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7 Components of a Killer Squeeze Page that Gets Thousands of Leads

2010-07-12T05:05:00.000-07:00

Build a list! You’ve heard it before. As an Internet marketer, email is by far one of the most effective channels to reach potential customers. Almost everyone with a computer has an email account – and they check it often for new messages. If you’re able to penetrate into people’s inboxes (with permission, of course), you’re much more likely to get your audience’s attention for the opportunity to present your offers.

The bigger your list, the better. As your pool of targeted leads grows, you develop a solid foundation that’s not affected by how much search traffic Google sends you or how many of your blog posts go popular on social media sites. Sure, all of the marketing strategies help, but a big targeted list means you already have a high quality customer base you can market to over and over again at will. In other words, your job as an Internet marketer becomes easier and much more stable.

So why wouldn’t you develop your list? Every type of online business (including blogs, e-commerce sites, membership sites, forums, etc) can benefit from email marketing. Now is the time to get started if you haven’t already. I recommend Aweber as your autoresponder service to manage your email campaigns.

How to Build Your Email List to Massive Size

Okay, now that you understand the huge benefits of building an email list, the next question is, how? Do you just put up a random email form in the sidebar of your website? Or is there more to it than that?

The first step is to come up with a compelling free offer. What can you provide your potential customers that will entice them to give up their email addresses to get it? After all, you can’t expect people to sign up for no reason – especially with email spam running rampant. Free instant downloads of digital products like e-books, audio, video, and software demos tend to work best as long as you’re providing real value. A little bit of hype helps too. Just make sure you’re able to back it up. Here are some ideas for free products you can use.

If you haven’t noticed, my free ebook, The Winning Way – Ultimate Checklist of 500+ Proven Internet Marketing Strategies, is my offer to build my list for this site. So far, it’s worked incredibly well – netting me around 2,000 email subscribers over the past year without doing much promotion off site.

After you’ve figured out what you’re going to give away, the next step is to create a squeeze page that’s optimized to maximize sign ups (we’ll get more into this in the next section). You’ll then drive traffic to the page via banner ads, paid search ads, blog promotions, SEO, etc and tweak the set up as you go along.

The Squeeze Page

So what exactly is a squeeze page? It’s a destination where visitors land, created for the purpose of getting them to opt in and give up their information (name and email address).

Believe it or not, there are a lot of intricacies involved and the best squeeze pages are those that have been split tested countless times to maximize conversions. For example, a slight change in layout, a tweak in the headline, or even a new color can have drastic effects on the sign up rate.

Some great examples of squeeze pages are below. In fact, you may already be familiar with some of them.

Facebook.com
I’m sure you’ve seen this one. In fact, you probably signed up. Facebook has XX million users and this simple yet effective homepage played a part in that.

DoubleYourDating.com
Eben Pagan is well known for the design of this squeeze page – which is the first step in the sales funnel of his $20 million per year dating business.

TheMotleyFool.com
This is a popular investing information site. The form is very simple, and the headline leaves you wanting more.

SqueezeTheme.com
This is a squeeze page created by Unique Blog Designs for their upcoming WordpressSqueeze Theme. It looks pretty good. Gotta practice what you preach.

All of the above pages look very different, but they share some common characteristics that help them to generate a massive number of sign ups.

7 Components That Every Squeeze Page Should Have

1. Simple layout
First of all, make the layout of your squeeze page simple – no frills. Include a headline, maybe a paragraph of text or a short video, a sign up form, and submit button. That’s it. Make sure everything is above the fold and eliminate all distractions that may prevent users from signing up (e.g. external links, unnecessary images, clutter, etc).

2. Catchy, attention-grabbing headline
The headline is probably the most important component of the squeeze page. If there’s just one thing that a visitor reads, it’s the headline so make it count and entice people to continue on in the process. The best headlines are at the top of the page, big and bold (red usually works well) and are focused around people’s emotions.

3. A play on emotions
Simply put, emotion sells. Find out the hopes and dreams of your target audience and deliver on that. For example, don’t just offer an ebook with a bunch of information. Provide a manual to gain confidence with women. Or a method to finally make money online. Or a guide on how to get accepted by a dream college. You get the idea.

Also, be sure to touch on as many emotions as possible when writing your copy. Fear and urgency work best when trying to get people to take action.

Here are some examples.

Urgency: “Special limited time offer for the next 50 subscribers only.”

Fear: “3 out of 4 people lose money in the stock market. Find out how you can be in the top 25%.”

4. Selling on benefits
When describing your offer, sell on benefits not on features. In other words, explain how you will fulfill subscribers’ needs and desires. As the old marketing quotes goes, people want a hole not just a drill. Visitors don’t need to read through another product description. What they really want to know is, “what’s in it for me?”

This is essentially how you can give your offer a high perceived value. A PDF ebook in itself probably doesn’t have much value. But a guide on how to improve a person’s life in some way definitely does. See the difference? Use it in your marketing.

5. Minimal web form
Never ask for more information than you need. Can you get by with just an email address? If so, it might be worth limiting your form to just that. Get rid of all barriers to conversion. Not many people are going to want to give away all of their personal information for a free download.

6. Loud and clear call to action
Rather than use generic words like “go” or “submit” for your form button, use a clear call to action like “download now” or “get your free ebook now”. These tend to lead to much higher conversion rates.

Also test different colors, button sizes, and placement. You’d be surprised by some of the small changes that have a big effect.

7. Disclaimer and privacy policy
This is one component that a lot of marketers ignore or forget, but nevertheless is very important. Always include a disclaimer and privacy policy on your squeeze page. Not only will they protect you in case of a lawsuit, but they also help you to obtain the trust of your visitors.

Include a line like “We hate spam just as much as you do. We will never share your information with any third parties.” Displaying a security badge (e.g. Verisign) next to the web form also helps to prove legitimacy and thus improve conversion rates.

Final Thoughts

The guidelines listed in this article offer a good starting point for your squeeze pages, but you have to remember that you must constantly test things out. No matter how great you think a conversion rate is, every squeeze page can be further improved with testing, testing, and more testing.

So what do you think? Are you making the most of email marketing and squeeze pages to gain more leads for your online business? Share some of your favorite squeeze pages and testing results in the comments below!

Top 10 Google Myths Revealed

2010-07-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

Google is the Web's most popular search engine, powering not only the popular Google.com Website, but also Yahoo! and AOL. Being listed in Google is very important, and being listed highly in Google can bring great benefit to your site.

However, there are many myths about how Google works and, while fairly harmless in themselves, these myths tend to allow people to draw incorrect conclusions about how Google works. The purpose of this article is to correct the most popular Google myths.

Myth #1: The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR), the Higher You'll be in the Search Results Listing

This myth is frequent, and is the source of many complaints. People often notice that a site with a lower PageRank than theirs is listed above them, and get upset. While pages with a higher PageRank do tend to rank better, it is perfectly normal for a site to appear higher in the results listings even though it has a lower PageRank than competing pages.

To explain this concept without going into too much technical detail, it is best to think of PageRank as being comprised of two different values. One value, which we'll call "General PageRank" is nothing more than the weighting given to the links on your page. This is also the value shown in the Google Toolbar. This value is used to calculate the weighting of the links leaving your page, not your search position.

The other value we'll call "Specific PageRank." You see, if PageRank equated to search engine results rank then Yahoo, the site with the highest PR, would be listed #1 for every search result. Obviously, that wouldn't be useful, so what Google does is examine the context of your incoming links, and only those links that relate to the specific keyword being searched on will help you achieve a higher ranking for that keyword. It's very possible for a site with a lower PageRank to in fact have more on-topic incoming links than a site with a higher PageRank, in which case the site with a lower PageRank will be listed above its competitor in the search results for that term.

PageRank aside, there are also other factors that contribute Google search results -- though PageRank remains the dominant one.

Myth #2: The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual PageRank

When Google created their toolbar it was a boon for many Webmasters as this was the first time we got to see any value related to our PageRank. However, the toolbar has also caused some confusion.

The toolbar does not show your actual PageRank, only an approximation of it. It gives you an integer rank on a scale from 1-10. We do not know exactly what the various integers correspond to, but we're sure that their curve is similar to an exponential curve with each new "plateau" being harder to reach than the last. I have personally done some research into this, and so far the results point to an exponential base of 4. So a PR of 6 is 4 times as difficult to attain as a PR of 5.

The exponential base is important because it illustrates how broad a range of pages can be assigned a particular PR value. The difference between a high PR of 6, and a low PR of 6, could be hundreds or thousands of links. So if your PR as reported by the toolbar increases or drops, it's important to remember that it could be the result of a small change, or a large change. Additionally, it's possible to lose or gain links and see no change in your reported PageRank.

The other issue with the toolbar has to do with the fact that sometimes the PageRank it displays is only a guess. People will often notice pages on Geocities or another free hosting provider having a high PageRank. This is because when Google hasn't spidered a page, but has spidered the root domain, the toolbar will guess a PageRank based on the value of the root domain. Therefor it's common to see pages on Geocities with a PR of 6 or 7. The PageRank does not equate in any way to a high Google listing, in fact in this case it indicates the opposite: that the page isn't even in Google. Once Google spiders the page, it will be assigned a more appropriate (and usually lower) PageRank.

Myth # 3: PageRank is a Value Based on the Number of Incoming Links to Your Site

This myth is a frequent source of incorrect assumptions about Google. People will often see that a site with fewer incoming links than their own site has a higher PageRank, and assume that PageRank is not based on incoming links.

The fact is that PageRank is based on incoming links, but not just on the number of them. Instead PageRank is based on the value of your incoming links. To find the value of an incoming link look at the PR of the source page, and divide it by the number of links on that page. It's very possible to get a PR of 6 or 7 from only a handful of incoming links if your links are "weighty" enough.

Also remember that for PageRank calculations every page is an island. Google does not calculate PageRank on a site-wide basis -- so internal links between your pages do count. This is very important, as instituting a proper structure for your internal links can drastically improve your rankings.

Myth # 4: Searching for Incoming Links on Google Using "link:" will Show you all Your Backwards Links

Similar to Myth #3, people will sometimes look for backwards links to a site on Google and fine none, but if the site does have a PR listed and it is in Google's cache, they know that the toolbar isn't just guessing.

The reason for this is that Google does not list all the links that it knows about, only those that contribute above a certain amount of PageRank. This is especially evident in a brand new site. By default, all pages in Google have a minimum PR. So even a page without any incoming links has a PR value, albeit a small one. If you have a brand new site with 20 or 30 pages, all of which Google has spidered, but you have no incoming links from other sites, then your pages will still have a PageRank resulting from these internal links. As your home page is likely linked to from every page on your site, it might even get a PageRank of up to 1 or 2 from all these little boosts. However, in this situation searching for incoming links will likely yield 0 results.

You can also see this happening on pages that have been around for awhile. For instance,this page has 0 incoming links listed in Google, yet it has a PageRank of 3. We can see that Google has spidered it by checking its cache, so the PageRank is not a guess. We also know that Google has spidered this page, again by checking its cache. Therefore, we can be sure that Google knows of at least 1 link to the page in question, both by its listed PR, and the fact that Google has spidered a page that links to it.

However, if you look at the DMOZ.org page with the Google Toolbar installed, you'll notice the page has a PR of 0, which is very low. Furthermore, if you count the number of links on the page, you'll notice it has over 20. So you're dividing a very low PR among over 20 links. Thus each link carries very little weight, so Google doesn't list these links when you search for them. However, Google does count the links, which is why the page in question has a PR listed.

It's very important to remember how Google lists incoming links. Often, people see their number of incoming links drop, and they think they have lost those links. In reality, the linking page could have lost some weight and consequentially, the links might have dropped below the value threshold that's required in order for links to be listed. Or the linking page could have added more links, causing each link's share of the weight to be lower, and again causing the link to drop below the value threshold. In either case the link is still counted, it just isn't listed.

Why does Google do this? Perhaps the answer has to do with technical limitations. If the average number of links per page is 20 then Google would have to deal with over 60 billion links, which might create an index that was too large to be publicly searchable.

Myth #5: Being Listed in the Open Directory Project Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus

Google uses Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org), to power its directory. Coupling that fact with the observation that sites listed in DMOZ often get decent and inexplicable PageRank boosts, has lead many to conclude that Google gives a special bonus to sites listed in DMOZ. This is simply not true.

The only bonus gained from being in DMOZ is the same bonus a site would achieve from being linked to by any other site. However, DMOZ data is used by hundreds of sites. The biggest user of DMOZ data is Google, but it is also used by thousands of other sites. The links from these sites are often too weak to be listed in a link search, but Google does crawl them, and the links do count. So if you're listed in DMOZ, you're actually gaining the benefits of hundreds of lightly-weighted incoming links, and when you add all those up, the total can amount to a decent PageRank boost.

There are two other benefits you can gain by being listed in DMOZ. For one, your directory description will appear with Google search result listings, which may increase the likelihood of someone clicking on your link. The other benefit is that, as Google does crawl DMOZ, being listed there will ensure that you're also listed in Google. However, as it's so easy to be listed in Google, this benefit is slight at best.

Myth #6: Being Listed in Yahoo! Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus

This myth evolved much in the same was as Myth #5. Google has been partnered with Yahoo! for a number of years by providing secondary search results, and just recently (Fall, 2002), Yahoo! started using Google to provide primary search results.

Because Yahoo! uses Google, many have assumed that Google also uses Yahoo!, which is not the case. The only PageRank you will gain from being listed in Yahoo! is the same as the PR you'd gain from any other site of equivalent weight. However, some people achieve a larger-than-normal boost from their listing in Yahoo!, which again leads to this incorrect conclusion.

The fact is that being listed in Yahoo!'s main directory will often get you into regional directories, so, much like DMOZ, one Yahoo! listing can result in multiple links. These links are often weak in nature so they may not show up in a link search, but they are there -- and Google knows about them.

Additionally, once you're listed in any search engine or directory you have an increased chance of someone finding your site, liking it, and adding a link to it from their own site. As such, being listed in Yahoo! could result in you receiving links from elsewhere -- links whose weight is too low to list, but which do contribute to your PageRank.

Myth #7: Google Uses Meta Tags to Rank Your Site

This myth is left over from the days when most search engines used meta tags. However, Google has never used them. This fact may be contested by some people, so I wouldn't post it without proof.

To prove to yourself that Google doesn't use meta tags, put words into your meta tags that do not appear elsewhere on your page. Then, using an advanced search, search for those words while limiting the results to your domain only. You can try this on any search engine -- and if results appear, you'll know that engine uses meta tags. If no results are displayed, then you know meta tags are not used. It is important, though, that the words only appear in your meta tags and no where else on your page.

Google can sometimes use the meta description tag to create an abstract for your site, so it may be useful to you if your home page is primarily composed of graphics. However, do not expect it to increase your rank.

Myth #8: Google Will Not Index Dynamic Pages

Some search engines have, in the past, had problems with dynamic pages, that is, pages that use a query string. This was not due to any technical limitation, but rather, because search engines knew that it was possible to create a set of an infinite amount of dynamic pages, or they could create an endless loop. In either case, the search engines did not want their crawlers to be caught spidering endless numbers of dynamically generated pages.

Google is a newer search engine, and has never had a problem with query strings. However, some dynamic pages can still throw Google for a loop.

Some shopping carts or forums store session information in the URL when cookies are unable to be written. This effectively kills search engines like Google because search engines key their indexes with URLs, and when you put session information in the URL, that URL will change constantly. This is especially true as Google uses multiple IP addresses to crawl the Web, so each crawler will see a different URL on your site, which basically results in those pages not being listed. It is important that if you use such software, you amend it so that if cookies are unable to be written, the software simply does not track session information.

So, you don't need to use search engine-friendly URLs to be listed in Google. However, these URLs do have other benefits, such as hiding what server side technology you use (so that you may change it seamlessly later), and they are more people-friendly. Additionally, while Google can spider dynamic pages, it may limit the amount of dynamic pages it spiders from one particular site. Your best bet for a good ranking is to use search-engine friendly URLs.

Myth # 9: Google Will Not List Your Site, or Penalize it, if you use Popups

This is a relatively minor myth but it still pops up (pun intended) every once in a while. Google has an advertising program called Adwords, and one of their policies is that they do not allow sites that use popup windows to participate in this program.

This policy only exists for the Google Adwords program, but either through hearsay, or people hearing that Google has a policy against popups and incorrectly assuming that this includes Google's main index, this myth has flourished. The suggestion that you won't be listed in Google if you use popups is simply not true: many sites that use popups, including SitePoint, are well ranked on Google. In fact, it is doubtful that Google even understands all the Javascript that can create a popup.

Myth # 10: Google will Penalize you if You're Linked to by a Link Farm

Google has policies against the use of artificial means to increase your PageRank, which specifically include things like joining a link farm. There are sites or services out there that set up automatic link exchanges to increase your PageRank. The links are usually hidden from people through the use of CSS, and either making the text the same color as the background, or by putting the links in an invisible layer. As search engines don't render CSS, they will see the hidden links and thus count them when calculating your link popularity.

However, despite all this, Google will not penalize you for being linked to by a link farm. After all, you have no control over which sites links to you, so it wouldn't be fair to penalize site owners on this basis. Additionally, link farms often have low PageRanks and a high number of outgoing links, so each link will contribute only a very small amount to your total PageRank -- and thus this method of abuse is not very effective.

Even so, Google can punish you if you link to a linkfarm from your site, or otherwise put hidden links in your pages. So the simple truth is that you can be punished for what you do to your own site, but not for getting linked by another site.

How Article Writing Can Increase Website Traffic

2010-06-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

Writing articles and distributing them via the web is an excellent and affordable way to increase web visitors. People online every day to search for new information. If you write an article or blog with popular keywords and place them on your website, you have the opportunity to increase visitors coming to your site. More visitors to your site means more sales of products or services you sell online. For this reason, marketers often use articles and blogs as a strategy to increase website traffic.

There are many topics that you can write about. If for example you are selling home decor products, you can write articles on decoration and design. If you are an accounting firm, you can write articles on tax credits available or how people can budget more wisely. If you provide software or IT services, you can write about new and emerging technologies or trends in your industry. Whatever your business is, there is always something to write about. The key is to be creative.

Many business owners however, find themselves too busy to write. For this reason, many people hire professional writers or a writing services company. These companies often are very affordable and can save you time and money. Online advertising has proven to be way more affordable than traditional advertising, therefore investing some money each month in article marketing is a great return on investment.

When working with a writing service company, it is important to always clarify your expectations first by letting them know about your business and what you are looking to achieve. If you can think of a few topics to get started, that helps the writer as well. Also, think about what your audience is interested in and have your writer focus on this. Make sure that you hire writers with experience with article marketing.

Content Creative Services is a company that provides article writing, ghostwriting and blogging services to business owners and professionals around the world. Visit our website to find out how we can help your company grow. Visit us online: http://www.contentcreativeservices.com

The Secret to Ranking High In Youtube

2010-06-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

How do I get a high ranking in Youtube - Here's what I learned about a high ranking in Youtube. Youtube search engine originally used three criteria :

1. The Title of the Video
2. The Description in The Video
3. The Tags you Assign to your video

Be sure to great unique keywords, titles, descriptions and tags when creating Youtube videos.

Partner up with me to learn my exact formula to skyrocket your rankings in Youtube :
Learn How To Rank High in Youtube

Really do some research on the titles, descriptions & Tags of your competition and make yours have more keywords, more views, more ratings, & more comments.

Ranking High on Youtube really isn't that hard. You just need someone to show you how to do this step by step. The secret for ranking high in Youtube should be used in every video you create. When I apply this strategy, my results are always great. It takes a little bit of time, but once it is done you can forget all about it. Your Youtube video will work 24/7 365 days a year from that time forth.

I also have tons of Free valuable training just for opting into my page here :
Learn How To Rank High in Youtube

For example, if you wanted to post a video about "How To Rank High In Youtube," if you go on YouTube now and type that exact same phrase over 20,000 results will show but of course most people only look at the first page, your goal is to be on that first page and this is how to do it.

SECRET #1: Every time your going to upload a new video, search for keywords related to the content of the video youre going to upload, the video that Youtube finds most search engine friendly will pop up first, so before you upload your video, click on the first few video of the first page and see their video info. You must copy their tags read their description and re-write in your on words. The purpose of this is to get your video to be in their related videos even though yours is new giving you a bigger chance of exposure.

SECRET #2: Once you have uploaded your video you want to get exposure to your video as soon as possible. This can be easily done using a program called tube tool box. There is a link to the program here : Tube Tool Box

This program will assist in boosting your subscribers to your channel, comments, video views and friends on Youtube, thus Ranking High in Youtube!

More Tips about Youtube Ranking and Marketing

Many people do not know this, but Google actually owns Youtube. So you are probably asking yourself, who cares right? Well being that Google owns Youtube, Youtube videos rank extremely high in the search engines. It's amazing how many people use the internet that would prefer to watch a video online rather then read a page of content.

Youtube videos are a great way to brand yourself and build trust with prospects. The way to ensure that your video ranks high in Google is to get a lot of views. Try and get as many eyes in your target market watching your videos as possible. Video ratings and commenting are another great way to get more exposure.

If you really want to get your videos skyrocking instantly, you have to watch this video :

Learn How To Rank High in Youtube

Article Marketing Software and Tools for Distribution (Submission)

2010-06-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

Authors can always use a template to write if they want to speed up writing their articles. But what about the submission process? To be sure, manual submission is a very tedious task. You do not want to spend long hours writing copy and content into a submission form is not it? Software and tools can help you be more productive.

1) Avoiding software altogether - You may wish to avoid using software completely by hiring someone to do the submissions for you manually. There are people who are willing to do this for a fee, and they do provide screenshots and reports upon completion. However, since method is manual, the fees can be rather expensive and the process is slow. The turnaround time can take a week for just 1 article.

2) Using paid software. - The next solution is to invest in a piece of paid article submission software. There are two types of software in the market. The first type will require you to select the categories manually. In my opinion, this is only slightly better than manual submissions. I don't like the idea of having to sit there for hours and pick categories for each and every article directory. The second type will submit all your content automatically. The software will pick categories based on your keywords.

3) Outsourcing. - If you don't like the idea of doing everything yourself, you can outsource the article submissions. All you have to do is to pay a small fee, and the submission will be completed within 2 to 3 business days. You never see the distribution takes place because everything happens in the back end. You make payment, switch off your computer, and within 2 to 3 days, your content appears all over the Internet.

Want to learn how to get to the top of Google using Article Marketing? I have the tools, knowledge, and resources to help you achieve your traffic and income goals.

Join the article marketing newsletter and Download a free Article Marketing Jump Start Guide

What Happens When You Deactivate Your Facebook Account

2010-06-01T04:34:00.000-07:00

Facebook is a huge part of millions of human lives, but what happens when you pull away? Last night I met a man who walked to the edge of the cliff and nearly disable the Facebook account. He took a screenshot of what he sees after clicking on the link "Deactivate my account" on his account page.

That man considered quitting Facebook because it was having an adverse emotional impact on him and I'll spare him and his contacts from posting the screenshot he shared with me. I have posted below though a shot of the screen I saw when I clicked that button myself. Check it out. I bet you haven't seen this screen before, have you?

Can you believe that? How incredibly manipulative! And what claims to make. Facebook has undoubtedly made it easier to keep in touch with people than almost any other technology on the planet, but to say that leaving Facebook means your friends "will no longer be able to keep in touch with you" is just wrong. Facebook often says little things like this that read like it thinks it has a monopoly on human connection.

Apparently my wife's good friend and one of my co-workers are really going to miss me if I leave, though. That photo of Frederic my co-worker, that isn't even his profile photo. That's a photo where he and I were both tagged. At least it didn't say my wife would miss me! According to one report, adding these photos of friends is keeping 1 million people per year from deactivating their account.

Admittedly, this is also kind of funny at the same time.

This is just loaded with obnoxiousness. "I have a privacy concern" is listed as one of the reasons people might be leaving. I think it's more likely that people would say "I don't think my privacy is being protected on Facebook" or some similar general statement, but leave it to Facebook to frame and minimize peoples' concerns even as they walk out the door.

Just below the text box where departing users are asked to provide further explanation why they are leaving is a button you can click to select this option :

Opt out of receiving future emails from Facebook.
Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends.

Amazing, by default, even after you cancel your Facebook account, Facebook will still keep emailing you, unless you opt out.

Of course you too can go the the edge and not jump off. Go see who Facebook thinks would miss you if you were gone. It's ok, I've clicked the "deactivate my account" link 4 times today and just stopped short of hitting the ultimate button. The pictures changed sometimes but they were always people I really do know fairly well.

I'm not about to actually deactivate my Facebook account, even though the company drives me crazy. I like using it to keep in touch with people outside of tech, I think it's important to challenge the company's policies when warranted and let's face it - I don't have it in me to break the hearts of those four people above who would miss me if I left!

http://www.wisdeo.com/articles/view_post/3733

6 Ways to Optimize Your SEO for Misspellings – And Why It Pays to be a Bad Speller

2010-05-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but I take spelling pretty seriously in my web projects, especially for content sites and blogs like this one. I’m careful to ensure that words are spelled correctly and that typos are minimized. With spell check included in most word processing tools, I don’t think there’s really any excuse for silly spelling errors online.

Or is there?

Despite my urge for spelling perfection, it turns out that a significant percentage of web users are sloppy with their language – particularly when using search engines like Google. There are around 10 million misspelled search queries every single day.

For example, below are the local search volume numbers (USA, January 2010) according to theGoogle Adwords Keyword Tool for the common misspellings of “jewelry”.

Sure, there’s a huge difference between “jewelry” (3 million searches) and the misspelling “jewlery” (60,000 searches) but 60,000 monthly searches is nothing to scoff at. This is especially true because misspellings generally have much less competition and are thus easier to rank for. After all, most webmasters use spell check and wouldn’t go out of their way to intentionally spell a bunch of words incorrectly.

This is where you can capitalize with your SEO efforts, particularly in competitive industries where it would be nearly impossible for you to realistically compete for the main keywords (spelled correctly).

Since SEO is all about optimizing for keywords that people are actually searching for, misspellings present a pretty big opportunity to gain visibility in search. You could potentially get more traffic and make more money from organic search by targeting a few strategic misspellings. Just don’t tell your 5th grade English teacher about it.

An important thing to note is that in the past few years, Google has changed the way it displays search results for misspellings. They now show “Did you mean:” with a link to the correct search query and its top 2 results. See the screen shot below.

While this change significantly decreases the benefit of ranking for misspellings, there is still a lot of opportunity. In my view, a #3 ranking for a popular misspelled keyword is better than no ranking at all. And if you’re lucky enough to have a top 2 ranking for a competitive keyword, you can gain even more visibility by adding another ranking on the same results page by optimizing for the misspelled version.

Finding High Potential Keyword Misspellings

Now that you know about the advantages of targeting misspellings in your SEO campaigns, how do you identify the keywords with the largest opportunity and traffic/money potential?

Below are the three different types of misspellings.

Common misspellings. These are words in the English language that are difficult to spell and are frequently butchered. Examples include “jewelry”, “archaeologist”, and “etiquette”. For more, see this list of common misspellings.
Proper nouns. These include names of people, places, and things with ambiguous spelling. For example, Google previously ran a 3 month experiment to analyze misspellings of “britney spears” in its search engine. The result? There were 593 different variations with 20% of all queries misspelled. The misspellings “brittany” and “brittney” accounted for 16% of searches.
Typos. These are simply typographical errors that lead to misspellings. For example, check out thisd awesomew sentnce. Obviously, I know how to spell those words, I was just in a rush and my fat fingers refused to cooperate.

So how do you find high potential misspellings for your targeted keywords? Start a list using the 4 methods below.

Research. If you know your market, you should be able to identify popular misspellings.Scour blogs and forums and do a search in Google for keyword + “misspellings” to see what comes up.
Internal search logs. What better way to identify keyword misspellings than to get them straight from your current visitors? Check your analytics to see what people are searching for. Of course this works best if you have a high volume site.
Trial and error. Try and think like a bad speller. What are some variations that might occur? Add these to your list.
Keyword typo generator. Finally, plug your targeted keywords into a keyword typo generator. This will get you a comprehensive list of all the different variations that might occur as a result of typos.

Once you have a pretty long list of misspellings, the next step is to find out how often they’re being searched for in Google. There’s no point in optimizing for and ranking for a keyword that no one cares about – especially if it’s a misspelling. You’ll just look like a fool.

Plug your keywords into the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to analyze the search frequency numbers. Be sure to use Exact Match so that you get data specific to each keyword.

Find any gems? In the next section we’ll go into how you can appropriately integrate your targeted keyword misspellings into your SEO campaign.

6+ Ways to Optimize For Misspellings

1. Use SEO best practices as usual – not recommend
The first and most obvious option is to optimize a page for your targeted misspelling as you normally would for any keyword. This means including it in your URL, title tag, header tag, content, and navigation. However, having misspellings on your site front and center is very unprofessional and could cost you a lot of links and credibility. This hurts you in the long term and isn’t really worth the immediate gains you get from ranking for misspelings. I don’t recommend you do this.

2. Turn the misspelling into a brand name – get the exact match domain
An alternative is to get creative and use a common misspelling of a popular keyword as the brand name for your site. Isn’t that what Flickr.com does? By utilizing this method you get the best of both worlds – optimization for your targeted keyword and a popular misspelling. Plus you don’t sacrifice any credibility in the process (as long as the misspelling isn’t blatant). If you do decide to go this route, be sure to pick up the exact match domain for the misspelling (more on this in the next point).

3. Build microsites using exact match domains for your targeted misspellings
Google and the other search engines tend to give websites with the exact match domain for a keyword a significant boost in the rankings. For example, regardless of links and site authority, Cars.com gets an advantage in Google rankings just because it’s domain name exactly matches the search query. Use this to your advantage for misspellings of your keywords. Buy up the most popular misspellings of your targeted keywords (if available) and build out microsites for each. It’ll be much easier for you to obtain #1 rankings for the misspellings this way and then you can add links back to your main site.

4. Add in a “commonly misspelled as” section
Another way to add misspellings into the body copy of your pages is to add a phrase or section that states “…commonly misspelled as…”. Of course the effects of this method won’t be huge because the misspellings won’t actually be in important elements like the title tag, but it can still be effective when coupled with links to the page using the misspelling as the anchor text (more on this in point 6).

5. Add the misspellings in user-generated content on your site
This one’s my favorite way to get misspellings on a site. If you have a blog or a forum as part of your website, simply add in a few fake comments or forum replies that make use of the misspellings. This won’t take away from the credibility of the site because it’s someone else making the errors, not you. This happens naturally with user-generated content anyway. Extra bonus if you can create a forum thread with a misspelling that shows up in the title of the page.

6. Build links using the misspelling in the anchor text
If you remember, a bunch of bloggers engaged in something called “Google bombing” a while back to get President George Bush’s website to rank #1 in Google for “miserable failure”. All they did was simply link to that page using the “miserable failure” keyword as the link text. Well the same principle can be applied here with misspellings. First, try to get the actual misspelling on the page you’re trying to rank for by using tip #4 or 5. Since Google has put filters in place to prevent Google bombing, having the actual misspelled keywords on your page will help. Once you’ve done that, build links to that page using the misspelling in the anchor text. Blog comment links (without nofollow) and links in blog and forum posts are the easiest and should help you move up in the rankings.

Additionally, you can even create links on your own site using the the misspellings as the anchor text. Of course you wouldn’t want this version to show publicly, so what you can do is place the link in a noscript tag so that only search engines see it.

Bonus Tips

Here are a few more tips related to optimizing for misspellings…

7. Forget about the meta keywords tag
There was a time when search engines actually used the meta keywords tag to determine the relevancy of a page. No more. This was once a good place to insert keyword misspellings, but it’s pretty much useless now.

8. Bid on misspellings in paid search
Similar to SEO, there is opportunity to drive traffic and make money with keyword misspellings in paid search. Since competition is generally very low for these terms, clicks will be very very cheap. Add some of your misspellings in a PPC campaign and test it out. You might be surprised at some of the keywords that drive traffic and convert well.

9. Buy up typo domain names for type-in traffic
Finally, look into buying up misspelled domain names for their type-in traffic potential. For example, a domainer named Kevin Ham shrewdly bought up the .cm domains (Cameroon country code, misspelling for .com) for popular websites like the New York Times. Needless to say, he’s doing very well for himself. The potential payout for domain name “typosquatting” is huge. Google supplies about 60% of the ads on these types of sites and makes $497 million per year. Wow.

Have you discovered any opportunities with keyword misspellings in SEO or PPC? If so, how much traffic and revenue are they driving? Share some of your experiences and tips in the comments below.

http://www.winningtheweb.com

Top 5 Crucial Internet Marketing Tips for 2010 – Are You Prepared?

2010-05-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that it’s already 2010? I’ve been involved with Internet marketing and SEO for over 7 years now and each year has always been more exciting than the previous one. 2010 is looking to be no different.

There are so many opportunities online to make money and make a difference. If you ever wanted to get started in this space, now’s the time.

I know that I’m a few weeks late, but I want to use this post to reflect on the past year in terms of what I learned about online business building and marketing. I’ll outline my top 5 learnings from 2009 and share my Internet marketing predictions and tips for the new year. Cheers!

1. Time is always against you – focus, hustle, and outsource
As I pile on new projects and campaigns on my plate, I’m learning more and more that time is always against you. There’s only so much you can do in a 24 hour day, so those who manage their time wisely and use it most effectively are going to win.

My biggest tip? Don’t spread yourself thin with too many projects and sites. You may think you’re doing yourself a favor with “diversification”, but in this case, it’s better to put your eggs in one basket. That way you’ll be able to focus all of your attention to growing one or a few sites to reach critical mass. Otherwise, you’ll likely see no results whatsoever.

Furthermore, don’t be afraid to spend money on outsourcing some of your work! Some people insist on doing everything themselves, but remember, time is more valuable than money. You can always make $100 back, but you’ll never be able to the get the past 10 minutes of your life back. Outsource whenever possible so you can focus on the activities that yield the greatest ROI.

2. The early mover advantage is growing
Back in May ‘08 I wrote that the window of opportunity is shrinking for independent publishersonline. A lot has happened since then, but my theory still holds true. Webmasters who started their sites back in 2000 have a huge advantage over their more recent competitors. Not only are they given preference by the search engines simply based on age, but they’re more likely to have accumulated high quality links, social mentions, and stronger branding over time.

In some super competitive niches, it’s almost coming to a point where new sites with small or medium-sized budgets have absolutely no chance of competing. Even smaller less competitive niches are getting saturated very quickly.

The solution? Don’t delay any longer. Focus your attention on just a couple branded sites and build them out like there’s no tomorrow. You’ll want to start by focusing on and dominating a smaller sub-niche.

3. Buying established sites is a great shortcut strategy
In the summer of ‘09, I had my first experience buying an established site (a personal finance blog) in the 5-figures range. I’ve always wanted to get involved in this industry, and buying an existing site with good traffic and positive cash flow offered a great opportunity. Not only was I able to get a large head start in the personal finance industry but the cash flow allowed me to invest monthly profits back into the site for further growth. It’s a great strategy especially since growing a new site these days is increasingly difficult (as I mentioned in my previous point #2).

Monitor online site marketplaces like Flippa, Digital Point Forums, and eBay on a regular basis. You may be able to pick up a distressed site for relatively cheap – especially in this economy. People are more willing to part with their sites to gain cash quick.

I have a detailed case study about my experience buying an established site for 5 figures as part of my Winners Circle membership program. Check it out.

4. Ad-based business models aren’t reliable – build out your own products
If there’s anything the recession has taught you, it’s that you shouldn’t rely on advertising to make up the majority of your site’s revenue. I’ve written before that blogging for ads is deadand I think this is a trend that will continue moving forward. If you have a large site that gets a ton of page views, then sure monetizing through advertising can be very lucrative. But for 90% of sites out there, making a significant amount of money through advertising isn’t really feasible. Plus, an ad-based business model forces you to be at the mercy of sponsors. Who wants that?

A much better way to make money online is to create your own products – whether they be e-books, DVDs, subscriptions, or an actual physical item. It’s definitely not easy (I’ve experienced this first hand through my Winners Circle membership program), but the rewards are greater and much more steady even for small sites.

It’s fine to start monetizing through ads, but I think all online publishers should work towards some sort of paid model. With the web being polluted with free low-quality content everyday, readers will increasingly begin looking for better paid sites to cut through the clutter. You’ll want to be in a position of authority with your products ready to go when this happens.

5. You need creative & aggressive marketing strategies to stand out
As I mentioned, the competition online is getting stiffer and web surfers now have more options online than ever before. So why should they go to your site to fulfill their needs? You can say that you have better content, better features, blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to marketing. Yes, I agree that content is important, but what’s equally important, if not more, is getting people to actually see your content and come back again and again.

For that, you can utilize marketing strategies like social media votes, contests, link bait articles, software and tools, etc. In fact, I’m currently holding a huge contest over at Money Crasherswith $8,300 in prizes. In just 2 weeks, RSS subscribers have increased from 500 to 3,000. Of course, for promotions like this you need the content to back it up and get people to come back when it’s all over. Even so, big promotions are great for giving your site a boost and actively putting your site in front of your target audience.

The most important thing is to keep hustling and working smart in the new year to see success. Consistency and persistence are always rewarded.

Do any of my tips and experiences resonate with you? What are your goals for online business in 2010? Share them in a comment below.

http://www.winningtheweb.com

Do You Have A Business Plan For Your Blog or Website?

2010-05-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

All businesses need a business plan. If you plan to run your blog as a money making business, you too need a plan. The following is questions you need to ask yourself and some tips to get you started forming your own plan.

A poor business plan is often the downfall of many new business ventures. Traditional business plans are essential in getting loans from banks and venture capitalists. your blog or website may not need to go to that extreme but following a general business plan can greatly improve your chances of success.

Questions to ask yourself :

1. Is your website/blog feasible? Can you fill a need?

2. Do you know your strengths and weaknesses?

3. Can you build on your strengths while working on your weaknesses?

4. Will you offer goods or services?

5. Who are your potential customers?

6. What size is your market?

7. Do you know your competition?

8. Have you studied their strengths and weaknesses?

9. Do you have a mission statement?

10. Can you differentiate your goods and service from the competition?

11. Will you provide benefits to your customers?

12. Do you have a marketing strategy?

13. Do you know your financial potential?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can start working on a business and marketing plan.

What is a business plan? A business plan, in the traditional sense, is a written document that lists a company’s goals, how they will achieve those goals, and the guidelines and standards it will use to measure success and achievements.

Writing a business plan for a blog or website doesn’t need to be traditional. You just need to set up some basic guidelines as a roadmap to success.

Some of the things you’ll want to highlight in a business plan includes your objective and mission (the purpose of your website/blog), marketing strategies (how you’ll reach customers), competitive edge, strategies you’ll implement, a financial plan and dates you plan to achieve benchmarks with your blog or website.

Without some kind of plan and set goals you may wind up at the wrong destination. If you already have a site setup but feel you’ve lost focus, start on a plan now to get your website or blog back on track.
http://www.bloggingtips.com

Creating a Community with Your Blog Through Facebook

2010-05-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

Getting traffic to a blog or any site can be difficult but with the new means of social interactivity it becomes easier than ever to get instant traffic to your blog. I am going to discuss simple techniques on how to create a community around your blog and give that sense of interactivity.

The most easiest way to get people to your site is to create a simple ‘Like’ button. Here is a quick code snippet of the ‘Like’ button provided by Facebook – this is for Wordpress.

Utilizing this like button gives the user to vote their opinion on your post. Similar to Digg and StumbleUpon, users either Like your content or not. If they do not they simply just do not click the like button.

What this does is post the title of your blog post to your Facebook wall, giving the opportunity for others to see it. It is a very easy script to install and yet it creates a sense of trust to other users.

The like button is base on an old concept. You would rather trust your friends recommendation, than the stats from a magazine or journalist. It is the reason why opinionated and social recommendation sites are growing in popularity.

Another important aspect of generating a heep of fans to your blog is to create a Fan page for your website. It is a simple concept but it creates that sense of community for your readers.

Note I said community, meaning you will have to interact with your users. The one great thing about having a page is you can feed your RSS into Facebook, updating all your fans when you just posted a new post on your blog.

If you get your fans to interact, status notification are posted on their wall, meaning they are sharing it with their friends. If they like a blog posts or comment on a status update, it is being shared with everyone else.

Creating that community feel for your readers is important, it isn’t just creating a place to hang out but a place for interaction and building relationships, which is key for a blog and constant traffic.

There are blogs that just have a blog for the sake of advertising and getting ranked in the search engines, while other popular sites are gaining interests because of a community they wrap around their blog

http://www.bloggingtips.com

Importance of Anchor Text in Internal Linking

2010-05-16T01:25:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization. Sounds confusing but really it is a system built on small and simple methods. Anchor text in Internal Linking is just another one of those small tricks. We all know internal linking is something that we should do. It increase your page views and help ranking of your pages. Well just internal linking doesn’t do the job. You need to choose your anchor texts carefully.

A lot of people when they write about their previous posts they use anchor texts such as click here or so. It is of habits. I know I do it a lot as well. But I do it for posts that I don’t really care about. If I want to rank high for some keyword I try to be descriptive in my anchor text.

For Example:
You want to market your site. Check out 13 ways I promoted my Blog.
I could’ve easily said to check how I promoted my self, click here. The click here is not the way to go for important posts.

This change might not sound like a big deal, but remember that drop of water makes an ocean. Start with a drop and you will have your own ocean.

http://www.balkhis.com

What is your Plan if Google Penalizes Your Website?

2010-05-16T01:23:00.000-07:00

We all know that Google is penalizing websites left and right for buying links, selling links, duplicate content and for numerous other reasons. And while you maybe safe right now, there is no guarantee that you will be in the future. For majority of us, Google is a huge source of traffic to our blogs and websites, so what will you do if Google penalizes you? We are not all like a web celebrity like John Chow who can still continue to make $40,000 with his blog even after the google penalty. But here is what I can tell you though. You can surely survive and still have a good amount of people visiting your blog.

What distinguishes you from a Popular blog?

They have a huge base of loyal readers already built. So even if they lose google’s ranking, they still have thousands of people visiting their site and reading them. And because they have thousands of people reading atleast hundred are writing about them and linking to them, and through the hundred, they are getting more new users to their blog. So at the end day, They can survive without Google!
Google is big and we know that, but it is not the end of the world. You need to follow the advice of “Not putting all your eggs in one basket” and start doing some of the things I am about to tell you which will ensure you that you are not dependent on Google. Also even if you are not penalized in google, these methods are great for you because they are going to build your readership.
The key point is Build Readership. Usually you get users through Google because you write a good article and a few people link to it, and you rank good for that keyword. But think for a second that you don’t have that luxury for a second. What will you do? Here is what I would:

Get more active in Forums

I will definitely get more active in forums because forums in webmaster industry has a lot of new users joining every day looking for help. That is how they learn, but if you facilitate their learning experience, and help them out, they will be more than likely to stick around to your website and follow you wherever you go. That is how you build the most loyal readership. Read how to use forums effectively and maximize your benefits.

Guest Posts

If you are not doing them already, then start doing them because it is one of the best ways to get mentions from other sites. Not many bloggers turn down a good guest post because in a way you are helping them out by adding good content to their website, but you are helping yourself out by putting out a good reputation for yourself. If you write a good article, people will check out your blog and most likely subscribe. So start writing guest posts. I am always welcoming guest posts, so if you are interested contact me.

Leverage the Power of Social Media

Join social media networks and interact with other users. Share your knowledge with them, and appreciate the community. They will send the love back when you add quality resources to the network. So if you write a good article, and you are active in the stumble community, it will be upvoted by alot of users. Not just that but if you make good friends on social media networks like twitter, you can later have backlinks from their site. Which drives more people to your website. (Check out the results that I got from Social Media)

The idea is give to community, and the community will give back to you. If you offer them spam, they will give you the same quality back. If you offer them good, resourceful articles, they will offer you with good quality of users.

Remember we all love google, and I hope none of you get penalized, but this is surely a way to go about it now, so just incase if you are then you have a set ground. And if you are not, you have a huge readerbase.

http://www.balkhis.com

Five Reasons Why Blogging Improves Your Writing

2010-05-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

Here are five great ways that starting your own blog, or continuing writing the one you already have, can improve your writing.

1. You’ll get into the habit of writing regularly

We’ve covered ways to write every day before, and this really is a good habit to establish if you have serious writing ambitions. Blog posts tend to be short and can be online as soon as you’ve written them: it’s much easier to write daily on your blog than to keep plugging away on stories and articles that might not be published for months, if at all.

2. Instant feedback lets you know how you’re doing

If you are writing purely for yourself, you don’t need feedback. Most of us, though, feel that a piece of writing is not complete until it has a reader. (Indeed, there is a school of critical theory that insists a piece of writing only truly exists whilst it is being read.)

One of the best things about blogging is that not only is publishing instant, feedback is too. As soon as your piece is posted, readers will start adding their comments, emailing you, or even linking to it from their own blogs. You’ll know when your writing is good because you’ll get positive responses. Negative feedback, or none at all, will tip you off that your style might need work, or that the content of your piece may be boring, trite or over-done.

3. Having readers for your work is a big motivation

Do you have days when you sit down to write … and stare at the screen for ages before giving up in frustration? Sometimes you just aren’t “in the mood” to write. When you’re feeling motivated, though, the words come easily. Knowing that real people are reading what you write is a huge boost – something you can only appreciate once you’ve experienced it. Even on days when you’re feeling less than inspired, the thought of your readers can be enough to get you writing.

4. Your writing will improve

The best way to get better at anything is to practice. Writing frequently for your blog means your writing will improve – both as you react to feedback, and as you learn how to craft effective sentences and choose perfect words. If you already write a blog, look back at your earliest posts. Do they make you cringe, when compared to your writing now?

5. Blogs are an ideal medium for experimentation

Sometimes, you might want to try out a new style or form of writing. Short sentences. (With no verbs.)

A more verbose, elegant and poised style, using the rhythms and cadences of the English language to transform a piece of writing into a work of art.

Writing a whole story, article or even a book in a new style could be a big risk – what if it doesn’t work? A blog post, on the other hand, is quick to write and free to publish: if it fails, you’ve not lost much. Blogging gives you the freedom to experiment, to try out something new.

If blogging’s made you a better writer, let us know how in the comments below.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com

The Good Ol’ Newsletter Technique

2010-05-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

You guys have probably seen tons of marketers having a newsletter or a mailing list. Many asked me if Balkhis will ever have a newsletter, and I simply said NO. The reason was “Balkhis is my personal blog”. People tend to get an idea that this is a Make Money Online site, but it really is not. This is a blog where I share what I know with my readers and myself. There are valuable articles on Balkhis that I use as a reference for myself. In this post, I actually want to talk about the Good Ol’ Newsletter technique. I will focus on what services you should use, how you can create a huge list, and how to interact with your newsletter audience.

Why Newsletter?

Newsletter creates a love bond between you and your readers. It allows you to really connect with your audience. No matter how often a reader visits your site, there will be times when they miss something crucial. That is when the newsletter comes in handy. People check their emails REGULARLY, so newsletters are a more reliable source of communication. Second, the newsletter allows you to distinguish between the average reader to your loyal and valuable readers. Your loyal readers are the ones who really care about your site, and they want to support you. I think they deserve something better than everyone else.

Advantages of a Newsletter

For you as a blogger, you can expect a better turn around for any product that you promote through a newsletter. If you are launching a new product, the best place to get started with the promotion is through your newsletter. Your newsletter subscriber actually opted-in to see what you are offering. They want to hear what you say. You can’t get a better connection with your reader than this. They trust you!

How to get Started?

There are tons of newsletter delivery services. Heck you can even use the combination of WordPress and Feedburner to create a Free Email Newsletter. But if you are thinking about this more seriously, then I would recommend:
Aweber
Mail Chimp

Don’t even consider any other companies. I have used both of them and I am more than satisfied. MailChimp has better email designs, so for a design blog, I recommend them. Aweber is very efficient and easy to follow.
The reason why you want to go with these paid services is because they are more Reliable then feedburner. The statistics you receive from them is no where comparable to the free newsletter tactic.

How do I create a huge mailing list for myself?

This is the biggest question that everyone asks. The answer is simple. Simply create something that other people would find useful. Then you want to give it away for free in an exchange for their email address. If they really want your product, then they will enter the email. The more often you do it, the bigger your list will be. There will be times when one of your product will do very very good and others it won’t. So its a matter of feeding the hunger. Give people what they want, and they will give you what you want.

Lastly, I want to apologize to you guys if you think that I am ignoring you here on Balkhis. I have a huge project going on at WPBeginner which is taking a lot of my time. Also Uzzz Productions is doing great. So I am having a really hard time keeping up with Balkhis. I want to say to you guys if you want my tips on marketing, blogging, and WordPress in general then consider subscribing to WPBeginner’s Newsletter. I send out weekly emails with resourceful articles that I am certain that you guys will find useful.

Don’t worry, I hate SPAM just as much as you guys. So this newsletter will not be spammy. I will NOT be using it as spamming tool like a lot of other marketers do it. These newsletter will have useful tips that are exclusive just for my A-List users. P.S. I will treat your emails like my own email so I won’t sell, share, or lease it to anyone.

Oh by the way if you sign up, you get the powerful Smart Sharing Plugin for WordPress that my team at WPBeginner developed. This plugin uses Skinner’s positive reinforcement theory and it is proven to work. It will add a floating share box that you can see on anyone of WPBeginner’s post. (Example)
If you have created a newsletter and want to share your experience then feel free to do so.

http://www.balkhis.com

Romow Web Directory and Affiliate Program

2010-05-16T00:11:00.000-07:00

If you guys do not know, I used to be very active in the Web Directory business. Back in 2006 when I entered the directory industry, some of the big names were Yahoo, BOTW, Aviva, and Romow. Recently I was asked to do a review of Romow Web Directory and their affiliate program at Balkhis.

What is Romow?

Romow is one of the most reputable web directories in the industry. According toWikipedia: A web directory specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. Romow directory has been around since 2006 with strict editorial guideline. They regularly add (both old and newly emerging) authority sites in various fields on an ongoing basis. Informational articles are published to keep the category content fresh and useful for users. The navigational structure of the entire directory has been optimized for the best user experience.
In short: This is like the Yellow Pages on the web where you can submit your websites and businesses to be found by other users who surf through Romow.

Why submit to Romow?

Many webmasters and SEOs use web directories to get a credible backlink and exposure for their sites. Romow is one of the top web directories on the web. Some of the facts that you should consider:
- Google Pagerank 5
- 650,000 page views per month
- 150,000 unique visitors per month
- 570,000+ inlinks according to Yahoo site explorer
- All listings remain permanent (as long as the sites remain operational)
By submitting to Romow, you are getting a backlink from the category page, and your site’s detail page. You can also get a featured listing, which will be featured at the top of the category above all other listings to increase your exposure. (Submit to Romow Now)

Romow Affiliate Program

Romow has a very generous affiliate program for webmasters. They pay a 25% commission for each paid directory submission you referred to them. So for each regular listing, you will earn $15, and for each featured listing, you will earn $30. Payment is made via PayPal once your balance exceeds $50.
This could be a good campaign if you have a website in a webmaster niche. They have numerous banners that you can find once you signup to be their affiliate. (Become an Affiliate Now)
I joined their affiliate program, and I think the affiliate backend is easy enough for everyone to follow. All the traffic and paid submission referrals are monitored by their affiliate software in real time. Once you log in to your affiliate account, you can check your paid submission referrals, commission balance, as well as detailed traffic and conversion statistics.

Romow Blogs and Guest Posts

Romow has integrated their blogs and directory into one big platform. Their blogs contain informational articles on wide range of topics. If you are interested in Guest Posting to get some exposure to your writing skills and website, then you are in luck because Romow accepts guest posting. Their guidelines are strict to ensure quality control. (Submit Your Guest Posts)

My Review

I have been a big fan of Romow web directory since my early days in the directory industry. I have seen many directories come and go, but this is one of those sites that have continued to grow. Definitely Check out Romow.com to submit your sites to their directory.

http://www.balkhis.com

A Niche Blog is Better than A Nicheless Blog to Make Money Online

2010-05-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

If you want to make money online (by blogging), it is good if you have a niche blog. It is good because you would be recognized by people as an expert on that niche. When people recognize you as an expert, they would be visiting you site and that will help you to be an authority in Google eyes (You can read more about how to get authority status on Google). You don’t necessary have to choose a niche you know about. You can choose a niche that interests you and you want to learn more about it.
The main reason why you need a niche site is because it is easier to SEO i.e. to get backlinks to the site. If you want to get backlinks to your site, you need to do dofollow commenting, article marketing, directory submission and other ways. With all these methods, you would find out that what they all have in common is your anchor text. You would need to use your anchor text when doing this. so that you can improve your SERPs.

SEOing A Niche Site
When you are SEOing your niche site, basically you are mostly SEOing your home page. When you are doing this, you would have to use your anchor text or the keyword you would like to rank high on search engines. This means that all traffic that comes to your blog would be landing on your home page. This is great because when they go to your home page, the readers would see other articles you have written about the niche. Seoing a niche site is also easy to do directory submission. As you probably know, if you are doing directory submission, you have to submit your home page to the directory. Only few directories allow inner pages or deep submission. The top names directories such as DMOZ and yahoo directory requires you to submit your blog’s URL only. Most of the few directories that allow deep submission usually charge a fee for you to be able to do that.

SEOing A Nicheless Site
But if you have a nicheless blog, you cannot only optimize your home page. You have to optimize other pages for those pages to have good SERPs for their keywords. Optimizing other pages would need more work. And when the traffic (from search engine) comes to your site, they would not land on your home page, they would land on that article page they saw on thr search engine that they used. This means that they would not see other articles on your blog. The only readers that would see other articles are the curious ones that wants to know more about your site. You can argue that your readers would see other posts with the help of any related post plugin. But the plugin shows posts that are related either based on categories, keywords, anchor text or tags. For instance, if you wrote an article about caring for dogs and you also wrote another article about how to sleep; there is no way your readers would see the other article if they are reading one of the articles. They would only see it if they decide to explore your site.

In my opinion, not only do you make money with a niche site, but it is easier to make money if you can make a blog on a long tail keyword. The long tail keyword blog would help you to start making money quickly because it is easier to dominate. When you see that you can dominate the long tail keyword, that would post your confidence, and motivated you to go for the main keyword.

http://www.balkhis.com