A Better Website

As you know from previous articles, I’m a big fan of link building because it increases your link popularity and therefore increases the visibility of your website in the search engines.

Today we are going to look at the other side of the coin, how you can sell links on your site to obtain some revenue.  There are a number of services out there for link selling, however many of them are difficult to use, and getting into some of the programs appears to be a matter of luck.

No such issues with http://www.teamlinknetwork.com/ who have a very well laid out FAQ that answers all the questions you could possibly have about selling space on your website, what it takes to get into the program and how much you can earn from being inthe program.  The sign up form is easy to fill out, pretty painless, only takes a couple of minutes and you can be up and running with passive income from your site!

Eventually I’m hoping that the majority of my income will come from paid links, so I can reduce the amount of sponsored posts and reap the rewards of building a good website that gets good traffic.   If you are after a program that pays, wek after week…  then this is definitely a program you want to look into!

All the products that you want to sell online are ready.  You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site.  Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman.  But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare?  Maybe none.  But how about your landing pages?  Are they all set for your business?

Read more »

Way back in the ancient days of blogging (like.. a year ago) folks got really upset about the amount of SPAM that commenters were leaving on their blogs.

As you know, I use blogs extensively in my marketing, and simply because I like writing in them, and I think that there are huge advanatages using blogging over regular websites for online marketing.

Anyway. back to the nofollow tags.  To combat the SPAM the providers of blogging software started using “nofollow” tags in the comments section so that seach engine spiders wouldn’t follow the links, and this should have, in theory, got rid of the spam becuase it was supposed to have become worthless in search engine terms.

Unfortunately, this didn’t have the desired effect, and SPAM continued, unabated.  The thing it did stem tho’ were useful comments on folks blogs, which is a real shame!  Over the course of the weekend, I will be installing a plugin on this blog to remove the “nofollow” tag.  This means that all of your comments will be spiderable!

So comment away!

One way to get a better website is to get educated and build yourself one!  Actually, education is never a waste and can certainly help with your online and offline endeavours.  You can even take courses in running small business on the web.

Finding the courses is the had part, and this is where sites like directoryofschools.com comes in handy.  You don’t need to go out and find all of the information yourself, they have it all in the one place..  Since 1999, DirectoryofSchools.com has connected over 21,000,000 potential students to accredited online schools and e-learning information. More than 8,000 online degree and professional certificate programs in over 1,300 schools represent the commitment of DirectoryofSchools.com to excellence in online education through its partnerships with universities, colleges and trade schools.

So if you are looking to get an online education, you really really need to visit the directory of Schools website!

Link popularity is cruical to your success in online marketing.

Link popularity is basically getting more “linky love” so that you get better results in the search engines.  The search engines will use the number and quality of links that point to your site as a “popularity contest”.. the site that is the most popular is deemed to be superior to it’s peers and therefore gets a better ranking in the search engines.

There are a few ways of increasing your link popularity, and unfortunately there is no way around it, building link popularity either involves buying links, which is expensive, or writing articles, wapping links with other web master etc… all of which takes alot of time.   There is no quick fix in the linky love game, I’m afraid.

I ersonally build links slowly, a rush of links from an agressive buying program can set off alarm bells inthe search engines, who may, ironically, penalize you for building links too quickly. 

I build links two main ways:

(1) Exchanging links with other web masters / bloggers, either by contacting them directly or using a link swapping service.  (I also comment on other folks blogs.)
(2) Writing articles and submitting them to article directories

Slow and tedious, but I think it gives me the best results and looks the most “organic” and “natural” to the search engines.

Many of today’s marketing gurus will tell you that “the money is in the list..” and this is true for almost every kind of internet business you could imagine.   Your list keeps you in contact with your prospective buyers and gets your name in front of them in a regular basis, becuase you are sending them useful information in your eZine.  (Aren’t you?  If not.. you need to be!)

So how do you get people to join your list?

You incentivise it.  By this, i mean you offer them some kind of free benefit for joining up.  Maybe that is inthe form of a free eBook, discount voucher or whatever else you think would make a nice little sweetener for folks to persuade them to hand over their email address.  Incentives offered this way, such as an eBook, don’t have to cost you anything at all.

So, if you are having difficulties getting people on your lists, you might like to look at giving them a small incentive to do so.

If you are thinking of going on holiday, like me, you are often put off by having to organise it all.. so you just end up going to the same place every year.  Pretty boring eh?

Well, get yoursel out of that rut with www.thinkflorida.co.uk. Thinkflorida provides a rental car service, ticket service and an online booking service for Private Pool Homes, Condo’s and Town Houses in the Disney area.  Each unit is separately featured with 15-20 pictures of each unit, floor plans, all amenities and the 360 tour of all main area’s, inside and outside, of the property.

So if you want to go somewhere new, and get a good deal into the bargain, you can rent an Orlando Holiday Villa with very little fuss through the site.  And as everything else is right there on the site for you, there is no reason at all why you can’t have a great holiday at a great new destination!

There is alot of software out to choose from that you can use to build your newsletter or eZine subscription list.

There are a few features you need to look for when subscribing to one of these solutions.  The main two that I think are important, are double opt-in and import/export.

Firstly – double opt-in is the industry standard for email based subscriptions around the world, however you would be really surprised to know that many of the software vendors out there do not offer this as a part of their product.  9shame on them!)  you want to make sure that folks can do a double opt-in.  Double opt-in means that people cannot be subscribed to your newsletter without their knowledge.  TWhen you sign up, you are sent an email with a link that you need to visit to complete the sign up process.

The other functionality I look for is the ability to import and export your mailing lists.  At some stage, you might want to sell your list, or you might buy a list and being able to import it is invaluable.

Most of the big marketing names use http://www.aweber.com, so they might be worth checking out.

Often on sites like this we throw the term “eZine” around, but many people are not sure exactly what we are talking about and why it would matter.

The word “eZine” is short for “electronic magazine”.  It is basically a newsletter that a marketer or business owner sends out via email.  I subscribe to alot of different eZines, most of them have to do with being an entrepreneur on the web, and web marketing.  These can be invaluable.  Often, however I find that after a few informative posts, the author basically just uses their list to advertise to me, all the products they are an affilliate of.   Pretty soon I unsubscribe, because junk email I signed up for, is still junk!

If you are interested in setting up an list to sell to, you really need to make sure that there is some intrinsic value int he information that you send people on a regular basis.  If all they see from you is advertisements for the “latest and greatest” products, you will lose your subscribers very quickly.

All magazines have content – because nobody will buy a magazine that is simply full of advertisements.  Don’t expect people on the web to be any different!

you may know how important it is to get the word out about your restaurant.  So many restaurants have great websites, the only problem is that nobody ever looks at them and they have turned into a big waste of money!

Don’t waste your money on a website that nobody will ever see.. follow the lead of many Montreal Restaurants and get your details out there where real people are going to see them by putting them on tabledhote.com.   To boost your visitors even further American restaurants subscribing to Tabledhote.com also become member of www.restaurant911.com .Canadian restaurants are exposed on Restaurant911.ca , restaurants in the UK Restaurant999.com, European restaurants are included in Restaurants112.com, restaurants in Australia Restaurant000.com , for Restaurants in Asia Restaurant119.com.

So get the word out and get a listing!

« Previous entries Next entries »