, do have a look at Global Reach’s invaluable data on “Evolution of Online Linguistic Populations” [ http://global-reach.biz/globstats/evol.html ].

Keywords matter most
Though not the only weapon in webmasters’ arsenal, using relevant keywords is a must to increase possibility of prominent search rankings. The reason is rather simple. Search engines gather and collate texts in webpages and store them in databases. As a web user searches for a website like yours, it is important that the keyphrase or the keyword he uses to do so appears in your webpages. Otherwise your webpage will not show up in search results.

This underlines the need to know various keyword combinations relevant to your website, and at the same time popular. Which is to say that these are keywords mostly used by web users cutting across geographic locations.

Web searchers’ fickleness
Dr. Jim Jansen, an Assistant Professor in Pennsylvania State University�s Information Sciences and Technology (IST) in the article *Impatient web searchers measure web sites’ appeal in seconds* [ http://live.psu.edu/story/3364p ] observes “A page has to be well-designed, easy to load and relevant to a searcher’s needs.” Else, within 3-minute interval, 40% searchers will abandon the website and move over to another. 7Search (link provided under the heading ‘Keyword Tools’) provides an interesting estimate about percentage of searchers visiting your site vis-a-vis its ranking. It says a first rank is likely to fetch about 7% of search traffic, and a 10th rank just 0.35%.

The estimate above drives home another oft-repeated opinion that mere top ranking won’t translate into better sales. For that to happen, a website should be able to invoke sufficient interest among its viewers to make them stay longer.

Nevertheless, as search engine marketing gains popularity compared to other forms of advertisements, it is easy to see why good ranking in major search engines is so vital. But then, search engines bring results based on keywords or keyphrases. Without doubt therefore, the first step for success on the web is the ability to select the most relevant keywords and use them properly to derive maximum advantage.

What emerges
To summarize from the foregoing, we find that:

1. While internet population is growing tremendously, a majority of web surfers use search engines as starting platform to meet their online needs.

2. Web searchers do not want to waste time for a website if it fails to meet his expectations, even though it would have ranked high in search results.

3. A majority of web searchers prefer using multiple keywords to find their choice of websites.

Piecing facts together, what emerges is search engines’ popularity is on the rise (if not usefulness; but that’s a different story). And so too searchers’ preference to use multiple keywords to find their choice of websites.

The way forward
If convinced that keywords are lifeline of your web venture, next comes planning your keyword targeting strategy. The web is now a global phenomenon, and the potential market is no longer confined to a single location or country. That being so, a prudent approach would be to know what would people of other regions/countries look for in search engines if they want to view your site. Fortunately, there are ways to find that out.

To begin with, start querying yourself, your colleagues, friends, relatives and others as to what search-terms would aptly describe your website. Collect thereby a hundred or so keyphrases. Next, arrange at least two brainstorming sessions, spaced over a few days, in which to participate all who suggested those keyphrases. The aim will be to closely watch relative importance of keyphrases chosen and then trim the list by half, leaving out those that appear less important.

Scott Buresh in the article *Search Engine Keyphrases And The Power Of The Modifier* [ http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-20040206SearchEngineKeyphrasesandthePoweroftheModifier.html ] suggests using descriptive adjectives, nouns and other suitable modifiers to appeal to wide cross-section of search traffic. And Jayde’s *Keyword Selection* [ http://www.jayde.com/set/keyword.html ] process lays down certain ground rules in order to bring in more relevancy in your keyword selection exercise.

Work out your keywords
Once your initial keyphrases are ready, comes the most important step. Take help of one or more keyword tools. With a good keyword tool, you can ‘weigh’ relevance of each of your keyphrases with actual search-terms used. In fact the keyword tool will itself suggest many other popular keyphrases, relevant to your keyphrases, some of which you wouldn’t probably have thought of. Since the keyword tools keep track of virtually all searches made on major search engines worldwide, feel assured that you’ll get the most relevant search-terms used by aggregate viewers.

Finally, armed with keyword tools’ suggestions, you’ll be ready to further prune the big list to something you feel comfortable using. Perhaps another group discussion might help to thrash out a shorter list. Remember, it is better not to use more than 4 to 5 keyphrases in one webpage, lest the *weight* per keyword (keyword density) becomes thin and not sufficient to attract search engines’ preferred attention.

At this stage, if necessary, take assistance of qualified SEO specialist or content writer to appropriately configure your webpages with selected keyphrases. Be aware that like keyword selection, keyword placement too is equally important, if not more. According to Robin Nobles [ http://www.seo-news.com/archives/2004/jan/29.html ], search engines like Google is known to pull *snippets* from any one or combination of 9 different areas of webpages in response to search queries.

Keyword tools
Keywords tools come in different hues for different applications. The most important of course are keyword selection tools. My first choice is Wordtracker [ http://www.wordtracker.com/ ], which offers free trial to get a feel of how it operates. Their paid service opens up exciting ways of *discovering* your keywords. While Wordtrackers’ is a do-it-yourself service, SEO Research Labs’ [ http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/ ] is a package offer for what they say *Keyword Research for Bottom Line Results*. Another fine tool is Web CEO’s ‘Keyword Popularity Research’, which is offered as a part of Web CEO Suite [ http://www.webceo.com/pricing.htm ].

Among other keyword selection tools, Good Keywords’ [ http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/gkw/ ] is a free software from Softnik Technologies that queries several search engines to enable you find your best choices. Yet other popular sources are:
Overture Inventory [ http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ ]
Google AdWord Keyword Suggestions [ https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox ]
7Search [ http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/keywordsuggestion.aspx ], etc.

GlobalPromoter [ http://www.globalpromoter.com/keyword_suggestion_tool.cfm ] too, among many others, provides free searching of Overture network for your keywords.

Some other useful keyword-related tools and resources are given below:

1. Marketleap’s keyword verification in search results [ http://www.marketleap.com/verify/ ]

2. KeywordStats toolbar [ http://www.keywordstats.com/ ]

3. Webjectives’ Keyword Density Analyzer [ http://www.webjectives.com/keyword.htm ]

For more resources concerning keyword research and many other web promotion topics, consider owning writer’s ebook, *Sure Web Success with 1001+ Top Web Promote Links*.

Summing up
As with any set-up where there’s a close and constant interaction with visitors, it is necessary to keep your website in top-shape, relevant, interesting and inviting. Keyword research is a vital part of website management and a continuous process. It’s worth staying glued to happenings around, and keeping track of keyword-usage pattern from your web-logs. For, who knows where you stand tomorrow in search results for your chosen keywords!

Author Bio:
For more information on keyword planning and also other web promotion resources, consider owning Partha Bhattacharya’s highly informative ebook, Sure Web Success with 1001+ Top Web Promote Links, that bridges gap between possibility and certainty of your web success. Partha’s website, EzyPost, also offers nicely-designed ready templates for websites.

Enhance your site with a Yahoo-style directory
Does your website have a links/resources page?

Do you exchange reciprocal with other websites to help boost your targeted traffic and search engine rankings?

Do you believe that a relevant, yet comprehensive resources page provides tangible benefits to your site’s visitors?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then you should consider adding an inexpensive (or free!) Yahoo-style Directory to your website. A quality Directory script will add an air of professionalism to your website and provide valuable content for your users.

A quality Directory script:

* Gives your website a professional “look and feel”. You can eliminate those bloated, unattractive links pages that might brand your site as a “link farm”.

* Allows your visitors to search for sites of interest in your directory using keywords.

* Allows you to display banner ads on your Directory pages (including the search results pages). With the best scripts, the search results pages will even display different banners according to the search terms used. This allows you to sell advertising targeted to specific keywords!

* Encourages other webmasters to exchange links your website. You’ll soon have webmasters standing in line to exchange links with you.

* Automates the link exchange process to a large extent without all of the negatives that can get a website banned by the major search engines. A quality Directory script will handle everything related to adding a link to the database, yet still allow you to manually approve the link!

There are many good directory scripts available on the web. Just do a Google search for “CGI scripts”. Add a quality Directory script to your site today and you can take your web presence to an entirely new level!

Author Bio:
Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Webmaster Resources and the author of “Super Webmaster SEO Toolkit” which gives step by-step instructions for getting a top 10 listing in Google & Yahoo. Visit his web site: http://www.rlrouse.com/SEO.html

How to Gain Credibility and Sales By Writing Online Articles
Writing is one of the most powerful secrets you will find for bringing in new business and gaining credibility among your peers and potential clients.

Writing articles in online publications that cater to your ideal client will put you heads and tails above your competitors. Most competitors feel they are incapable of writing or feel they are too busy focusing on other parts of their businesses to write articles. So they don’t do it.

This is a huge advantage for you.

Likely your clients enjoy and even pay for information that is of interest to them. So if you have the ability to write, do so.

What Do You Write About?

How about a problem-solving how to' article? Or maybe a list of ideas or tips that help your readers? Since you know your business well, writing such articles should be relatively simple.

If your typing speed is not up to snuff and is holding you back then you can dictate’ your writing into your computer using a microphone and a voice recognition software program such as Dragon Naturally Speaking or IBM’s ViaVoice. Both work fairly well and are available online and at most major office supply retailers.

Where Can You Submit Your Articles Online?

Here is a BIG list of locations for publishing articles online. I too had questions of where to publish articles online. So through research I collected these links, added them to my favorites, and began submitting articles of my own.

No online marketing has to date presented as high a response from qualified potential clients as those who found my site through articles I’ve published online. I suspect the results will be the same for you too.

Sites Where You Can Post Your Articles For Redistribution

1. http://addme.com/nlsubmit.htm
2. http://allnetarticles.com/submitarticle.asp
3. http://articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
4. http://boconline.com/sub-art.htm 5. http://bpubs.com/
6. http://businesstoolchest.com/articles/submit.shtml
8. http://cerebuswebmaster.com/onsite/articles/submit_artic
7. http://buzzle.com/ le.html
9. http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
10. http://connectionteam.com/submit.html
11. http://digital-women.com/submitarticle.htm
12. http://ebooksnbytes.com/
13. http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
14. http://freesticky.com/stickyweb/submitarticle.asp
15. http://goarticles.com/ulogin.html
16. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
17. http://hugeaffiliates.com/modules.php?name=Submit_News
18. http://ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
19. http://marketing-of-training.com
20. http://marketing-seek.com/articles/index.shtml
21. http://netterweb.com/articles/articlesubmit.htm
22. http://scamfreesuccess.com/article.htm
23. http://searchwarp.com/
24. http://small-business-forum.com/
25. http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
26. http://top7business.com/submit/
27. http://upromote.com/newsletter/submit.html
28. http://vectorcentral.com/articles-form.html
29. http://web-source.net/articlesub.htm
30. http://webpronews.com/submit.html
31. http://womans-net.com/modules.php?name=Submit_News
32. http://work911.com/cgi-bin/links/add.cgi

Article Announcement Mailing Groups

1. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publisher_network/
2. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reprintarticles-paradise/
3. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reprintedarticles/
4. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aainet/
5. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce_list/
6. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles_archives/
7. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articlesubmission/
8. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aageneral/
9. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PromoteYourArticle/
10. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles/
11. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_eContent/
12. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freezinecontent/
14. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/netwrite-publish-announce
13. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketing_articleblaster/
15. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReadMyArticles/
16. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWriteArticles/

A Useful Article Submission Tool

This online tool will automatically reformat your text for
you: http://www.web-source.net/format_text.htm

Many sites have guidelines concerning the layout of your article. One of the common guidelines is that your article must not exceed 60-65 characters across.

By using the format text tool you can be certain your article will be properly formatted, so that it does not get rejected for something that is so simple to fix.

Now’s The Time To Take Action

Writing articles that appeal to your “dream” clients should be one of your first steps to bringing in new business.

However writing alone is worthless if no one ever reads your articles. So the next step is to actually distribute your articles.

Hopefully you find as much success through submitting articles to these sites as I have.

Author Bio:
Andre Bell is principal marketing consultant with Andre Bell Consulting Group. A free copy of his new book “101 Marketing Secrets Revealed” is available through his site at http://www.economicbooster.com.

5 Free Ways to Increase Traffic to your Online Store
So you’ve finally created a website for your small online store! Now you think, “How do I get people to visit my site?”. If you’re like most new website owners, you wonder how to bring potential customers to your site without spending lots of money on expensive advertising. In order to help you, I’ve compiled a small list of five methods that I have used to drastically increase traffic to my own site. I’ve also listed two websites under each tip that will help you get started implementing these suggestions.

1. Offer a freebie or a contest for your items:
One of main reasons that people use the Internet is to find free (or cheaper) stuff. If you offer a freebie or contest for one of your items, then you are likely to attract potential customers. To get maximum exposure for your freebie or contest, you should register with as many “free stuff sites” as possible. Here are a couple of sites which would be a good starting point: http://www.thefreesite.com and http://www.realfreesite.com.

2. Link to similar websites:
A popular method used by webmasters to increase web traffic is to swap links with comparable websites. However, the trick to maximizing the effectiveness of linking is to find sites with a minimum Google PageRank, which is a system which Google uses to judge the importance of each webpage, of 3 or 4. To find out more information about PageRank, click here: http://toolbar.google.com/. To find good linking partners, check out these two link partner directories: http://www.links-pal.com/ and http://www.gotop.com/.

3. Join an internet discussion group:
People also frequently use the Internet to find places where they share common interests with other individuals, which has led to the creation of Internet discussion groups. You can use discussion groups to introduce yourself and your product. Find a group that is related to your store or personal interest, and make sure any topic that you post is tied into a current discussion. Don’t SPAM any discussion group with an obvious sales pitch. Simply write comments applicable to both the group and your product; people will naturally want to know more about you! Two great listings of potential starting points for discussion groups are: http://groups.yahoo.com/ and http://topica.com/.

4. Post your product or service on a free classified ad page:
Although many websites only have paid inclusion into their classified ads, many offer a free place where you are allowed to advertise your merchandise. If you spend time developing an interesting headline or ad, you can bring in a steady amount of traffic from these sites. To get started on free classifieds, you can use my own free service http://www.mizambar.com/classified.html. In addition, the following link has a directory of tons of free classified services: http://www.ecki.com/links/.

5. Write an article related to your website and submit it to ezines:
By writing an article about your service or a topic related to your website, you instantly become an authority on your issue. Although you might have some apprehension about writing, if you have a website, then you probably have something to talk about. Two great directories on ezines are: http://freezineweb.com/ and http://www.ezinelocater.com .

By following these steps, you should see a dramatic increase in your web traffic. The key is to always think about website promotion–if you spend a little time each day following one of these steps, you will be rewarded with more visitors and hopefully more customers.
Good luck, and happy advertising!

P.S. Stay tuned for more free ways to increase traffic to your website!

Author Bio:
Scott Patterson is the owner and webmaster of http://www.mizambar.com, a retail site of Evil Eye Jewelry, and http://www.onlinestoreexchange.com, a directory of tips and advice to help you with website design and website promotion for your online store. To receive free webmaster ebooks & free promotion/design tips, join his email list – onlinestoreexchange- subscribe@yahoogroups.com. For more information, email him at scott@mizambar.com

Googleopoly: The Motivation Behind Gmail
Just before the close of business on Wednesday, Google announced that it will be launching Gmail, its new free e-mail service set to offer 1000 megabytes of free space to its users. This announcement comes after a flurry of changes at Google, all of which are geared to securing their place as the dominant search engine in light of recent competition offered by Yahoo! and soon MSN. The search engine wars have been predicted for some time now by search engine insiders, and the launch of Gmail is Google’s attempt to win the war before it gets fully started. But is Google really ready to take on the big portals?

Google was an innocent project through Standford University. It was a project started in the days of optimism about a free Internet not supported by ads or corporate revenues, but rather the free exchange of ideas. As a result, they focused solely on product. There were no worries about creating a flashy interface, hiring a sharp marketing team, or launching an IPO. They were worried about good search results. The result is that Google is now synonymous with searching the Internet.

Today, Google stands with a much different outlook. The success of the launch of AdWords propelled Google into a class all their own. Almost overnight, Google entered the PPC industry and dethroned Overture as the untouchable kings of PPC. Although other search engines such as Lycos, FindWhat, Kanoodle, and Sprinks had been competing with Overture, none of these engines were able to bring the reach and brand power of Google.

The success of AdWords was a notice to every other Internet giant. Companies such as Yahoo! and AOL ‘ who were providing Google’s results to their users ‘ took notice to the fact that Google had an incredible influence on the Internet, and if they desired, they could leverage that influence into a variety of new markets. Worse yet, Yahoo! and AOL helped Google gain such influence by providing Google results to their users. These giants became nervous, and with good reason. Google started to show signs that they were expanding into new markets.

Dictionaries, glossaries, news services, Froogle, Catalog search, maps, blogging, and other services were all emerging from the Google labs and news rooms. If Google was able to instantaneously compete and lead in the highly competitive PPC market, what would happen if they moved in on the territory of Yahoo!, AOL, or MSN? These Internet giants helped make Google powerful, possibly more powerful than they were themselves.

The battle for web searches had begun. Yahoo! has taken the most notable steps by replacing their results provided by Google with their newly acquired Inktomi division based results. To fight Google on the advertising revenue level, Yahoo swooped up Overture, still all-star in the paid search market. Overture, now playing catch-up in an industry which they practically founded, launched their own site content match system which rivals Google AdWords.

MSN has vowed to refine their search algorithms to become more relevant. Most of the work being done by MSN has been fairly quiet, but rest assured, there will be a lot of talk about MSN search when they are ready to release their new product to the Internet. And, with every new PC you buy, don’t be surprised if it comes with a host of web searching tools built in.

There have even been rumors over at AOL that they are going to be abandoning their Google based results. The fact is, AOL is scared of Google. As it stands right now, Froogle already steps on their shopping market, and Google News is taking away from AOL’s news delivery service.

By abandoning Google provided results, these Internet giants are attempting to limit Google’s reach. The fact is simple: users still use Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL. They use these services because they offer a host of unique information, updated news, financial reports, maps, phone directories, etc. Most importantly, users visit MSN, Yahoo, and AOL for their free e-mail. While they have these users attention, Yahoo! and MSN will now try to sell these users on their new and improved search results not provided by Google in order to steal a bit of that search engine market.

Just as Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN realized how powerful Google was in the search engine market (and subsequently the danger that posed to them), Google is realizing the real threat that these portals present. If these portals are able to offer suitable search results, users will have less reason to utilize Google’s search. Google has also recognized the main advantage these portals have: free e-mail. Free e-mail is what makes Yahoo! and MSN such popular destinations. People who have e-mail accounts at these locations find themselves visiting these sites multiple times every day just to check their e-mail. While they are there, they have the opportunity to be grabbed by a headline or service offered through these portals. The free e-mail is what brings the users back time and again.

Gmail is a direct attempt by Google to destroy any competition before it arises. With 10 times the amount of storage and what appears to be a superior interface for viewing and organizing mail messages, Gmail is not simply a nice thing to offer to web surfers. Gmail is an attempt to put an arrow through the heart of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. The services will not be comparable in quality, and that is the way Google wants it. The goal of Gmail is to make Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail look like laughable solutions to web based e-mail.

If Gmail is successful in converting Yahoo! Mail users and Hotmail users, the search engine wars will most likely be much ado about nothing. The battle and war will be won, and the victor will be Google. But don’t expect MSN, AOL, or Yahoo! to simply watch Gmail launch without developing a plan to strike back hard. Yahoo! alone has invested incredible amounts of money to acquire Inktomi and Overture just so they can compete head to head with Google. It would be uncharacteristic of them to simply fold. And do not forget about the power MSN has with their search.

Remember that Microsoft controls what search engine is used by default on most every computer around the world. That is a competitive advantage that Google will have a very hard time overcoming.

Gmail will not be the last new service offered by Google. It certainly will not go unanswered by Yahoo! or another portal. It will, however, mark a fundamental point in this search engine war that appears to now be in full swing.

Author Bio:
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site-Reference.com and TowerSearch. Signup for a free TowerSearch account and receive guaranteed top rankings for all of your chosen keywords.
It is very unlikely that Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page had any idea exactly how big their original search engine (then called BackRub) would actually become.