We all have heard that search engines are the number one resource for consumers to research and buy products or services online. In fact, marketing studies have shown that over 70% of web surfers use search engines to locate online merchants. The ramification of this statistic is simple: if you want to reach the members of your target market you need to make sure that your business web site appears in popular search engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you achieve this. SEO is a crucial online marketing technique. It helps you to get your web site to appear in search engine result pages (SERPs) for keywords that that are relevant to your business. For example, if you are a business coach, and someone is searching for “business coach”, it would be great for your business if your web site appears in the first 10 results.

So what exactly is search engine optimization? SEO includes selecting the best keywords for the body of the page as well as other page elements (the title tag, keyword and description meta tags, etc.) Carefully chosen keywords provide “hints” that search engines use to classify your site and to determine whether your site should appear for certain search keywords. On-page keyword optimization by itself will help your rankings. However, holistic search engine optimization is required to achieve optimal results. For the best placement, focus on SEO as a whole, rather than concentrate on a particular technique.

Here are a few important elements of holistic search engine optimization:

* Have good content. After all, content is king (or queen, whichever the case may be). Without content there isn’t much of a site. The content must walk a fine line between providing useful content and including sufficient and relevant keywords for search engines.

Often it is difficult to optimize your product or service pages for search engines, since the main goal of these items is to showcase the benefits of your offer. On the other hand, it is easier to optimize blog posts and articles. In fact, you can create entire articles and blog posts around keywords that are popular with your target market.

* Have consistent navigation. Both your web site visitors and search engine spiders navigate your web site through links that connect different pages. Consistent navigation ensures that your visitors can reach every page on your web site from every other page. On top of that, you will you get the most out of your search engine optimization efforts.

* Get links to your site. Links to your web site play a very important role in holistic search engine optimization. Many popular search engines evaluate your web site’s popularity based on counting the number of links that point to your site. The more popular your web site is, the better rankings it gets on search engines. The best links are links from reputable, quality web site that have complimentary or related content.

You can get links to your web site by using a variety of techniques, such as writing articles, participating in link exchanges, and participating in online networking.

Take a holistic approach to web site optimization. Apply SEO to your web site as a whole, and always evaluate the overall impact of your marketing efforts.

Biana Babinsky shows you how to drive thousands of targeted visitors to your web site in her Step by Step Search Engine Optimization Special Report. Learn more about the report at http://avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zseo

If you are trying to sell wholesale products using auction sites and you’d like to increase the “I Sold It On eBay!” factor, most top eBay sellers know they have to research their SEO keywords.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization (a good thing when you are trying to attract new customers to your wholesale products or business), and it’s a lot easier than you think. Plus, using SEO keyword tactics works equally as well with your website as it does with your eBay seller auctions. Although it may take you a little bit to get the hang of the process, once you learn this crucial technique you’ll be eBay selling with the pros.

First, visit eBay’s Pulse section, which offers anyone who visits the page a quick view of what’s hot on the auction site. I’ll walk you through this process using some SEO keywords that I’m personally interested in: wholesale and retail doll supplies. (For a list of wholesale companies that offer doll supplies, visit WholesaleGopher.com).

My eBay Pulse search shows there is only one “wholesale doll” item listed, 46 items matching “retail doll”, 82 items matching “doll supplies” and 84 items for “wholesale doll”. (Of course, your results may differ from mine, since eBay sellers are constantly changing their auctions, offerings and products). You can also use the scroll down list on the site to pick an item category that interests you, and then write down the top terms from there, too.

Next, you need to check and see how popular those keywords are. Using a freebie keyword suggestor, I find out that my keywords “wholesale and retail doll supply” were searched 564 times last month over many of the search engines (explaining this process will take too long to go into in this article; hopefully we’ll touch upon it a bit more in another piece). Because my SEO keywords are so specialized, I’m not seeing any other results than the ones I stuck in there, but you’ll probably get a whole slew. Any that describe your wholesale wares well, plug them into eBay Pulse as well to see what their demand is on the auction site, too.

Then, I visit Google and type in “wholesale and retail doll supply” (WITH the quotations - this is really important), and find that there are only eighty-four websites listed that meet the search term requirements. (Let me add here that these are incredible odds; you won’t see search results like this often).

Are you still with me? Okay, now comes the hard part: figuring out which search terms are the best to populate your eBay auction with. Read the next article in this series for an in-depth explanation how to use these SEO keywords so you can start yelling, “I Sold It On eBay!” sooner, rather than later.

Jim Staley is the is the CEO for WholesaleGopher, one of the most trusted dealer and distributor directories on the Internet, offering visitors wholesale items, import and export goods, surplus and closeouts from true wholesale sources. Learn more about wholesaling with his free, bi-weekly blog at http://www.wholesalegopher.com/blog/.

Shopping for home insurance online is easy. There are a ton of websites that make it so easy to enter the proper information in order to give you an accurate quote. The home policy has less required information than the auto policy. Auto insurance depends so much on extensive driver and vehicle information. The homeowner policy depends on some basic information. The most important calculation is the actual square footage of your home. When you shop online they will want this information. Insurance companies need this because they use various calculators to determine building costs per square footage. The online quote has a questionnaire that needs completed that will ask you some other valuable information that helps determine the replacement value of your home. Air conditioning and fireplaces increase property replacement values. The size of your deck or patio is also considered when determining the insurance amount. There are questions about your garage location. Finished basements increase the replacement value and the online quote will often ask you the percentage of your basement that is finished.

Prior insurance is important when shopping for insurance coverage for a home that you have been residing in for a while. You will be asked about your present insurance. Having insurance is a must when comparison shopping because it is stability and credit factor that will make the risk more acceptable for the insurance company. If you want personal items insured on a rider of some kind then you will most likely need proof of their value. Jewelry riders require recent appraisals and or receipts to prove their worth.

The online quote process may reveal something about your present coverage that you were unaware of. You may find that after you complete a replacement cost estimator with several companies that your home is either under insured or over insured. This is one of the great benefits of shopping online. It enables you to do some of your own research. Shop for homeowner’s insurance online. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Please see our recommended sources for low rate insurance quotes Home Owners Insurance, Medical Insurance, Cheap car Insurance.

Internet marketing is all about hard results, not generic concepts of branding. Still, there are ways to go about branding your product or service on the net without spending a fortune.

Branding refers to the vague notion of creating an identity for a product, service or name with consumers. The classic example, of course, is Coca Cola. Being first on the scene, the company has been able to create such a strong name brand that most people use the word “coke” instead of soda when ordering. This is true even when they prefer Pepsi. In the world of marketing, we all bow before the marketing team that accomplished this branding. The Internet, however, is a different beast. That same marketing team would be crushed if they went after a similar strategy on the net.

The Internet is so large that branding is an expensive and difficult goal unless you are the first major presence in a niche. Sites like EBay and Amazon were the first major money players in their fields, giving them a huge advantage over subsequent competitors. Unless you are coming to a field with a lot of money and no current dominant site, your branding efforts are going to meet with failure or limited success at best. If you want to stick with it, the only cost effective and ultimately successful strategy is to pursue a width search engine optimization campaign.

Search engine optimization is simply an effort to get pages on your site ranked high in search results on the three big search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN. To establish your brand, the best Internet marketing strategy is to identify every single phrase your prospects use to find services or products in your business area. You then build optimized pages for every single phrase and get them ranked.

This strategy has two benefits. First, it will produce free traffic to your site. If you build 200 pages and each gets 50 visitors a day, your site will receive 10,000 visitors a day. The second benefit is your brand becomes established. Regardless of what the prospect searches for, they keep seeing your site. This creates both recognition and credibility with the prospect as they tend to equate high rankings with quality. As they visit your site over and over, they will also become readily familiar with your unique selling position as presented on the site.

If you want to establish a brand, avoid wasting your money on banners and such unless you are in a niche that isn’t dominated by any single site. Instead, use the width search engine optimization tactic to establish your site and pick up free traffic.

Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - Internet marketing firm in San Diego. Visit us to read more about a Internet marketing articles and a branding goal - Internet marketing strategy.

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Whether you are new to Internet marketing or frustrated by the experience, the concept is undisputedly a challenge. As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

One Internet Marketing Approach

Before we get into a one particular internet marketing approach, we need to define what we mean by approach. Internet marketing is entirely different than brick and mortar marketing. The structure is composed of a number of factors including long and short term strategies, indirect branding marketization and traffic analysis. If you can master these subjects, you will have the right approach and be successful.

To achieve a better marketing approach, you must conform to the basic outline of every successful site. You need to realize there are distinct short and long term strategies, and that they mesh. Short term strategies are all about pay-per-click search engines while long term strategies are all about search engine optimization.

Pay-per-click search engines [ppc] have serious benefits and limitations. The primary benefit is they create immediate traffic to your site. They allow you to get prospects on to the site and determine how they convert. The downside of going ppc is they add significantly to your overhead and the traffic may be of middling to poor quality.

To properly pursue PPC advertising, you should stick to Google Adwords and Overture. They have the highest quality of traffic. When using these platforms, you should start with as wide a scope of keywords as possible. Track the results through your server stats to determine the specific phrases that produce paying customers. Turn off the ads for keywords phrases that don’t produce revenues. This will improve your return on investment.

Long term Internet marketing is all about search engine optimization, a misunderstood subject if ever there was one. The advantage of seo is you generate free traffic. This is accomplished by moving your site into top ranking positions on MSN, Yahoo and Google. No other search engines matter. As your rankings improve, you can begin turning off corresponding ppc advertisements. Eventually you will able to entirely eliminate your ppc cost, effectively converting the site to a free marketing position.

To nail search engine optimization, you must focus on the needs of your prospects. Your view or opinion on your product or service is irrelevant. You must identify the exact things your prospects are searching for and create or modify pages on your site to provide a solution to that need. To conduct this research, you need to do keyword research.

Wordtracker is the secret weapon of profitable sites. The site provides a list of the exact keyword phrases being used by your prospects, the number of searches a day and the number of sites competing for top rankings on the keyword. You can enter your primary keyword phrases and quickly see which phrases you should use to produce the most traffic as quickly as possible. You might be thinking you can use Overture for this as well, but Overture should only be used to determine if there is general traffic for a subject. It

Branding is a phrase used for Internet marketing by those who do not really understand the Internet. The Internet is huge, making your branding efforts a waste of time if it is your primary goal. The only time branding should be used, in my humble opinion, is in the form of indirect branding. This occurs when you dominate every keyword phrase for your particular area of interest. To do this, you should create pages for every need identified for your prospects. When they see your listings over and over, your brand is established. Put another way, branding is a secondary benefit of your marketing, not the primary goal.

If you pursue this internet marketing approach, you should reach a point where you are earning significant revenues and little for marketing. Put another way, you are maximizing your profit margin, which should be the goal of every site owner.

Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - Internet marketing firm in San Diego. Visit us to read more about a Internet marketing articles and a better Internet marketing structure.

One of today’s hottest marketing buzz phrases is “Search Engine Optimization”, or SEO. SEO is the process of configuring an organization’s Web site in such a way that when a person goes to Google (or other search engine) and searches for keywords related to the organization, the search engine lists the organization’s Web site within its search results in the highest possible position.

SEO can be a valuable promotional tactic within any Web site marketing strategy. However, SEO can also become time consuming because Google, Yahoo, and MSN (the big three) use sophisticated algorithms to index Web content. All three companies continually adjust their algorithms to provide users with the best search results. Therefore, you will need to continually test new techniques to achieve and maintain high rankings.

The AVS Group has researched and developed an SEO model that improves search engine rankings. This article highlights three tactics from our model you can use to improve your own rankings:

Tactic #1: Select Great Keywords

Your first priority should be to select great keywords that describe your organization and the content within your Web site. It might be tempting to save time by developing a list of keywords, some specific and others broad, and then applying all of them on every page throughout your Web site. However, you will achieve greater results by selecting 10 custom keywords or phrases for each page of content within your site. For example, select 10 keywords and use them exclusively on your home page, followed by 10 different keywords for each subsequent page of content.

When selecting keywords, avoid words that are broad or vague. Broad or vague keywords provide little benefit because likely too many other pages are currently indexed in the search engines using those keywords. To illustrate, let’s use AVSGroup.com as an example. Open a new browser window and go to Google. Search on the term “Web Site Design”. Look at the upper right corner where Google displays the number of pages currently indexed for the keywords. Google has already indexed about 22 million pages for “Web Site Design”.

Instead of competing against 22 million pages for “Web Site Design”, AVS chose to optimize a page of content for “Web Strategy Development”. This phrase precisely describes one of AVS’s Web services, and because fewer pages are indexed, there is a greater likelihood of achieving a high ranking. To illustrate, go back to Google. Search on “Web Strategy Development”. Google has indexed 623 pages and AVSGroup.com is the number one ranked site.

Tactic #2: Convert Keywords into Traffic

Once you have selected great keywords, the keywords must be incorporated into the right locations within your Web site to drive more traffic. Some of the best places are within your site’s page title, META description, and META keywords. Google, Yahoo, and MSN look for keywords in these locations to help properly index a site’s content.

If you are unfamiliar with how to view a page title, open a new browser window and go to AVSGroup.com. The page title is the white text that appears inside the bar at the top left of your browser window.

Next in importance is the META description and META keywords. Both are used to describe the content found on a particular page. To locate the METAs, open a new browser window and go back to AVSGroup.com. Click on the “View” drop down menu within your Internet Explorer window. You will see several options including “View Source”. Select “View Source”. This will display the HTML used to create the AVSGroup.com home page. At the top of the page, you will see the META description and META keywords.

You will achieve the greatest success if you develop custom page titles, META descriptions, and META keywords for each page within your Web site using the keywords that you selected earlier.

Tactic #3: Link Building

Link building is an SEO term that means requesting other Webmasters to add a link to your Web site within their Web site. This usually takes place in two ways. Webmasters will sometimes add your link within their own site’s content because your Web site could be a valuable resource to their site visitors. You can also encourage Webmasters to post your content onto their Web site provided they include a link to your Web site within the credits.

For the first example, open a new browser window and go to http://www.viroqua-wisconsin.com/. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a link that reads “Web site design and development by The AVS Group”. This link provides AVSGroup.com with additional traffic if someone were to click the link, but more importantly, the link helps increase our “Page Rank”. More on Page Rank later.

Next, open a new browser window and go back to Google. Search on the phrase “e-mail marketing tips”. You should see a link that reads “Learn Successful E-mail Marketing Tips” (it might even be the number two ranked site). Click on this link and you will find a Web site that is featuring one of The AVS Group’s Resources articles. This is an example of leveraging your Web site content by permitting other Webmasters to post it and provide a link back to your site. Scroll to the bottom of the article and you will see a link to AVSGroup.com.

Your link building activities increase what is known as, “Page Rank”. Page Rank is a measure that Google uses to evaluate the relevancy of a Web site’s content. If you have hundreds or even thousands of Web sites linking to your Web site using these two examples, Google will consider your Web site to be more relevant. You will earn a higher Page Rank score, resulting in improved search results for your Web site against sites that might even be optimized for the same keywords.

In closing, this article shared three key tactics within our SEO model that you can use to improve your search engine rankings. Because of the complexity of SEO, please let us know if you would like to learn more about our full SEO model. Our Web experts will demonstrate the various tactics within our model and discuss the results.

The AVS Group is a marketing, training, and communications company. AVS is in La Crosse, Wisconsin. AVS helps clients communicate and market effectively. AVS can be found online at http://www.avsgroup.com

There’s been a revolution in the Insurance market, and its been heralded by the ability of companies to go online and compete in a marketplace that does not depend on them having a branch in your specific town, or advertising through television or radio.

Because of the lower costs associated with offering insurance online, you the consumer can now access much better life insurance deals online than ever before. Getting your Life Insurance online means that you can contrast and compare between different policies and providers with a mere click of a mouse, and you can receive customer service quickly and efficiently through the same channels.

Online Life Insurance brokers may offer additional discounts or deals, so look around for them as well, and not only will your search for Life Insurance be infinitely easier, but you will also receive a discount if you purchase your insurance online.

Most companies offer a full compliment of policies online, from Term Life Insurance to Whole Life Insurance. Term Life Insurance can be cheaper than Whole Life Insurance, but as the title suggests it is only valid for the term of the policy, and then lapses at the end unless it is renewed. Term Life policies also get more and more expensive as you age, so if you’re planning to live to a ripe old age, they may not be the best option.

Whole Life Insurance, on the other hand, is initially more expensive, but you can lock in the same premium over the whole plan, and an investment component means that you have a rising cash value over time, which you can borrow against.
The Internet is a great place to both research and purchase your life insurance, and now is a good time to be looking into life insurance, with premiums at a low. Good luck on your search, and always remember to look for the fine print and hidden costs.

View our recommended source for insruance quotes and information http://www.ezquoteguide.com. They are powered by the largest network of brokers online.

Our recommended source for insurance quotes online life insurance, best homeowners insurance rates

Good communication is the key to encouraging your auction
buyers to leave you positive feedback. Such communication
also helps avoid most negative feedback on eBay.

1. Good Communication Prevents Misunderstandings

Good communication helps to avoid misunderstandings.
For example, if surface shipping takes six to eight weeks
but the customer doesn’t know this, he may expect almost
immediate delivery. When such quick delivery doesn’t
materialize, he may feel that he has been cheated or that
your service is slow and poor.

Thus, try to spell out delivery time frames and other
details as much as possible. Is your refund policy clear?
Is your product clearly and accurately described in your
auction ad? Does your product’s quality meet or exceed the
expectations created by your auction ad?

2. Prompt E-mail Response

If, for whatever reason, your e-mail response is slow, the
customer may assume that you aren’t delivering on your
promises. Prompt e-mail communication can help reassure
the customer and gives evidence of good customer service.

3. Encourage Queries

Basically, state in your auctions: “If you have any
questions about this auction, please e-mail me.” If a
person is expecting instant delivery of an e-book but
instead you send him the information via the postal
service, he might be disappointed. Nip all such problems
in the bud by encouraging your prospective buyers to ask
questions.

4. Ask for Positive Feedback

How can you encourage buyers to leave positive feedback
for you? Simply state that you’ll leave positive feedback
for them after you’ve received theirs.

Since they are leaving the feedback first, they will
hesitate to leave you negative feedback, knowing that you
may respond in kind. If you leave positive feedback for
the buyer first, they may never return the favour.

5. Reversing Negative Feedback

With good communication, you can often avoid receiving
negative feedback. Try to do everything that is reasonable
to make your customer happy.

However, what if you do receive negative feedback on one
of your auctions? What can you do about it?

Under certain, very limited circumstances (such as
an extortion attempt), eBay might reverse negative
feedback unjustly given to you. In most cases, however,
eBay will not reverse negative feedback.

You can use eBay’s “Mutual Feedback Withdrawal”
procedure. This is where both the buyer and seller
agree to withdraw negative feedback from each other.
Thus, the negative feedback will be removed from both of
your total scores (thus improving both feedback ratings).

The negative comments themselves won’t be removed by eBay.
However, your comments left in response to a negative
feedback will also stay to tell your side of the story.

Yes, good communication can lead to more positive feedback
from your auctions. Such communication can also help you
to avoid and even reverse negative feedback. So, by all
means, promote positive feedback on eBay through good
communication.

RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc.,
has been helping clients to earn maximum business
profits for over twenty-five years.

To learn more about Internet auctions, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/auctions.html

For more profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas,
visit: http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

We have all heard about Alex Tew and his pixel adverts on the milliondollahomepage. Now if I was to talk about any online gimmick this is definitely the place to start. The reason why we class this as an online gimmick is due to the fact Alex Tew came up with a great marketing idea which paid off handsomely for him, others have tried to achieve the same success with his idea and have failed. It was a one time idea because it did not have the unique selling point once other people started promoting pixel advertising sites all over the net.

The definition of a gimmick is - a trick or device intended to attract attention

Gimmicks are all about selling an idea that people will embrace, something that will attract attention, something that people will be wanting to tell their friends so you will get unlimited advertising through word of mouth. For a gimmick to work it needs to have a unique twist to it, something you have never seen before.

If you have an idea that you think is unique I would suggest researching the internet to see if anyone else is already promoting this unique idea. If you find that your idea has not been used before I would suggest preparing your idea in secrecy…don’t go shouting from the rooftops because you never know who may be listening.

Some people may challenge your idea when you start promoting it, I have had this myself but you have to remember Internet Marketing is all about gaining a reaction. Good or bad if someone is talking about your gimmick then you have achieved the desired result.

Guy Marlow is the creator of http://www.100millionviews.com/ a social study in Internet Marketing.

These days you do not have to go through the lengthy process of phoning life insurance companies to get quotes. You can conveniently get all you need with just a few clicks of your computer mouse. Given the simple and high speed Internet access we have these days, you can get online term life insurance quotes within five to ten minutes.

However, before you start your online search for the best insurance policy, there are a few simple tips that may help make the process more effective and hassle free, thus making sure that you get the best type of life insurance for your needs.

The companies’ reputation is the first thing you will need to bear in mind while you are searching for a term life insurance policy online. You need to have your insurance life quote from a company that has a good track record, as this will tell you that you are most likely to get a good premium rate, service and customer support. All you need to do is to search the Better Business Bureau for the life insurance company you are considering to get a quote from. If the company has good ratings, this will give you the confidence that the company you will be dealing with provides high quality services and customer support. You wouldn’t want to deal with a company that had a bad record, even if they were to offer you a good premium for your insurance.

You will also need to check with Standard & Poor’s to check into the companies financial standings. This is because you need to get the best online term life insurance quote from a company that will be in business for the long term, and thus able to meet your policy’s claims if or when they become due.

Once you are satisfied about the background, financial standing and reputation of the life insurance companies you are considering to get your policy from, you can them move on to getting online term life insurance quotes. All this information will enable you to make the right decision about the best company to get your most suitable term life insurance policy from.

What Is A Term Life Insurance Policy?

As the name suggests, term life insurance basically provides pure insurance protection for a specific period of time, such as five years, ten, and 20 years. At the end of the term period, the policy expires with no accumulated cash value, and no benefits are payable, with the death benefit being only paid if you die during the term period.

Generally, premiums on term life insurance tend to be low, but they increase substantially as your age increases. Due to this fact, term life insurance is the most economical when purchased at a younger age and when the term is longer.

4 Key Ways To Get The Best Online Term Life Insurance Quotes Are As Follows:

1. You may be able to get a lower premium for your insurance if you have lowered your cholesterol, lost weight or quit smoking. This tends to means a new bill of health, which is perceived as reduced risk from the insurance company’s point of view.

2. If you pay for your term insurance with automatic debit, you may be able to get a discount. Your automatic payments means less administrative costs for the insurance company, and this in turn is passed onto you.

3. You will need to decide on the amount of term life insurance before you start to shop around. Most companies have effective savings rates at $250,000, $500,000 and $1 million. By rounding up the amount to any of these coverage points, this can help you save money. As an example if you are considering $225,000 coverage, it may be better to round up to $250,000.

4. Shop for and compare at least three major insurance companies and get several online term life insurance quotes to see what you will pay on your premiums before you commit yourself to signing up.

Getting online term life insurance quotes can be a very effective and convenient way to save you both time and money when shopping for term life insurance.

As long as you do your part of deciding the amount you want for your term life insurance coverage, checking the insurance companies’ history, and taking some time to understand the terms of the policy, you will be able to select the best online term life insurance quote that suits your needs.

Dean Shainin offers free online life insurance quotes. For more information, articles, news, tools and valuable resources on life insurance, visit this site: http://life-insurance.deans-knowledgebase.com

Get free valuable online tips for saving money from his: Term Life Insurance Online website.

I first heard of the term “link bait” from Aaron Wall at SEO Book when he mentioned it back in a post on his SEO blog back in August of 2005. He says in his post that if “you are in a field that can’t build links naturally create linkbait”. What really is link bait? It’s something on your web site that causes someone to link to you. Aaron gives some examples in his post, but a classic example of link bait would be the Subservient Chicken web site by Burger King. So many people ended up talking about that web site that they linked to it—it currently enjoys about 29,300 links according to Yahoo!, and ranks number one on Google for the word chicken. By creating something on your web site that’s funny, controversial, informative, or creative, it will gain natural links—which is the key to top search engine rankings.

You don’t have to be a big brand or have a lot of money to create link bait. Many people have created link bait on purpose—and many have created link bait without even knowing it. It doesn’t have to cost that much to create something that people will link to. For example, it’s sometimes difficult—if not impossible—to get your competitors to link to you. But, consider this—take, for example, the case of Andrew. He works for a high tech company with a lot of competition. Andrew recently took his digital camera to an industry convention where he took photos of many of the attendees, the booths, and some of the after-hours events. He posted the photos on his web site after the convention, sent out a few emails to his colleagues and other industry insiders he met at the convention. Before he knew it, most of Andrew’s competitors were linking to his web site and the photos he took.

One way to create link bait is to get ranked well for phrases that will become popular in the future. As I sit here writing this article, the term “link bait” might be a good target if you’re in the search engine marketing industry. By searching Google for the following: allintitle:”link bait” you can determine about how many web pages on the internet are targeting that search phrase. Right now, as I write this, Google returns 25 results. Since that’s not very many, writing content about link bait would be a good thing for your web site. By informing the search engine marketing industry about link bait—and because the term is new, there’s a chance that others will search for it as it becomes a more popular phrase. As that phrase becomes more popular, others will need something to link to—and by ranking well for that phrase there’s a good chance that your web page about link bait will get links from other web sites. This is a phenomenon that I’ve been following since 1996 when I created my first “link bait” type of web site. If you’re a search term innovator, people will link to you—and links from other web sites mean better search engine rankings.

One of my ‘pet projects’ over the years (since I started doing search engine optimization in 1996) has been to follow the news—and if there’s a topic that I am passionate about I usually create a web page or a web site about the subject within minutes of the ‘breaking news’. In the cases where I have a web site about a particular topic and there’s breaking news about that subject, I immediately post it on my web site. Since I’m one of the first to have information about that subject, I end up ranking well fairly quickly—sometimes within 24 hours. Other people follow suit and post information on their web sites about that topic—but since my site is already ranking well for that search phrase, they end up linking to me. What they don’t realize is that they’ve fallen for my “link bait” which catches them—they’re actually helping me by linking to me and I end up ranking well in the search engines for a very long time, sometimes even many years. How can you take advantage of this? If there’s news in your industry, be the first to post it on your web site (or add a new page to your site). Be the first to get it to show up in the search engines and other people will link to it naturally.

Create an entirely new web site on a new topic. The new site could be funny, famous, controversial, or just informative. Take, for example, Paul English’s IVR Cheat Sheet that he recently created (http://paulenglish.com/ivr/). Mr. English is now enjoying thousands of links to his web site because he created a web page that’s helpful to all of us. Not only that, because of his cheat sheet that he’s posted on his site, companies are now seeing a backlash according to an article posted on Yahoo! (). “Companies that rely on automated call centers have been weathering a consumer backlash in recent weeks…” reports the article. I don’t have access to the number of visits to Mr. English’s web site, but I would suspect that he’s getting a lot of traffic based on all the high-quality links that he has—and I would suspect that he hasn’t requested any of them.

Although the term “link bait” is fairly new, the entire concept of link bait has been around as long as the internet itself. People have been creating controversial, funny, and informative web sites and web site content that others naturally link to. And with the ever-increasing popularity of blogs nowadays, the bloggers need something to link to and talk about—why not create some link bait on your web site so it too, can enjoy better search engine rankings—just reel them in.

Bill Hartzer manages the Dallas Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas.

Hartzer has infused MarketNet with his enthusiasm and vision for search marketing. Bill Hartzer is focused on developing results-oriented paid and organic search marketing programs to help clients increase visibility, broaden reach and maximize their return on investment.

1. Many category books, such as romance, Western, or science fiction, sell best on lots of 20 or more.

2. Some authors sell very well individually. Popular romance author Nora Roberts is one. However, there’s a glut of books by other popular authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz which only sell in a large collection or as part of a more general horror lot. Low prices also apply to something like Star Trek books…you need a huge lot to get even a small bid.

3. Some authors or themes do not sell at any price. I once gave away 80 routine Harlequin silhouette romances for which I could not even get a $3 bid.

4. Children’s books are considered very popular.

5. With lots, subcategories will generate higher prices. Romance subcategories, for example, include medieval, Civil War, Western, time travel, occult, fantasy, American Indian, etc. You can come up with some specialized category for which some buyer will salivate.

6. Do not underestimate the power of the word “lot” in your title when appropriate. It is a top eBay search term.

7. Your ultimate information source is eBay itself. See how others list their sales, use description and scans, and, above all, research what your book is going for. I’m amazed that people list books for $20 when everyone else is asking $1 or $2 for the same title.

8. Check your own bookshelves for books to sell, then ask friends and relatives if they have books to get rid of. My sister contributed five bags of paperback books she’d stockpiled. Then hit yard sales, garage sales, flea markets, and, the best, library sales. Library sales are bargains, especially on $2 a bag day where you pay literally pennies per book. You can also run a newspaper ad offering to buy paperback books.

9. Make your sales goal $1.00 per book when selling by lot. Ideally, the per unit expense will be .25 or less per book. You can justify buying a few books for .50 or even .75 if it substantially increases the value of your lot. This way the per unit expense averages out to more than .25 but less than .50.

10. Recycle packaging material wherever possible. Environmentally sound, it also cuts the handling charge you must request. Check store dumpsters, ask friends to save their packaging.

Nick Howes is a freelance writer of magazine, newspaper, and online articles and a news broadcaster at a Midwestern radio station. His website at http://home.midwest.net/~howes/ includes an online newsletter and an article archive.

Search engine optimization training can be one of the most effective ways to make sure that your site hits the Top Ten in any search engine’s results. However, training your non-programmers is arguably more important than the people who do your code; this allows you to leave the programmers in charge of the code, and to integrate high-quality text into your site.

When you start search engine optimization training, be aware that there are several issues that you are going to need to deal with. The first is that the person being trained will need to learn that saying the same over and over isn’t a bad thing. SEO requires that a phrase be repeated so that the page can be picked up by search engines, and then placed towards the top of the results.

Another consideration of search engine optimization training is that the person going to need to learn how to use the same phrase in new ways. For example, what the limits are as far as punctuation and capitalization are concerned, and that there ways of using the same phrase in different ways. This can be the hardest step, as it requires a certain creativity in bureaucratic letters, and creativity is hard to teach.

The person is also going to need to be taught how to look at a page’s source code. Also, that person will also need to be aware of where to look, so that they will use the same keywords on the site in their letters meant for the net. It’s easy enough to do, but search engine optimization training needs to consider that not everyone picks up the same ideas at the same speed, and that technological concepts are sometimes resisted.

Programmers will also need to learn to be work with other departments more effectively, thus helping the search engine optimization training to be inter-departmental, rather than limited to just marketing and programming, which can be a huge benefit to your company, especially as this allows you to tap people who know their aspect of the company better than your marketing department does. This creates more effective marketing, and bringing in more clients, which is always a nice thing!

Get expert answers and more information on Search Engine Optimization services as well as other expert advice the latest Internet Marketing topics at Marketing-Helpers.com .
Marketing-Helpers.com is a resource for business owners, managers, and marketers find the answers and services they need to operate a highly successful Web site. Get advice from experts like Bryan Hornung and we’ll show you how the best way for you to connect with a search engine optimization specialist or search engine optimization company to increase web site traffic with a managed search engine marketing services.

http://www.marketing-helpers.com

If you are just starting out online, you will be constantly on the lookout for internet marketing tips. You want to know the quickest way to get your business going and you don’t want to have to buy hundreds of e-books to get the information you need.

The problem is that your search for tips can leave you overloaded with information. You’ve probably already signed up for every newsletter out there. Although there are many good free email newsletters available, you’ll soon find yourself swamped with advice - some of it conflicting.

And you’ll find that every marketer and his dog is offering you the best product and in fact you may open your inbox to find that 20 people are trying to sell you the same thing at the same time!

So how can you choose the best way forward? The secret is to focus. Find something which is not too complicated - something which you feel comfortable doing. Look for a method which is working for other people and then concentrate your efforts on that, until you have achieved your first goal, which could be something fairly modest like $200 a week.

Some areas in which other people are making money are: creating and selling digital products, selling goods on E-bay and affiliate marketing.

E-books, audios and videos can be created easily and cheaply and once they are set up online, can be downloaded automatically as soon as the customer pays. The downside is that they take time to produce and you’ll need to do a fair bit of market research beforehand to make sure your product will sell.

E-bay is an increasingly popular way of making an extra income, but does require buying products and then posting them once they have been sold.

Affiliate marketing is probably the easiest starting point for anyone who is new to the internet. Someone else has done the market research and produced the product, the sales letter and the marketing materials. One of the best internet marketing tips is to focus on someone who is successful, learn from them and track your results. Once you are successful with someone else’s product, you can apply the same internet marketing tips to your own digital products.

© Waller Jamison 2006

Waller Jamison is a careers advisor and website owner. For more information on the techniques mentioned in this article go to: Internet Marketing for Beginners

If you are of the opinion that eBay is just a giant online flea market, then you could be overlooking one of the most powerful promotional tools your business could ever find.

eBay is described as the world’s biggest Internet auction site, and recent statistics quote 2.6 million visitors daily. That’s a heck of a lot of visitors to a flea market! Many people are making a full time living from eBay, and previously small localised retail shops have embraced the huge worldwide market accessible only on the World Wide Web.

If you have recently set up a retail website you will know how difficult it can be to draw visitors in any great volume, and you will also be aware of the huge fees charged by professional SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) experts. But the great thing is that you can use the enormous pulling power of eBay to drive targeted visitors to your own website. After learning a couple of tricks it is child’s play to generate repeat sales and ultimately a loyal customer base.

So how is it done?

It’s all quite straightforward really. You will need to develop your own eBay presence and become a regular auction seller. It’s not a difficult process and will in itself generate revenue for your business. However, this is by no means the end of the story…

After the sale of each item you should email the buyer with a courteous ‘thank you’ message detailing your payment and delivery terms. This is of course good business practice and your customers will love you for that personal touch - they should also see the URL (web address) of your business website at the foot of your email, so don’t forget to include it.

You should then follow up with another email when the item has despatched to advise the customer when they should expect to receive their purchase (remembering again to add the all-important URL footer). Finally, include in the package a simple advice slip thanking the customer once again and of course quoting your website URL.

This simple and free promotion of your website will help to establish and build a customer base that could have cost a huge investment in advertising costs.

So it can be seen that by using the world’s biggest flea market to your advantage, the phrase “I Sold It On eBay” can mean a lot more than initially meets the eye!

Tony Williams is a musician, writer, and self-confessed eBay fanatic. He is the webmaster and editor of http://www.easyprofits.co.uk, the site for FREE eBay tips and tricks and also the author of Stealth Income Secrets, the guide for e-book sellers who want to move up to the next level.