On April 29, I reported that just using Twitter as a mechanism to increase your blogs rankings in the Search Engines wasn’t going to work, simply because the Twitter links are marked “No Follow”.

So, to continue my SEO experiment, I left my blog running and turned on pinging services. The results are far more interesting.
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A few days ago, I asked the question ” Is Twitter A SEO Tool?” and concluded that the Jury was probably out.

The question was again posed on the Women Internet Marketers Social Network they other day and, as part of that discussion, we decided to test the premise.
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A light hearted escape for this post.

What happens when you are trying to record your weekly Podcast and your husband decides to that it might be “cool” to record a promotional video for his business, particularly focussing on the Google natural search results? Well, take a look and enjoy.
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A great article on The Adventures In Internet Marketing today - Greatest Traffic Secret Google Loves

Do you know what it is? Warner Carter writes an excellent article that supports my previous blogging articles saying that Unique Content is King.

Read more…..

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Seen in my trip around the blogosphere this morning, a tactic being used by NetSol that could well get its customers banned by Google. Are you affected?

Take a look at the article linked above. In short, NetSol are using tactics to find wildcard subdomains for any domain that is using their DNS service, to find any subdomains that do not already have an explicit DNS entry.
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I have just read Jordan McCollums post titled SEO Trademarker Responds: Community Standards
, a follow on from an earlier post this week Are You About To Lose The Right To Call Your Work SEO, by the same author.

In a nut shell, Jason Gambert has made application to trademark the term SEO. Should he be successful, Jason will be solely responsible for how and where the term SEO is utilised.

The move has left many people wondering why. Well, Jordan reports today that Jason states:

I am helping the search engine marketing community establish an approved SEO process, which can be sold as an “SEO service.”

Jordans two articles are well worth the read to understand more of the rhetoric.
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Whilst Blog marketing is potentially very lucrative, it requires persistence and continual work. With Blog marketing, you must post regularly, about topics pertinent to your market, so that it will become popular and everyone will want to read it. It can become quite difficult to post new and interesting topics to your Blog to keep it fresh. Here are some ideas to use on your own Blog.

ORIGINAL CONTENT

Yes, good content is something you need for your Blog, everyone agrees on this. However, the good content must be original content as well.

If you use content that you don’t have the rights to and don’t give the appropriate credit to, you are plagiarising someone elses work. Not only could this cause severe legal issues, it will cause problems with Google.

Whilst you can pick up Private Label article packs on just about any topic, it is imperative that these be “rewritten” so that your content is new and different. This can be extremely time consuming. Personally, I use the base content of the PLR article packs to give me ideas on what to write and write my own content.

INTERVIEWS

One way to post new and interesting content to your blog is to interview people relevant to your chosen niche and post the transcript to your blog. Be sure to make your interviewee is appropriate to your Niche though. For example, if you wanted to do an interview on Search Engine Optimization, you may interview Brad Callen (developer of the fantastic Keyword Elite and SEO Elite toolkits). An added bonus to the interview would be to record the interview itself and provide an MP3 download - I personally love these options, as I am often out and about and will download the MP3 file to my mobile phone and listen to the interview whilst driving.

NEW AND BREAKING NEWS

Posting about news in your market is a fantastic way to update your content. Let’s face it, your readers are reading your blog because they like to be current. Posting about current events in the market will give your readers just another insight into that market. Keep in mind though that the more current the news, the better - no one wants to read old news.

CONTESTS

You could run various contests on your blog. Make them fun, so people will keep coming back. People love to win things and by making the prize relevant to your market, you will ensure that your readers are those that you are targeting.

PRESS RELEASES

Send out a Press Release! You can write one yourself or have it written for you. There are many organizations that will write a Press Release for you at a discount, if you use their submission process.

COMMENTS

Having your readers comment on your blog is an equally important aspect of your Blog marketing. Try to respond to every comment on your Blog and make sure that you answer any questions that are posed in the comments. By showing that you are willing to interact with your readers and proving that you are knowledgeable, you will encourage your readers to return time and time again.

LINKS TO OTHER RELEVANT BLOGS AND WEBSITES

One of the metrics used by Search Engines to determine a Blogs relevance is to analyze the number of links from external sites. Of course, these links have to be relevant to the market, and keywords, you are targeting. However, the more links the better. Exchange links, get one way links, and ask for more and more links. You will never have enough links to your blog - just make sure they are relevant to your market and keywords…..

CONCLUSION

By following the proven, tried and true techniques that other bloggers teach, you won’t go wrong. Just don’t give up and keep on marketing because it will pay off sooner or later.

RESOURCES

Brass Ring Blogging

Blogging to the Bank

I’ve also put together a fantastic package of tools that has a number of Blogging tools. See my Christmas Offer.

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So just what is Search Engine Optimization? I am often asked by my friends to explain it. My friends also use seem to use the terms AdWords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) interchangeably. The first thing I clarify is that AdWords is not SEO! I feel that AdWords is more appropriately called Search Engine Marketing (SEM). I’ll post on this later, today I’m focussing on SEO.

One of the articles I read recently, defined Search engine optimization as the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines. This is true however, I go further to say that SEO is art of creating webpages that rank highly (preferably within the top 3, at least in the top 10) in a natural search. To do this, it is necessary to understand how a site is indexed by Search Engines. You also need to realize that the “rules” around indexing is changing constantly and you will need to keep up with this.

Whilst the constant rule changes are frustrating, I take the view that ultimately the Search Engines are just trying to deliver high quality results to their user base, and therefore, it is better for us.

SEO has evolved a lot. In the middle of the 1990s webmasters and search engine content providers started optimizing websites and all they had to do was provide a URL to a search engine and a web crawler would be sent from the search engine. The web crawler would extract link from the webpage and use the information to index the page by down loading the page and then storing it on the search engines server. Once the page was stored on the search engines server a second program, called an indexer, extracted additional information from the webpage, and determines the weight of specific words. When this was complete the page was ranked.

Now, it’s not so simple. Some providers try to mislead the search engines to get their sites to rank highly in natural searches for unrelated keywords and the like. Search engine providers have had to get more sophisticated in reviewing pages to determine how they rank in the results.

Whilst Search Engine providers won’t publicize the exact algorithms they use to rank pages however, it is generally understood that the signals that typically used are; keywords in the title, link popularity, keywords in links pointing to the page, PageRank (Google), Keywords that appear in the visible text, links from on page to the inner pages, and placing punch line at the top of the page.

Now understanding all of that, it should be a little easier to understand how the indexing process works and your site can be optimized.

A site is indexed by a “Spider”. The “Spider” essentially reads the text on your webpage from top to bottom. This is one reason why using a high graphic, low text page is not recommended. To try to visualize how your site is “Spidered”, open up a browser and have a look at how the page displays.

• At the very top of the Browser window, near the browser logo, the Title of the page should be displayed. The Spider reads this text.
• As the Spider reads down the page, it should then reach the URL bar and it reads the web address of the page.
• The Spider then reaches the text of the page. Text that is highlighted on the page in Heading tags, bold or strong tags, italics etc is given more attention.
• In places where graphics appear, the Spider will only see a blank space. That’s why ALT tags are so important.

Given that the Spider reads the site, it is extremely important to use the appropriate keywords / keyphrases in the right way on your page. This then makes Keyword selection paramount to great search engine rankings. Take time to define your niche segment and research extensively the keywords that appropriate to that segment. Google provides a great keyword selection tool that also looks at synonyms, whilst providing comparisons on the number of competitors and searches conducted for each word.

You can conduct your keyword research manually, or you can automate the process. I have done several projects where the keywords I have researched the keywords manually. After doing so, I recommend automating the process. Have a look at Keyword Elite and SEO Elite which has been developed by Brad Callen to simplify the process.

I’ve recently launched a SEO site, which provides more information on SEO. Visit the site and grab the free SEO package I’ve put together - three free EBooks:

Search Engine Optimization Made Easy;
Keyword Elite Case Study;
Google Adwords Made Easy.

Visit http://seo.arvoreentreasures.com/ to get your free EBooks.

Next time, I’ll discuss Blogging and use of Social Networking sites to raise your search engine rankings.

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Given the Blogging and Adsense Giveaway that has started, I thought it was appropriate to write about Blogging today.

Blogs which are also known as web logs are still relatively new on the internet. They are pretty much a platform that you can use that will allow you to post your thoughts on most any subject that you want to. They can be used for journaling, promoting, writing, and publishing, anything that your heart desires.

For people who are new to blogging as well as marketing, there are some very important things that you will want to know.

Blog marketing can be pretty easy, particularly if you have a marketing mind. You are going to find that many people use blogs as a diary, and many times these blogs that are used for this purpose are not intended to make them money, but simply a way to put their thoughts out there and find others that are going through the same thing.

If you have never had a blog before, why not start one and just journal in it for a while. This will allow you to learn just what it takes and what it is all about to keep up a blog. When you are just journaling your thoughts and what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. You don’t even have to make your blog public if you don’t want others to read what you have to say. That is a personal preference. However, doing this will let you see how it works. Then you can move on to trying to market a product or a service.

Personally, I find journalling a pain and found it much easier to choose a subject that I enjoyed and write about it. I enjoy Movies and designing websites, so I write about those.

Using a blog to market something is generally less expensive than using a website. This is because there are so many free ones out there that you can use to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for. There are of course some advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free Blog will work until you get the hang of it and want to move it all over onto your own server.

One of the drawbacks of the free blogs is that it is just not that customizable. If you are not familiar with HTML, you are going to find that your blog will look like everyone else’s. But, that is ok in the beginning. You can always make changes later on once you are becoming successful.

When you have your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted on it. You can decide what is said, and what is not. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. Whether you want a blog that does website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make out of your home, the choice is yours. Using a blog to get the word out about whatever you want too is a great way to market and promote something.

Blog marketing can get complicated if you let it but it is really only as hard as you make it. While there are some bloggers out there that are making a six figure income with the use of blog marketing, we all know that it can be done. We just want to know how. Well, for any beginner, start small, and be consistent. The six figure bloggers all did. They started with one, built it up, and then added another blog, built it up. Then, keeping up both blogs and not letting them fall behind, they continued to add more and more. Of course they had help, and they outsourced a lot of their work. If you are looking to make a massive income with blogging, you will need some help.

Blog marketing is a great thing to learn. If you can sell things from a blog, you can sell them anywhere. Making money by using a blog is one of the most satisfying things that you will ever learn how to do. Just do not expect to make money over night, know that you have to work at it consistently everyday, and remember to put into it what you want to get out of it.

Search Engine Rankings

Blogging is also a great way to improve the Search Engine Rankings for your website. By updating your Blog regularly, with related information , the Search Engine spiders will love you and, as long as you use links to your website, your website will be indexed right along with your Blog….

Great Tools

If you want to improve your blogging skills, check out the Blogging and Adsense Giveaway - there’s heaps of items there for FREE. Click Here.

Other Resources

Always keep an eye out for Giveaway events - these are a great way to develop your knowledge base. I keep Giveaway events updated on my JV page.

The latest Giveaways are:

Free Video Products

EBiz Launch Pad

Big Thanksgiving Giveaway

More great resources for developing your business are Public Domain works. Public Domain Prowler helps you find Public Domain works easily. Check it out here.

Also, check out the EBooks that I have for sale here - there’s a wide range of titles.

Please leave a comment on blogging, giveaway events or Public Domain works……

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Website Design

Your website is the virtual representation of your company, whether your company exists physically or not.  Your website is essentially the hub of your online business.

People do judge you by “your covers”.  When you are doing business online, people cannot see you physically, as they could if they were dealing with a bricks and mortar company. This is why a good website design is important.

If you are running a bricks and mortar company, would you allow your salespersons to dress in shabby or casual clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff wear professionally, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality. This works simply because first impressions matter.

Similarly, it is the same with your website. If your website is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute “quick fix”, you are literally shouting to your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care for quality.  Conversely, if your website looks professional, you give your visitors the perception that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organised, focused and you really mean business.

Statistics show that most online visitors take approximately 7 seconds to decide whether this is a site they wish to visit.  A well designed site helps with making this decision easier.

The other thing to consider with a good design is the “other things” that represent your company. From business cards to letterheads to promotional brochures, every little bit matters. This is because as you grow your business, these items become the face of your business.

For more information on website design visit:
http://webdesign.arvoreentreasures.com/ and sign up for the design newsletter.

For great business cards and other printed material visit Vistaprint

Christmas is just around the corner

I was in the supermarket the other day and noticed that Christmas decorations are out! I guess that means that Christmas isn’t all that far away.

It’s time to start thinking about your Christmas Cards, Lights and gifts.  How about a letter from Santa?

Visit the Arvoreen Treasures Christmas Store for some great ideas.

Be Entertained

I have recently launched a number of Entertainment related sites.  Why not visit them:

Music and Movie Downloads

Free Game Downloads - download a new game everyday

Audio Books - visit my Audible store and  download your favourite books in audio format.

The Entertainment Giveaway - get heaps of free stuff

Weekly Freebie

List Building and Traffic Generation Tips - Here’s your chance to listen in on this short but info-packed marketing training call as two of today’s most respected online marketers Simon Hodgkinson and Jeremy Gislason reveal all . .

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