Blackhat SEO: Protect Yourself by Recognizing The Bad Guys

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt


Over the years, webmasters have been told that they should want to avoid Blackhat SEO techniques in connection with their own websites. In general, I agree with this statement. But, by obtaining a deeper understanding of Blackhat search engine optimization, one could actually learn a bit about how to better his or her own positioning in the search engine results.

White Hat vs. Black Hat Search Optimization

Whitehat and Blackhat SEO is a comparison that is a take-off from the old cowboy westerns, where the good guys always wore white hats and the bad guys always wore black hats. So, in theory, we can assume that Whitehat practitioners are the good guys of SEO, and Blackhat practitioners are the bad guys of the industry.

But, the truth is a little bit more opaque than this. SEO is never a pure "white vs. black" issue. Just as in Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy" series, sometimes the white spy whipped the black spy, and vice versa, sometimes the black spy was victorious.

In theory, Blackhat SEO is the type of search optimization that will eventually get your website banned in the search engines. And sometimes it will.

But, it is truly fascinating to me when I visit a website such as http://www.blackhatseo.com/ and discover the world-renowned SEO expert Aaron Wall owns the website. In case you were not aware of it, Aaron Wall is the owner of the SEO Book and is recognized as one of the world's foremost leaders in SEO technique.

Blackhat SEO Is A Learning Opportunity

To me, the study of opposites offers a greater understanding to mankind.

One cannot know "altruism", until one learns about "selfishness".

One cannot truly appreciate "wealth", until they have experienced "poverty".

One can never declare something "easy", until they have faced something truly "difficult".

A "slow" driver will seldom be noticed, until which time the "fast" driver passes them by.

These are the philosophical ramblings of Bill. ;-)

I have always argued that in order to see the light, one must be able to recognize the darkness. And that is why when I am told to avoid something; I go right to it, so that I can see what it looks like, for the sake of being able to recognize it.

So, whenever I am in the mood to learn more about SEO, I search out Black Hat SEO forums and websites to learn how to recognize the dark, when I am in the light.

After all, if you cannot recognize the dark side, how do you expect that can you protect yourself from it?

There Are Always Two Sides To Every Story

Remember when your grandmother always told you that there were always two sides to every story? Well, my grandmother did, and I like to believe that everyone had a wise old grandma to help them find their way in life.

White Hatters teach us how to do things the right way. Black Hatters teach us the wrong way to do things. And as my grandmother used to be fond of saying, "the truth is somewhere in the middle."

For example, White Hat web programmers teach us how to install Captcha scripts on our websites to keep the spammers at bay. Then the Black Hat web programmers come along and teach the spammers how to break Captcha software (http://www.blackhat-seo.com/). And as Grandma used to say, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The White Hatters try to teach us good programming technique and to present us with safe protection from spammers. And the Black Hatters teach us how to break the coding. You and I are in the middle, and by seeing the world through two sets of eyes (white and black); we can find better ways to protect our websites. Our websites are only as safe as the intelligence level of the programmers who try to protect us. If the bad guys are smarter, we lose. If the good guys are smarter, we rest safe in our protection schemes.

Some Black Hatters even call what they do Grey Hat SEO. One that I really like is called Slightly Shady SEO. They did a post about the little fun pill and the folks who push it. They referred to it as a keyword that will give a lot of insight into how Google is combating the spammers online: Click here to read the little pill post.

The previously mentioned post spoke at great length about the people who spam forums. We all despise these guys who trash up our favorite forums, and Slightly Shady exposes why our forums are always on the spammer's target list.

As my grandmother said, "the truth is somewhere in the middle." The little pill Black Hatters play an expensive game with the Google results, but at $2 commission per little pill, no wonder. But now that we understand what is going on, we know that we need to make sure that we keep our own forums clean of this trash, to protect our Trust Rank. We also know that one slam is not the end of the world for us, if we are quick to clean our own houses. But, if we cannot keep our houses clean, the Google will stop coming by to visit, for the exact same reasons why most girls avoid visiting bachelor pads.

Light Sources Are Always Brighter When We Stand In The Dark

One of my favorite television personalities, Carl Sagan said, "The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self discovery."

This quote reflects the reason for my voyages into the light side and dark side of SEO. I study Whitehat SEO and practice the same. I also study Blackhat SEO to understand what is defined as the opposite of Whitehat SEO practices. By seeing what is dark, I can better see what is in the light.

I am comforted in knowing that I will never be pulled blindly into the dark side with Darth Vader. ;-) To quote from the Bible, "The blind will lead the blind into a ditch." Now that my eyes have been opened to Blackhat SEO, I will never stumble and fall as I fish for better rankings in Google and the other primary search engines.




About the Author:
Bill Platt has written an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success, after seven years of using article marketing for his own promotion and helping his clients to be successful with their own article marketing at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ On his article marketing blog, he talks about how to write better articles, how to use articles for SEO, and even about the Blackhat Fish SEO Contest.

How To Inspire Yourself To Write Articles Others Will Want To Read

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt


Anyone engaged in writing articles for offline publications or online business has occasionally struggled with the question of "What to write?"

Methods To Help The Average Person To Start Writing

Maybe I am just an overly optimistic person. I have always believed that anyone committed to writing an article can write an article. The problem is that most individuals simply do not have the belief in their own skills and insight. That is the reason why we ghost writing lot will always have a job. As long as there are people who doubt their own skills or insights, I will always have a job.

One of my good friends, Clinton Douglas IV, learned the lesson of understanding that he had his own abilities and skills that he could utilize to write his own articles. He learned that he could turn his insight into literature worth reading, by simply calling his favorite ghost writer on the phone (me) and sharing his thoughts on a topic. He was always amazed how it seemed like I could read his thoughts and mind and put his thoughts to paper, even the thoughts that he did not mention specifically to me.

Most people simply don't have a favorite ghost writer on the other end of a telephone call. For them, they should sit down to the computer and type and type and type, with little to no regard for proper spelling, grammar, or storytelling. The first draft should always be used to get one's thoughts out of the brain and down on paper. Spelling, grammar and wording can be fixed during the editing process.

My friend Clinton utilizes this technique on occasion too. He wrote an article one time, by just spilling his brain onto the page. He wrote from his heart and got his thoughts all out of his head. When done, he sent me his final draft for editing. Sure, there were many words that were fixed, a lot of bad grammar that was corrected, and wording that was massaged, before we found the final product. Once written by him and edited, we put his "3:10 to Yuma" article out on the World Wide Web. Almost immediately, my friend Clinton started receiving compliments for his story. Many said it was very inspirational.

I believe in your ability to write your own articles, even if you do not.

Even if you can never bring yourself to write your own articles, that is fine, since we professional ghost writers are happy to write for you.

How Professional Writers Find Inspiration

When it is time to sit down to write an article, we professionals sit down and start reading. Inspiration is a thought that comes to our mind while we are reading information on our target topic. Our thought is never to rewrite what other writers are talking about. Instead, our inspired thought is often an extension of the words we read that were penned by our peers.

How many times have you been reading something written by someone else, and you felt that the author should have ventured off on a tangent that he or she left hanging? Inspiration often occurs right here in this moment, at that very intersection of this thought.

Once you know the question left unanswered by another writer, then you will have found your own direction and inspiration for writing your next article.

Answer The Unanswered Question and More...

When you want to use articles to promote your online business, it is not enough to answer the unanswered question. You actually need to venture a bit further afield and to ask yourself one very important question: Is the person most likely to buy your product or service also interested in having this question answered?

When you write for promotion purposes, you should always try to speak to the hearts and minds of the people most likely to buy what you are selling. If your potential clients are asking the same questions as you are, then you know what questions you need to answer for your readers. It is in answering questions important to your customers, where you will begin to find real success using promotional articles to promote your business.

Help your customers answer questions they want answered, and they will help you to earn the sales you need to keep your doors open to others.

Final Note About Inspiration and The Writing Process

This article began as a blog post, written in a blog I contribute to weekly (the Article Marketing Tips Blog).

I often write a blog post as my first draft of an idea. Then I massage the message to make it worthy as a promotional article, an article to be read by a larger audience.

Sometimes my first draft is an answer to someone who asked me a question about my service. I answer his or her question from the hip, then I copy-and-paste my answer to a word document and massage the copy for a public audience.

Many times, this first-draft, second-draft process has helped me to create some of the very best articles I have written. Due to the fact that my original article draft is put together as an answer to a question that one of my potential clients had, it permits me to write an article that answers a question that many of my other potential customers may also be thinking.

In answering questions for the larger audience, I have found great success for myself in article marketing. Given a little bit of motivation and commitment, you can make my processes work for you too, to build your own success online.


About the Author:
Bill Platt has been providing article distribution to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article marketing services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success that can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Struggling in Network Marketing? 4 Great Tips to Help You Turn the Tide!

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Larry Zimberg


Are you STRUGGLING in your MLM, Network Marketing, or Home Based Biz? What's stopping you from reaching your goals or moving from where you are to where you want to go? This article could be the key in helping you TAKE ACTION and GET RESULTS!

IF you are like most people today, you are overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time. There just isn't enough time for everything on our "To Do" list - and odds are there never will be. You will never be caught up. Here are some tips to help you MOVE FORWARD!

1. Managing Your Time:

Successful people don't try to do everything. Successful people are those who are willing to delay gratification and make sacrifices in the short term so that they can enjoy far greater rewards in the long term. For some reason, too many people believe the process is supposed to be easy, and when they find out that achievement takes effort, they give up! However success takes some work. The only place wealth comes before work is in the dictionary. But the time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you will use it and where you are going to end up at the end of the months and years that lie ahead.

Resist the temptation to clear up the small things first. Prioritize! Do the first things first and the second things not at all. There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always time to do the most important thing.

THE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST MUST NEVER BE AT THE MERCY OF THE THINGS THAT MATTER LEAST!

The key to success is ACTION! Do not wait: the time will never be "just right". If you wait for perfect timing, you'll wait forever! Procrastination is the cornerstone of poverty. Since you can't do everything, you must learn to put off those tasks that are of low value so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count.

2. The Attitude Adjustment:

A man (or woman) is defeated not by his opponents but by himself. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Failure is an inside job...So is success. If you want to achieve, you have to win the war in your thinking first. How do you win that battle? You start by cultivating the right attitude. Your Attitude will determine your Altitude!

"Always bear in mind that your resolution to succeed is more important than any other thing." - Abraham Lincoln

So what is holding you back? What determines how fast you move from where you are to where you want to go? What stops you or holds you back from reaching your goals?

The road to the next level is always uphill. But achieving success is not a secret, it's not a mystery. There's a formula to it. I used to ask myself, "Why is it that other people are doing better than I am?" I had fallen into the trap of assuming that people who were doing better than me might actually be better or more fortunate than me. What I learned was this was not necessarily true, and what they had learned to do I could do as well. I am still amazed at how simple and obvious it is. Just find out what successful people do and do the same things until you get the same results. Wow! What a concept!

3. The Formula:

Simply put, some people are doing better than others because they are doing certain things differently; especially because they use their time far, far better than the average person.

Let me relate it to you this way: If you put $10,000 in an account for 4 years that got you back $1,000 or could put that same $10,000 in an account that got you back $100,000 which would you choose? No brainer, right? You're making the same deposit but you're getting a different return. Well, you're going to work anyway over the next few years. Why not spend your time more wisely and build your dream instead of someone else's. The time investment is the same, you're just working smarter, not harder. Again, you're making the same deposit but you'll get a much better return. This is what wealthy people know and do!

They know that it's nearly impossible to get the life you truly desire working your whole life for someone else, so they choose to spend their time going in a different direction so that they can have a different outcome. That's all it is!

4. Why Network Marketing:

I love this business. I love it because anyone with a dream and the will to work half as hard for themselves as they have for someone else can reach any goal they desire. I love it because, in network marketing, the brass ring is out there for anyone to grab, so long as you are willing to reach for it. We are a free people. We are free to succeed or fail. We can make excuses or progress. We can hide behind the challenges and obstacles each of us have and will continue to have, or march right through them so that we can live a life based on what we want to do with our time rather than what we have to do to survive.

Sadly though, most people will wait; wait and hope that they'll wake up someday and find themselves rich. Actually, they've got it half right, because eventually they do wake up. And while it's true that you may risk failure if you try something bold, it's even truer that you'll most certainly risk failure if you stand still.

"The greater danger in life is not that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it!" - Michelangelo

All one has to do is believe in themselves and TAKE ACTION. That's what I did, and I'm so excited every day to see more and more people creating financial freedom through our industry.

It's a choice, a choice that we are all free to make. What choice will you make? And remember, if you need a helping hand, I've got two!

To your success!

Copyright (c) 2008 Larry Zimberg


About the Author:
Larry Zimberg is an accomplished Network Marketer and Success Coach. He has trained tens of thousands of individuals, and built massive organizations. "The key to financial success is to have a simple automated system that drives 1000's of real prospects to your website, without spending a dime on leads!" Build your team 10x as fast with half the effort. Discover what really works RIGHT NOW! Get my Free Report at http://www.YouDontHavetoSell.com "Let me know how I might help you build your dream instead of someone else's!"

Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Laptop Battery

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2000-2008 Bill Platt


The actual life of a laptop battery will vary with computer usage habits. For most users, it is not uncommon to experience differences in battery life, of anywhere from just under one hour to over two hours in each sitting. If you are experiencing shorter battery life cycles, say 10 to 15 minutes, it may not yet be time to order that new battery.

There are several factors to take into consideration when determining if the time has come to replace your battery. This information may also apply to that new battery that you have recently purchased, that has been giving you fits. The two primary things to consider when troubleshooting battery problems is Usage Habits and Battery Memory. We will cover both in their complexities in just a moment, but first, let us take a look at what you should expect from your battery's life cycle.

NiMH batteries usually last 1.5 to 2.5 hours. LiION batteries usually last 2.0 to 3.0 hours.

These are average results and the results will vary greatly depending on your system's conservation settings, the temperature of the room and the climate that you are operating your computer in. As a general rule, your Lithium Ion battery will last much longer than your standard Nickel Metal Hydride battery.

Now let's take a look at the various usage habits to consider when troubleshooting your laptop's battery. These processes are very similar to the way that your portable stereo uses batteries .. just think how much faster your stereo eats batteries when you are playing the CD or the tape deck, as opposed to when you are just playing the radio.

The more you use physical devices --- which require more electricity to operate --- the more of the battery's power you can expect to consume. The devices that create a larger power drain are the hard drive, the floppy drive and the CD-ROM.

When the computer is able to use its physical memory resources to store information, the computer will use less of the battery's power, since the process is mostly electrical in nature. However, when the processes you are using exhaust the physical memory resources available to your system, the system will turn to virtual memory to continue the process at hand. Virtual Memory is designed to extend system memory resources by building a memory swap file on the hard drive, and then transfer needed information between the hard drive and the physical memory as required. Since the hard drive is a electricity hog, the use of virtual memory becomes an electricity hog by proxy.

Two other processes that engage virtual memory on your computer are computational programs and the calculation processes used by spreadsheet applications and database programs. Both of these items engage the processor to a greater degree as well, which in itself is a consumer of electricity. Because they both compute and calculate large quantities of information, they will also increase the amount of electricity that your laptop will consume.

Other physical devices that cannot be left out of this discussion are audio and display devices. As far as audio devices are concerned, speakers require electricity to run and the software that is responsible for producing the sound does so by processing information. The display panel consumes electricity as well. In fact, the brighter the screen appears, the more electricity that it is consuming. You may turn down the brightness on the screen, thereby conserving more electricity than you may have considered possible. And when considering the battery drain caused by video devices, don't forget the effect that graphics programs will have on your system. Video applications can have an intense effect on your electrical needs, due to its usage of computation, calculations and virtual memory.

Battery Memory is an odd little creature. The concept of battery memory is reminiscent of Pavlovian Conditioning. Do you remember the story about Pavlov and his dogs? Pavlov would serve his dogs food and when they realized it was dinner time, he would ring a bell. After some time of conditioning his dogs, all he would have to do to get the dogs to salivate, was to ring the bell. Battery Memory is a lot like that.

Battery memory is where the battery becomes conditioned to run for less time than it is designed to run. Say for example, you run your computer on battery for an hour and then you plug it back in to let it recharge. The battery will become conditioned to run only an hour before it runs out of juice.

To correct Battery Memory problems, you must completely drain the battery and recharge it. To completely drain your battery, you must go into your Windows Control Panel and select Power. Then you must turn Power Management Off. Next, you must go into your BIOS and make sure that if there is a power management setting there, that you turn it off as well. In most cases, once you are inside the BIOS, you will highlight Power Management and press Enter. Then locate the item Hibernation at Critical Battery, and by using the Minus sign, change the setting to Off. Once these steps have been completed, then use your Escape key to return to the top level menu, and select Save Settings and Exit.

Once you have completed turning off the power management in both the BIOS and the Operating System, you must unplug the computer, turn the computer on and let it run until it completely runs out of electricity. Then you should charge the battery for 12 hours. At the end of the charging cycle, then run the computer again until the battery is dead, and then charge the battery for 12 more hours. You should repeat this process four times, before returning the computer to its original power management settings.

As far as battery usage goes, it is recommended that you should use the battery once every two weeks, and keep the battery in the system so that the AC adapter can keep the battery charged at all times. It is also recommended that if you don't use the battery for more than two weeks, you should completely discharge the battery and store it at room temperature.


About the Author:
Research is the lifeblood of article ghost writers, like Bill Platt. Bill is the owner of The Phantom Writers article marketing service. He offers article ghost writing and article distribution services to his customers through his service at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com His recent Article Writing ebook is generating a lot of interest and great reviews. If you are writing articles for the promotion of your business, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of Bill's ebook.

Blast Through These Four Obstacles And Let Your Online Business Soar

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2007-2008 Casey Moher


It's vital that you surmount a series of resistance points on your way to establishing a customer.

Your obstacles are:

1. No TRUST for you on the part of your visitor.
2. No NEED for what you have.
3. No perception that you can HELP them.
4. They are in no HURRY to act.

Let's take these one at a time:

On-line, you are a stranger to everyone. The most difficult part (establishing instantaneous rapport) is also the most important part of your business plan.

Doubt quickly evaporates from the mind of your visitor if your initial approach is to provide them with something of high perceived-value absolutely free. As your site visitor begins their visit, there are more questions than answers going through their mind.

If the first thing you do is to offer something free, it goes a long way towards reducing that sales resistance and that lack of trust they intrinsically feel. A good item to give away would be a report on a popular and good-selling internet-based product or service that you have something about.

Good-selling products and services are a great place to start with your plans to produce a report to use as your free gift. You'll find that this approach is the best way to overcome the obstacle of NO TRUST! Obstacle number TWO is the one of NO NEED.

A great approach to blasting past no-need is to select a product for your review that has some strong testimonials from customers who have purchsed it. The more your visitors appreciate the value of your free information, the more receptive they will be to your sales message.

It is when you begin to present your offer that obstacle number three (NO HELP) starts to nag at the back of your customer's mind.

The mind-set of NO HELP is a stubborn one and hangs in there even though you have built up a good amount of TRUST with your site visitor. Here, too, it is third-party testimonials that are your best tool for cracking through this obstacle. By now you should be getting a feel for how helpful and easy it is for you to establish yourself as an affiliate marketer for a useful product.

There are a huge number of things that are done for you when you are an affiliate. Order taking, shipping, complaints and returns. Moreover, a great and proven sales letter together with testimonials are in place for your use in obstacle-busting.

Also, getting your business started and getting past the obstacles we are talking about today are all much easier when you begin as an affiliate marketer for a useful product.

You are now in the position of three hurdles down and one to go. Getting someone 'off the dime' and settling on a decision is your fourth obstacle. This individual is plagued with inaction and the attitude that there is NO HURRY. To move your customer out of the comfort zone that your product will always be available to them, they need a reason to act right away! Scarcity or limited availability of the product is one good way to do this.

Additionally, you can use the concept that the product may indeed be available for the foreseeable future, but the price could well be quickly climbing very soon. Also, in all reality, the product itself will go away at some point and you won't be promoting it any longer.

Use both the notion of approaching scarcity together with the possibility of loss to effectively contain the obstacle of NO HURRY.

Building an ever-growing list of responsive customers is the key to financial stability and growth for you and your family. You can build a responsive list of loyal subscribers if you apply yourself and follow the concepts outlined in this article. Getting past the four obstacles we've been discussing can help you greatly in cultivating a list of responsive customers.


About the Author:
Casey Moher - Caseymoher@comcast.net (801) 941-3334

Mr. Moher is a Registered Pharmacist and Life-Long Marketing and Sales Professional. You Can Get His Free Five-Day Mini-Course on Building Targeted Website Traffic by visiting: http://www.newtrafficmaster.com

New and Improved Or Is It?

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2000-2008 Bill Platt


I have come across articles where he author is celebrating "A New, More Effective Way to Promote Your Business on the Web."

Exuberant, I opened each article expecting to see something new and interesting. On both counts, I was disappointed. Both articles offered nothing new... just the same ol' hash, rehashed.

I guess the wisest man around, knew about the Internet well before it was created. Solomon spoke well when he said, "There is nothing new under the sun."

To some people new to the Internet, or new to promotion on the Internet, these people come across as Internet geniuses who have discovered a great new technique for promotion. Granted, for the reader who has never seen these techniques, they are in fact seeing a new technique.

For the newbie to the world of Internet promotion and marketing, they have discovered a new marketing guru to pay attention to. But, what happens when down the road, this same newbie sees the same author claim "New and Improved" once again --- but this time the newbie isn't a newbie and recognizes the "New and Improved" technique is only a rehash of the same ol' hash?

Don't you think that this person might feel cheated?

I expect that they will, if they ever discover that they were misled in the first place. Most will never make the connection, but those who do will definitely look at this marketing guru from that day forward with distrust in his eyes.

If you have ever been known to use the words "New" and "Improved" to sugar your headlines, ad body or articles, take notice and be aware.

Your reputation is far more valuable to your long-term success than the profits that can reaped through using the words "New" and "Improved" dishonestly to get someone's attention.

"There is nothing new under the sun."


About the Author:
Bill Platt's ebook, "Article Marketing for Traffic, Sales and Profits", teaches people the basics of how to write articles that generate traffic, sales and profits for the author's website. One of the secrets to writing profitable articles is to write Evergreen Content - content that is as useful eight years later as it is now. In case you missed it, this article was originally written in 2000, and continues to provide value to its readers. Get your copy of Bill's Article Writing Tips ebook at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Where is My Expired Domain? Searching For Good Expired Domains

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 John Khu


Domain name traders are one busy set of people, who are always on the edge of their seats to grab up very good expiring domain names. Finding very good expired domains on time and within your limited budget is a great task and an intelligent act. Domain name traders are always very eager to search for good expiring domain names. They always ask to themselves- Where the hell is my expired domain name? To find very good expired or expiring domain names, you may wish to learn and understand the basic aspects of finding a soon-to-expire domain name much before than others.

Here are some very simple and easy to understand techniques that will help you identify and buy a good expired domain name in a flash and beat your competitors with their hands down:

List down the names of expired domain names that you already own: Right now, you may own a series of domain names. You may wish to buy an expired domain name that does not repeat these names. In fact, it is wastage of money to buy expired domain names that are similar in their name, phonetics and structure. This is quite obvious, but an important fact!

Research, Research, Research: You will need to know, when those soon-to-expire domain names actually expire and become orphan. This seems to be the most precious secret of a successful domain name trader. When you prepare a list of soon-to-expire domain names, you can really get ready to book and grab those domain names. This will be an ongoing process that is continuous and streaming.

Know where the potentially good domains are: Before buying an expired domain, you should know the previous owner of the domain name, the credentials of the domain and its Whois data. This will help you in contacting the owner before the auction of the said domain.

Use Sophisticated Software Applications: An experienced expired domain name trader will own an arsenal highly sophisticated software tools to grab those expired domain names much before other actually do. These tools will not only help you find a good expired domain, but also assist you in bidding your best rate before others suggest theirs.

Dedication and Perseverance: No one can survive domain trading business unless he or she shows utmost dedication and perseverance towards the business. You will need to focus and self motivate to survive in the business by buying the best possible expired domain names.

If you ask where your expired domains are, they are right in front of your own eyes. All you have to do to is to apply your energy, mind and resources towards finding good domain names. Finding money spinning domains expired is also a task that needs your skills and intelligence. These are basic and vital steps recommended finding very good expired domain names. You may wish to follow them in details to grab that eye catching and potentially money making domain.


About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

What To Do When Your Website Does Not Rank Well In Google

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt


Online marketers frequently struggle with the question of how to compete when Google fails to look positively upon a particular website. In this article, I will focus on how to build rankings and drive traffic to your website, using Google and the other search engines.

What Motivates Google's Algorithm

Over the years, many have tried to claim, even in court, that Google was unfairly keeping their website out of the top of Google's search results. But, the truth is that Google is not beholden to the needs and desires of the webmasters who want to be on page one of Google's natural search results.

Instead, Google is beholden to its stockholders and its need to earn profits. Google has determined that the best way to keep profits high is to keep Internet users flocking to its websites. Google accomplishes that by giving its users the kind of information they are looking to find, and Google weights its search algorithm towards what Google believes its search audience wants to see in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

It is important for online marketers to understand that it is not always in Google's best interest for our websites to rank well in Google.

How Important Is Google In Search?

Worldwide, Google is currently providing 78% of all searches (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=4).

But in 2007, Google only provided 52% of my website's total search traffic. Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN provided the next 42%. The remaining 6% of my website's search traffic came from another 55 smaller search engines.

On my website, only 48.8% of my 2007 traffic actually came from search engines. The remaining 51.2% of my website's quarter million visitors came directly from article placements on other websites, recommendations from other people, forum posts, and from people who have bookmarks for my website.

Tips For Ranking Well For Specific Keywords

It has been my experience that it is easier to rank in 1) MSN / Windows Live, 2) Yahoo, and then 3) Google, in that order. Quite frankly, I have always ignored the role of Ask in the search market. While MSN is the easiest search engine to rank in, it only delivered 4.6% of my total search traffic in 2007.

I read a question in a forum, where the poster was asking how he could get his website to rank well in Google for the search term, "software".

The truth is that it is nearly impossible in nearly every search engine to rank well in the natural results for such a singular keyword, such as "software". In a nutshell, if you want to rank well in Google, you need to build inbound links (IBLs) to your website with your targeted keywords in the links.

But, you don't want to put all of your links together with one keyword phrase. One of Google's red flags is when they notice a link to a particular website appearing more than 60% of the time with one specific keyword phrase.

Utilizing a variety of long-tail keywords will actually serve you better in the search-engine ranking puzzle, in more ways than one. After all, when I do a search for software, I don't type in the search word, "software". I type in search phrases like: "accounting software", "small business accounting software", "windows software accounting small business", "windows image editing software", "windows software image editor", "windows xp photo album manager", etc.

People searching the keyword "software" have yet to figure out that they are looking for specific kinds of software. Once they do an initial search, they are going to type in more specific search terms to find what they actually want. So, once you start targeting a variety of long-tail keyword phrases, then you will start seeing more success in your search marketing efforts.

How To Start Your Search Engine Optimization Journey

If you are wanting to get into the natural search results of Google and the other search engines, you must know before you dive into the project that getting good rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords can take a really long time, before you begin seeing results.

While inbound links to your website, targeted to your chosen keywords, will help your website climb in the search results of your favorite search engines, it may be a frustrating journey.

Your competitors want to rank well for the same search terms you do. And since only ten of you can be on page one of the search results, you may have to work really hard to topple those guys already on page one of the results, and you will have to fight to keep your ranking once you get it.

There are some keyword phrases that are nearly impossible to rank for, even if you have really deep pockets. For example, most every keyword phrase for the financial industry will be extremely difficult to rank for in Google. Competition in this industry is fierce, so achieving top search rankings will be tough to say the least.

This is the reason why so many SEO experts encourage marketers to target "low-hanging fruit". It may be fairly easy to rank well for a four- or five-word search phrase, and extremely expensive to target a two- or three-word search phrase.

My personal approach has always been to rotate through a list of more than 100 target keyword phrases, over a longer period of time. In doing so, I capture a lot of low-hanging fruit quickly, and at the end of the loop, I am a bit closer to snagging the fruit in the upper branches of the tree. At the end of my list, I analyze my keywords again to see where I am strong and to see where I am still weak, and then I begin the process again. (According to SEOdigger.com, I have better than 950 keyword phrases in the top twenty results of Google.)

How To Get Links

The challenge most people face when they begin building links to a website is where to get those essential links.

Article marketing is my chosen method for getting inbound links.

Because of Google's news feed strategy, the initial placement of your article might appear immediately in the SERPs, but then it will disappear. During the news cycle phase of the Google algorithm, new materials are given an added boost in ranking. Once the news cycle is done, any new pages will sink back down to where they would be based on the general Google algorithm.

If you are honest with yourself, you know that every page on the Internet started life with a PageRank Zero, but given enough time, many pages will gain in PageRank, as they begin to be linked. For a more detailed look at the process of how reprint articles gain value for a website in Google's search index, see my article about "Fishing for Links in Google".

Utilizing article marketing as a link building method, I have put one website on the map in as little as eight weeks, with only three articles. This website has one #1, one #2, eight results on page one, and twelve results in the top twenty listings of Google. Most of those keywords also rank well in Yahoo and MSN.

On the other hand, on my main website, I started looking at the keyword phrase "article marketing" just eighteen months ago, when my website sat at #79. Today, my website sits at #12 in Google for that keyword phrase.

I believe that given enough time, investment and commitment, I can use article marketing to elevate any web page on the Internet to multiple page-one listings in Google. But, not everyone is willing to make the kind of investment and commitment one needs to get to the top of Google's search results...

What To Do When You Need Results Now

If you simply cannot wait as long as it takes to build top rankings naturally, then you need to look seriously at Pay-Per-Click advertising models, such those offered through Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing.




About the Author:
Bill Platt offers Article Distribution and Article Ghost Writing services through his website at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com He has written an ebook that has been designed to help people create more effective articles. One customer said of his ebook, "I've read almost every ebook out there on article writing and article marketing and this one tops it all." To learn more about Bill's ebook or to get your own copy, please click this link.

Loosing Customers and Losing Sales - It Sounds Funny Doesn't It?

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt


(Revised, 2008) The number of people who write free-reprint articles, to promote their online business, is increasing with each passing month. I should know --- I have built my own business around free-reprint articles.

As the manager of several article distribution groups and an article distribution service, I see hundreds of articles per month go through my biggest article groups. Hundreds of publishers, webmasters and writers subscribe to article distribution lists such as this one:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles

Of course, the goal of the group is for writers to get their articles to publishers and webmasters who might want to reprint the work. When publishers and webmasters decide to publish a specific article, the writer hopes that the article will generate volumes of traffic and sales for their own website.

Why Does This Matter?

As I review each article for distribution to the groups, I see one misspelling time after time that really leaps from the page.

Hey, it is not my reputation on the line, so why should it matter?

A writer's reputation can be made or broken by his or her use of the written word. So many people look up to writers as people who have a gift to share ideas with the masses.

The reason we are able to share ideas with others is not because we are special. The truth is that we are able to share ideas because we are not afraid to try to do so, and we are not afraid to work at it.

Being afraid to try and messing up the process are two different things.

Misspellings, Bad Grammar And Bad Formatting Counts

It pains me when I see articles coming through to the groups where there are problems with spelling, grammar or formatting. For some reason, we publishers tend to expect the writer to put forth the time and effort in advance to make sure that the article is ready for copy-and-paste publication.

In the old days, I used to edit articles for publication in my own ezines. Soon, my workload became too much and I had to begin to cut down on my time expenditures. At first, I simply stopped formatting articles for publication. Eventually, I even stopped proofreading articles for publication. When I reached this point, I had made a decision that if an article was not copy-and-paste ready, then I would not publish it in my own ezines.

It should come as no surprise to writers that spelling, grammar and formatting could be as important to the publication decision process, as the message communicated in the article.

But, in watching the articles come through to the groups, I have to wonder what is in the mind of some writers.

Why It Is Important

Writers take the time and effort to write the articles to promote their own businesses. But, if there are misspellings, bad grammar or no formatting, the chances of the article getting published is greatly diminished.

I am not willing to venture how many more people might publish an article if everything was in good shape, but I can guarantee you that some people may opt against publishing an article due to these kinds of problems. Writers, who do not invest sufficient effort in the creation of their articles, make the process of elimination much easier for the publishers who seek to reprint the content.

My Pet Peeve --- Losing Or Loosing?

Losing - To be unsuccessful in retaining possession of; mislay. To be unable to keep control or allegiance of: "is losing supporters by changing his mind."

Loosing - To cast loose; detach: "hikers loosing their packs at camp."

Far too often, I see writers talk about "losing" customers. Yet, when they spell the word, they spell it "loosing".

If you would note, the act of "losing" customers has to do with not being able to hold on to them. "Losing", reflects doing it without intent.

On the other hand, the act of "loosing" customers means to set them free --- voluntarily.

I am not sure that anyone actually "looses" their customers, unless they are closing their businesses. Most businesses simply "lose" their customers, quite by accident and definitely against their will.

In Conclusion

I hope my title now makes sense to you --- "Loosing" Customers and "Losing" Sales.

Take the time to get your spelling, grammar and formatting right. If you write articles and choose not to take the time to get your article right, then I could probably assume that you are --- with intent --- "loosing" customers.

Hey, it is your choice.




About the Author:
Bill Platt operates The Phantom Writers, where he offers article ghost writing services and article distribution services at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com His recent ebook, "Article Marketing for Traffic, Sales and Profit" has received excellent reviews across the board. If you write your own articles, you should seriously consider getting your own copy of his Article Marketing ebook.

How To Get Massive Free Website Traffic

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford


There is only one real secret to getting a lot of visitors to your website. That is merely figuring out where lots of your ideal visitors are, and standing in front of them.

When you think of it in those terms, it's really simple.

There are also only three real ways to get in front of the traffic flow. You can buy traffic, borrow traffic, or create traffic.

You buy traffic using pay-per-click search engines. It's very dependable, and can give you a steady flow of consistent traffic.

The big drawback with using pay-per-clicks to generate traffic is that it can be very risky. Those who use pay-per-clicks to generate 100% of their traffic, and are considered the best of the best, will tell you that as many as 7 out of 10 campaigns that they set up will lose money. The professionals very quickly shut off the losers, and their winners more than make up for the losses, but it's really not a game for someone not properly trained.

You can also buy traffic using an affiliate program. Since you only pay for the traffic when a sale is made, it's a very low-risk method. Since your affiliates are sending you their best customers, you can also think of it as borrowing traffic.

I love the affiliate program model, and have numerous products sold via affiliate programs. I also sell a lot of others' affiliate products. It's win-win.

You can also create traffic by putting things on the Internet that people are attracted to. You can create content by writing articles or blogging for example. I love content creation and have written over 1100 different articles. My articles teach people how to solve pressing problems, and at the same time point them to me (my sites) as a great resource.

When you create content your big challenge is to get it noticed and indexed by the search engines, so that people can follow links from there to your site. It's actually fairly easy - but time and labor intensive.

If your content is "viral" it will be something that others will happily share. Examples include in-depth articles, essays that touch people on a deep emotional level, or humorous videos that you post on YouTube.

Of the three methods of getting traffic (buying, borrowing, and creating it) my favorite has to be borrowing it... with creating it second. I generally only buy traffic when I need a really quick surge to test my website's conversion process.

The key to generating an absolute flood of free traffic is getting noticed, getting backlinks, etc., from high traffic websites such as Google, Craig's List, Yahoo, YouTube, and the various bookmarking and social networking sites.

This can be as simple is searching through Yahoo Answers for questions on your area of expertise, and then posting a great answer - along with an appropriate link to your website or product.

It can be as simple as searching through YouTube for videos on your area of expertise, and then leaving a comment along with a link sharing that they can find more information on the topic at your site.

It can be as simple as using the search engines to locate dozens or even hundreds of blogs and forums in your niche, and then interacting with these communities.

There's only one problem with most of the methods that I just mentioned. They can be time consuming and labor intensive. Just locating active communities in your niche can literally take hours.

I do have a secret. I use automated software to monitor and notify me of active blogs, forums, and communities in my niche. I use automated software to notify me when they are discussing my area of expertise or there is a new video posted pertaining to my area of expertise.

When I discover a new resource, I then analyze it, and if appropriate, I interact with that high traffic site, and leave a link back to my site, which is a perfectly acceptable practice.

So there you have my secret for generating literally hundreds of thousands of free hits to even my newest sites. Of course, your site has to be about something that people are interested it. I do strongly advocate using software to automate many of the mundane processes such as just finding these sites.

Many webmasters really struggle with website traffic generation, and there is absolutely no need to. You merely find the huge pools of traffic interested in your topic, and then you stand underneath the waterfall, and enjoy the cool, refreshing flow of new visitors.


About the Author:
Willie Crawford has been marketing goods and services online since 1996. With very busy websites in dozens of niches, he teaches that the secret is automating the flow of traffic, since without traffic you don't really have a web business. His favorite traffic generation software is at Stealth Traffic Tools: http://IncredibleWebsiteTraffic.com

Balancing SEO Against The Needs of Your Article's Audience

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Hunter Waterhouse


Article marketing continues to be a proven method for generating traffic to our websites and developing good search placement, even after all of these years. I have been reading articles online since 1995, and I continue to read a few dozen articles per week on subjects that are dear to my heart.

Some Claim That Article Marketing Does Not Work

Now and again, I will read a thread in a forum somewhere where somebody claims that article marketing does not work.

Some article-marketing critics will admit that they have only distributed only one or two articles. Well yeah, I can see why article marketing did not work for them - because they did not work at making article marketing profitable for them.

Article marketing is like any other method of advertising. If you don't make a real investment in it, then you cannot reap great rewards from it.

The Marketing Rule Of Seven

Advertising professionals speak of the "Marketing Rule Of Seven," which suggests that a consumer must see your marketing message at least seven times before they start to pay attention to your message. The pros also suggest that once seven exposures have been achieved, the consumer will make a subtle, subconscious connection to the advertiser. Recognition brings rewards, in that after seven exposures to an advertisement, consumers will start to feel as if they know enough about the advertiser to trust their sales message.

If television, radio and print advertisers understand that a company's sales message must be seen or heard at least seven times, then why would you - the Internet marketer - think that you can write a single article and see the full benefit of the medium?

Successful Article Marketing Requires A Commitment To The Reader

All commerce on the Internet is driven by information, such as written sales messages and information about products and services. Some websites also benefit from generic information concerning topics that their potential clients will be interested in reading. For example, if a website sells plumbing supplies, the consumer may find the availability of information about how to remove the old fittings and how to install the new plumbing equipment, as an essential element of their purchase decision.

Article marketing when done correctly will not be a boring, blathering of search engine optimized keywords related to a product or service line.

Article marketing, when done well, will provide information that will be of real interest to the person most likely to buy what you are selling.

For example:

If you are selling auction services, give the reader tips to help them make more money from the sale of their goods in the auction environment or how a buyer can find a good deal.

If you are selling auto warranties, tell the reader how to uncover the best value in an auto warranty plan and what features to seek.

If you are selling resume services, give the reader advice on how to write their own resume.

Article marketing when used well can help a company establish itself as an expert in the field, and it can help show a reader why hiring the author's service might be better than a do-it-yourself project. As an example, with the resume advice article, once the reader sees how comprehensive your knowledge is and how detailed a resume should be, the reader may just decide that using your resume writing service will be much more productive than the do-it-yourself resume.

Just Like Lawyers, Writers Specialize Too

Beyond the cost of labor, content development is usually the second most expensive expenditure made by the online vendor. It is important to note that just as there are lawyers who specialize in one area of law, there are also ghostwriters who specialize in certain types of content creation.

People who write sales copy are referred to as "copywriters." Copywriters are people who understand the nuances of how to make people buy what you are selling.

They understand that replacing a single word in the sales copy could mean the difference between lukewarm sales numbers and red-hot sales numbers, and they know which words to change.

Some professional copywriters have a proven track record of writing sales copy that has generated millions of dollars in sales - people such as Frank Kern, Dan Lok, and Joe Vitale. These guys know the value of their copywriting skills, and they charge accordingly. If you ask them to write sales copy for you, don't be surprised when they quote you a price in the range of $5-20 per written word.

Other writers might specialize in writing books, brochures, and articles. Some writers specialize in the smaller word counts, like the folks who write greeting cards and book jackets.

Finding The Best Writer For Your Needs

The kid down the street who writes part-time for the newspaper may or may not be the best person to write your online articles for you. One reason is that people who write for offline publications seldom appreciate the importance of keywords in an article for search engine marketing purposes.

Note this article for example. Our purpose is to show you how you can use article marketing as a successful marketing tool for your business. We also want to show how the articles should appeal both to the reader and the search engine algorithms.

With these thoughts in mind, when you are finished reading this article, read it a second time to see how many variations on the following SEO keyword phrases can be found in this article: article marketing, search engine marketing, keywords, advertising, content creation, writers and copywriting. Of course, copywriting is not the kind of writing we do, but people who do not understand the specialization of writing skills might type "copywriting" or "copywriters" into their favorite search engine to find someone who writes informational articles.

One never knows precisely what the public will use as their search keywords when they go to the search engine to find information. That is the very reason why a good online article writer must strive to showcase a range of similar keywords within the context of an article.

Your Article Marketing Strategies Influence Your Overall Success

We know that some people tell you that the only reason to write an article is to get a link back to your website. What most of these people don't tell you is that most websites that accept reprint articles do so, only after a human has reviewed or at least scanned the article.

An article that does not read well will never be published on a top-tier website. Yes, some websites may accept a poorly written article, but more sites will only accept well-written articles.

A reader who is not impressed with your article will seldom reach your resource box, so the link back in the resource box can only give value to your website from the search engines - maybe. The search engines generally only give value to articles on good websites or those placements that have lots of links pointing to the article within the website. Bad articles don't get published on good websites, and they do not attract links.

As the Marketing Rule Of Seven should indicate, multiple articles generate a long-term wave of new links and potential visitors to your website.

Consistency is also important to a successful article marketing campaign, in that releasing weekly articles will enable your readers to see your marketing message regularly.

Finally, the smart use of a variety of related keyword phrases will strengthen the ability of your article to appeal to the search engines and the people who use them.

If you can balance the needs of your article's audience against your need for search optimized content, then you can benefit handsomely from your article marketing campaigns.


About the Author:
Hunter Waterhouse is a ghostwriter and editor. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see the quality of the websites that have published his articles, and you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. If you need ghost written articles, visit: http://www.reprintwriters.com If you have hired anyone to ghostwrite articles for you, confirm their honesty and the uniqueness of your articles, with the free Plagiarism Check Tool.

How To Leverage Your List to Grow It Even Faster

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford


People are peculiar creatures... more alike in our thoughts and behavior than we like to admit. One thing that is true of most people, regardless of culture, and unique circumstances is that they like to know something that other people want to know.

We also like to share that information.

It makes us look and feel smarter :-)

It allows us to appear to have inside information and we like that. Not only do we like to share information, we like to steer our friends and family in the right direction.

People share all kinds of information. They tell their neighbors which exterminator to use and which one does a shoddy job. They recommend the talented barber or hair stylist.

The same traits are common among your subscribers. They consider you a trusted expert, and a great source of products or services, or they wouldn't stay on your opt-in list.

You need to find ways to take advantage of this human need to know what-is-what and the instinct to share useful information. Most people will share information willingly and without much incentive from you. However, providing a little incentive usually doesn't hurt.

Your first step is to convince your opt-in list subscribers that they really do have the inside track for success by being members of your list. There are about a million ways to tell people that they are smart and that by being members of your opt-in list proves it. Never miss the opportunity to share that compliment.

Your next step is to get these smart subscribers to share your great ezine with their family and friends thus building your list.

The easiest and simplest thing that you can do is to... ask them.

Ask them to pass along copies of your ezine or autoresponder messages, and include a link to your subscribe url at the bottom of each issue. That way, those who read "pass-along copies," and enjoy them, will know how to get more :-)

You can also Offer incentives for referring new subscribers. I actually PAY my existing subscribers (on some lists) for referring others.

You can offer cash payments for new referrals, having them send the referrals to get something like a value-packed free report. Use an affiliate tracking system such as ProfitAutomation.com to automatically track referral commissions and then once a month, pay those commissions.

If you want the paid referral system to be totally hands-free, set it up as an affiliate program using a script like Rapid Action Profits. With Rapid Action Profits, they would use a referral link to sell an inexpensive report, and when a referral gets the report they pay the referrer directly. The token fee for the report, is deposited directly to the referrer's Paypal account.

This is a very powerful way of using subscribers or customers to build a list of paying customers. Many people treasure a list built this way more because it's a list of PROVEN buyers. If you are not familiar with RAP, you can check it out at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/RapidActionProfits/

You can see how I implemented using RAP with an ebook that I wrote called "Secrets Of The Clickbank Millionaires." I let my subscribers sell the ebook for $5 (a real bargain for their friends) but the payment goes directly to them, and it's paid INSTANTLY. Since they don't have to wait for Payments, it's a very powerful incentive for those with cashflow problems.

You can see how I've implemented using "Secrets Of The Clickbank Millionaires" to incentivize subscribers to make referrals at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/ClickbankMillionaires/

Another powerful way to get your existing subscribers, and even just random website visitors, to make referrals is to use a tell-a-friend script on your site.

Perhaps, tell your list that referring your ezine to 4-6 people will earn them a free gift, and set the form to forward them to that download once they've completed and submitted the form. Don't base it on the number of people who actually sign up, but rather on them referring your list to their friends. Many of their referrals won't sign up, and you need to avoid creating frustration in existing readers who are trying to help you build your list.

You can find good tell-a-friend scripts in many places. The Rapid Action Profits script mentioned earlier even has a tell-a-friend script built in that allows customers and subscribers to make referrals right from your download pages.

I've just given you a few quick and easy ways to leverage your existing list to grow your opt-in list even faster. The leverage comes from you simply getting existing subscribers to recommend you to their contacts. You can do this with or without offering an incentive. Simple isn't it :-)


About the Author:
Willie Crawford is an Internet marketer with over 11 years of experience at generating record-breaking sales and massive email lists using viral marketing techniques. Rebrandable ebooks created using Viral Document Toolkit are a favorite tool! See the demo video at: http://ViralDocumentToolkits.com

Search Engine Optimization And The Magic Fairy Dust

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2007-2008 Bill Platt


There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon... They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffic and consumers to their website.

The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.

For any given search term at any given time, there are only ten web pages on page one of the search results, and there are millions of web pages that did not make page one, who may or may not catch a few stragglers from the search engines.

How Can A Website Break Into The Top Ten?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that has sprung up around the concept of helping their clients improve their rankings in the search engine results.

When you talk to SEO professionals, they generally point to a two-pronged approach to search ranking optimization. A website owner needs to optimize their on-site real estate for the search engines, and they need to build inbound links to their website.

On-Site Search Optimization Challenges

The trick with on-site search optimization is that you must cater to multiple audiences on your website.

You must provide simple navigation and an attractive interface to the human visitor;

You must provide good sales copy to your human visitors, for the purpose of converting them from shoppers to buyers;

You must provide text copy for the search engines to read; and

You must optimize your content to help the search engines know what topics and keywords they should pay attention, so that they can give their users the right web page for the right search terms.

A web page that draws good search rankings is useless if the web page cannot convert the human visitor to a buyer. Many website owners get caught up in the process of optimizing a web page to get it to the top of the search results, and they forget that the human visitor knows where the Back Button is in his or her browser. Once your visitor has hit the Back Button, they will go to someone else's website and buy from them, instead of you.

Most website owners have the alternate problem. They consistently convert a significant number of visitors to buyers, but they have to rely on various forms of paid advertising to get visitors to their websites, since they do not rank in the search engines.

I recently spoke with an individual who spends $60,000 per month on pay-per-click advertising to get targeted traffic to his website. He said he consistently earns back his money, but he was still looking for a better way to get ranked in the search engines, so he joined my client list.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization Basics

According to the search engine companies, there are more than one thousand calculations that determine how well a website will rank in their search engine result pages (SERPs).

The Google engineers are fond of saying that if you build your website for human beings instead of search engines, then your website should rank well in their algorithms. To a certain degree, this is a good strategy.

Think about how magazines are constructed:

The Table Of Contents shows story titles, brief descriptions, and page numbers telling you where you can find a story.

On the story page, the title will be in big, bold font. Sometimes, the magazine will include a brief blurb about the story, in italics or font that is a bit bigger than the story font.

Pictures support the story with captions that further develop the story, by describing the picture.

Major subsections of the story have their own subheadings. And, the primary body of the story is in regular plain text, with only an occasional bolded or italicized word or phrase.

By analyzing the title and other large text on the page, a person who is flipping through the pages of a magazine can quickly assess the story content and make the decision as to whether they want to read the full story.

In the most simplistic way, this is how the search engines analyze a websites' content to decide which web page will best serve their users' needs.

Off-Site Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Basics

Since the inception of Google, and with Yahoo and MSN recently, the number and quality of links pointing to a website play a significant role in determining how well a web page will rank in the search results.

I have heard people suggest that as much as 75% of the value given to a web page in the search results is based solely on the number and quality of links pointing to a web page. I tend to believe a more conservative number (50.1%) will apply.

Inbound Links Are More Important Than Page Content

To prove this point, type "click here" without the quotes into Google, Yahoo and MSN and check the Adobe pages that come up in the search results: #1 in Google, #2 in Yahoo, and #1 in MSN. When you pull up those pages, search the page to find the individual words "click" or "here" in the text of those pages. They are not there. This has happened because millions of people have linked to these Adobe pages with the embedded anchor text, "click here".

Next, let's analyze those specific web pages from the perspective of each of the search engines:

Google's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) Links to this web page: according to Google (31); according to Yahoo (nearly 12 million); according to MSN (6,400).

Yahoo's #2 result - Google PageRank 10. (www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer) Links to this web page: Google (15,200); Yahoo (700 thousand); MSN (32).

MSN's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash) Links to this web page: Google (0); Yahoo (2.9 million); MSN (778).

On Google's top result, they show 31 inbound links total for that web page. But, Yahoo claims that there are more than 12 million links to this page. That is a huge difference.

On Yahoo's #2 result, MSN gives 32 links, Google gives 15,000 links, and Yahoo claims it has 700 thousand links! That is another huge difference between the link counts from the search engines.

On MSN's #1 result, MSN shows a strong link count, but still nowhere near Yahoo's 2.9 million links. But, how does a web page with zero links in Google get a PageRank 8?

What Do These Numbers Mean?

Google has always said that they will never show us all of the links that we have pointing to our websites, because anything we can see in the public search results, our competitors can see also. So, for me it really is no surprise that we cannot see all of the links that point to Adobe pages, or to the links we have created that point to our clients and ourselves, by querying the search engines.

Also, the sheer numbers of inbound links do not rule the roost. Google's #1 result (PR8) is actually shown in Google, before Yahoo's #2 (PR10) result.

The Proof For Link Building Is In The Search Engine Rankings

Recently, a fellow who works as a SEO "professional" told me that be believed my link building system was a sham.

I showed him that on the top 51 keyword phrases we use to market our original commercial website, we had 11 number one results, 31 top five results, 34 top ten results, 47 top thirty results, and 51 top 100 results within the Google search results. Additionally, it was shown that only three of those results competed with fewer than one million search results according to Google, with the remaining 48 pages competing with one million to 533 million pages.

Ole boy tore up Google trying to track how it was possible for me to have accomplished what I claimed. He finally concluded that since Google would not show HIM how I was able to rank so well in their search engine results, then I must have been lying.

According to Yahoo, we have over 12,000 links from third-party websites. According to our site statistics, we received traffic from more than 16,000 unique web pages during 2006. And Google still swears that we only have 42 inbound links to our website!

Magic Fairy Dust

My nemesis concluded that since HE could not prove through Google how I was successful in getting good search rankings, then I could not have accomplished such results by the methods I claimed.

Okay, I admit it.

I used the exact same method that Adobe used to get to the top of Google's search engine rankings. I have a pocket full of magic fairy dust. Whenever, I do not like how my websites rank in the search engines, I sprinkle my magic fairy dust on my modem.

If you don't like where you are ranked in the search engines, then I suggest you forego the search engine optimization companies altogether and instead run over to the corner store to get your own magic fairy dust. You might have to shop around a bit, but it is out there.


About the Author:
Bill Platt has been involved with link building since 1999 for his own promotion and for search engine marketing purposes, and he has been doing it professionally for clients since 2001. Visit http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com to learn more. If you would like to talk to Bill in person, he can be reached at (405) 780-7745 between 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday.

Aged Expired Domains-Are They Really Good Enough?

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 John Khu


Determining the real commercial value of an aged domain is quite difficult and tedious. Domain traders make it a point to grab aged domains from auction houses just to taste their hidden powers and commercial advantages. However, experienced and seasoned domain traders always doubt about the commercial viability of such domains. According to domain name experts, considering the actual age of a given expired domain is a very small factor.

Expired domains that are really old, say 12 years, may provide you some undeniable advantages due to their ripe, old age; lot of people can identify its name because of the old acquaintance. Now the big question is why do domain name traders desire the issue of age so badly? Is there something that you and I do not know? One conventional bit of thought says that all good quality domains were registered first and in actuality, they should be too good to be neglected. This seems a valid argument and a sensible issue as far as the issue of age is concerned.

On the other hand, some domain name traders are too skeptical about old domains, just because they may have nothing to offer you, except that they have a past record of continuous and consistent renewal. An old domain may just be a simple domain with no established history of traffic and inbound links. Experts also suggest that an old domain may have belonged to two categories of owners- an established business or industry that will never let their domain slip out of their hands, or an old domain owned by small businesses or individuals, who might have lost their control over their domains due to some unknown reasons.

However, there is one single significant advantage associated with old domains, especially when they relate themselves with the leading searching engines. Google has a verifiable system of grading domain names according to their age; its massive and humongous search technological algorithms ensure that really old domains are placed at their relevant search engine rank positions. However, at what position such domains get their ranking is still uncertain and unsure.

Fixing the actual price for such domains are actually very difficult and you may decide it going by the current market trends, while buying one such domain. However, one thing to note here is that people are ready to pay a fair price for such domains, just to utilize them for developing meaningful web sites. If you wish to buy an old expired domain, ensure that you are checking its age; if the age is more than say 8 years, you can definitely go for it. Age factors can help you find out the quality of generics, as this is a better indicator of finding the value of an expired domain name. Most of the premium and better quality domain names sprout from an internet boom era of late 1990's.

However, buying expired domains based on their perceived age could be a tricky issue and you may need to learn and understand how the age of a given domain expired can really help you in your domain trading business.


About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Are You Looking For A Great Product To Market? Here's Where To Start!

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Acey Gaspard


Finding a product to market takes effort and several defined steps. You could go after the wrong product and end up with a failing business.

I'll discuss my view on this subject and if you take the advice, then you'll be headed in the right direction and find something fulfilling to put your time and effort into.

Doing what you love to do will dramatically increase your chances of success. Don't waste your time and effort on something that's not for you.

Alex loves computers; he can talk about them all-day. He keeps up with the latest trends and technologies. Computers are his passion. Alex has a successful career in selling computers. He's doing something he loves. He could market computers with little effort and he could go nonstop because of his passion for computers. Alex is blessed, because he's doing something he loves. Do you have a passion like Alex?

Many of us may be unaware that we can do much better by marketing something that we are passionate about. Don't look for the hottest products or latest trends to market just because of the money. If you want long lasting success you have to market something you enjoy, something that captures your interest.

Here are a few reasons you should market something you're passionate about rather than just doing it for the money.

When you're marketing something you're passionate about, then you'll find new ideas easily. If you face a setback, you'll always a find away around it. You'll be creative. You're focused and you won't jump at every unrelated opportunity that shows up. You'll be happy while you're working. You'll be working at your peak performance. You'll feel satisfaction when you're successful. You'll enjoy your work.

When you're marketing something you're NOT passionate about, then you'll think of giving up when faced with any glitch as opposed to looking for a solution. You'll be jumping from opportunity to opportunity, cutting your resources short. If you're successful you'll feel a void, because this is not your true purpose. If you work long hours, you'll ask yourself, "Is this worth it?" You'll feel overwhelmed when you need to give it all you've got. Your efforts and creativity are limited.

Here are some simple steps to help identify your true interests

Step 1: Consider the following questions:

What are you good at?
What are you interested in?
What are passionate about?
What do people ask you about a lot?


Step 2: Write down ONE answer for the above questions.

Step 3: Is there a product or service that you THINK the marketplace wants? Write down your answer on the next line.

Step 4: Go to Step 1: and repeat the steps until you have eliminated all other interests.

Step 5: Go over the list and do a little research on what's going on in the marketplace. You can do this by typing in a few keywords in your favorite search engine. For example: Your interest is art. You could type in any of the following: art business opportunity; affiliate program art; art; business art; starting your own art business

Step 6: With a little more knowledge of what's in the marketplace, you now have a better idea of what you want to aim for and what the marketplace wants. Follow your feelings and choose the area that interests you the most.

There is still work, but you are now on the right track. You can put your time and effort into something that you're interested in. Now you can develop or find the best product for the marketplace. You have just dramatically increased your chances of success, because you have a solid foundation and you're pointed in the right direction. Your passion will guide you and push you through any hard times you may face.

That's the way I see it.
To Your Success!
Acey Gaspard

Action Steps When Looking for a Great Product to Market

1. Think about your passions, what brings you enjoyment, what you would do all-day without getting paid for.

2. Take some quiet time and do the exercise above.

3. After you have identified your passion and interest, then you must do research to find or develop a product or service for the marketplace.

Important Points to Keep in Mind When Looking for a Great Product to Market

Doing what you love to do will dramatically increase your chances of success.

Don't waste your time and effort on something that's not for you.

Many of us may be unaware that we can do much better by marketing something that we are passionate about.

Don't look for the hottest products or latest trends to market just because of the money.

Follow your feelings and choose the area that interests you the most.

Put your time and effort into something that you're interested in.

About the Author:
Acey Gaspard has over 20 years of business experience. His site, A Touch of Business.com, http://www.atouchofbusiness.com is steadily growing with well over 1,100 original pages to help you run and market your small business. Get Tips you can use today! http://www.atouchofbusiness.com/tips.html

Using Domains Expired To Make Online Profits

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 John Khu


Good and novelty domain names could be a great asset for you, when you consider their immense commercial value and perceived online utility. When the internet appeared first time, almost year's back, no one knew the potential value of domain names. With each passing day and as the concept of internet grew up down the years, people started identifying the potential money making values of good domains. With the impeding dot com bubble burst, several millions of domain names suddenly became orphaned and lonely over the wide expanse on internet. This was the unfortunate time when millions of net entrepreneurs lost everything they had, and they did not even have enough money to renew those domain names.

However, there were a fortunate lot of intelligent people, who anticipated and visualized the future prospects of holding all these domains expired. Soon, there was a new trend of people, who were racing against time to grab and buy domain expired. A new form of business took its birth, when intelligent domain name traders gobbled up millions of domains expired within days and months.

Why did they purchase such a huge number of domains expired? What were the real reasons? It seems that with the stabilization of internet and net business opportunities, new and enthusiastic people are looking for a good and old expired domain, so that they can use it for developing meaningful web sites. Secondly, trading in domains expired provides unlimited wealth and online riches to people within the shortest possible time.

Right now, people understand and perceive the commercial importance of buying very good domains expired. With a sustained rush for domain names, everyone is trying to test the waters to make some money online. As of now, the demand for good expired domain names is slowly increasing. A good domain name expired can cost you well under $100 to buy and register. But, it is possible to sell the same domain for an amount as high as $300, provided you sell it an auction process.

If you have a series of domains expired at your disposal, you can earn some decent income by using the power of expired domain names. One of the best ways to earn a simple income is to sell it straightaway to an interested buyer. But, with this option, you may not really earn a large income. So, you will need to devise a strategy that will provide you an opportunity to earn more income. One of the most preferred ways of earning small incomes by using domains expired, is to park it with a parking service. Parking service provides you a facility, where you can create a simple web page to host your expired domain name. When online surfers click on your page, they will navigate to other useful web site that can provide very good services, sell excellent products or provide useful online information. For very successful click, you can earn a small income and when pooled, this can be a very big source of income to you.

Other simple methods include registering your domains expired with convenient PPC and affiliate engines that provide a tiny share of income that arises out of successful sales or clicks. You can also use a good expired domain name to build a web site, develop it with good content and later sell them at premium rates to any interested parties. These are some of the simple methods that allow you to use the hidden power of domains expired to make a large pool of income. If you are careful enough in using your expired domains, you can earn a hefty profit and a sustained residual form of income.


About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

A Comparison of Paid Search Advertising Models

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt


As webmasters, we are all chasing customers. We are looking for human visitors to come to our websites and to buy what we are selling.

To serve our needs for targeted traffic --- potential customers --- the search companies have begun to offer us a share of their significant traffic through many paid advertising methods.

The most common advertising offer at the search engines is the PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising model. There are also other search advertising models such as CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) and Featured Listings.

In this article, we will look at the advantages and disadvantages of each advertising method.


PPC (PAY-PER-CLICK) ADVERTISING MODEL

By far, PPC is currently the most popular advertising model. From the buyer's perspective, it is usually the most expensive type of advertising and the one that generates the most fear of fraud. In fact, many experts suggest that click-fraud might be as high as 20 to 25% of all click-traffic.

Pay-Per-Click is exactly what it sounds like. The advertiser bids on keywords and tells the advertising company that they will pay X number of cents or dollars for every click that they receive to their website through the PPC-provider's website.

Advertisers compete for position within the search results with the highest bidder getting the best advertising spot at the top of the results. The second highest bidder gets the #2 spot, etc.

Generally, Pay-Per-Click providers serve three listings on the first page of search results. Only when there is strong competition for a particular keyword term and a number of advertisers vying for placement, will the PPC-provider show results with more than three advertisers.

If you bid the minimum five cents per click (the standard for most PPC systems), then it is possible that you might not see your listing on page one or page two of the search results. Let's face it; PPC providers are interested in making the most money they can from the traffic they send to people. So, if one advertiser is paying a dollar per click and you are only bidding five cents a click, who do you think will receive the best placement? Yep, the one-dollar per click advertiser will get the most attention and the best placement, even if it requires pushing your placement back to page three of the search results.

The top two PPC-providers are:

http://adwords.google.com/ http://www.content.overture.com/d/ - Now owned by Yahoo!

Other not-so-well-known providers of PPC traffic, in alphabetical order, include:

http://www.411web.com/ http://www.7search.com/ http://www.abcsearch.com/ http://www.adbrite.com/ http://www.ask.com/ http://www.brainfox.com/ http://www.enhance.com/ http://www.kanoodle.com/ http://search.looksmart.com/ http://www.lycos.com/ http://www.miva.com/ - Formerly FindWhat.com http://www.search123.com/ http://www.searchfeed.com/ http://turbo10.com/

The biggest advantage to these systems is that they serve large pools of consumers online, and they let you target specific search keywords.

The disadvantages are numerous. Those most often cited include: the high cost of bids for certain keywords, poor conversion rates on purchased clicks, and click fraud (generally regarded as people clicking your link just so they can get paid for it).

Personally, I have paid as high as a dollar per-click for a service that sells for $35, and $20 in volume. I have spoken to others who operate for-profit websites and have paid as much as $2.50 per click on an average keyword. In some really competitive markets, people pay as much as $30 per click.

If you use the Web-Professor bid tool to check keywords at Overture ( http://web-professor.net/tools/bidstats/ ) and you type in the keyword "mesothelioma", you'll find 30 bidders vying for that term and a maximum bid of $29.88 per click! If the maximum bidder converts traffic to sales at the national average of 3%, then he or she is paying an average of $900 to get one client! Insane, but true.


CPM (COST PER THOUSAND IMPRESSIONS) ADVERTISING MODEL

CPM advertising is most often associated with banner advertising, but can now be purchased for text ads as well. This type of advertising is available from many sources, including:

http://adwords.google.com/ http://www.realtechnetwork.com/ http://www.joetec.net/

CPM advertising can be cheaper than PPC, but it fails to address the effectiveness of your advertising copy. Before undertaking a large CPM campaign, you need to be confident your advertising copy will deliver results.

As with any other type of advertising, you need to track click- through and conversion rates to determine the advertising copy that is most effective for your business.

You also need to have a solid understanding of how many impressions it will take to generate a visitor, and how many visitors you will need to generate one sale. And, on the backside, you will need to know what the average earnings from your sales will be. With these stats in hand, you'll know how much you can afford to pay for CPM advertising or any other type of advertising.

Using Google Adwords, you can buy CPM advertising for as little as $2 per thousand impressions. The one time I went that route, thinking my advertising might be cheaper, I ended up dropping $180 in three days with only one sale to show for my investment - -- utilizing the exact same ad that generated a 4% click-through rate (CTR) in Google's PPC advertising system.

The major appeal of CPM advertising is its perceived low-cost, with rates ranging between $2 - $3 per thousand impressions.

The major disadvantage to this type of advertising is that you need a good handle on how well your advertising is performing. Your advertising copy can make or break you. Additionally, you need to keep an eye on your advertising budget. From first hand experience, I can tell you that although CPM advertising can appear inexpensive, it can in short order surpass the costs of PPC advertising.


FEATURED LISTING ADVERTISING MODEL

Featured listings differ from the other two advertising models in that you do not pay for "ad clicks" or "ad impressions". With featured listings, your advertisement appears in the purchased location for 30 days, 90 days, or one year.

Featured listings can be bought on individual websites and even on networks of websites. Below are a few examples of advertising networks that offer featured listings:


Geek Files ( http://www.geekfiles.com/advertising/ )

Geek Files offers various Featured Listing placement options with ad rates ranging from $19 to $179 per month. You get two months free if you buy advertising for a full year.


Aardvark Travel ( http://www.aardvarktravel.net/featured/ )

Aardvark Travel is a travel search engine. Featured listings appear in a colored box between the top five listings and the bottom five listings in the travel-related search results. There is a $50 setup fee for each Featured Listing and a $10 per month recurring charge for as long as you keep your listing active. Aardvark claims featured listings generate 40 times more clicks than any other listings on their pages.


The Independent Search Engine and Directory Network ( http://www.isedn.org/ )

The ISEDN offers a program that allows you to purchase Top Ten exposure for your website(s) across their network of 200 plus member websites.

The network is comprised of specialized search engines, search directories, and article directories. Featured Listing placements for specific keywords are displayed across the entire ISEDN system.

The cost of a keyword term (the word or phrase associated with the listing) is $12 for three months or $36 for 12 months. The price drops for each additional 5 listings you purchase. If you are buying in volume, discounts can be significant. For example, the cost for 16 to 100 listings is $6 per listing for 3 months and $18 per listing for 12 months.

The main drawback to the ISEDN program is that the network, although large, does not yet have the traffic volume of the major engines.

The major benefit, of course, is that you can buy a lot more bang for your advertising dollars. Additionally, you can see your ads appearing on pages in a position that will attract more attention and click-through traffic to your website.


WHICH ADVERTISING MODEL IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

It really depends on your business model. More so, it depends on your absolute click-through averages and your website conversion rates.

Your advertising needs to cost you no more than what it earns for you. Ideally, your advertising will cost less than it earns for you.

Some businesses trade on the lifetime value of customers and are willing to pay more to get customers than what they earn on their first sale, but not all of us can afford to build a customer base in the same way that Amazon built theirs.

If your advertising budget is small, your goal should be to make every advertising dollar count. Grow your business to the point where you might be able to afford some of the more expensive advertising solutions. But then, if the lower-cost solutions generate sales for you, why would you want to pay more?


About the Author: