Real Estate Marketing Online - The 5 Laws of Lead Generation

Here's an Internet marketing observation that may shock you. The average real estate website has more than enough traffic to support the real estate agent's business goals -- but he or she is simply not capitalizing on it.

I've worked with many real estate clients who swore they did not have enough website traffic, based on the fact that they were getting very few leads from their website. After analyzing their website logs or analytics program, I would discover that they had steady streams of web traffic, day after day.

In other words, these folks wrongfully assumed that web traffic equals web leads. This is not the case at all. Traffic equals traffic. You don't generate leads until you put an effective lead generation plan in place. See the mathematical equations below.

• False: Web traffic = web leads


• True: Web traffic + lead generation = web leads

I would say website lead generation is the most important aspect of real estate marketing online. After all, you could own three different websites, blog twice a day, and get 2,000 visitors per week. But without a lead generation plan, all that activity and traffic will do you little good.

To illustrate this point further, I've created a few "laws" of online marketing, based on my own experiences over the years. Apply these laws to your online marketing efforts, and you're bound to generate more leads and more business for your efforts.

Online Marketing Law #1 - Traffic is only an opportunity.

My first law of real estate marketing online states that website traffic is only that ... traffic. Until something is imposed upon it, traffic will remain traffic. In order for traffic to be of value, it must be converted into something else. Hence the term, "website conversions."

Let's imagine you have a lemonade stand beside a busy highway. But your stand is located on a narrow shoulder of the road where there's not enough room for cars to pull over. All day long, cars whiz by you at 45 miles per hour, but nobody stops. You have an endless supply of traffic, but your lemonade stand is a failure because nobody stops. The traffic is right there in front of you, but it might as well be a million miles away.

Opportunity only favors those who capitalize on it.

Now let's get back to real estate marketing online. If your website has plenty of traffic but no form of lead generation, then most of your traffic will pass right by ... like those cars passing the lemonade stand.

So before you fall into the typical trap of obsessing over your website traffic levels, ask yourself this: "What am I doing to capitalize on the traffic I already have? How am I actively converting traffic into leads, and leads into clients?"

Online Marketing Law #2 - Value and response are directly proportional.

In the previous "law," we talked about the importance of a lead generation program. But equally important is the value behind that lead generation program. Your website visitors will remain anonymous until you present something useful and valuable in exchange for their action.

Keep in mind that "value" does not have to mean costly. Property listing updates can be very valuable to home shoppers, and many will sign up to get them. But they don't necessarily cost you anything to produce. In this case, value is conveyed through timely information that's beneficial to the audience (home buyers).

That's just one of many ways to add value to your offer. Whatever path you choose, remember this ... response goes up in proportion to the value of your offer. On the contrary, response goes down with a weaker offer.

Online Marketing Law #3 - Attrition is your perpetual enemy.

In your online real estate marketing program, attrition follows you every step of the way. Attrition refers to people who "drop off" along your marketing process, somewhere between first contact and client acquisition.

Usually, there are several attrition points in any real estate marketing process. The good news is, each point of attrition can be improved that is, you can minimize the number of losses at each step of the marketing path.

Here are some examples of online attrition points, and what you can do to reduce them.

• Attrition Point #1 A lot of highly-qualified prospective clients may never even find your website or blog. But you can counter this by focusing on online PR and search engine optimization (SEO).


• Attrition Point #2 Of those people who do find your website, many will leave if they don't find anything of value. But you can counter this by constantly adding useful content and resources to your website.


• Attrition Point #3 Of those people who (A) find your website and (B) find it useful, some will leave without making contact with you in any way. But you can counter this by using lead-generation techniques on all key pages of your website.

From this brief sample, you can see how attrition shadows all aspects of your online real estate marketing program. On the positive side, you can also see that for every point of attrition, there are things you can do to increase the number of people who continue along in the process.

Online Marketing Law #4 - Successful techniques are not successful for everyone.

A real estate marketing tactic that works wonderfully for somebody else may not work for you. On the other hand, it may work even better for you than it did for the other person.

With any real estate marketing strategy, you have a lot of variables that affect your results. These include the makeup of your audience, the timing, and the way you execute the strategy. You never know what will or won't work for you until you try it. So don't let anyone tell you, "That didn't work for me, so don't waste your time."

There is experimentation, and then theres speculation. Only the former will reveal the truth.

Online Marketing Law #5 - Technology does not change psychology.

Technically speaking, the Internet is a dynamic, ever-changing environment. But while the way we communicate online may change, the communication itself stays the same.

Regardless of how you talk to people, they are still people -- and they are still motivated by the same things as before. You just have more ways to communicate with them than before. Sure, you have to adjust your message delivery to account for new technologies, but the message itself does not have to change.

Whether you communicate with people through email, a blog, a podcast or an old-fashioned sales letter, the following marketing fundamentals still apply:

• People want what's best for them ... online and off


• People will respond to well-presented offer of value ... online and off


• People will ignore a weak message with no value ... online and off

Technology changes the way marketers communicate with consumers. But it does not change the fundamental psychology that leads consumers to take action.

Conclusion
Remember, website traffic is only website traffic until you act upon it. To get those website visitors to act in some way, you need to create a lead-generation program based on value and incentives. If you'd like some help getting started, refer to the website listed below. Good luck with your online real estate marketing!

* You may republish this article online if you retain the author's byline and the active hyperlinks below.

About the Author
Brandon Cornett is the author of several real estate marketing guides. He also provides a variety of Internet marketing services for real estate companies and individual agents alike. You can reach the author and find a lot more marketing tips at http://www.armingyourfarming.com

Where Not To Acquire Links For SEO

We've all heard the popular children's playtime rhyme "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me."

While this may have been true in elementary school, it's definitely not true in the search engine optimization (SEO) game. Why? Because as much we'd prefer not to believe it, search engine algorithms are evolving at an incredible rate, so much so that their ranking algorithms have grown sophisticated enough to evaluate web sites on on the basis of what sites they're connected to.

There's no doubt that link building is a critical component to successful search engine optimization. The reason link building is so important to achieving high organic positioning is that all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask) use link related variables in their ranking algorithms, the complex equations that evaluate a site on a myriad of factors and then use this data to determine which sites appear where on the results pages.

So what incoming link related variables do the search engine algorithms consider?

- Number of Links

- Quality/Origin of Links

- Relevance of Links

- Anchor Text Within Links

- Links Must Present Value to Users

Yet not every link helps. In this article, I'm going to discuss some key concepts related to link building, but more importantly, where not to build links.

As you've read, links are an important aspect of SEO. But not just any link. In fact, the wrong links can hurt you, badly. Now, I'll lay out some false link "opportunities" to avoid, in the process explaining why not every link is a good one, and how some can do far more harm than good.

With growth of search engines, "spamming" has become a serious issue. There are so called "Black Hat SEO" tactics, unfair and unethical methods used to achieve search engine results using certain techniques to influence search engine algorithms.

While the results of Black Hat SEO can be lucrative, eventually they most certainly will result in loss of ranking, or even a black listing of your site (when search engines permanently stop displaying your website in the results).

Now that you're familiar with Black Hat SEO tactics, I'll begin to explore what constitutes valued links in the eyes of the search engines.

But first and foremost, I'll state the First Commandment of link building as passed down from the Pantheon of Search Gods: Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Ask.

LINKS MUST PRESENT USERS WITH REAL, TANGIBLE VALUE.

This renders the definition of a "valuable link" (one that boosts organic positioning) as a link that presents users with relevant information from reputable sources. The definition of the word "link" itself provides additional insight into the way these tools were intended to be used in an online atmosphere. A link is a connection that bonds two separate parts together to form a whole. Links can also be units in a communication system, and thus, should remain relevant, focused, and informational.

So what types of links should you avoid?

- Avoid Links Farms

- Avoid FFA's (Free-For-All sites)

- Avoid Irrelevant Links

- Avoid Reciprocal Links (in most cases)

- Avoid Links to Sites with Lower PageRank

- Avoid Vague Links

- Avoid JavaScrpit redirects

- Avoid Domain Spam and Duplicate Domains

- Never Pay For Links

This brings us to our first SEO no-no. Avoid link farms. These are sites which sell links, often to the tune of "100 links for $100" or something like that. While they were popular in the 1990s before the search engines realized what was happening and added algorithmic countermeasures, now they are essentially worthless, and in many cases, malignant.

Because all the search engines analyze the source of the incoming link, they are all digitally conscious of the reputation these linking sites maintain. If Google, for instance, knows that 50 of your 100 incoming links are coming from known link farms, you'll no doubt incur a heavy penalty that will keep your site out of the top twenty positions. Instead, your site will sit helplessly in a state of online purgatory, stuck somewhere neither here nor there until it atones for its sins against the user.

Your website will no doubt incur the same fate if you participate in FFAs, or Free-For-All sites, which have hundreds of links on each page. The major engines have evolved to penalize this tactic, and now discount links originating on pages that contain a high number of links. So avoid "Link Pages" on your site because the engines may think you're link spamming.

Along the same lines, avoid irrelevant links. But what makes a link irrelevant? An irrelevant link is one that is not related to the content or contextual theme of your website. For example, a link from a computer manufacturing company to a software developer would be relevant, while a link from either of these companies to an auto parts site would not. The major engines are conscious of the content and theme of a page, and they know when sites are simply trading irrelevant links in hopes of increasing their rankings. If anything, such exchanges will only hurt positioning.

These types of traded links are known as reciprocal links due to the fact that they're exchanged, returned, and thus mutually beneficial. But reciprocal links must be relevant and useful or they'll incur penalties.

In many cases, you'll also want to avoid linking to sites with a lower PageRank than your own. This can be seen as additional link spamming, so make sure your reciprocated links are highly relevant. If they are, the PageRank of the link partner shouldn't be your primary concern, as it still presents value to the user.

Another thing to avoid is "vague" links, or links that lack any kind of descriptive anchor text. Anchor text is the underlined, often blue-colored text that indicates the existence of a link. The major engines use this anchor text as a determinant for relevancy, comparing the anchor text to the content of the page the link points to. That's why you want to avoid vague terms when creating links. For more information on anchor text and a list of link building strategies that will help your SEO efforts, click here

For example, if you own a trucking company in Denver, you'd want incoming links to say something targeted like "Colorado Trucking Services - ABC Transportation Company" instead of something like "Denver Trucking." This way, the search engines not only get a better idea of what your site is about and the services your company offers, but users have a more complete understanding of where this link will take them if they click it. Don't make links that require guesswork, or users won't click them. We all want to know where we're going before we leave, so make sure users don't have to surf with a digital blindfold when they interact with your site. Chances are, if you don't optimize your anchor text, users won't click the link.

Yet another tactic to avoid is JavaScript redirects, in which users are sent to a page other than the one they're expecting. Not only do these redirects infuriate users and waste their time, but the search engines have known to take punitive action as webmasters try to "pull a fast one" on them.

Finally, never use domain spam or duplicate domains, which occur when you have multiple domain names redirecting to the same website. Like JavaScript redirects, the search engines are aware of this tactic, and they don't tolerate it.

All of these "Black Hat" strategies may have worked effectively in the past despite their ethical shortcomings, but the name of the game in search engine optimization is innovation. The major search engines are dedicated to providing the most relevant and helpful results to their users, and thus, they look down upon any attempt that would make their search algorithms less effective. "White Hat SEO" is the best way to go for sustainable, long-term results. If you employ "Black Hat" strategies, you're more than likely to get your site "black-listed" from the search results, meaning it will never appear again. And even if that hasn't happened yet, as the search engines continue to evolve it may happen soon.

With Black Hat, you're playing to the tide; no matter what you do, you can't stop it. The waves of change will rush in and destroy your "castle made of sand," eventually.

Moral of the story: Provide users with valuable links that enhance their user experience. If you do, you'll create a loyal user base and the search engines will reward your efforts to improve the domain of online search and the indexability of information. If you don't, chances are you won't be around for long.

Nick Yorchak is an SEO expert and Search Engine Marketing Specialist at Fusionbox, a full-service Denver Internet marketing, web design, and web development company. He can be reached at his Fusionbox email (nyorchak@fusionbox.com) or at (303)952-7490. Click here to check out his expert SEO blog.

Effective Article Marketing Online

Effective article marketing online is a very powerful form of advertising online if done correctly; it is so powerful that some people use it has their only means of marketing on the Internet.

There are a few main reasons good article marketing is priceless. First of all, it does not cost you money. A lot of small businesses have more time resources than money; if this is the case then you might want to take a closer look at article marketing for your business.

Secondly, article marketing online creates very high quality leads for your business. Because of the way in which your readers and views find your article, they are highly qualified to want your product or service. A lot of readers and viewers of your article were looking for the information contained in your article; they did a search in a major search engine or stumbled upon your article while researching a related topic.

This lets you know that any leads from this form of marketing are highly qualified leads for your business. With all that said, there are also certain steps you must take as a savvy article marketer for your articles to get read and have the readers visit your website. Here is one of the most important.

Keep it all relevant- Make sure the title of your article is relevant to the body. If your title is a question, the answer needs to be contained in the body of the article. That's the reason your reader started reading in the first place and that's what they expect from the body.

I wasted 17months trying to drive profitable traffic to my website, but you should not do the same. Instead click here to get a copy of my "Quality Traffic Report". In it I will show you my results after testing article marketing vs. Google pay per click, you can use the results to start driving profitable traffic to your website. You can also visit http://www.qualitytrafficbuilder.com/articlebuilding

Article Marketing: Join The Content Revolution

Do people actually read the text on your site? What is the use of having articles on your site anyways? How exactly does article marketing 'market' your site?

The internet is a big portal where people come to look for information. If you have no information, viewers will leave your site for a better one. When optimizing your site, remember that your website is not the only fish in the lake. There are sharks in there and promoting your site through article marketing is not a bad idea.

So, should you provide content or just dump tons of keywords out there? The answer is 'yes' and 'no'. You should provide great content that uses your keywords efficiently. Keywords are another aspect of promoting your site and it leads the reader to your content.

Once again, if your website is selling tomatoes, you will want to tell the potential buyer about tomatoes and keep him/her interested. You will also want to tell the search engines to direct any tomato seeker to your site by using this 'tomato' keyword more than a couple of times, including your Meta keywords and description; if possible, also as the title of your article.

Not only does article marketing increase your page rank, using links (relevantly) through your article will also increase your link popularity. If you are an affiliate of other websites, this will be the great time to include useful money making links into your article. Although be sure to review the author guidelines prior to submitting to an article directory, as some do not allow the use of affiliate links.

Article marketing can also serve as a basis for your PPC/CPM ads. Certain ads use certain keywords, and articles contain words that can draw traffic and revenue to your site: utilize it. Article marketing extends beyond just writing the articles, you also want people to read these articles and develop an interest in your product.

Now that you have created/bought articles that relate to your website, are keyword optimized, and are informational, you can place it on your site and then submit it to several of the top article directories. Placing relevant content with your links on other relative website are great article marketing techniques that can earn you page views. The best way to approach another web site owner is to ask if they would be interested in an article swap, this way both sites will benefit from the one way back link.

Remember that your articles should be authentic and original. Do not collect articles from free article directories, as those articles have been used over and over again and will damage the link popularity of your website. Instead, write articles yourself, exchange articles, hire a hand, or buy original articles.

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Jeffrey Greer owner of Ever Enterprise, providing marketing solutions and information to assist online businesses. Article Marketing is only one aspect to gaining your online presence. Visit Ever Enterprise today for more ways on gaining the marketing edge on your competition.

2 Unconventional Type Of Opt-In Pages You Can Use To Explode Your List!

It is always good to consider the type of opt-in pages you can create before building your list. There is always the traditional opt-in page with a sales letter format and an opt-in form, but here are 2 more unconventional ways you can use to create an opt-in page to explode your list:

Unconventional Tactic #1: The Video Opt-In Page

This kind of opt-in page has a video at the top. This video can be a tutorial video, or simply a call to subscribe to the list. This video can replace the bulleted points or be an addition to the opt-in page. Video can increase conversion rates. Do your own testing first to decide if video is right for you.

Unconventional Tactic #2: The Content Opt-In Page

This opt-in page provides some content in the form of an article or two before asking for the opt-in. By providing some useful and compelling information that improves the reader's life, he will feel compelled to subscribe to your list to receive more information. This tactic also works well to increase your Quality Score with Google Adwords, if you are using that advertising avenue. Because your page has more content, it is viewed more favorably by Google.

There you go, two kinds of opt-in pages you can test out to boost your conversion rates and subsequently, your list size. Go ahead and build your list now. It's your number one asset in your business. Create a video, or write an article. Act now to build your list!

Fabian Tan is the author of the free 51-Page Report:

"Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!"

Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!

You May Already Have A Niche But Don't Know It - The 1 Minute Lesson

You may already have a product that, by virtue of one of its attributes, would make a great niche product. You look into what is important to this market and create your product/service message and content around that marketing strategy. You don't have to abandon your present business to do this. You can simply set up another site that caters to a more specific audience at the same time and watch the two.

It is easier to see buying patterns, key words and draw from the many customer questions you have gotten to see which attributes are important. You can already tell which customers value your product or service the most. And THAT'S the niche you want. You want the niche that PAYS and VALUES your product.

The key to a niche is good positioning and highly targeted marketing.

Don't create a niche and then do really general advertising and create a generic, boiler-plate website.

Examples: If you already sell instruments, perhaps you target schools band teachers and parents of marching band students. If you are a book seller, perhaps you add a special department on fantasy and science fiction books. If you sell flooring, you might consider a specialty in high end, hardwood flooring that is durable for commercial establishments like law offices, advertising agencies and art galleries that need to project a high end image.

You don't always have to search for a niche. You might be sitting on one as we speak. So go for it!

http://webpreppro.com This eTutorial guides you through the process of creating a website that caters to a target market. It's a start-to-finish plan to get your site on the right track so you can create a foundation for internet success and get rich the slow way.

I'm professional freelance copywriter with 20+ years experience turning marketing strategies into memorable advertising and websites. My clients have included everything from national brands and local businesses. The only common thread in my work over the years from small space print to TV ads, new product rollouts to websites, is that they are all positioned to a target market. I am an SEO specialist that takes that definition well beyond plugging keywords in a headline.

Why You Should Use Article Distribution Services

Article marketing is now integral to all internet marketers. It is one of the best and cheapest ways to build back-links to your site, get your product in front of thousands of prospective customers, and also rank higher in the search engines.

It is relatively straight forward to write an article, and a small amount of research is all that is needed to write a decent ~400 word article in about 15 minutes. However, after you have written your article you need to get it out there in front of your target market.

There are many ways to do this, you can manually submit your article to various news groups and ezines (effective but not quick), or you can post it to a blog and then syndicate the blog feed to loads of different sites (quick but not effective).

There are also several article submission services out there that will post your blog to a set number of sites for a fee. Some of these sites are reputable but a lot of them are known for their problems with spam posting. This reduces their integrity with the search engines and ultimately leads to their demise.

There is one site that ensures all articles are reviewed by real live people, this means that no spam articles will be posted out to the sites that your well crafted article will be getting sent to, thus ensuring the service's integrity on the net.

This service is called Article Marketer - there is a link to it in my bio box. Did I also mention that it has a free subscription option? there are several different ways to join the site, from monthly to three monthly, annually and even a lifetime membership option. I recommend that you join up as a free member and test the waters before you consider paying any fees. When you start to see the profits rolling in from the free service then you can put some of those profits back into paying for an upgrade.

Submitting articles to the right sites is not only time consuming but also quite difficult, as you are never sure which sites are the best. Article Marketer takes all the stress and strain out of article submission, try it free today!

Different Types of Marketing

If you want your company to succeed, at some point you will need to begin marketing your products or services. The old adage that the worst type of advertising is no advertising is still true. No matter what your marketing budget may be, there are many different types of marketing that you can take advantage of. Let's take a look at a few of the more proven techniques that combine low cost with major results.

Online Marketing

Online marketing has opened up incredible avenues for small businesses. Thanks to companies like Google and Overture, you can place ads for your company right along side the big guns at competitive prices. Never before has it been easier to market your business than it is right now.

New forms of online marketing are also making headway. Online video ads are easy and cheap to shoot and give you the kind of exposure that was previously limited to expensive national television campaigns. With low production costs and reasonable pricing, you can run an online video campaign at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.

Offline Marketing

The benefits of traditional marketing cannot be overlooked in our digital age. Many companies are reaping the benefits of combining online and offline marketing techniques. For example, you can use direct mail or local advertising to drive potential customers to your site. This is a great and proven combination that results in increased traffic and better conversions.

You can actually save money on print campaigns by relying on your website to do the actual selling while the print ad can function as a pointer. You'll save money using less words while building brand awareness. Radio ads are still a proven way to increase awareness of your company. If you are new to radio marketing, try placing a sample ad with a local station. They'll be able to assist you in producing your first ad until you get the hang of the process.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful forms of advertising on the planet. The best word of mouth comes from satisfied customers. Go the extra mile for them, and really work towards building relationships with your customers. This will result not only in more leads but they'll keep coming back to you in the future. Try running special promotions or coupons for these regular customers to help them feel that they are special and you'll really be able to continue to build on these relationships in the future.

The best marketing strategies take advantage of all the different types of advertising. By spreading your ad dollars around you can be assured of greater success and better interaction with the public. Start small by combining a special promotion that will run both in print and online avenues at the same time. You can keep track of the success of each method by using coupon codes to see which form suits your company the best.

Insight Bridge connects you to trusted advisors, expert advice and reliable information about self growth, health and fitness, wealth building, sales training, marketing tools, real estate investment, small business strategies and much more...

Generate Website Traffic With Article Marketing

Article marketing is one of the best ways to generate website traffic and improve your listing positions on the search engines. Articles work in four ways to drive traffic to your site and get you seen on Google.

However, before you begin to think how to use articles, you first have to write them. You have two choices here: write your own or have them ghostwritten for you. It doesn't matter what way you decide to go, since the approach is the same whether or not your article is actually written by you or somebody else, as long as you have the copyright and your name is stated as author.

The choice of subject is important. It should be a topic that is fairly popular, since nobody will be interested in an article written on last year's great idea. Article and website generation software, for example, was very popular up to the first half of last year, but when Google's new contextual analysis algorithm started to downlist web pages that did not hack it regarding content, then the popularity of that method of generating web pages and content articles dropped to nil.

Prior to that, articles on the topic were hot, and then suddenly, almost overnight, they were dropped like hot potatoes and authority websites suddenly became the thing. Your article, then, must be topical and well written. You should make sure that there are no glaring spelling or grammatical errors. It does not have to be perfect, and the occasional slip can be tolerated, but the approach that 'as long it can be understood then it is fine' is certainly not acceptable.

In order for an article to be useful to you in generating traffic and improving your website listings you must submit it to article directories. Submit it to as many as you can because you get a one-way link back to your website from each directory you get it published in. Search engines such as Google regard these links to your site as indicating the popularity of your site, and hence its importance and relevance to the keyword for which it is listed. This helps your page ranking, and also its position in the listings for that keyword.

Article directories also allow you what is known as an 'author's resource box'. This is where you provide some extra information about yourself or your website and provide a link to your site. It appears either in form of a box, or as an extra two or three lines of text at the end of the article. You must make sure that the link is to a page on your website that relates to the topic of the article. If you are writing about rubies, then the link should take a visitor to your web page providing information on rubies, and not emeralds. Otherwise, you could lose your visitor.

If the reader wants more information on the topic of your article, they will click on the link and get it. That is potentially a good source of traffic, assuming that your article is good, provides useful information and the reader wants to find out more. You can word the resource box, or the end of the article, to persuade them to click on that link.

If your article is good, then a reader might like it so much as to copy it to a page on their website, dealing with the same or a related topic, to use as content. This gives you two further benefits. First, visitors to the other website could find your article and click on the link you have provided, so providing you with even more traffic. Secondly, you get another one-way link back to your web page from the other person's web page.

Some links from article directories can be very valuable to you because they are from web pages with a high Google page ranking. Page ranking is a measure of the popularity of your individual web pages calculated from the number of other web pages linking to it, and the page rank of these other pages. A link from a page ranked six is worth a lot more than one from a page ranked two. The page rank is shown on the Google tool bar in the form a green line, with a mouse-over numerical figure ranging from 0 - 10. Google itself has a page rank of eight.

To recap, then, article marketing provides you with direct traffic through readers of your article clicking on your link to find out more on the topic of your article. They can do this either directly from your article resource box, or from the website of anyone who copies the article to use on their site.

You also get traffic through the listing on Google and other search engines that will be enhanced according to how many links back to your website you generate from article directories and other websites using your articles. The higher the page ranking of these directories and websites that link to you, then the more benefit they will bring.

Article marketing is currently very popular, and one of the best ways to generate website traffic and therefore enhance your income.

Generate Website Traffic With Article Marketing was originally published at http://www.affiliatemarketinglife.com

Simple Search Engine Optimization - (It Starts with the Code)

Having a proper code architecture is vital to the search engine marketing of a Website.

Simply put, designing an awesome content rich website is not enough. Yes, the site needs to be placed in front of as many potential visitors as possible. There are countless Search Engine Optimization and Placement companies that offer search engine placement services. Unfortunately, many of them focus primarily on search engine submission and keyword tactics while overlooking the most crucial element involving search engine optimization, the ability of your pages to communicate well with the search engines.

It all begins with proper code structure. This article explains how search engines work and how anyone can optimize their website for better search engine placement.

*Note - You DO NOT need to be a Web developer to utilize optimization techniques on an existing Website. Most optimizations can be made by simply changing the location of a few lines of script or adding a word here or there. Create an optimized .html page and save it to your hard drive and you'll have a template prepared for future projects.

One of the main rules in a ranking algorithm, often referred to as a "crawler" or "spider", involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page.

Search engines will also check to see if the search keywords appear near the top of a web page, such as in the head section or within the first few paragraphs of text in the body section. They assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those keywords right from the beginning.

Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Pages that contain a keyword with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.

Search engines may also penalize pages or exclude them from their cache all together if they detect search engine "spamming." An example of this is when a word is repeated hundreds of times on a page in an attempt to increase the frequency and to move the page higher in the listings. Search engines watch for common spamming methods in a variety of ways, including following-up on complaints from search engine users.

The following "on the page" optimization techniques will greatly improve an existing Website's ability to communicate well with the search engines:

JavaScript!

It doesn't matter for what purpose you utilize JavaScript, (drop-down menus, pop-ups, etc.), place the script at the end of the HEAD section or place it in a separate file altogether that is "included" on your page. This will move the important content closer to the beginning of the page and will improve the keyword location.

Make sure that the Title tag is the first tag in the HEAD section of your page!

It needs to be placed before all other tags, otherwise search engines will overlook it which will have a negative impact on your rankings.

Make sure that your Title tag does not contain "stop" words!

Words like "and, on, a, the, for, to, about, are, that, were, by, of" and other auxiliary words are too common and search engine algorithms don't take them into consideration. By using a stop word in your Title tag, you will damage your rankings.

Your keyword should be as close to the beginning of the Title tag as possible!

Move your keyword closer to the beginning of your Title to emphasize its importance and to greatly improve its prominence.

META name="keywords" content="less is more"!

Choose your keywords carefully, (6-10 max.), and place them in order of importance in this tag. Too many keywords in this tag will take away from the importance, relevance and position of every word in the tag.

Does your page contain enough text?

Pages that contain mostly FLASH or other ephemeral web-based applications often contain little or no text because the text is contained inside of the application, not on the page itself. This can make a page completely transparent to search engines. Each page should contain at least 150 words of visible text within the BODY section.

Are any of your keywords in bold?

When you utilize a bold font on a particular keyword or keyword phrase that is located in the BODY section, you are telling the search engines that you place a high level of importance on them. Therefore the search engines will consider those words or phrases to be more important than those in regular font.

Make sure that H1 tags contain keywords!

H1 or heading tags are very important to search engines. Place keywords and keyword phrases within heading tags.

Make sure that ALT= tags contain keywords!

The ALT= tags at the end of image links should contain keywords and keyword phrases.

Is your keyword present in the URL?

If your URL points to an established and high-ranked web page, do not alter your URL. However, this factor is worth considering when you create new pages / Websites. Search engines are favorable towards keywords in the URL. Just remember to use them sensibly and not to abuse them. When optimizing a page for a key phrase, separate the keywords in the URL with a hyphen, (web-site.html), or with an underscore, (web_site.html). Don't write them in one word. The search engines will understand it only as a single word.

"Off the page" criteria

Over the years crawler-based search engines have had plenty of experience with webmasters who consistently rewrite their web pages in an attempt to gain better rankings. Some determined webmasters may even attempt to "reverse engineer" the location/frequency systems utilized by a particular search engine. Because of this, in addition to location/frequency methods all major search engines now utilize "off the page" ranking criteria. Webmasters can't easily influence these factors.

Primary among off the page criteria is link analysis. By analyzing how pages link to one another, a search engine algorithm can determine two things:

- The topic of the page itself - Whether or not the page is "important", (thus deserving of a ranking boost)

In addition, sophisticated techniques are used to screen out attempts by webmasters to build "artificial" links that are designed to boost their rankings.

Another off the page factor is click-through measurement. A search engine may monitor what results a search engine user receives after a particular search and what clicks are made by that user. Eventually the search engine will drop high-ranking pages that aren't attracting clicks, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do. Just as with link analysis, systems are utilized to compensate for fake links generated by over zealous webmasters.

Give these simple optimization techniques a try and I think that you will be pleased with the results.

J.C. Hurst is the IT/Internet Marketing Director for The Ziegler Corporations.

You may contact J.C. at 800.726.0510 -or- jchurst@zieglerdynamics.com

Article Marketing as an Effective Way of Promoting a Web Based Business

There are many ways of promoting a web based business. One of the most effective ways is to promote you website or product is by launching an article marketing campaign. Article marketing is one of the internet marketing methods which can generate the best targeted results for you. This is really important because if the means of promotion is not effective, the product will not get the required level of promotion and will not do well. Article marketing is also one of the best ways of promoting a web based business or selling a product online. Targeted article marketing is not only cost effective but can bring you highly targeted, ready to buy visitors.

Online article marketing can be done successfully by writing a lot of articles on a daily basis and by submitting these to the right article submission directories. Submission of articles to the right directories is as important as writing really good content about the topic. The technique of writing a really good and content rich article that will answer the reader's question is something you need to learn if you want to write informative articles quickly. The words you use should be your own as online article marketing is very much dependent on the originality and quality of your articles.

Write as many articles as possible, organize them properly and submit them to the right article directories in the right order and you will have a successful article marketing campaign.

Want to learn more about how I do it? Download my free guide here: Email List Building Secrets

Do you want to learn how to drive massive traffic to your website? Click here: Traffic Generation Secrets

Mike Upshaw is an experienced internet marketer specializing in list building, traffic generation, article marketing and affiliate marketing. http://www.secretstointernetprofits.com

Flyer Printing The Right Way -8 Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategies, from conceptualization, production to distribution, entails a lot of brainstorming, hard work, and of course, a considerable amount of money. To this, there is always the reliable, highly-effective and cheap flyer printing.

Flyers are of course all too common. You might raise an eyebrow or two. You might even say, Why flyers? Well, the answer to this is, Why not? Weve all seen flyers in our lifetime and there lies its strength.

A flyer is a marketing and advertising tool which marketers mail, hand out, post and even leave on car windshields. It works by reaching wherever prospects are and where they flock. It is a very inexpensive, convenient, and hard working media which can be used by just about anyone.

It looks simple but with the tons of flyers being handed out to customers everywhere, tendency is the flyers go straight to the garbage bin.

Even if flyers do not cost businesses too much money unlike other print media, its purpose will be all for nothing if it is not designed to communicate effectively. It will be utterly futile if your flyers looked as though it did not have anything important to say to your target market.

While effective flyer design may not happen overnight, below are different ideas on how you can manage print successfully and essentially, boost your sales up.

1. Photographs are such sensory and interest stimulators. A good photograph can, as they say, is worth a thousand words. Such that a great photograph can communicate to tell a whole story, carry the theme and the feel that you want to impart to your readers.

2. Another great idea is use your photographs to communicate an idea, a need or a wish to attract your clients. Showing them a positive photograph with desirable results from your products is an effective motivation.

3. Prospects are the quickest ones to drive away. There is nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about your products or services, but making unrealistic claims make it look like just a complete sham. It can also look too desperate. Make statements that any smart buyer would want to hear.

4. In flyer printing the layout must be kept simple. Two typefaces are enough to avoid visual confusion. Remember, your visuals should help communicate your ideas and thoughts, not otherwise.

5. Illustration and other design elements are an attractive way to build your message. Experiment with your choice of colors and how you space your fonts.

6. Your message in flyer printing can be more readable, noticeable and even more organized with boxes and borders. To this, you can also maximize your space properly and include several important information.

7. Just like any other media, the center of attention on your flyers must be established. Make sure you downplay certain parts or designs which take away the attention from the main image or text of your flyers. This focal point, which can be a picture of your product, must be the single most dominant visual element the position, size or intensity should be played up.

8. It is easy to get bored with your marketing message especially when you notice other flyers which seem to sound or look the same. Stick to you marketing campaign plans. It can take you a longer time to make a new concept that will fit your other plans than improving your original concept. In this way, you can be on time with your campaign.

Flyer printing is one of the many media you can use to up your sales activity. When combined with other print products, you can see for yourself just how effective it is to choose wisely and print wisely. Build up your flyer printing strategies now and forge ahead.

Flyers have been an advertising campaign material for decades now, it has been a proven material that can generate leads to your product or services. For more Flyer Printing advices and tips you can go to Flyer Printing Company - Uprinting