Different strategies for search engine optimization have been developed over the last few years. One strategy that always comes back as a response when asking what works, is to build additional back links to a website that needs to be promoted. This advice is old (old in Internet days) but still very valid. Until Google.com finds a different way of calculating the search engine results the back links will still play a big role and no webmaster should ignore them. The assumption still is that if a site has valuable content or services to offer that other webmasters will link to that particular site. The higher the number of links becomes the more value is being allocated to that website by Google. Google pretty much allows the Internet community to decide or better - help deciding what is good and that it should show up high in search results.

Since this fact became public knowledge people are eager to follow these ‘unwritten rules’ of Google’s search index. Link farms, online link directories and other link collection type of sites have been populating the Internet in increased numbers since then. What the value is of these sites needs to be determined. Plain link farms do not carry any real value for the user. All they are really there is to help to increase the number of backlinks to a site and nothing else. There is no value content-wise whatsoever. Link Directories carry a little more value, but overall the usage of link directories is steadily going down. Search engines are stepping up and provide better value and offer more convenience for the user at the same time. Other websites use their value to sell text links. Users buy these links and basically pay for the link and the hope to gain a higher Page Rank from it. This can work up to a certain limit. It becomes problematic if the seller of the text links stretches the limits on how many outgoing links a single page will carry. 5 - 10 links are probably most common. However - sometimes you run into websites and web pages that carry 20-30 of these outgoing links. The value of these kind of links is questionable. There is no technical reason for a page to carry that many outgoing links in 95% of cases. It’s not exactly clear at this point if search engines degrade the value of inbound links coming from those page already. If they don’t - the day that they will put less value on those links is probably very near. So, users buying text links should verify that the pages the link will be placed on do not carry too many outgoing links to keep the value of this link alive.

About the Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful entrepreneur and international book author. Websites of Christoph Puetz can be found at Pregnancy Announcements and at Highlands Ranch Colorado.

This article can freely be distributed and re-printed as long as the links in the author’s section remain active and clickable. This comment about the re-printing permissions does not have to be published.

The first step is to contact your local convention center for
dates and times of any conferences or road shows coming to your area.

Some of the most profitable items sold on eBay are specialty items such
as medical equipment or sports demo’s, etc. After a long and grueling
weekend of demonstrating their wares to the conference attendees, the
sales reps are only too happy to unload any excess or unsold items.
They can recoup a small percentage of their cost, even if it is only 10%
of value, and they don’t have to deal with moving the excess equipment.
Freight charges are usually higher than the cost of the items and time
constraints also play a role. Remember, anything sells on eBay! Even
portions of the set up booths or stands can command hundreds of
dollars, so you can pocket a nice profit by reselling the items on eBay.

The time to strike this opportunity is late in the afternoon on the
last day of the meeting or convention for two reasons. The first reason
is that you will not have to pay an entry fee for an event that is
closing in one or two hours. The second is that you will have time to do a
quick scan of any booths that might have items you would like to
purchase. If you see something interesting, simple ask the vendor if he, or
she, would be interesting in selling any excess. No pressure there, you
are looking to help them, and they usually respond with a smile and
sigh of relief.

Always go prepared to take immediate delivery. It is a good idea to
bring, at minimum, a pickup truck. These vendors will not be willing to
ship their goods. You are getting a great deal to take their excess
product off their hands fast.

Use this simple technique to source fast moving, high profit items on
eBay!

Tim Gilberg is able to provide information and insight from a unique
perspective - that of someone who is actually doing what others just
talk about. Ebay Power Seller Platinum Status was Attained by Tim Gilberg, which is one of the highest sales levels attained selling on eBay. Tim is active on Ebay and liquidation.com as well as consulting
and working with other Top ebay Power Seller’s to give you real life
in use insight, not theories.Visit Tim Gilberg at his website Make Money on eBay

If you have ever used a website builder software off the Internet you have soon realized that this will NOT help you with the search engine ranks. The reason why is that many website builders are not built around what the search engines are looking for. If a website builder is invented around the criteria of the search engines then this allows the user to properly code their keywords, title tags, META descriptions properly.

The purpose a content management system should be to eliminate the common challenges of traditional websites while giving full control to Affiliate Marketers, Small and Medium size Companies so they can compete with the large websites that rank high and dominate their marketplace online. The key is a complete CMS which is designed for “non-techies”, extremely advanced and very easy to use.

Imagine being able to utilize a Highly Advanced website builder and easy to use this content management system that allows non-technical users to easily create/edit/remove pages, content, images, banners, links, menus, skins, or simply customize a website.

A content management software built around the search engines should be developed and tested to eliminate the common challenges of traditional websites while giving full control to Affiliates and companies so they can compete with the large websites that rank well and dominate their marketplace online. As long as it constructs a solid foundation and performs critical backend work to dramatically improve your rankings on search engines.

http://www.broadwavestudios.com/

Gregg Makarowski - Is a successful Internet Search Engine Specialist. He believes that a website was created to market your business NOT your business market your website.

Most people buy from eBay for one of two reasons; either to save money or to find a rare item which is unavailable anywhere else.

On the other side of the equation, sellers are constantly trying to find worthwhile, readily available products to sell at a profit.

The problem with selling on eBay is finding a cheap product which you can resell at a profit whilst at the same time attracting buyers who are looking for a bargain.

RRP or Recommended Retail Price means nothing on eBay. It is, after all, a worldwide marketplace and buyers expect either something out of the ordinary or rare, or rock bottom prices. If a buyer wants to pay RRP for an item they will shop at their local store, not on eBay.

And if you try to sell any old item, you will not acheive your major goal - profit.

Take, for example, all these “Wholesale Lists” that are sold on the internet. The vast majority are almost useless. It is fair to say that you can pick up a bulk load of items wholesale with a fair discount on RRP but what you will probably find is that these items go for less than the wholesale price on eBay.

Why?

Because the eBay buyer sets the price for any product - the eBay Value.

Your product will only ever sell for the price the highest bidder is willing to go to.

Let’s say you have found a wholesaler that will sell you 1GB memory sticks for £40 a piece (a random example)

You may think this is an excellent price and snap up 20, fully expecting to sell them all on at £50 plus for a nice profit. The problem you will find is that when you do list your products there are 101 other sellers who are offering the same item for £30 + £2.50 P&P.

What happens is you quickly begin to realise that you cannot compete. You can then either sell the memory sticks at a loss or try and get your money back… and getting your money back will be pretty much impossible.

Before you even think about trying out a product on eBay, you must research and make yourself aware of the “eBay Value” of that particular item. This is nothing to do with RRP, nothing to do with how much you think it is worth and nothing to do with the price the product is available for wholesale.

The eBay Value is simply the price that similar products have sold for on eBay very recently.

The best way to get a good indication of the eBay Value of a product is to search for “Completed Items”.

Quite simply, you search for the product and make sure the “Completed Listings” box is ticked. Sort the results by “Price: Highest First” and the very top listing will show you the maximum eBay Value of your product. If this value is lower than the wholesale price you have been quoted, dump the idea immediately.

So, how can you find products to sell which cost less than the “eBay Value”?

If I knew that, I would be a millionaire. The fact is that eBay constantly changes and you have to keep up with the times and keep your eye open for opportunities.

If you do find a product that sells well, start slowly and do not over-burden yourself with stock. Also, be fully prepared for other sellers undercutting your prices (which they will do). As soon as a pricing war starts, get out of the market. A pricing war is only won by one person - the buyer.

The best products to sell on eBay are rare or hard-to-come-by products. Rare DVDs were always a winner for me.

For example, I often used to buy Region 1 DVDs from Canada, Brazil and America and sell them on in the UK. The particular DVD titles were not available in the shops in the UK and I could make an excellent profit from UK eBayers.

One particular product I sold fairly regularly cost just £4.50 but would sell for £20 Buy It Now. I started off by buying just one and auctioning it off to find the eBay Value. When this first “tester” sold for £18 I knew I was onto a winner.

Of course, someone soon noticed what I was doing and started to undercut me but I was onto the next winner by that point.

You can beat the “eBay Value” problem by only buying and selling rare items or items that you know well. Find badly listed items on eBay or underpriced bargains on or offline, list them properly and you should be able to profit.

Ben Catt is an active eBay buyer and seller and runs an eBay Tips and Tricks website found at http://www.BenCatt.com.
He also runs a business opportunity information site - http://www.BizOppsUK.com

Making your web pages search engine friendly is the basic first step in getting higher rankings for your keyword(s) of choice.

Before optimizing any individual page, you need to choose a primary word or phrase that you want to optimize it around. This word or phrase should be something that relates to the content of your page, and that you have a realistic chance of ranking well for. Being the #1 result for your primary keyphrase is a good long-term goal to have.

Once you have selected your primary keyphrase, it is a good idea to put it in high-visibility locations, such as the title and heading tags. You might also want to incorporate it into your meta tags. These tags can be very useful for organizational purposes, even though most search engines pay them little or no attention.

In addition to your primary keyphrase, you should come up with a few secondary keywords. These should be things that relate to your primary keyphrase in some way. A good place to put secondary keywords is in secondary heading tags, outgoing anchor text, and scattered throughout the content itself, as well as in the “alt” attribute of relevant images.

A final step to take in making your site as a whole more search engine friendly is to link every page back to the homepage at least once, and to as many other (relevant) pages within your site as possible.

Once you are satisfied that your page is well optimized around the words and phrases of your choosing, it’s time to move on to the next page, and start the process again.

About the Author: Jeremy Maddock is the owner SEOMix.com, a high quality source of useful SEO tips.

Successful internet marketing is the goal of every one who sees potential in the online world. They believe that there is a surefire method with which they can execute fault-free marketing strategies that never fail.

This is a myth.

However there really is a way to guarantee success in internet marketing. But this method will shock many.

To have guaranteed success in internet marketing you must never be afraid to fail. When you do fail, pick you self up and learn from you mistakes then try again. Marketing is a hit and miss affair. Being aware of this opens up the avenue for success without limit.

Internet Marketing (Internet + Marketing)
Before jumping into using the various internet tools available to promote you products, you must have a firm grasp of the essentials of marketing. If you do not, your marketing strategy will become like spam to the potential customer.

1. Belief in the Product

To sell a product you have to believe in it. Or at least know it intimately enough to be able to market it properly. If you fail to do this you will not be able to pitch the product convincingly. You must be totally familiar with the details of the product or service. If this is not so, you will not be able to satisfy the curiosity of the potential customer.

Avoid over pitching a product. Doing so makes the product seem phony and contrived. Ultimately, the potential customer will skip your ad to look for better offers.

2. Always make your Ads believable

People usually know whether they are being presented the truth or are being lied to. Although there are many legitimate online ads and business on the internet, phony, hokey, and deceptive one also abound. Many potential customers are tentative when dealing online because they fear that they may be taken advantage of by unscrupulous online scams.

Do a case study. Go through the many ads that litter the internet. Find five ones that are dubious and five ones that seem legitimate. Now study their differences. There will be a noted difference in the language they use, the tone they use, and other differences you find in them.

Try to emulate the style of the reputable businesses on the internet.

3. Be aware of the marketing techniques that abound on the internet
Do you know what mailing lists are, and how they can help increase your business? Have you seen how viral marketing has been used by some of the biggest companies in the United States? Have you considered paid ads and Search Engine Optimization to drive traffic to your website?

These techniques all have their pros and cons. It would do well if you considered which combinations would have an optimum effect on your business marketing.

4. Build a Good Reputation

Nothing beats a good name. And nothing makes a good name than a happy customer.

Strive to make every customer a happy customer. You may have a few sore ones here and there but the way you handle them will tell whether you are building a good name or not. Always make sure you deliver your promises on time, in great quality and with a generous smile.

Always build relationships with customers. Don’t employ the hit and run technique of marketing. The marketing does not end when the sale is made. It is only the continuation of a cycle that will bring much benefit to both business and consumer.

5. Personal Touch

People are people. They do not like to be treated as robots. Since these are beings with flesh and blood and emotions, make sure you deal with them in that manner.

As much as possible, build great customer relationships among your consumer base. This will make them feel part of your business.

6. Allocate Resources

Some marketers commit the extreme folly of thinking that marketing costs nothing. Of course it costs something! It costs money, time, effort, and good judgment. If one does not allocate these resources for this activity. The quality of marketing will suffer.

Be confident!
Competence builds confidence. Like it was said earlier, always maintain a positive outlook. Learn from mistakes (others mistakes, more preferably). And keep trying! Success is just within your reach!

Daegan Smith is the leader of the fastest growing team of successful
home business entrepreneurs on the net. Find out how we’re creating
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There’s been much fuss lately as to the need for Search Engine Optimization of the right kind; some will tell you that to be effective SEO has to be “organic”; others will swear by the power of using the right software, coincidentally, their software. Then there are those who say that if you find the right “niche market”, the world will beat a path to your door and leave their money when they get there. I even spoke with a fellow yesterday who claimed that if you only launched new sites when the moon was full… well, that’s a whole other story.

Where there is less conjecture is in the dire consequences possible as a result of using the wrong kind of optimization. Horror stories abound of the million dollar investments that have simply gone down the drain when Google and the rest decided that the optimizers had cheated in their enthusiastic rush for the top. The early techniques of getting a website to the top of the search engine results (link farms, cross linking, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, and all the rest) have slowly been made ineffectual by the steadily rising sophistication of the search engine administrators,(and the algorithms they employ to keep the race fair and assure relevant search results).

So what is good SEO?

We could, perhaps, define SEO by function; we could talk about the actions which bring about the optimization. First there’s research, hour upon hour of research must be performed for each account. With such items as industry research (what’s the competition up to?), keyword research (how big is the market for this product/service?), competition research (how many others are already vying for this market?), marketing research (who else has already done this before and what did they discover that I better know about too?) Many hours, days, and sometimes weeks can be spent getting a clear visualization of a plan before the actual project can ever begin.

To even start a website without the proper research is a guarantee that:

1. nobody will ever link to your site (World’s Worst Web Sites, excluded);
2. nobody, except maybe your mother, will likely see your website;
3. your investment and business venture will fail-miserably;
4. you will never be found in the major search engines; and
5. your results will match your research (0=0).

We could approach the question of SEO from the perspective of form. Every site is constructed differently, designed differently, laid out differently, has a unique way with which it interacts with visitors, and targets those visitors differently. These are all factors that are considered during the research performed prior to laying out a raison d’être for optimization. Architect Louis Sullivan, argued that a building’s purpose should determine its design, stating emphatically that “Form follows function.” Shortly after, his student, Frank Lloyd Wright argued, “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” Although Sullivan and Wright were speaking of architecture as it relates to concrete and steel buildings, there’s an architecture which goes into the design of a website that, when done well, echoes Wright’s observation very nicely.

Good SEO will see to the writing or rewriting of the content on each page to effectively work in all targeted keyword phrases. A professional web-copywriter will be able to take the SEO recommendations for keyword usage and incorporate them into existing content in a way that reads naturally (i.e. does not look like you jammed keywords here and there) and has the ability to convert your visitors into paying customers. This is no small order and if it is not performed well, the site will remain just another pretty page that nobody ever sees. Or, worse yet, your site will attract lots of visitors but they will become confused by the copy and fly off to the next site without ever taking the desired actions (sign up, buy, make contact).

Another function of SEO, and one not often spoken of, is cleaning up all extraneous code on the pages. Code bloat removal, as it’s so poetically referred to, is an art form in itself. It requires a thorough understanding of html along with all the rest of the coding and scripting languages which make up a modern web page, as well as the ability to move it to a separate file and importing it, when feasible, or trimming it to it’s bare essentials without changing the look and/or function of the page itself. Eliminating page code bloat can be an incredibly arduous task. Moving styles and JavaScripts is only part of the puzzle. Many times, a page has to be almost completely rebuilt due to the excess amount of junk code that gets added in with the use of popular “WYSIWYG” page editing software.

To see what a search engine spider bot “sees” when it visits a web page, go to the View button on your browser toolbar. Move your cursor down to Source (PageSource in Mozilla Firefox), and left click. What you are looking at is what Backrub (Google), Sidewinder (Infoseek), T-Rex (Lycos), Gulliver (Northern Lights), and all the others “look” at when they spider a site. They read it the same way you do, from top to bottom. Notice how much code and formatting are at the top of the page and scroll down to find the content (this article). Taking all of the code and paring it down to just what’s needed and then finding ways to trim that is part of what good SEO is about. Try this on other sites you visit and you will soon understand the situation.

OK, time out! I tried not to mention specific software in this article but, hey! Have you ever wondered why Microsoft doesn’t use FrontPage to create pages on Microsoft.com — even the pages that deal with the FrontPage software? Perhaps, they’re trying to tell us something. I’ve spent literally months of my life removing and rewriting the loopy code and nonessential tags that have been produced by FrontPage editors. From an optimization standpoint using FrontPage to produce a website is akin to shooting yourself in both feet before you start to run a marathon. If Microsoft doesn’t use it, why should you?

Now that that’s out of the way . . .

After the code bloat removal process, good SEO will address getting all pages on the site to validate to the professional standards set by the W3C. Validation is simply a process of ensuring that the right coding elements are used and used correctly. This isn’t a good guy - bad guy question or even a matter of not breaking the rules, it’s about being accessible to everyone who uses the web. There is a growing number of the blind and visually impaired who use Voice Readers or text-to-speech software which “speak” the text on the web page. Many of the old tricks and shortcuts that web designers used in the past don’t work with these or any of the growing number of other software designed to make a level playing field of the Internet. While many validation issues are not a big problem in and of themselves, if you find it on one page, it will likely run all through the site (and can take many hours of head scratching and work to clean up affectively).

META what?

Everyone has heard about meta tags, alt and title tags, and making them all search engine-friendly, but there are few sites that actually use them to full advantage. There’s so much already written that I hate to add to the plethora of information, (real and misinformation) on the subject, but I will say that the purpose of the “alt” tag is to provide an “alternative” to a graphic and not, as widely believed, to go on and on about what a superior product you have or how wonderful your business is.
<img alt=”picture of DoDo bird”> Nuff said!

There are varying opinions about what should and shouldn’t be included in a title tag. What is agreed upon is that all of the major search engines give the content of the title tag significant weight in determining what the page is all about. It’s my practice to only write a title after everything else on the page has been written, and then with an eye to using at least two (better 3) of the keyword phrases that apply to the page. Unless you’re “GE” or “Maxwell House,” or intend to spend the kind of money they spent getting to be a well known brand, there is simply no reason to place your company name in the title tag. Save it for the terms that people will use to find your services/products. I know, you wanted mama to see your company name right up there in the Title Bar. It’s ok with me, but it will cost you.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Map

Site maps help both search engines and visitors quickly and easily get to the information that is important. It’s amazing how simple a matter the design and implementation of a usable site map is, and how many websites either don’t have one, or have an incomplete or obscure site map - an even worse scenario. If you’re not sure you need one, build one anyway. Trust me on this one. If I come to your site and can’t find what I’m looking for, I’ll look for a site map. If I can’t find a site map, I’ll look somewhere else. Oh yeah, that’s how 95% of website visitors are. Get a site map.

The robots.txt file is useful to communicate with the search engine spiders about content they should or should not index. This allows the “bot” to focus its time on the good stuff and not the irrelevant portions of your site.

Good SEO is all of these things and more. Your site will be off to a great start by following the suggestions mentioned here. And hopefully, this article will get you thinking that just maybe those “seo firms” which offer “Complete SEO $100.” or “Get Your Site To #1 In Google” $295, aren’t talking about the same things that we’ve been discussing here. After years in the business, I’ve yet to give even a “ballpark” figure for an optimization campaign without thoroughly researching the needs of the client, the structure of the site, and the competition for the target keywords. Every situation is different. Be wary of anyone offering a la carte SEO; without research, an individualized plan of attack, and careful implementation, you might as well wait for the next full moon.

James Doc Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for Emerald Coast Entrepreneur a professional search marketing firm. Doc started practicing his search engine majic long before the term SEO was coined. Introduced by a friend, at the University of California at Berkeley, to the Usenet some time in 1982, when the idea of a world wide network was just starting to make a buz, he quickly realized that this was what he had been looking for. “I haven’t been without a computer and a way to get connected since.” Doc was on the design team of the graphical user interface (GUI) for “Veronica”, the second database of web documents, and forerunner of our modern search engines, a topic to which he gives constant study and receives numerous requests for consultation from around the world. To find out more about Doc and his unique style of SEM/SEO check him out at ECE, an integrated search engine optimisation firm

Copyright © 2005 Emerald Coast Entrepreneur

I’ll be the first one to put my hands up and confess that I am terrible with a lot of things that occur in the daily course of making money on ebay or running a business.

Costs, budgets and cash flow? Yep. Really bad.

Making sure the customer gets what they asked for? I’m no better at that either.

If it wasn’t for my other half (or as she refers to herself, the ‘better half) there would be a lot of angry customers venting a lot of anger in my in box.

I like to stick to what I feel I excel at…..Coming up with ideas.

I know what my strengths are, and I also know where my weaknesses are. So keeping track of things, and actually sending things out to people that have paid me - that’s not much good for me. Someone else needs to do that, or else it won’t get done.

Sitting behind a computer trying to look busy is how I spend most of my days but don’t actually do very much at all.

My speciality is to come up with new angles, products and research various other ‘things’. Creation of new ideas in marketing and (here’s a word people don’t really like) in selling.

So what’s that got to do with making money on eBay? A lot!

You see, my main focus on the site is in marketing more effectively, because I know that’s where my strengths are. Not only does a mastery of good eBay marketing mean I can concentrate where my strength is (i.e. marketing)… it also makes things a lot easier.

In short, being good at marketing on eBay can help you - in a big, big way. Should you become an eBay marketer? I think so. It will help you tremendously.

How Can Good Marketing Help You Make Money on eBay?

Here are some of the ways ‘good marketing’ can help you:

It can mean far more powerful descriptions. This is HUGE. Descriptions can certainly make or break you. A new approach in describing products, a twist on a staid concept, powerfully convincing’ copy’ … all these things can make or break your business. Good marketing knowledge/salesmanship can convince people to choose your listings over others, and your listing over doing nothing at all. This is very important. And that’s why becoming a good marketer is critical.

It can help you tremendously when sourcing products. Not only can it help you when communicating with potential partners, but a knowledge of marketing can help you ‘dream up’ crafty ways of sourcing all sorts of products.

Another thing, also related to sourcing. You can use ’smart’ marketing to get people to come to you with product, in relation to selling on behalf of others.

It can help you after you’ve sold your products on eBay… when you’re expanding your business into other channels… whether that’s retail, the larger internet or wherever else. Again, solid marketing skills will help you massively.

It can help with your listings. I’ve touched on this when referring to descriptions above. If you gain a better understanding of marketing… or your prospect… same kind of thing… you can understand how you might better attract more customers, by listing in more categories and so on.

I can’t think of any more right now, but there will undoubtedly be many more ways in which learning how to be good at marketing will tremendously help you make more money on ebay - or any other business, for that matter!

Believe me: marketing is good to know if you’re an eBay trader.

Important: Pick What You’re Good At

I’ve come to realise something else too. Since I was good at marketing, I had to select those eBay businesses where I was able to use my marketing skills… in short, use what I was actually good at.

Let me be a bit more concrete. Let’s say that you want to sell a branded product, such as Apple iPods. Admirable goal. But my marketing… what I was good at… wouldn’t have been able to help me very much if I chose this route. Maybe that category is tied up with established re sellers, and there’s little I can do to break into it.

So, I have to choose another category of product where I CAN use ‘what I’m good at’…
For example, those items where I can use lengthy descriptions to ‘beat’ my competition (who maybe aren’t as good at marketing as me), or where product sourcing is much easier if you’re a good marketer.

Examples? If I choose to sell vitamins on eBay, I reckon I’d be good at that, because there’s more marketing leverage available to me in a category like that (lengthy descriptions etc.). I’d be playing to my strengths.

So, should YOU get better at eBay marketing? Maybe you should. Because when you do, things can get a lot easier… and you can blitz (certain) other sellers in a heartbeat.

If you do want to ‘get good’ at this and maybe build it up so good marketing is one of your strengths, then the best thing to do is start reading the material on this subject.

Me? Whenever I get interested in something, I end up getting interested in a big way. So I become something of a junkie.

If you’re interested in learning more, there are literally hundreds of good books on any given topic. One of my favourite authors is Joseph Sugarman, who really knows how to position products. If you want to blitz the competition, you can start with his book Advertising Secrets Of The Written Word.

Remember these words and getting marketing. Go on, make some REAL money on ebay!

Sign up for my free newsletter and free 7 day e-course ‘How to make more money on eBay’ at http://www.proebayer.com.

Lawyers face the same challenges any business does. In order to get new business they must market their services, i.e., advertise. And lawyers deal with the same marketing and advertising challenge every business does - how to beat the competition. Plus lawyers have to assume that any Internet or non-Internet marketing or advertising they do may well produce little or no results for the amount of time and money they spend — regardless of what an outside marketing or advertising advisor may say to the contrary.

Prior to the Internet the main non-Internet marketing option or advertising choice for any lawyer was to advertise in the yellow pages. To this day the print yellow pages contain plenty of colorful, one page display ads that feature lawyers offering their services, and lawyers pay a lot for these ads. How effective these ads are is anyone’s guess — it’s hard for your colored, one page display ad to stand out when you have 20 other lawyers doing the exact same thing! The yellow pages companies, however, continue to promote their marketing and advertising philosophy that “bigger is always better” and “everything we sell is an opportunity,” so they often present a lawyer with a non-Internet marketing and advertising solution that costs plenty but often produces little.

This line of thinking, along with the use of print yellow pages in general, has gone the way of the dinosaur at a very accelerated pace. The yellow pages in print form had their heyday for many decades, but the population now goes to the Internet for the information they seek, so most print directories are collecting dust. A lawyer who advertises in the print yellow pages may well get calls, but they’ll most likely be from vendors using the yellow pages as a cheap source of leads.

The major paid search providers (pay per click search engines) tend to offer lawyers Internet marketing and advertising solutions in a manner similar to the way the yellow pages do with their print directories. “Bigger is always better,” so rather than realistically discuss with a lawyer a pay per click Internet marketing and advertising campaign that makes financial sense and produces a decent ROI, the pay per click providers will tell the lawyer to go for as many top listing keywords (the most expensive) as their budget will permit and bid as high as they can. The lawyer may go broke in the process, but at least they’ll get exposure! Many lawyers get into pay per click as a quick way to get leads but quickly exit a month later after spending lots of money for Internet marketing and advertising results that produce nothing but expense.

While pay per click Internet marketing and advertising is the running favorite of Internet marketing advertisers worldwide, pay per click advertising for a lawyer is usually an extremely expensive proposition for what they get. How much a lawyer is willing to “pay for a lead” takes on a whole new meaning with pay per click. The cost per click for many lawyer related keywords, e.g., “personal injury lawyer,” “criminal defense lawyer,” can range from $5.00 to $70.00 per click depending on the market, and when the typical lawyer’s conversion rate (the number of clicks it takes to generate a lead) of one to two percent is factored in, the lawyer can find themselves paying upwards of $500.00 to $7,000.00 per lead, and a lead is not a client.

Part of the problem lawyers face when they work with pay per click (and this translates directly into poor conversion rates) is that (1) they spend little time creating their pay per click ads and (2) the ads direct traffic to the lawyer’s website. Any Internet marketing professional who knows something about pay per click knows you never send pay per click traffic to a website. Instead you create special pages, i.e., “landing pages” for pay per click traffic to be directed to. The landing pages perform the job of convincing traffic to do what the lawyer requires, which is normally to contact the lawyer via e-mail or by phone.

Legal Internet directories and portals offer the lawyer a potential Internet marketing and advertising option because of their popularity and enhanced Internet visibility. How effective a listing in a legal Internet directory or portal can be for a lawyer in terms of marketing, advertising and Internet exposure will depend upon the particular attributes of the legal Internet directory or portal in question. All things being equal, legal Internet directories or portals that charge a fee to be listed in them make more sense as an Internet marketing and advertising choice than similar sites that offer listings for free. The lawyer has to be particularly careful, however, when they consider advertising in legal Internet directories and portals that “look” like they offer a lot — and a price to go with it — but for whatever reasons simply do not produce enough leads for the amount of Internet marketing and advertising money the lawyer must spend.

Many legal Internet directories and portals exist that have a very strong Internet presence, and they are excellent resource centers for lawyers, but this does not automatically make them good places to advertise. With Internet legal portals especially it’s not how many lawyers the portal attracts but how many people the Internet legal portal attracts who are searching for legal services. People have paid thousands of dollars for advertising in Internet legal portals that have produced nothing in the way of Internet marketing and advertising results. A very wise idea for any lawyer who considers advertising in an Internet legal portal is to get some very accurate user demographics on what kind of specific traffic the Internet legal portal is actually attracting.

What is a lawyer supposed to do? Everywhere the lawyer looks, whether the marketing and advertising media is Internet or non-Internet, considerable financial risk is involved, and a guarantee that the lawyer will get good, solid results for the amount of money they spend is often hard to achieve.

Ultimately the best way for a lawyer to go with Internet marketing and advertising - the way that will ultimately get them the best long term results for the money they spend — is to focus on getting their website to rank high in organic search results. When all things are considered, people on the Internet who search for goods and services mainly search for websites to find their answers. They may look to legal Internet directories and portals, and if they don’t find what they want they may turn to pay per click listings as a last resort (only about 30% to 40% of users bother with pay per click) but ultimately people who search the Internet are looking for websites that provide them with the answers they seek.

If a lawyer is looking for an Internet marketing and advertising solution that doesn’t require being part of the pay per click crowd, the lawyer may want to look into pay per phone call programs. Pay per phone call is like pay per click, but the lawyer does not pay for a call unless they receive one. And the costs for pay per phone call are normally substantially less that what the lawyer will pay for a click in many cases. A smart lawyer may even want to consider getting involved with several pay per phone call providers with the idea that between the providers the lawyer will receive enough leads in the aggregate to make involvement with these programs worth it.

Many of the Internet marketing and advertising solutions that a lawyer chooses to look into must be tried on a case by case basis. Absolutely nothing can be assumed. A pay per click advertising campaign that works extremely well for the lawyer with one search provider might fail miserably with another.

One last thing that a lawyer should be aware of when it comes to the Internet and a website presence is that appearances really do count. Many people have been on the Internet for 10 years and have correspondingly seen websites of all types and styles. People are used to seeing professionally designed websites. The lawyer’s website should be too.

Michael Merten is an Internet marketing professional who consults with lawyers and legal finance companies. He specializes in getting legal websites to appear in first page search results on major search engines in record time. Mr. Merten can be reached at Minnesota Internet Marketing.

Finding hot items on eBay can be surprisingly simple using a few little-known tricks.

Let’s get started…

You can easily search through eBay using their advanced search tool and look for items that generate over 25-30 bids.

eBay recently integrated an advanced search option where you can select the minimum and maximum number of bids per auction listing.

Set the minimum to 25 and the maximum to 1000.

Then, browse through these auctions and look at the number of sales the corresponding member has made over the past month.

You can do this by checking their feedback comments.

Also, if the item is a buy-it-now item and they listed more than 1 item, then you can see how many purchases were made by going to the ‘history’ link.

Plus, it is important to check out the number of unique bidders.

In most cases, you will see that only a few bidders are battling for the auction, therefore not really identifying a true hot item.

Another identifying feature to look out for is the number of hits the auction has received. You can safely assume that the item is hot if the number of hits are over 300-500.

However, there has been incidents of ebay users refreshing their browser 100’s of times to increase their auction hit counter, therefore tricking buyers into thinking that the item is in demand.

Therefore, by using the following 3 guidelines you can easily determine if a particular item is hot:

1. The item has over 25 unique bidders. (check the ‘bidders’ link and ‘history’ link)

2. The item has sold several times over the past month. (check the items in the feedback comments)

3. The hit count is 300 or higher.

Additionally, you can easily uncover hot items by browsing through eBay’s completed auctions. This feature is also available in the advanced search section.

Using the same guidelines above, you can uncover hot items searching through eBay’s completed auctions and therefore, possibly find your hidden niche on eBay!

Dave Guindon is a software developer and online marketer that designs software tools for ebay enthusiasts. Find all the eBay hot items in seconds at http://www.hotitemfinder.com

Did you know you could probably improve the return on your search engine marketing spend by as much as 50% by focusing your efforts on communicating more effectively with customers that arrive on your site via the major search engines.

Not only would this improve the effectiveness of your pay per click advertising but would also reduce your cost per acquisition fees and increase the profitability of each customer acquired through search engine marketing.

How? Read on.

Running a search engine marketing campaign without clear communication goals in mind is a foolish strategy to adopt in today’s highly competitive search marketplace. Without a clear online communication strategy in place profits and potential customer relationships are in danger of slipping through your sales funnel. Under pressure to continue moving and growing, you keep flooding your funnel with more traffic. But traffic, is about quality not quantity and the search engines just keep on drinking your marketing spend. They’re the ones that end up making a lot of cash from your frequent fill-ups. Did you know that Google charges you each time a user clicks on your PPC advert during the same search session? This often happens when users bounce back and forward from the search engine results page to the advertiser’s websites desperately trying to find the information and help they crave. So that single visitor could be costing you more than you think.

It takes a little time and money to fix the problem. You need to think about how you handle customers who find your products and services via a search engine. You also need to think about where they are in the purchase decision making process and if they are just researching products or are actually ready to buy. The complexity of the decision making process is often down to how many people are involved, is it a high cost / high risk purchase and so on. By taking a closer look at the key phrases you are bidding for in your search engine marketing campaign, you can identify how far down that decision making cycle visitors are.

To help move visitors through the different stages of the buying cycle, you could perhaps create a specific landing page for a keyword and publish some content that reads something like:

“Welcome to our company - We’re glad you found us. Here’s the product you’ve been searching for. We have a wide range of products to fit your unique needs. If you’d like to learn more about these products or are unsure what product might best suit your own specific needs, please do not hesitate to complete our short enquiry form and we will be happy to help you.”

Maybe they don’t want to sleep with you on their first date?
You need to understand that when a visitor comes on to your site that they may not be ready to buy. Therefore, your goal is not to ‘sell’ to the visitor but to begin an online dialogue. No-one likes being ‘sold-to’, but prospects do like helpful staff that are interested in helping them make the best decision on what to buy and want not to buy. You need to build trust and prove that you want to genuinely help them fulfil their online goal and so one of your main objectives is to get more information on your targeted customer. What do you have to lose? If you really want to go to get the sale you need to demonstrate to your visitors all the value-added services and support they’ll receive from you as customers.

Maybe they don’t want to sleep with you on their first date?

Once you have an email, you have the basis to build a relationship. You’ve convinced the searcher to interact and trust you with their email address. Now, you need to use the information you extracted from them during this first contact to thank them and probe them for more information that will help you recommend suitable products, service or solutions.

Understand the various stages of the purchase decision process.

Getting leads from search engines is just one part of the game, not the entire game. It provides an opportunity to fix the customer communication problem. Done properly, search engine marketing can deliver new customers to your doorstep, cost effectively and efficiently. Otherwise, you’ll keep returning to the fill up the leaky sales funnel with more traffic. Like I said earlier, search engine marketing is not about increasing the quantity of visitors to your site it’s about improving the quality of communication you have with those targeted prospects so that you can turn them into repeat and profitable customers.

Damon Lightley is a search engine marketing consultant at Site Visibility Ltd. Site Visibility is a UK based search engine marketing company
that helps clients increase online customer acquisition and retention using search engine optimisation, pay per click and online marketing campaign measurement techniques.

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk

If I was a fortune-teller and you just walked in my door I would tell you this:

“I see you still seek the dream of earning money in your sleep. Enough to give you the time and freedom to do what you want, when you want and without the restriction of having to choose second-best.”

Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind. I can, however, manipulate how it controls you without you knowing it.

“No way” you say?

The fact that you’re reading this line of text proves I just manipulated your behavior by provoking your subconscious. I pushed your emotional buttons and sucked you in to reading more. How many of your subconscious actions are controlled by someone else? Who knows, it depends on who you are. But we can all agree that this human ability to manipulate the behavior of others is the keystone of today’s marketing.

You are being manipulated every waking minute of your day.

The advent of the Internet has connected us globally. Add to this, the hundreds of thousands of merchants who’ve adopted affiliate programs as a way of consigning an army of salespeople to actively headhunt new customers in exchange for commission earnings. So where does it end up? Right here: An all time record number of humans manipulating other humans. No wonder it’s getting harder to sell stuff. From the second you wake up you’re bombarded with attempts to sell you stuff.

People will do anything for money and so they do anything to get your attention. Taking of their clothes on national TV, proclaiming outrageous benefits, and acting out ‘close to illegal’ attention seeking publicity stunts are not uncommon tactics.

The inherent problem here is that it’s no longer a matter of whether there are enough customers in the market. It is whether you can capture and keep a customer’s attention for a few minutes of their 24-hour day. This is why the plethora of marketers opt to use hypnotic and manipulative communication to win your attention.

What if you could bypass all this manipulation?

Imagine if you could shut the door on the screaming, banner-waving crowd of competitive marketers. Sit your customer down in your office and present your product with their complete attention?

A new league of customer acquisition techniques that bypass the constant manipulation is rising from the chaos of today’s marketing. One of which I am personally fond of is ‘Customer Reciprocation’.

Customer Reciprocation takes a holistic view of Internet marketing, applying traditional win-win formulas to the modern way of doing commerce. If you remove all the hype of today, what you’re left with is age-old commerce propositions. “Do you need something to solve your problem? Then buy this product”, and “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”.

Customer Reciprocation bypasses the hype because each customer who purchases from the other only purchase the products that they had already intended to purchase. A fair and honest way to acquire customers for both affiliate marketers and merchants. General online shopping portals manipulate customers to shop at a limited list of merchants by offering discounts, rewards or other incentives. Customer Reciprocation delivers to you as a customer the freedom to shop anywhere online while still receiving a discount. The discount is in the form of a customer to you or your affiliated merchant generating you income.

Deep down we all like to sell stuff the honest way, and none of us like to be manipulated. So it is easy to see why Customer Reciprocation is growing in popularity. It may be a slow-and-steady customer acquisition strategy but it’s one that is guaranteed to reap results for its users.

Copyright 2005 Michael Lever

Michael Lever is a co-founder and CEO of SpinningTornado.com, an independent company offering unbiased tools and services to help affiliate and network marketers build profitable online businesses.
http://www.SpinningTornado.com
Partnering affiliates the world over.

As a provider of search marketing services we have many enquiries from companies that have had a bad search engine optimization (SEO) experience in the past and are looking for a reputable company to work with. Often these clients have been banned from search engines because the companies that they have hired to improve their search rankings use quick fix, unethical SEO techniques.

What can you do to ensure that this does not happen to your business? Or if you have had problems in the past how can you be sure that these experiences will never happen again?
It is essential that you take care in choosing who you work with as this company will be responsible for representing you and your business. Would you hire a new employee, a lawyer or an accountant without doing any research? There is a lot at stake here so it is essential that you do the groundwork and be as informed as possible.

These companies may be representing you - but it will still be your site and your business. It is your responsibility to know what the SEO company is doing and if it is using unethical techniques. It is your site so you should be aware of the techniques being used to promote your business and that search engine guidelines are being followed.

Often these unscrupulous companies offer a guaranteed meteoric rise in ranking and the lure of quick profits. Remember if it seems to be too good to be true then it usually is. Avoid companies that email you their services - or even worse - the ones that send out a fake invoice for their services. If they are presenting their services in this manner you probably have a good insight into their general business principles.

What should you do when evaluating a search engine optimization company?

• Determine your business goals and your goals for search marketing. Find out what your SEO expectations are. Are you in a competitive marketplace? What is your search marketing budget?

• You should ask around. Which companies are people you know recommending? A successful SEO will get a high percentage of their clients from referrals.

• Do they communicate clearly with you? Are they interested in your business? Are they trying to inform you about the industry and not just selling?

• Where is their site in the search engine results? If the company is good at SEO then their site should be ranked well, if their site is not listed in the rankings you need to wonder why.

• Ask for step by step information on what they will do to promote your site. If there is any area which your gut tells doesn’t sound right do your research. There is plenty of information available for you to research. Type “ethical SEO” and ‘search engine spam” into Google and you will find lots of data to compare.

• What is their Page Rank? A PR of 3 is relatively easy to get with a small site, while a PR of 6 is harder, and above that is extremely difficult. If you’re approached by a SEO company (or any marketing company for that matter) with a PR of 0 or an unranked site ask why.

• What is their customer support like? When you first approached them did you receive a form email in reply? Did they even look at your website? Did you receive a detailed proposal along with testimonials and other backup material? Ask for references and follow up on them.

• Do they know SEO or is it just a sideline to their main business (web design, web hosting, advertising agency). If you speak to anyone in this industry you will find out that keeping up to date on the latest SEO information is a full time job.

• How much experience do they have? Are they new to the industry in which case do you want them experimenting on your site?

• Has the company ever turned down a site because it could not be successfully optimized? e.g. sites built with frames or flash sites. Or turned them down because they were involved in unethical business practices e.g. link farms.

• Make comparisons with other companies. Some SEO companies rely on one aspect of SEO (e.g. linking campaigns), others offer a complete package. Remember to compare like with like. There is no point in comparing a proposal which is just going to cover meta tags and keywords to a proposal which is a full service SEO package including optimization, content creation, and a links campaign.

• Does the company provide ongoing maintenance to maintain your rankings? Search engines change their algorithms constantly and without regular monitoring and maintenance rankings will eventually slip. What is good today may not be good tomorrow.

There are a growing number of excellent and ethical search engine optimization companies out there. Do your research and find out who they are. Also develop an understanding of what is involved in developing a search marketing program. Take an assertive stance and become informed. Also, use your common sense. Developing a search marketing plan should be as involved as developing a traditional marketing plan. It requires hard work and dedication. Find out the costs involved and put together a search marketing budget. Shop around and be aware of other business factors being offered by the SEO company such as customer service and payment terms.

If you look upon the process of choosing an SEO company as you would in choosing a business partner then you are headed in the right direction. It could be that a large part of the success of your business is reliant on search marketing - so you should do the groundwork and find out what is involved. Then you can make an informed decision and feel confidant that you have chosen a quality business partner who is dedicated towards helping your business grow.

Copyright © James Peggie

James Peggie is the Director of Marketing for Elixir Systems - a search engine marketing agency located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their website is located at http://www.elixirsystems.com and James contributes to their blog http://searchblog.elixirsystems.com

The world’s biggest marketplace is the Internet, and its biggest bargain and auction store is Ebay. Here, sellers put their items up for bid with a starting price of their choosing. Buyers bid for a limited amount of time, while sellers wait until their desired price appears before terminating the bidding. Buyer and seller then agree on how the product will be shipped and paid for.

Ebay gives people a chance to buy anything they want to buy, sell anything they want to sell, and perhaps get rich trying. Everything can be done at home, with very little investment.

Are you ready to earn money through Ebay? All you need are seven simple strategies.

First: Study the market. Ebay is not only an online bidding and shopping center. Some companies actually post their wares on Ebay to see how much people are willing to pay for it.

To market test your product, post it three times with three different starting bids: one comfortably low, another at the price you expect it to fetch, and a third comfortably high. Monitor each product post and see how fast the prices rise with the bidding.

This way, you know how much people will be willing to pay to purchase your product. There is a caveat to this, however: you can incur the wrath of people on Ebay if you choose to terminate bidding of your two other products should you choose to retain and sell the one for which you got the best price.

Second, sell something old but new. Now this may sound strange, but all it means is that you have to sell something that has a use or a following, something that is unique without being obscure. Ebay is filled with hundreds of thousands of people loud and proud of their wares. You can’t sell something anyone can find in the nearest grocery store, but you can’t sell something no one will know about either.

For instance, you can sell Used Ball Pen Art - it’s something you certainly can’t pick up at the local Wal-Mart, but it isn’t something everyone might be interested in either. If you are unsure, see Strategy Number One. If you believe in your product, however, move on to Strategy Number Three.

Research. Some sellers make the mistake of calling their product certain things: plaid when the pattern is checkered, large when it is actually medium, brand new when it has a tear across its front. Make sure you know everything about your product, so that if someone is finding something specific, they stumble upon your wares. Don’t make the mistake of advertising something your product doesn’t have. Do so, and your buyers - and everyone else on Ebay - will walk away very unhappy.

Fourth, take a great picture of your product. Showcase its best side, but show any flaws it might have without highlighting the flaws or hiding them. When you have taken the picture, crop it to include only your item, then shrink it down to 72 dpi to make it load faster. This will allow buyers to not only see your item, but see it quickly. If it loads too slow, buyers will turn away in impatience. If you have no picture, you will appear unwilling to sell and wary of showing your product.

So what have you got to hide? Take out that camera and snap those pictures!

At this point, you are ready to get your item onto Ebay, so list your product correctly. What some sellers do is to put their items in the most general category, thinking that more people will see it. This is not true for Ebay, since buyers will be searching for specific things. Put your item in the general categories, and you could miss out on those precious page views.

Sixth, work on your writing. Ebay requires you to have a written description of your product, along with an auction title. Make your written description short and true, and your auction title specific. Remember that some buyers may not have the right Internet speed - and patience - to wait for your picture to load, so you have to grab them immediately with a delicious description.

As a rule, the best descriptions are those which will answer any questions your buyers might have.

Your product is now online and ready to be sold - but how do you sell it right, and when do you stop the bidding? It’s all about timing.

Know when Internet traffic is loose so that you can post your item without much difficulty on your part, and know when traffic is high so that you don’t terminate bidding when people are actually trying to get through to your site but are stuck in an online traffic jam.

So, seventh, watch your market. Watch TV, so you know when popular shows are on. Chances are, people won’t be at their computes during that time. Watch the Weather Channel. In harshly cold or harshly hot weather, people will be indoors surfing the net.

Marketing is all about timing, and in selling, timing is everything. Ebay is no exception, and it can be a great place to earn cash if you strategize and plan.

Daegan Smith is the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. Find out how we’re creating financial freedom all across the globe and how to get in on the action FREE =>http://www.comlev.com Team Blog: http://www.turnkeyinternetbusiness.blogspot.com

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The internet is a fantastic place to promote your skills and accomplishments. You can pay a large sum of money by coming up with banner ad or pay per click plans to “get the word out” or you can go the budget way and market yourself smartly without spending nary a dime. I’ll leave the money plans for another article, instead let’s take a look at smart ways for you to promote you or your product online for little or no