Consider this, the internet is nothing but a billion or two web pages. Every web page contains some form of content. People use search engines to find….content. People follow links to find….yep, you guessed it…content! So why in the world would you think you can possibly make any money online unless you are willing to create content?

Time and time again I have people contacting me to help them be more successful online but when I tell them they need to write articles, create Web 2.0 pages or add a blog to their website that they need to update regularly, I often get the response “I am no good at writing or do not have the time or desire to create content. I want a set and forget system.” This is like saying, “I want to build a house but I hate using tools.” Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

If it really is true that you do not enjoy writing then you absolutely have to hire a ghostwriter or content specialist. There is no way around it. You will never be able to get traffic to your website and make sales any other way.

At one time, you could get away with writing one article and then re-publishing it or re-purposing it with an article spinner or even just scraping other sites for RSS feeds or auto-content. With the new Google algorithm, that is a thing of the past. You can’t get away with duplicate content anymore and expect to succeed. I don’t care what the “gurus” tell you. There are no substitutes or shortcuts that will eliminate work when it comes to creating a successful business online.

If you do a Google search for the best sites within your market, chances are you will see sites full of well-written articles, blog posts and information. The most successful sites will have organic content in abundance. This is how they have become an authority site worthy of the top spot in the search engine. If it is your aim to rise to the top, then you better start writing!

Technorati Tags: article writing, creating site content, getting traffic to your website, organic content

Firstly, if you create well-written articles that are enjoyable to read, your readers will want to find out more about the topic or about the author (you) and will follow the link in the author bio to your website.

Secondly, the best article directories are considered high quality sites and every article you submit to them will generate another high quality backlink to your website. If you know anything about SEO, you will know that inbound links to your site have a big impact on your search engine positioning.

Article Writing Tips

The key to good article marketing is in the writing. I like to follow the 4 “I”s when writing articles. They are:

• Interesting
• Informative
• Intelligent
• Inviting

The first goes without saying. A boring article will make the reader lose interest and they will not read more than the first paragraph, if you are lucky. They certainly will not read all the way down to your author bio!

The second, your article should deliver information that the reader will find useful. Remember that you are doing article marketing, or creating content, with one goal in mind; you either want the reader to visit your website, buy a product, gain credibility in your market or all of the above. The more valuable the information in your article is, the more chance you have of having the reader take the desired action.

Intelligent: You do not need to be a literary genius, but you do need to be able to write in proper English (or whatever language you are writing in). This means correct spelling and grammar. If spelling is not your strong suit, then you must use a software with spell check. Another good idea is to have someone else proof read your work before you publish it. This is particularly important if English is not your native language.

Lastly, you must learn to invite your readers to visit your website to learn more. You can do this in your author bio or credits. Suppose you are writing an article with a list of 5 tips on a subject. You could end it with a bio saying “I have discussed 5 ways to…., there is much more to learn. Visit my website for more information.” or something to that effect. By ending your article with an invitation, you are giving the reader a clear call to action and a source for more information on the topic. You will find you have a better click through rate if you use this conclusion to all of your articles.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, Article Marketing Tips, creating web content, how to write articles, write better articles

How many times have you done a Google search only to find that the top positions were occupied by garbage websites that offer very little to the consumer? You know the sites I am talking about. The ones that are nothing but a long list of sponsored links with little or (more often than not) no information.

In the past 5 years, the internet has become a cesspool. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has jumped on the bandwagon of internet business and decided they want to become the next internet millionaire who can work 4 hours per week while traveling to exotic destinations in pursuit of the good life. Come on people! If that was really possible don’t you think that we would all be doing it? A few unscrupulous marketers have fed that dream to the masses and then sat back and gotten rich. This has only fueled the fire.

The latest Google algorithm change is designed to weed out those people and their followers. Setting up auto blogging systems, spinning PLR articles and generally just spitting garbage onto the web is no longer going to cut it. I think that is the best news I have heard in a very long time in this industry. That means that if you really want to be in business online you will have to treat it like a business and provide the quality your customers, and Google’s, deserves if you are going to see any success.

Does it mean SEO is dead? Definitely not. Good SEO is probably more important now than ever. Does it mean the death of article marketing? Nope…it just means the death of spun articles, PLR articles and the kind of very low quality crap that you have been used to getting away with.

What it does mean is that the person who goes into business online with the realistic attitude that it is a business and thus must be worked the same way you work an offline business will now have a better chance of succeeding because they will not have to compete with spammy websites that offer no value to the customer.

The truly inspired and intelligent website owner already knows that you have to create high quality original content. It is now going to be a great deal easier to succeed. Keep up the good work and you will move onward and upward!

Technorati Tags: google algorithm update, google farmer algorithm, google news, latest google algorithm, search engine news

Just typing in a batch of keywords into your Meta tags is not going to cut it. Doing keyword research to make sure people are actually searching for the keywords you are using is critical to getting good positioning in the search engines.

To do keyword research, you need to come up with all of the phrases you think someone might type into the search engines when they are looking for your products or services. Once you have made an extensive list of 40-50 phrases, you need to then check to see how much traffic those words generate on a daily basis. You can find this information by using SEO tools such as Wordtracker, Market Samurai, or even Google Keyword Tools.

You should never focus on words that get less than 20 searches per day as that is a waste of yout time and efforts. The goal is to target the greatest amount of traffic with the least amount of effort.

2. Analyse your traffic and site performance.

Install Google Analytics or a similar stats tracking script on your pages so you can visibly see exactly how much traffic you are getting, where it is coming from and what keywords have been the most effective in drawing visitors to your site. This is very important. If you don’t have this information you can never tell what is working and what is not.

I like to put this on my sites very early on in the process. That way I can get immediate feedback on the improvements I am making and measure my progress of increased visibility, keyword effectiveness and traffic sources.

3. Create Meta tags and titles that fit each page of content.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to use the exact same title and Meta tags for every page of your website. Each page should have a unique title, keywords and description.

Think of each page as a new opportunity to reach customers. Because not every person will arrive to your website by using the same search terms, having a different twist on each page will increase your chances of grabbing the most search traffic.

The most important thing is to keep this information as streamlined and relevant to the page content itself as possible. Do not get tempted to use generic or too broad terms. The more specific you can be, the more likely you are to match what your customers type into the search box.

For example, if your site sells sweaters you would not want to just use that as your keyword phrase. You would want to be specific by using terms such as Womens knit sweaters or Mens pullover sweaters, etc. because that is more likely to be a term your potential customers would use when searching for your products.

4. Integrate your new keywords into your page contents.

Just filling in your Meta tags, title and description is not enough to grab the attention of the search engines because their focus is now on site relevency. They want to see that the page content matches your Meta tags.

To do this, you need to use those same key phrases throughout the text, heading titles and link structure of your pages. You have to be careful though not to overdo it. Stuffing them excessively into your pages will create adverse results. Generally, if you use the keywords 3-4 times on a page that has plenty of text on it that will be enough to satisfy the search engines that your page contains information about the topic.

5.Verify your site with the Big 3 Search Engines.

Even if your site is already indexed in the top 3 search engines, you should still take the time to manually submit and verify your site with them. This would mean registering for their webmaster tools and uploading an XML sitemap. For Google, it is called Google Webmaster Tool;Yahoo is called Yahoo Site Explore and Bing is called Bing Webmaster Tool.

Take the time to fully explore these SEO tools. They are free and they are powerful. From them you can get valuable information on your site’s performance and a glimpse of what the search engine sees when it crawls your site.

6. Set up your internal linking structure.

The way the pages of your site interact with each other can be critical in sending the right message to the search engines. You can stress the importance of a single page, typically the page that generates income, just by having other pages with anchor text links pointing to it.

The more pages within your site that utilize this powerful link structure, the more effective it will be. By using your keyword phrases as your text links within your page content, you are able to reinforce the relevency of that page to the search engines.

Many site owners focus too much on external links and forget this one key component in website optimization.

7. Keep the search engines and traffic coming back for more.

Creating fresh content for your website will give both the search engines and your visitors a reason to keep coming back for more. No one likes a site that never changes. If you have not updated your site in a long time, chances are the search engines have stopped sending visitors your way.

Your goal should be, at the very least, one new page or blog post per week. This is one instance where more is better, BUT make sure that the content is relevant and important enough to add value to your site. Do not publish inferior content just for the sake of updating your site. Visitors will stop coming if you are not delivering quality.

8. Reach out to your customers and prospects with social media.

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to not only share your information and products with the masses, it also allows you to interact and get feedback. I am sure you have noticed that most major companies now utilize social marketing as a key factor of their product promotion. You do not need to be a heavy hitter to compete on this platform. The key is to be targetted.

Use your knowledge of the demographics of your market to search out your prospective buyers but do NOT try to sell on social sites. The idea is to just raise awareness, spark interest and create a raport with your customers. No one likes a salesman at a party. So don’t spoil the fun by pitching in social sites.

9. Build links to your website from other sites.

This is the mose misused and abused aspect of SEO. Getting quality inbound links to your site is important. You should not go hog wild with it though. Link building should be a slow and natural process that is sustained throughout the life of your website.

The ideal incoming link would be an anchor text link on a trusted website. How do you do this? There are many ways to get other sites to include links to your site from theirs. You could participate in forums where you place your anchor text in your signature. You can comment on other people’s blogs. You can request a link exchange with other sites.

The main things to keep in mind is relevence and manners. Do not try to exploit other people’s websites. Not only is it a total waste of your time, since most sites will not approve it, but it is just bad manners.

10. Revisit, revise, test and tweak.

You need to remember that the internet is evolving. As such, things can change at a rapid rate. You need to stay on top of what is currently working and what is no longer effective or relevant. You can only do this by analysing your numbers and measuring the effects of any changes you make.

A good SEO plan of action includes going back over all of the above on a regular basis to keep them up-to-date with shifts in your market and the trends of the internet community as a whole.

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Site Promotion – Using Forums To Create A Buzz For Your Business

Online Marketing – Endless Opportunities for Sales Promotion

Free Advertising – 4 Ways for Small Businesses to Market At No Cost

Technorati Tags: getting traffic to website, search engine optimization, seo tips, traffic building, website optimization

It has been my experience that 99% of the time any issues with WordPress is plugin related. A site may work fine for a while, then an update in either the WordPress program or a plugin will cause an incompatibility issue causing the database to fail. Troubleshooting a WordPress crash is very easy and you can be back up and running in a few minutes.  The first, and most obvious place to start is to look at any recent changes you may have made, an update or a new plugin installation. Sometimes though, it is not so obvious.

Steps to troubleshooting a WordPress crash:

1. Since you most likely will not be able to access the dashboard of your WordPress installation, you must have access to your files either through an FTP client or from the File Manager in your web hosting cPanel. Navigate to the wp-content folder in your file manager or ftp.
2. Open that folder and inside you will see a plugins folder.
3. Rename the plugins folder plugins.bak
4. Create a new folder (directory) and call it plugins.
5. Check your website. If the website now loads, you have verified that it is indeed a plugin compatibility issue.
6. If you are running an older version of WordPress, now is a good time to upgrade to the latest, most stable version.
7. Once the latest version is installed, you can begin to troubleshoot to find out which of your plugins is causing the incompatibility issue.
8. Reinstall your plugins one at a time. After each installation, test your site to make sure it is still working properly. Update each plugin to the newest version if there has been an upgrade made available.
9. If at any time during this process your WordPress crashes again, you know you have found the culprit. Simply access your cPanel or FTP again and delete the plugin.
10. You will need to either download a newer version of that plugin directly from the developer source or wait for an update to become available for it before you can install that plugin again.

Most plugin developers work tirelessly to keep their plugins up-to-date with the latest versions of WordPress, but occasionally an update is a little slow in coming or the WordPress update is a major one that has changed the core functions of the program and the developers have not been able to keep up.

Steps to take when the WordPress crash is not plugin related:

If you have tried the above and the troubleshooting has not been a plugin issue, there are two other areas you can try.

1. Go into your cPanel and into the MySQL panel that will bring up the list of databases installed on your account. Click on the restore/repair database. If the crash was due to damage to your database, this should correct the problem.
2. You should have a database backup on file. (install a plugin to take care of this on a regular basis if you haven’t already) You can do a database restore from your backup file. If you have not been in the habit of backing up your sites, and you do not have any backup files, I am sorry to say that you may have lost your website. You will need to contact support to see if they have any recent backups or if they can offer any support.

It really is important that you keep your WordPress up to date and update your plugins as often as soon as the new versions are made available. Most importantly, you should backup all files before doing any kind of updates or upgrades. The plugins available today make this process automated. Set it up when you install your blog and you will never have to think of it again. It will do the backups and email them to you weekly so you will be prepared in just such an instance.

Related Posts:

What is WordPress?
Installing WordPress Plugins – A Little Goes A Long Way
Website SEO – Automated Internal Linking For WordPress

Technorati Tags: fixing a wordpress crash, troubleshooting WordPress, wordpress crash, wordpress incompatibility, wordpress not working

What is WordPress and What is a Plugin?

WordPress, on its own, is a very powerful and stable program. It is an OpenSource (free) program that is installed on a database and is designed to manage the content that you input into it. It is updated regularly to correct any known issues or to add more features to the core program. You should always make sure you are running the newest version on your website. Upgrading to the newest version is as easy as the click of a button in your user dashboard.

Plugins are scripts that are developed as add-ons to the existing program. These give you the ability to add new features to the program to help customize the site to your needs. Because WordPress is OpenSource, it means that any web developer can use the source code or API to create new scripts for the program.

Caution is Needed When Adding WordPress Plugins

Because plugins are created by all different developers, they are not always compatible with each other. When compatibility issues arise, it can make the database unstable. In other words, the engine driving your website will begin to fail. This can result in your site crashing.

Another reason to exercise caution when installing plugins is because every one you add on to your site adds more code to the core program. Adding too many will bloat the code and make your website slow and sluggish. It can also hamper the ability of search engine bots from crawling your website effectively.

Which WordPress plugins should you install?

I cannot give you a definite answer to this since every webmaster and every website has different needs and functions. What I can advise is this; only install the plugins you really need. Typically this would be an SEO plugin such as All In One SEO, a database backup plugin such as WP Database Backup, a contact form plugin such as Easy Contact, and a social plugin such as Sociable or Share This. These are the plugins I consider to be essential.

Any other plugins you should only install one at a time and tested for compatibility before adding any more. Always do a database backup before adding new plugins as a safety net in case any issues arise and you need to restore your website.

WordPress plugins are wonderful inventions and can help you create the website of your dreams, but before you go on a wholesale plugin installation spree, be aware of the consequences.

Related Posts:

What is WordPress?
Website SEO – Automated Internal Linking For WordPress

Technorati Tags: best wordpress plugins, installing wordpress plugins, which wordpress plugins to install, wordpress plugin compatibility issues

If you spend more time looking for that magic bullet than you do taking aim at your target, you are never going to make the kill. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to educate yourself and become knowledgeable in your field, but it is also equally important to put that knowledge to use.

Get Hands-on Marketing Experience

You will never gain the confidence and experience necessary for success without just jumping in and taking action. Mistakes are the most important learning tools a person can have. You can read all you want on a subject, but unless you find out first hand what works and what does not, you will never move forward.

I would venture to guess that at least 75% of business owners who have bought any information products on business promotion already possess the knowledge they need to have an impact on their success online. The trouble is that most of those products require you to take specific actions. It is the lack of desire to complete the tasks that is preventing success.

For those 75% of business owners, there are only three choices that will make your business successful online:

1. Continue on as you are now. Spend more money on info products and  software. Take no action and get no results.
2. Be committed to taking action and creating change and prosperity for your business. Actually implement the knowledge you already have and do the work.
3. Hire someone to take action for you.

Obviously, #1 is not a desirable option, unless you really do not want to succeed. So now you need to make a decision on whether it makes sense for you to take action yourself or to pay someone with hands-on experience to do it for you.

Technorati Tags: business marketing, business promotion, business promotion service, internet marketing services, website promotion

The main reason that these are so effective is because Google places a “news” section on the first page of their search results. Where do they get their news? From press release sites. So even if you are competing with millions of other pages for the normal organic search, you can get a major leg up on the competition by submitting an announcement.

Yes, your announcement may only stay on the first page for a few hours if others within your market are also actively submitting to the press, but you can achieve a great deal of sales in a few hours. Once you have been bounced off the front page news, you simply submit another release to get back in that spot again.

This is very powerful stuff. If you put a little effort into creating and submitting just one press release per day, you could spend the majority of your time on page one. Do you think that would be helpful to your business? I think so.

Another advantage is that many people interested in your market will subscribe to the news on press sites or on Google News. That means that by using this method, you have the ability to be placed in the inboxes and RSS feeds of many of your potential customers.

Not only will you realize more revenue, you will quickly establish credibility within your niche. This is particularly important if you are trying to establish your brand for your business or product.

If you are just getting started and your budget is tight, I suggest submitting to the various free press release sites available. I also suggest at least once per month, if you can afford it, to submit to a premium site. The premium sites tend to offer better services and there are also services out there that will, for a fee, handle your releases for you.

Whichever route you decide to take, you really should be adding this to your arsenal of SEO weapons that will help you gain an edge over your competition, get more traffic to your site and increase your sales. What is stopping you? Submit a press release today!

Here is a List of Press Release Sites for you to get going.

Technorati Tags: press release sites list, press releases, submitting press releases, why submit press release

Understanding keyword density and how to make the most impact on a web page SEO is not always cut and dry. If you ask many SEO experts, you may well get a variety of answers to just what the keyword density of a page should be. The truth is, because the search engines are not forthright with their guidelines, we are left to judge for ourselves and find the answers through trial and error.

Unfortunately, the “error” side of the trial can be costly as it may result in getting a page de-indexed, never to return. What I can share with you, with certainty, is what you should and should not be doing. Following these tips will make the best use of your keywords and get you the best results.

Follow the leaders. Since we do not have it in writing what is and is not acceptable, we should look to the leaders to determine the best keyword density. Since eZine Articles is considered one of the best, they allow only 2% keyword density, therefore this is what you should aim for in your own web content.

Choose only one main keyword phrase per page. Now this is the one that most newbies or inexperienced SEO people have the most trouble with. Just because you have a list of 10 keywords that you would like to rank for does not mean you should put all of them into every page of your website. If you do, you will get the opposite effect and likely will never rank for any of them. To be most effective you need one per page. So, if you have 10 phrases you need to have 10 different pages, one for each.

By placing them all in one page, you are actually diluting their effectiveness and confusing the search engines because they cannot pick out one significant word amongst the mish-mash of content.

Definitely the wrong way to use keywords:

For example, let’s say your website is a site that sells items for people who own dogs. You may have a list of keywords such as: dog lovers gifts, dog owners gifts, gifts for dog lovers, gifts for dog owners, etc. If you were to use all of those phrases within a product description that was typically 100 words in length this would be a very bad idea. Not only would it not give a clear statement to the search engines, you may very well be slapped with the label of keyword stuffing because the words dog and gifts would be appearing at a very high keyword density. Not to mention, the readability for your visitors would be very poor and your site will appear to be low quality in the eyes of the shopper.

The right way to use keywords:

Select one keyword. Place that main phrase in a title heading at the top of the page. Forget all of the others and focus on the one phrase for that webpage. You should include it in your first sentence and in the last sentence. And that is it. No more. If then length of your text is greater than 200 words, you may choose to add it once more somewhere in the middle. Because you have included it in your heading, the search engine already knows it is the main focus of the page. It is not necessary to stuff it in there every hundred words. Just make sure it appears as close to the beginning of the text and as close to the end of the text as possible.

Now just repeat the process with each of your keywords. You will be surprised at how much better your site performs in the search engines when you give them a very clear message of what each individual page is about and you will move up the rankings for each phrase because your pages are now clearly defined and you are using the proper keyword density.

Related Posts About Keywords:

What Are Keywords? – SEO FAQ

Basic Strategies of Website SEO Used By SEO Consultants

Free Traffic vs Paid Traffic – Which Will Help Your Business The Most?

Website SEO – Heading Tags – What They Are And How To Use Them

Improving Your Conversion Rates Is Not Just About Increasing Your Traffic

Search Engine Optimization Tips – Heading Tags and Why They Are Important Website SEO Elements

Technorati Tags: how many keywords per page, keyword density, keyword use, website seo

It seems that the same type of change that we noted with Google images is going to take place within the search results pages. If you are searching using Chrome, you may have noticed a little magnifying glass icon beside the search results. When you click on this icon, an image of the page comes up and you can preview the site to decide if you actually want to go there or not.

What is also interesting is that Google has chosen to highlight and magnify a small excerpt from the pages. But it is not usually the excerpt you may have included as your site description in your meta tags. This means that we have a new puzzle to figure out.

This also means that web design and SEO is going to be even more important if this actually goes live on all browsers. Unless your pages really look fabulous and you work at figuring out what excerpt Google will choose to magnify, there is a pretty good chance that you will see a decrease in traffic in the very near future.

There is something I would really like to point out and it is something I have been trying to get businesses and web designers to understand for a very long time. Sites that are comprised totally of images are not optimized and this new preview will hurt you even more. Your site might look great, but it is not going to do well in the previews. There is no text for Google to magnify! And if you use flash or slide shows to get your message across, they will show up as a big blank white space in the preview. Definitely not something that will attract clicks, for sure!

Now more than ever, keywords will be ten times more important; the use of the keywords within the text of your website will determine your success. From what I can tell from the investigating I have done since the test started this morning, the highlighted area will be the first paragraph that contains the search phrase. You should use this to your advantage. Make your key phrase paragraph speak to your potential visitors. Make it an invitation to your site, make it spark their curiosity. Somehow you will have to take the opportunity to have a second site description that will pre-sell your site so visitors will actually click to visit instead of scanning on by.

Google has taken every opportunity lately to attempt to keep it’s users on the search results pageslonger by giving them less and less reason to actually explore websites. If you do not take steps now to prepare for this latest feature, you may be sitting and wondering where all your traffic went to. Ditch the fancy image based web design and get some real meat on your site and get the advice of an SEO consultant to help you plan your site properly.

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SEO For Home Page vs Internal Pages – Which is Best?
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Site Indexed By Google – How Long Does It Take? – SEO FAQ
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Custom Google Search Codes or Strings For SEO

Technorati Tags: google full page preview, google news, google page preveiw, new google feature