As various Internet disciplines move towards an established set of standards and the industry essentially finds its feet, those of us that use the Internet to promote products and services have no choice but to continue to ride the waves of change on a continuous basis. Internet marketers must keep themselves informed and up-to-date. Ultimately, lasts year’s Internet marketing strategies will not keep you at the top of the search engines this year!

The 4 most common reasons we find that people seek out more information on Internet marketing are:

• They have a great idea they want to market on the Internet
• They have an Internet business that is not making money
• They want to give their staff the most effective Internet Marketing techniques to work with
• A job termination has inspired them to try Internet marketing

If you want to successfully promote your business on the Internet it is important that you gain a well-rounded understanding of how the Internet and especially search engines work. If you are a business owner with a web site that limps along with low traffic and abysmal ratings, all does not have to be lost. You simply need to get up to speed on effective web marketing techniques. This way you can begin to draw more visitors to your site.

To truly master the field of Internet marketing, you have to learn how to optimize your web site for maximum impact. Look for information and education on how the search engines work. Understanding Internet marketing is just as important as having a good business idea. Yes, it is! So if this is true, where do you go to get the information you need to master the field of Internet marketing?

If you have been on the Internet for any significant time, you have probably seen the letters SEO bandied about everywhere online. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your online presence (a web site usually) so that it has the highest chance of getting a high ranking on the search engines. A myriad of skills, techniques and strategies are used to fully optimize a web site for search engine discovery. One of these strategies is keywords. Understanding what keywords are and how they are used by search engines to bring visitors to your site has become an art in itself. Get all of the information you can on keywords and the role they play.

When you look for information on Internet marketing, insist on good, quality material that will honestly give you the information you need. To help you avoid the trial and error of buying tons of material in a futile search for something worthwhile, below are a list of key topics that we believe should be covered in any true discussion on Internet marketing:

• SEO
• Affiliate marketing
• Web 2.0
• Keyword research
• RSS Feeds
• Social Networking
• Bookmarking
• Video production
• Article marketing
• Blogging
• List building
• Mass communication
• And so much more

As you can see, Internet marketing is fast becoming a discipline in itself. The only way to experience the success that you want online is to begin to takes steps towards mastering Internet marketing. If you are going to increase traffic and thus increase sales, you have to get your Internet marketing information from a source that is accurate, up-to-date and easy to understand. You need good, solid information to be able to compete with the big dogs. And yes, on the Internet you are always competing against the best.

The right Internet Marketing information from the right source will enable you to properly focus your time, efforts and money on strategies that bring results.This free resource was developed to give everyone a chance in hard times and good times. Go ahead, watch this video if you haven’t already and sign-up for this free internet marketing course. Watch this video and change your life!

I’ve set out a few tips for you to research so you can improve your traffic. I could give you a pitch and use words like incredible, fantastic, massive but I’m hoping you’re above that. One more thing – it’s important to research these things so you end up knowing how they work. That, believe it not puts you in a position to improve on the original formula or knowledge so that it becomes even more effective. Ponder on that last sentence and maybe even read it again. It has enough gravity to make the difference of surviving online or being successful. It’s what you put in.

Here we go.

1. Work out whether you want to pay for your traffic (ie. adwords…) or attract traffic via SEO and similar means. I for one don’t have any problem with either. My preference is to use SEO techniques because I despise having to monitor and adjust my bidding on adwords every time there’s some kind of adjustment or amendment to search engine policy.

Set price advertising on high traffic sites is often a better way to go. There are textlink sites and there are straight up affiliate program sites. I’ve mentioned these because you know how much you’re up for at the outset. You’re not left juggling your ads because the bidding war has started again and your budget and strategy have just been blown away with fixed price advertising.

There are some rules to follow if you want to use adwords effectively and there are some people who show signs of near brilliance when it comes to adwords techniques. However, even they admit to frustration when Google or another engine alters it’s acceptance policies or bidding skyrockets for adwords or a similar advertising venue.

So in essence, think about the adwords ball and chain phenomena, fixed rate advertising and PULL marketing.

2. Let’s discuss SEO as an alternative. This is generally a lot longer and harder to accomplish. Many would argue this but if they thought about the time and persistence it took to get the knowledge they now use, they would inevitably agree that SEO is longer and harder. There are rules here too.

a) Make sure the sites or pages you are about to work on are worthwhile. Not many do this. In fact, if you think on it, you may have rushed in once or twice. You’ll be understandibly upset if you go to great lengths to promote something using SEO only to find the affiliate product/service is poor in quality or your own product is faulty or similar.

b) This means;
- making sure there is a reasonably good market
- check the product for quality if it’s an affiliate
- how long will it last? No point doing SEO on an item with a short life span
- check the competitive landscape (ie. weight loss, insurance etc. are tough)

3. Despite the whiners, there IS such a thing as ’set it and forget it’ at least for lengthy periods at any rate. The fundamental secret for success with this strategy is to do everything correctly the first time. It DOES take longer (days not years). However, you get better results from the search engines. Complaints are kept to a minimum. You can act quickly when you are organised and everything is where it should be and…you make more sales with less refunds. Doesn’t that sound like something more satisfying than ‘putting out fires’ all the time and wondering whether your site will still be in the same SERPs this time tomorrow?

If it took three days or even a week to do everything right instead of 4 hours with lot’s of errors and bans and angry customers reporting you to the powers that be…wouldn’t that be a business to be proud of and keep you in the lifestyle you’re no doubt seeking? It makes sense doesn’t it?!

To do this you’ll need a plan and some guidance. There’s one guy who pulls this stuff off all the time and he does it well. I’ve included a review of him and some history so you can see just what he’s capable of and this way, you can do the same. You have probably already heard of him. His name is John Reese and he is responsible for immense levels of traffic to many sites (someone who’s done it) using a combination of the above to achieve HIGH levels of website traffic.

Here’s a light hearted look at Google.

Give me a break! Forget placing Google on a pedastol and following it’s algorithmically led army of self centered robots and self glorified spiders! It’s a search engine with some clip on services (all be it some good services). But that’s it. It doesn’t own or run the internet. We do! Yes… the people who buy through it. The people who research through it. Communicate through it. Be it artistically or via a message etc. In most cases you’re really seeking traffic for your site if you own one. So focus on that. Google is just one of thousands of sources of traffic. Besides, people most often only search through Google.

Web 2.0 is here. This essentialy means people are back in control of what is perceived as quality again. Not unlike how things became popular before the introduction of the internet. People’s votes will always override algorithms. At least they will for a long while anyway. Your site might get pulled down for saturating the content with too many keywords (like the word Google in my first paragraph). Don’t get hung up on whether the search engines will slap you or tickle you for this or that. Try your best to contribute good, quality, original and relevant content over and over and as we say in Australia – she’ll be right mate! In the end, your audience the readers will make the decision.

Some actions result in more traffic than others. Recently the famed John Reece (blatant affiliate link) re introduced to his subcribers the old 80/20 rule. Which some people just don’t get and I’m not going to explain it here. However, it’s a rule that you should look at and ponder over. If you’re putting a lot of work into any one thing, it best be reliable, transparent, constant and worth the time. i.e. Should you place ALL your time trying to rank well with Google?

• Is it reliable? No! It changes its algorithms regularly which can and does affect the ranking and positioning of sites based on the finding of bots not humans. It has good reason to but the answer remains the same.
• Is it constant? No! For the same reasons mentioned above.
• Is it transparent? No! You only have to consider the Adsense payment program, or Matt Cutts video on Oop to answer that one.
  
• Is it worth the time? No! You should never place all your time on any one source. Things change. If you have been loyal only to Google despite being slapped and dropped from a great height into the pits of the SI – it’s time you gathered yourself & embraced the original goal of quality targeted traffic again.

Of course, if you have been a naughtly little boy or girl, you perhaps may have deserved your Google kick in the teeth. However, there are some questionable things occuring which may open yours eyes a little wider.

Recently, Oop (over-optimization) has been blamed by some as the reason many sites have been penalized and nudged off the park bench. To start with, anyone who uses a term like over-optimized should know that it’s a tautology. You can’t be over optimized because that means the same thing as not being optimized. It also sounds a bit like a license for Google to say any thing they like about events they can’t explain or don’t want to explain. Matt Cutts of Google fame makes an interesting comment on a video by basically dismissing any detailed information by saying something like ‘That’s about as much advice as I can give I’m afraid’ providing the broadest of reasons without having said anything explanatory or helpful at all as far as I could tell. No wonder webmasters, internet marketers and small business owners get frustrated and give up. The lack of distinct (distinct being the keyword here) guidelines, transparency and direction is disappointing and I think unprofessional.

Again, let me remind you that you are after targetted traffic. Read that last sentence again. It’s just a search engine – that’s it! It won’t be long before another search engine moves to higher ground. What will you do then? Swap allegiances and start all over again? You might have difficulty optimizing for every search engine out there but by using the 80/20 rule, at least cover your bets with MSN and Yahoo. Already the new search engine cuill.com is breaking new ground. Watch this space as they say!

I was recently approached by a subscriber who has worked hard for two years on producing quality, original content for her site. She tried to do everything right. She refused to buy in to any ‘black hat’ short cuts, produced hundreds of lengthy articles and advice for her readers. Her site was and still is extremely sticky. A reasonably large subscriber base lives in her server… and by the way she has few people unsubscribe. That alone tells you that she must be producing quality something. She has just one product for sale and it’s refund rate is a decimal measurement (hardly any refunds at all). Just before writing this, she was dropped from a page rank of 4 to zero. That’s not all, the whole site has been dumped in the waiting rooms of SI. For the record, she’s a single mom. She thought she’d done her share of struggling and now she’s back where she started. Needless to say I told her what I’m telling you here. Spread your traffic generation activity and you will survive and hopefully prosper. She doesn’t want to be mentioned for fear of retribution as she builds stock again. Think about that – she’s now in fear of a search engine. I think that’s another story on its own. Since this story, I have now heard two similar stories.

It’s of course wise to take stock of the fact that Google gets the lion’s share of the search market. But hey…that’s just the search market, not the referral market nor the social market nor the blog market, nor the affiliate market. advertising market, article marketing etc. must I go on…I’m sure you get my drift.

Then there was a previous slap where well known blogs and sites were being down-sized in rank and some had substantially reduced traffic. Word was, this was due to link-text advertising era. The jury is still out on whether it’s right or wrong. As I see it, it’s wrong if you are wooing Google because they don’t like it. Otherwise I can’t see anything wrong with it. One high-end player made humble mention about the down ranking and how he could see no cause for the penalty in a post on his site and within days that site was back up to where it was previously. Do you think it was the considerable power behind the readership consideration which helped that outcome? Hmmm!

Give people what they want. Use Web 2.0 properly and with care. If you’ve really got something to offer that’s worthy of the masses, work on getting traffic from people, not courting any one particular search engine and you will eventually see traffic – permanent traffic.

Of course, it would be remiss for me not to say that all of this is simply my opinion… because of fear of retribution…LOL. If you’re not living in fear of retribution, leave a comment and spill your colorful disgust below. Alternatively, you can be polite and socially correct and leave something defensive of Googles search engine’s position too! Either way, try and make it a contribution… Cause’ you never know who might read your comment…right?

If you feel that you’ve been taken for a ride once too often because of believing and buying software and services from so called internet Gurus, that’s OK because I think nearly everyone has to some degree in this game. Don’t misunderstand me, there are the good folk out there too. However, they seem to be a minority when it comes to quality instruction and know-how relating to SEO and organic traffic generation. Often poor knowledge leads to desperation, frustration and an urge to try things that we ought not. You have probably been on the receiving end of statements like, “The search engines have done it again…changed their algorithms!” Well this has mostly all come about by people trying to cheat and you perhaps already know this. None the less, you can end up sitting in front of your computer each day wondering where to start today and every day. You’ve paid good money for software and eBooks on traffic advice only to learn that the results were temporary, or false or the algorithm change blew everything out of the water that you had worked so hard on. All of this stress, disappointment, lost faith and other countless negative elements can lead to you doing things you might not normally do. Later, this can and most likely will affect health, your relationship with your family and friends and definitely your future.

I mentioned family because of the valuable time I lost by working my rear end off each day reacting to problems and with no planning to assist or minimize errors, I was always on the edge. Making money sure but not what I was used to earning and certainly not enough to keep my family the way I would prefer. I was getting tired of the poor quality information that led me nowhere and it was stressful. I knew that was not a good path to continue along but it was hard to stop because there didn’t seem to be a good alternative.

When I mentioned the term future I was referring to my realization that I couldn’t keep this up forever and something needed to change and fast. It seemed to me that the Guru’s ‘short term magic in a bottle‘ was based on their above average selling ability compared with the low quality or in some cases, non existent solutions. At this stage there was no one who I believed knew anything about search engine traffic or page positioning. Getting on the first page with a competitive site seemed unattainable anywhere in the future never mind the foreseeable future.

Sleeping at night became difficult due to my mind racing through the days experience and new problems. You may have or are experiencing the same restless activity. If you have then you know how fatigued it leaves you the following day. I was always on the edge of buying yet another search engine eBook and I was on nearly everyones list which left me with little time to be constructive anyway.

To add to all this, I discovered my mentor of many months had little to no SEO knowledge (which he purported to have) but was an incredible marketeer. I realized that he was mostly successful getting traffic because of the many years he had been working on the net together with his marketing skills rather than his ability to attract clean, targeted new traffic. I still take note of his marketing advice but he’s way behind on SEO. Lesson here is be careful not to confuse the two. SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) are completely different activities. Few people are highly skilled in both. If you take anything away from this article, it should be that first and foremost.

How is it that we have so much false information?

Here’s a few of the main reasons this occurs…

- Because they too believe that all solutions are short term and so they do business on that basis

- To make money no matter what and couldn’t care less about who they hurt along the way

- Copy Cats – meaning someone sees everyone else doing it, so they copy the product and also put it out there not knowing or caring if it’s up to date or true

- Here’s the most common – old useless ineffective automated products or services that are still sitting up there on the net that haven’t been removed because some poor unsuspecting ‘newby’ comes along and still buys it not knowing any better.

The ‘black hat’ operators will tell you “Why remove it if it’s making money? There is a lot of this attitude on the net, so beware! As a result, people go away misinformed with old and outdated SEO knowledge and proceed to waste their precious time.

How do you rank well or get on the first page?

You may be surprised to know that ranking well in Google isn’t that difficult. I am only two years into this internet business arena, and two of my sites are on the first page of their preferred keyword and many other sub keywords. One of these sites has over 250 million competing sites.

Why have I mentioned this? Because I only learned several months back the correct method for search engine acceptance and ranking from a reliable source. I am going to give you these sources too! It is much less difficult than fighting to maintain an existing and poor income by buying products or services to stay in one spot and suffer the stress and frustration (not to mention wasted time) that comes with it. Hence me writing this article. The remarkable thing is that you end up with a quality website no matter what platform you use and one that you can be proud of if you follow the system. Googles motto of “Do no evil!” becomes more meaningful.

Why is this so?

When most people start out on the internet they are most often limited to computer keyboard knowledge and many don’t even have that. The first exposure they have is with adwords with well worded advertisements promising them an enviable lifestyle etc. They really haven’t yet learned that the search engines have a job to do and a worthwhile job at that. If they could first learn that the engines can be your friend and supporter, I’ll bet most would still be around today or at least making a decent income from internet marketing. Instead they are indoctrinated that they must beat the search engines because they will be their hurdle. This can and does create a mindset. I should also say here that some people are successful doing this but they most often sell their product to the people they convert or who have already been converted to working against the search engines. There are of course those who don’t even know they’re doing this because they are told that their service or product is search engine friendly.

Listen up! What you do with this information is up to you but do yourself a favour and at least think about it every time you take up a new venture or want to upload something new to the internet.

Everything that has been devised to be a shortcut or a method of cheating to getting to the first few positions on the relevant pages on the internet has been discovered, is being removed or has been removed. If it hasn’t yet, it will soon – everything! The search engines’ objective is not to hold you back but to deliver to surfers what they are searching for. If you help the search engines do just that, would the search engines want to keep you away – no, of course not. If you are delivering tightly focussed information to those who are seeking that information, wouldn’t the engines promote your site – yes they would and they do! Of course you must do other things such as on-page optimization (once only). Promote your site a little (not much, just a little). The search engines have a vested interest in giving searchers or surfers what they are searching for in the smallest amount of time. This is what keeps a search engine popular. No one continues to work with an engine that has a whole pile of junk and Spam turn up every time you do a search. I’m sure you’ve had that experience.

So what does this boil down to? – Quality, original content built around the theme and structured in what are often called silo themes. That’s it! You must make the content relevant and ‘reader rich’ – a term I use meaning that it contains theme based content or information first with good spelling and grammar. It must be worth reading. It must be sticky too! Google is now monitoring how sticky sites are, measuring of course the length of time surfers stay on a site. That one sentence tells you heaps.

Is there any longevity in planning for traffic?

If you want to build or rebuild your site once only, planning is paramount. If you want a position in the top 10 sites then planning is paramount! If you want user ‘stickiness‘, then planning is paramount. You might be thinking “Oh but planning takes time“. Of course it does but NOT much and if you want good and on-going returns, so what if it takes you an extra day or even a week – think about that! If you’re thinking that only a technocrat or a masters degree student can plan for that sort of thing, then you’re wrong. It just takes a bit of guidance and common sense. If you can make a shopping list, you can plan your website.

What are the best tools for search engine optimization and why?

1. Don’t buy anything that doesn’t have a successful history of achieving what they say they can do for you. I don’t mean ’scraped’ shots of clickbank statements or Ad sense statements either. Make sure you get to see the results of their work. Some testimonials are real, some aren’t. They are not that reliable a source of verification. I must admit that anything you buy on clickback has a guarantee which has been infallible for me. However, it’s still a waste of time if you don’t get what you’re looking for or worse, what’s been promised to you.

2. Also look for operators who are prepared to give you free short term trials or samples – that always says a lot. Most good SEO operators or experts offering a service, give you information as well. Granted, it might be to ‘wet your appetite’ but if it’s quality and it’s going to improve your knowledge and future, ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth‘. Read it and make a judgement – easy!

3. See if you can contact the owner of the site. That’s always a good test on customer service. The good ones deal with you personally and almost straight away (within 24 hours). The take a ticket scenario leaves most of us wanting though! I have learned that there are only a few honourable operators who have in-depth experience in SEO and also boast great customer relations and I have mentioned these on my site at http://the-seo-site.com under the sidebar heading, Reviews. In addition, if you think that you would like to know more on the finer steps of achieving a site that can be on the first page of Google without having to base it on some incredibly rare ‘long tail’ term that no one uses, you should look for SEO tutors or mentors who take pride in what they do and offer quality advice and training. That’s the safest way to medium and long term success in this slippery industry.

Author Ray Baker. Ray has provided more relevant instant access to details on understanding Themes including LSI (latent semantic indexing), Silos and relevant tools on his site at Latent Semantic Indexing, Themes, Silo & SEO Tools
- copyright 2007 www.the-seo-site.com

Wrong. You could have the most articulate and inventive website ever created, but unless you can convince people to come and visit your site, you may as well not have one at all. Now you need to direct your efforts in attracting visitors to your site and encouraging them to return. Focus on making yourself known and taking advantage of links and search engines, and only then will your stupendous website be able to do its work.

Virtual techniques for website marketing

If you can afford to spend a little money for marketing, an effective way to first promote visitors to your site is to use CPC (pay per click) services such as those provided through Google. This is a simple way to get started increasing traffic, but it does cost.

There are many forms of email marketing. A new form of emailing that shows great promise is the method of audio postcards. These services add human voices to emails to make full use of suggestive audio motivational techniques. This adds a human element to the virtual world and can be a memorable and powerful way to get your name out there.

Consider making an announcement to the press or media.

Put together a press package announcing the debut of your site. This is especially effective because it ensures that there will be many news sites linking to your website. This will increase your optimization of search engines and your page rank. Find an online service that offers press announcements. This can often be done at no cost.

When operating a physical business such as a local store, word of mouth advertising is often the most effective way to market. This is just as true for online businesses. On the web, email takes the place of speaking. So find something catchy: a video, song, or cute story, and start an email campaign. Viewers will forward it on to their friends and will help spread the word about your website. This is a free and fun way to generate traffic to your site.

Search engines and SEO

Following the principles of search engine optimization (SEO) will help you increase your page ranking and therefore bring more visitors to your site. Consider submitting your site to search engines and to article directories. These are central banks where visitors may go when looking for information on a certain subject. Depending on the engine or directory, there might be a fee for this service. Make your website attractive to search engines by including a lot of content laden with appropriate keywords. These keywords should be in context and should be present on every page of your site.

Link building is an important part of SEO.

More links to and from your site will increase your page ranking. One way to build links is by trade: find similar or complementary websites and offer to trade links to each other. This benefits both of you as it brings both link numbers and new traffic to both your sites. Make sure that the arrangement is one which will benefit your site; you want to bring in visitors, not send them off to a competitor. For a cost, you can purchase text links on websites which sell one-way linkage services.

Other ways to establish links are to participate in RSS (rich site summary) feeds, blogs, and forums. Make an RSS feed available to visitors to use to get information about updates. Make judicious use of relevant forums and blogs. When you leave comments on these sites, you can often include a link to your own. This not only entices interested people to visit your site, but increases your number of backlinks and therefore your attractiveness to search engines.

By trying a few of these techniques for generating website traffic, you will start making your amazing new content available to the public. Be creative and try a variety of methods. Put yourself in the place of your potential visitors and think about what tactics will most effectively reach your target audience.